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Tim Melanson: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s episode, we are talking to the director of New Zealand Property Buyers, and what he does is he reduces the complexity, uh, of purchasing property. So I’m very excited to be rocking out today with Hadley Nightingale. Hey Hadley, are you ready to rock?

Hadley Nightingal: Hey Tim, ready to rock. Thanks for having me

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, I mean, I, I think probably where we, where we are at the moment as a business, and as you say, working from home is, is probably that, that success story. Um, you know, starting out COVID time and, you know, obviously things were locked down, things were pretty tough, and just decided we were gonna go on and start something.

Um, and then the, uh, the day that we decided to start something, everything was good. Three days later was, was lockdown time. And so it’s just been a case of, you know, starting from there, working out how to, uh, you know, set up work from home as a, as a thing. Uh, and then grow a team and the, the background with that at the same time.

Tim Melanson: Wow, [00:01:00] that’s quite the timing

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah. Yeah. Couldn’t have, couldn’t have picked it any better

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, I mean, I guess you got to start from nothing, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Tim Melanson: create something that’ll last anything, that’ll l- right?

Hadley Nightingal: Let’s, let’s, let’s definitely hope so. I mean, still figuring out what Zoom was at the, uh, at the time, and now it’s like, it’s commonplace. So yeah, very, uh, very interesting, uh, start to things

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause I, I mean, I started the podcast, uh, about 11 years ago, and I remember saying that, you know, at some point, you know, I think, I think almost everybody will be working from home, and I didn’t see that that, that that’s gonna be forced on us like that. Um, but yeah, it’s, uh, it’s kind of interesting ’cause it, it did actually, uh, do some good things.

It, it ended up, you know, developing some of these tools, these Zoom tools that, um, I mean, they help just about any business owner now. I mean, you can, you can have some really good, uh, productive meetings now that we have these tools, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, 100%. I mean, a, a number of our [00:02:00] clients are, are overseas, uh, or ex- expat Kiwis, and it, it’s great to be able to jump on Zoom, see them face-to-face. And I think without that technology, it would’ve made growing the business and reaching them, uh, a heck of a lot harder, uh, as opposed to, you know, trying to pick the phone up and, uh, and do business without the, um, the details in front of you, or at least meeting the person as, as face-to-face as you can

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. So now along with the good note though, sometimes there are things that don’t necessarily go as planned, some, some bad notes that we hit. I like to talk about those because, I mean, the whole point here is to inspire people to start their own thing, and a lot of people don’t do it because they’re just afraid of making some mistakes.

So I like to talk about those ’cause we’re still here, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: And I’m wondering, can you share me with, with me something that didn’t go, uh, super well that we can, we can learn from?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, I mean, I, I think the biggest thing for us that it, it’s come right now, but at the start was probably a mistake that, that could have been fatal for us, um, was, [00:03:00] was we went way too wide way too early. So we started out with the core business that we’ve got, and then, uh, one of our clients said, "Hey, look, if you start, do some property management, then I’ll give you some properties to start, and then you can grow a property management business."

Then the same guy said to me, "Hey, look, can you do… I’ve got these projects going on. Can you start a project management company?" Now, at the time, the, our, our main thing was doing, like, 350 to 400K a year. Uh, and then I had an employee that I was paying sort of 80K a year too. So most of the profit from that was gone.

Then I decided I was gonna start something else. So then I split myself between two, which is never good. Uh, and then we ended up trying to split myself into three with then trying to hire people for those other things. So my theory was, was, like, if I can hit 350K or 330K in each, then, you know, there’s a million-dollar business and I’m, I’m laughing.

But the, uh, the thing is that the math doesn’t quite work like that. When you, uh, actually run it out, you find that one [00:04:00] makes money, the other one goes okay, and the third one sucks all the money out of the business. Um, so yeah, that was, that was probably the, the bad note. But like I say, we’ve had… That was sort of four years ago now, so we’ve had time to, to outgrow that

Tim Melanson: Okay. And have you made any changes? Like, what, what would you do differently if you were to do it again?

Hadley Nightingal: I had to, if we were to do it again, it’d just be like one course until successful. So get one to a million bucks and then put the next one in. I suppose that it’s like that journey between zero and, and a million is like you can’t do everything yourself. You’ve gotta hire some people, uh, and you’ve gotta learn to, to grow a team.

And then so get that to a million bucks, get one functioning, and then start the next thing, because then you’ve got some excess cash flow to go and start that as well. Uh, as opposed to, you know, just being in a situation where you, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul and then back again when the other one starts doing a bit better to, to try and keep yourself afloat

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well, you’re spinning multiple plates at the same [00:05:00] time, right? You’re, you’re diverting your focus from one thing to another. Uh, th- this has come up before because, I mean, when you look at some of these, uh, you know, super successful entrepreneurs, you see that they’re running all these different businesses, and you’re like, "Wow, I could do that too."

But I think what you find if you really do read the stories and learn about them is that they build one at a time, right? And it was just they got it to the point where they could walk away from it. Now they have all these different businesses, but they didn’t build them all at the same time, right?

Hadley Nightingal: No, exactly. And I think the other thing is too though that they’ve also got the cash flow to be able to go, "Right, cool, I’m gonna start this new thing. I’m just gonna go hire a CEO off the bat." Uh, whereas when you’re, when you’re fresh and you haven’t got that, you haven’t got the money to, you know, you’ve hardly got the money to hire an EA, let alone a, uh, you know, a CEO for something

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk a little bit about the band then. So w- what, you know, uh, you’ve got a team now. You know, who was the first hire that you made actually, out of curiosity?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah. Yeah, so first, the first hire that we [00:06:00] made was someone that took over the delivery of, uh, my role. And I suppose in hindsight, at the time it was, uh, you know, the, the right hire. But I look back now from like a, a view from where we are and go, "Well, that was actually the wrong one." Uh, ’cause we were paying someone way too much for…

Or we weren’t paying them so much, we were paying them the money they, they should’ve been on at the time. Uh, but the issue was the business was still too immature to be paying someone that amount while I’m, was still doing the calendar, the emails, the, uh, you know, the basic running around, booking whatever I needed to be booked.

Uh, and then that person was out doing my job. So that was, that was how the team started, was myself and one other person. Uh, and then as we brought on the other parts of the business, we’ve added people in. And then now we’ve got a, uh, a full back office team in the Philippines as well. So there’s about 13 of us, uh, at the, at the moment.

Tim Melanson: Well, how was your experience in hiring overseas?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, [00:07:00] it, it was definitely an experience because at the time, uh, I didn’t have SOP sorted out. I didn’t have proper systems. It was once again, like, just if, if I’m gonna employ you, and this is just how naive I was at the, the time, it’s like, you know, look, if, if I employ you as a, as a, an EA or as a salesman, you should just be able to know how to be a salesperson ’cause that’s what you’ve applied for and that’s what you do.

Uh, and, and turns out that doesn’t, that doesn’t quite come to, to fruition and, and translate directly. So, uh, probably the, the first couple of EA or overseas, uh, EAs that I had w- were, uh, didn’t work out, and that was more so probably on me than them. And ju- just from that perspective, ’cause they had no basis to work off.

It was a case of like, "Well, look, you’re, you’re working with us. Here’s, uh, here’s Slack, here’s your Zoom link, here’s Google Drive. Go for it." Um, without near that sort of true direction. So it’s, it was challenging at the start. We’ve got a lot better now ’cause we’ve got the systems and the processes in place, and we’re just going through another [00:08:00] hiring round, uh, overseas at the moment.

But it’s, it’s just a thing of, like, taking your time, making sure that the, the people that you’re interviewing, uh, are gonna do the job, um, and then trial tasking everything that, that they do before we actually get them on board to, to know how… Well, to get an idea of how they think

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, it’s, it’s, um, it’s more challenging than you think, right? You, you think, "Oh, I just need to get this off my plate, and, you know, they’ll just be able to figure it out." But it turns out you… ‘Cause everybody does their business differently, right? You mean, you do have to do some training on that stuff, right?

And be prepared for it.

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, I mean 100%. It’s, it’s a whole lot easier now with the, the likes of Loom or a screen recording tool and, and AI to be able to just record yourself doing the task, give it to AI, or give the transcript to AI, get it to write the, um, the SOP for it, and you, you’ve got something there as opposed to…

I had, I had a mentor, uh, a few years ago, and he said to me, "Look," and this is before AI was really a thing. He’s like, "Look, just get up at 4:00 o’clock in the morning." [00:09:00] He said, "This is gonna be painful for you. You’re gonna hate it, but just write everything down so you start building up some SOPs so at least some of your team know what’s gonna happen."

Because, and I couldn’t see it at the time, but he was like, "The better systems you have, the better people you’ll get. You can’t expect to have rockstar people with rubbish systems." Um, yeah

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and, uh, and I do find that as well, the other thing is when you start to record yourself doing these tasks for these SOPs, sometimes, like, you, you… Uh, it’s almost like you uncover some issues that in your own process, right? ‘Cause when you’re trying to teach somebody else what you do, you’re like, "Why do I even do it that way?"

Right? And, and you sort of clean some things up in the process, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, 100%. And I think when it’s with video as well is that it also makes it easier for people to change, or that, that process becomes easier so that when someone owns the task and they own the SOP and a software changes or the software’s updated or we find a better way to do something, then it literally is a case of just record another video, [00:10:00] give the transcript, get things updated that way as opposed to, uh, yeah, like when we first started, we hired a full-time SOP lady, and it was a case of like open up a tab, screenshot, screenshot, screenshot, copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste, uh, as opposed to now it’s like video link SOP and it, it’s there and it’s easy to, to change when needed.

Tim Melanson: Mm, right on. Cool. So now talking about, uh, like the cashflow, I mean, depending on your business, I mean, for a service business, you know, uh, you know, y- it’s your time that’s mostly being spent. I mean, there are some things that you have to buy as well. But I mean, in a, in a thing like real estate where you’re actually putting some money out there, how do you make sure that you’re gonna make it back?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, I, I think the, the big thing with that is just, like, it’s time, it’s skill, it’s, uh, getting the right help, getting the right teachers to, to know that you’re, you’re going in the, the right direction. And I, I think the thing with real estate too is, like, there’s so much information out there. Uh, everyone’s got an opinion on housing because they’ve obviously lived in one, and, um, [00:11:00] that’s the, that’s really the, the tricky thing is, like, boring generally tends to be the thing that makes you money in this game, uh, as opposed to the, the s- the, you know, as opposed to the sexy property that, uh, the developers or the person selling it to you generally tends to be the one that’s making the cash, and you get left, um, you know, holding the can

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. Well, and I, I think that that’s the thing is that the more, hmm, the more common the, you know, product or services that you have, the more opinions you’re gonna have from people out there, right? So it’s probably very, very difficult to find the, you know, proper experts. And, and, and how do you find the proper expert, I guess?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, I, I think the biggest thing i- is finding people that are telling you about what they have done in their own personal experience. Um, because it, it’s really easy to be a charlatan and say, "Hey, look, I’ve watched 500 YouTube videos and, and now I’m an expert," but they haven’t done anything. They don’t own anything.

Uh, and I think that’s the, you know, the other side of it as well and, and finding people that are relatable to, you know, to you, to what you’re [00:12:00] doing, to what you’re looking for. Um, as, yeah, as I say, as opposed to a, a YouTube expert who, you know, is out there telling you about all these things but actually haven’t done anything themselves.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, g- yeah

Hadley Nightingal: I was gonna say, sorry, the, the other expert you’ve gotta be careful of is also your drunk uncle, uh, and your, and your family members that have bought a house 20 years ago, uh, haven’t been in the market and, uh, you know, they’ve, they’ve also got very strong opinions on, on everything as well obviously with, with, you know, wanting your best interest at heart.

Um, but that’s, you know, sort of not always the, the best advice either

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, the, uh, even the intention when they buy a house, I mean, when someone buys a house to live in versus a house that they want to rent out or they want to flip or whatever it is, it’s just, I think it would probably just be a different process, like, of, of what you go through to do that, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, a hun- 100%. They’re, they’re completely different, uh, completely different things, and it’s, it’s one of the things we find where we’re like, "Hello, we’re gonna go and buy a [00:13:00] house in this area." And they’re like, "Oh, my auntie used to live there. My parents grew up there. They’d never touch that, that part of town."

And it’s like, yeah, but that was, that was 20 years ago. Uh, there’s a, there’s a suburb probably five or six kilometers from here that back in the mid-’70s you wouldn’t have gone near, and today it’s one of the most expensive suburbs near us. Um, and so I think that’s the thing with, like, gentrification, with things changing, and, and looking at, at where you get your, your information from, um, and who you’re listening to.

‘Cause I think that’s sort of the, the thing of, like, we have a legal problem, we generally tend to go to a lawyer. We have a, a tax problem, we generally tend to go to an accountant. Uh, but, uh, it seems to be property is like, "Well, I’ll just go and talk to my work mate ’cause they bought a house six months ago and, and they’ll know what to do."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and that’s a really good point. I mean, when, when it comes down to it, there, it’s gonna be a number of different people that you’re gonna talk to for different advice in different areas of your business, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, 100%.

Tim Melanson: And like, so for you, when you, when [00:14:00] you look for people to help you, are, are you more or less looking for a specific skill that you wanna learn?

Or do you sort of look for maybe even like accountability partners or anything like that? Like how, how do you hire coaches or, or mentors?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, on the, the coaching side is like where, where do they sit? Where have they been? And have they, they done the thing that, that I wanna do? Um, and I also find it really important that, that they are future thinking. Um, like I’ve, I’ve had some, some guys, some people recently that were like, "Hey, look, here’s my, here’s my coaching thing.

Here’s what I do." And you ask them questions, they’re like, "What, what are you doing with AI? What do you know about that? How integrated is that in your, your coaching system?" "Oh, we don’t know much about that." And it’s like right, okay. You’re probably, you’re probably not the, the person for me for, for where we’re at.

And I think it’s important that, uh, you know, when you get a coach, then they’re probably not gonna be with you forever. They’re, they’re gonna get you through a stage gate, and then you’re gonna need to go and find someone that’s gonna get you to the next level. [00:15:00] Uh, and I think that’s the, that’s the important thing too is like there’s, you know, people feel loyalty to a particular person, but it’s not always the, the place that’s gonna get you to where you need to go

Tim Melanson: I think that’s a really good point, and you do see that quite a bit, and it is very difficult to let go of a coach. You know what I mean? Like, you know, especially if they’ve gotten you to, you know, a certain stage in the game. So, like, h- how do you… Do you normally, when you initially talk to somebody, you know, do you sort of set those expectations up front?

Like, "I need you to do this for me, and then we’re gonna be done," or does

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, no, I, I never go into these things with pre-set expectations of what’s gonna happen. Um, it, it’s sort of like you, you never know how you’re gonna work with them until you work with them. And so it’s like, right, cool, this is what I wanna work on at the moment, this is what I need some help with. It’s something you can help me with.

Let’s, let’s start there and see where we go. Um, and then if, if it gets to a point where, uh, they can’t push me any further, they’re, they’re [00:16:00] running out of expertise in the area that I need, then it’s a, a case. It, it might also be the thing they surprise you, and they’ve, it’s, yeah, they’ve got an arsenal of, of tricks that, that weren’t sort of previously discussed, and things keep going for a while.

But I mean, there’s always a, a case of like you’ll, you’ll get to the end of your, uh, usefulness isn’t quite the right word, but like the end of where their expertise can push you, and you need to go off in another direction, and their expertise doesn’t, doesn’t quite align with that. And I think that’s just like natural in, in everything

Tim Melanson: It is natural in everything, and, and that’s, I think that, uh, you know, part of what we talk about in a lot of businesses is that you’ve gotta sort of niche down and figure out exactly what you do and how you help people and who you help. So, you know, as someone’s going through a journey and growing their business, if that’s their goal, I mean, maybe their goal is to kinda stick around where, w- exactly where they are.

But if they’re growing and growing and growing, well, then, uh, it, it would make perfect sense that [00:17:00] you would outgrow that specific mentor or that specific coach because they should be niched down and focusing on businesses that make, you know, between this and this amount of money. And then once you grow past that, then it would make perfect sense for you to move on, away and, and, and to somebody who focuses on that, on that level,

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah. Hun- 100%. I mean, it, it’s like I can remember, um, sort of one of my first coaches that I had was, like, okay, okay, so they were really good at getting the business established, understanding numbers, knowing what’s going on there. But as, as soon as you start talking about, "Hey, look, we wanna grow our social media, we need to start doing this," it’s like, well, uh, I’ve, I’ve seen some stuff, but I don’t know a whole lot about it.

So it’s like, right, cool, who do we need to go and find that’s gonna, that’s doing exceptionally well at that, that can then go and show us that side of things? Um, and how do we, you know, how do we find someone that’s gonna teach us how to grow our systems? And we’ve, we’ve found, uh, someone that’s helping us out with, with that and getting that sorted, and it’s like, right, our systems are up to date.

Um, social media’s [00:18:00] about where we wanna… There’s some other stuff that we need some help with now, so it’s like how do we then shift to find that person that specializes in that? Um, and I think that’s just the, the natural progression when you’re, when you’re growing. But like I say, if you’re, if you’re stagnant and you want someone just to have a chat to, then, um, obviously different, different story with that as well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny. I never really thought about the, about it this way, but technically I would imagine that a good coach would have a lot of good turnover, right? ‘Cause they should be getting people to where they wanna go, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yep. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I suppose too at the same time if, if the coach is also growing their own business, um, ’cause I, I think that’s probably one of the other things that, that happens from a, a coaching perspective is that people stop running their own business, start coaching. They get themselves to a level in, in their business where all they do is coach, and they, their, their ex- their today’s experiences come through the, the experience of others as opposed to, uh, you know, their own experience and their, [00:19:00] their own sort of skin in the game with, uh, with what they’re doing

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. Cool. So let’s talk, let’s talk about your business a little bit, getting into your solo. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, I, I think the opportunity and the growth is the, you know, the exciting bit. Growing the team, uh, getting our sales up and running, uh, more than, than what they sort of have been over the last sort of 12 months. So, um, we, we’ve just brought on some new people that, you know, are really helping on the, the operations side of things, so I’m not trying to wear six or seven hats is, is really the, the key and exciting thing there.

And, and just building that team out, um, is where we’re sort of focusing most of our, our energy at the moment.

Tim Melanson: Oh, right on. And so if somebody wanted to work with you, like tell me a little bit more about how that process works

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah. So in, in terms of working with us, um, we’ve got a few options, is basically we can sit down and strategically have a conversation around, uh, where you are at the moment, where you wanna go, uh, right through to, "Hey, look, I need you to go and purchase me [00:20:00] something, uh, manage the renovation for it, plus property manage the, the property."

So we do sort of everything in between those two, um, those two guardrails. And it’s, it’s really about sitting down, having a conversation, figuring out where people are at now, where they’re heading to, and, you know, what, where that gap is and, and if we can fill that gap for them and, and help them out. Um, and so as, as per everything, just starts with a conversation and, uh, and take things from there

Tim Melanson: And what, what are your typical client, like what, what would be the typical person that would be getting the most out of working with you?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, generally tend to be time poor people that, um, professional people, uh, full-time job, family, uh, haven’t got the time, inclination to go out and, and look for property. Uh, they, they value other people’s time in terms of they understand that what they do and what they specialize is, is, is their thing. Um, and that they, they value other people’s advice.

There’s probably the, the people that we [00:21:00] don’t particularly work with well are the, the extreme DIYers that are, are like, "Right, cool, I’m just here to suck some information out of you, but I, I can do this myself." Um, it makes, yeah, it makes life pretty, uh, pretty tough. So, um, yeah, those, those people that know what they want as opposed to the, either the DIYers or the, the vague, ambiguous people

Tim Melanson: Okay. And so w- what would be what… So, so they would just have the, the capital, they wanna get into it, but they need somebody who’s gonna kinda like run it for them

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, 100%. So got the capital, got their financing lined up or cash or however they’re gonna purchase whatever they’re looking to, to do, um, but they just don’t wanna go down the, the line of actually having to do it themselves. Um, or they, they don’t fully understand the process. Um, and they just wanna also make sure that, that what they’re doing is gonna be the thing that gets them ahead, um, as opposed to the thing that, that keeps them stationary

Tim Melanson: Right on. Okay, so how do they find out more then?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, best place is on Instagram, uh, at hadleyNightingale. And we’ve got [00:22:00] obviously a heap of information there, and, um, yeah, you shoot me a DM through there, and, uh, we can have a conversation and, and see where things go.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. So let’s talk a little bit about music before we go. So tell me, who is your favorite rock star or band?

Hadley Nightingal: Favorite band Do like a bit of Luke Combs. At the, him and Jordan Davis at the moment are the, uh, the, the two that I’ve been listening, uh, listening to a lot of, uh, lately

Tim Melanson: Right on. Have you seen him in concert?

Hadley Nightingal: Uh, yeah, actually that was how I found, uh, sort of found Jordan Davis was, uh, him, Luke Combs, and I forget the, the opening act’s name, uh, were in New Zealand a couple years ago. Um, and so yeah, hadn’t heard of Jordan Davis before, but were there for Luke Combs, and he was like the, the opener for, for him. Um, and yeah, that was the, uh, the sort of doorway into, into that

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. And do you play music at all?

Hadley Nightingal: I used to. Used to play the, uh, the saxophone [00:23:00] back in, uh, back when I was in, in high school. Um, but I just haven’t had the, uh, yeah, the, the time of, of late to, uh, to get back into it.

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah. One of these days, right?

Hadley Nightingal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s still s- as it still sits in the corner gathering some more dust

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, thank you so much, Hadley, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Hadley Nightingal: Awesome. Thanks so much, Tim. Really appreciate it

Tim Melanson: Cool, and to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

[00:00:00]

Tim Melanson: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We have two Tims, two Timmies on, on the call today. This is gonna be really, really cool. We’re talking to the VP of growth at 247VA, and what he does is he helps businesses grow remote teams for their company.

So very excited to be rocking out today with Timmy Van Vonno. Hey, Timmy. You ready to rock?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yes, sir. Appreciate you having me. I’m, uh, really excited to tie together, you know, all my past experiences with what I’m currently doing, uh, with remote staffing

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Yeah, me too. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah, so I, I would say my story of success is how I’ve continually, um, you know, evolved and reinvented myself over my career. Uh, I started as a civil engineering graduate from the University of Maryland and went straight into doing foundation engineering, uh, for multiple commercial construction firms.

Um, didn’t really love the engineering side of it ’cause I was in an office all day. So I got out in the field, and [00:01:00] I moved to the residential sector, uh, where I did, you know, large scale custom home developments and construction. Um, at any given time, um, me and my partner were managing 10 or more, uh, large scale residential construction projects.

So as you can imagine, I learned a lot about financial pressure, operational pressure, um, and really everything that comes along with day-to-day construction. Um, and it’s the type of industry as, you know, many people know, where when you wake up in the morning, you don’t really know what’s gonna be coming that day.

So it’s a very unpredict-unpredictable environment. Um, you know, not great for, you know, uh, mental health and those sorts of things. But it taught me a lot, um, about, you know, business and aptitude and, you know, being able to be effective and being able to be a leader, um, on and off the field, um, per se. Um, then, uh, uh, after COVID, you know, the company I was working with went through some tribulations just, uh, based off [00:02:00] material costs skyrocketing and, you know, a lot of different issues that stemmed from not being able to get in people’s houses that stemmed from the COVID pandemic.

Uh, so I decided to, uh, part ways with them and start my own entities, uh, where I did fix and flip, um, projects all over the northern, uh, beltway portion of Maryland. Um, so I have kind of the working for other companies side of me, and also I’ve owned my own companies. So I’ve seen both sides of it, you know, where the pressures lie.

And the pressures are different, uh, you know, depending on if you’re working for someone or owning your own business. But regardless, um, through all those years of all the trials and tribulations and trying to make money in a lot of different ways, um, you know, I-I’ve really learned how to have an operational mindset, um, you know, what’s needed to have a successful business, why businesses fail.

Um, and those are the things that I really wanted to bring to the table when I got into the consulting space a couple years ago Um, uniquely, 247VA gave [00:03:00] me a really good opportunity to take my operational mindset, take all my skillsets, and, you know, background that I, you know, had accumulated over the prior decade, um, and really apply it towards their business.

Um, so what I did was I went into their company, I audited every department and found where the workflow inefficiencies really lied. Um, and there were numerous, as you can imagine, um, areas in the company where I felt, you know, the company could use some leaning and, uh, you know, certain workflows could be improved vastly using AI, um, and just a little more thought put into how they were done.

Um, so that was the first place I started with 247VA. Um, and then furthermore, a- as I’ve gotten into the company, uh, you know, now I handle all of their client consultation calls, which has been a really unique experience for me, um, because I told you about my operations background and everything I learned through my 20s.

Um, but now doing a lot of sales-heavy work and [00:04:00] consultation work and working with business owners every day, um, I’ve really evolved into someone that can now sell a company, um, which is something that, you know, I always had partners that could help me with, um, because I was always in the thick of the operations.

Um, and naturally, over all my different experiences, I’ve always been kind of a fixer, so any company I ever was a part of or my own entities, that was always kind of my role, was, you know, "Hey, Timmy, we have this big problem. Figure out how to fix it." Um, and that’s how, you know, the, the management of the companies and my executive partners, you know, really relied on me, was to come in and fix problems and make sure that, you know, the outcome of all of it, um, was the least, uh, the least chaotic for the company overall.

Um, so, you know, going back to my original point, that’s really where I feel, you know, my success story is, is continuing to build my career year on year. I wouldn’t have imagined, uh, 10 years ago I’d be sitting [00:05:00] in my own condo, um, working from home. Um, you know, I spent many years, you know, working 10 to 15 hours a day in construction, where I spent seven to eight of those in my truck going project to project and doing all the job tracking and all the client meetings, um, and all the things, you know, all the vendor coordination, all the subcontractor coordination.

Um, so, you know, and that’ll lead me into kind of my, uh, uh, my bad segment, uh, where I talk about, uh, where I talk about how, uh, I’ve always been someone who felt like I needed, needed to do everything myself, and, you know, that worked for many years for me. But when I started my own businesses, that really is what became the crux and the bottleneck, um, you know, the, as I ramped down those businesses just because- I couldn’t do it all myself and, you know, I, I scaled very quickly.

Um, I was able to lock in, you know, many millions of dollars in loans and get tons of projects started. Um, but in the end of it, um, you know, I think [00:06:00] I would’ve… It would’ve been much more effective, um, with the volume I had going on had I structured it in such a way where I had support systems built around me, um, so I could really focus on, you know, where I was most valuable.

Um, you know, ’cause there’s only 24 hours in a day. Uh, so

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, well, there you go. The f- the good note and the bad note all wrapped into one, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah, a-a-and just, you know, furthermore on the bad note, um, you know, th-that’s something that really 24/7 h- VA has really helped me evolve into someone who’s less of a sole doer and more of a team, team builder and, you know, figuring out how to delegate different processes, and that’s something that I’ve really aspired to learn with them, um, because when I first came into the company, I saw how many businesses…

Many, many businesses you don’t even really understand how they, you know, make the money they do, but were rocking and rolling using VAs with different teams, [00:07:00] and outsourcing out pods of their company like marketing or operational pods, um, you know, to VAs, and how successful they were. Um, so that really, you know, rang a bell in my ear that, you know, I really need to learn how companies are doing this, and how to effectively pitch that to them.

Um, so now two years later, um, you know, what I do, a big part of my role is getting on these consultation calls, and we have many every day with incoming leads and clients, and really spelling out to businesses how they can use VAs to delegate certain parts of their business and make sense of it to them.

Um, because, you know, virtual assistance is such a… Still even to this day, when we first started in the game, you know, 13 years ago, we were one of the dinosaurs in the space and no one was really using VAs. But now even 10 years later, even with AI and everything, it’s still a tough thing, tough bridge to gap, um, you know, to work with someone fully virtually and remotely, and learn how to rely on them, um, for different [00:08:00] aspects of your business.

So, you know, when I get on those discovery and consultation calls with clients, it’s all about learning about their business, helping spell out to them where the VA need lies. Um, because many people are like, "Oh yeah, I want a virtual assistant to run my business." Um, that’s not really the, the way it works, so you gotta get down to the micro level with the, you know, potential clients and really spell out to them, "Well, where are the time-consuming tasks happening?

Where are the, you know, operational needs of your business? Where are you spending your time as a business owner, um, doing stuff where, you know, it could be spent, you know, selling the company or going to conferences or really getting yourself out there?" Um, so a big part of my role with 24/7 now is really pitching that concept to businesses and working with them until they find the exact match they need.

Um, and then, you know, it… Furthermore, you know, which I’ll get into later on the podcast, but furthermore helping them set up the systems once they get started with the person so it’s fully [00:09:00] operational, um, and they’re seeing the value add as quickly as possible. Um, because patience is a, a virtue and most busine- busy business owners don’t wanna have patience.

When they’re bringing someone new on, they wanna see the instant impact. Um, so, so that’s somewhere really where, you know, I, I’ve been able to bring that- operational and institutional mindset into 24/7 VA and spread that through the whole company that, you know, "Hey, you know, you really need to understand that these business owners are busy and, you know, they may seem, uh, they, they may seem like they, you know, are gonna require a lot of attention or don’t have a lot of patience, but we gotta be able to work with them and really set these systems up for them with VAs that, that work and are fruitful long term

Tim Melanson: Yeah. You know, so I mean, this is… We could probably do an entire episode or two on, on just the VA strategy, right? And it’s, it’s so interesting because, uh, you know, if, out of [00:10:00] all the interviews that I’ve had, it’s, uh… I, I’ve had a lot of VAs on. I’ve had a lot of people w- who hire VAs on. I’ve had people in organizations like yours that bring VAs.

So VAs are part of a lot of the episodes. However, there’s also been a really common thread in that many people, if they were look ba- look… If they were able to look back and go, "Okay, what would I do differently?" They would say that they would hire quicker. So it’s just so interesting to me that an entrepreneur gets involved in, in a business and then doesn’t hire anybody forever, or for a long time, or, or waits too long.

I get it, though, because, you know, as an, uh… You know, w- when, when you start your business, I mean, a lot of us are sort of self-starters. We’re, um, we’re, we’re jack of all trades. We’re wearing all these different hats, you know? But then there’s the, the, the group of people that maybe are really good at one thing, and they start the business thinking, "I’m [00:11:00] just gonna cut out the middleman, and I’ll, and I’ll just do my own thing," right?

But then, then they end up getting into a situation where now they don’t wanna give that work up, because that’s what they love anyway, and now they have to go run the business. And then, you know, so it’s, it’s all… It’s, it’s so conflicting with, with, uh, with getting in and, and getting something like that started.

But I think that what you said earlier about scaling, I think that that’s kinda, like, the key to it, is if you get into your business and you just want to i- in, you know, buy a job, I guess. You, you know, you just wanna, you know, kinda coast along and, and support yourself. That’s probably fine. You could probably do that on your own, and for a very long time, right?

However, if you want to start to really grow, uh, you’re not gonna be able to do that on your own. You’re gonna run out of time, right? And that’s where you’re gonna need some help. And I think that y- what you’re doing, uh, like helping people to figure out what to do, ’cause hiring somebody… I, I know I had a couple of false starts hiring a VA, because I [00:12:00] just…

I didn’t, I didn’t know what to give them. I wasn’t getting anything out of them because I didn’t have anything systemized in my own business. It was almost like I was going, "Man, I’m, I’m running out of time. I need to hire somebody." So you hire somebody, and go, "Okay, now do something." I’m, like, poking them with a stick.

Like,

Timmy Van Vonno: Yep.

Tim Melanson: but they don’t know what to do if I don’t know what to do, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, to be honest, you know, we’re a very reputable, uh, virtual assistant agency. Like I said, we have been in business for 13 years. Uh, we actually just got news we’re in the Inc. 5000 for the fifth straight year. Um, we’ve achieved Better Business Bureau T- Torch Award for Ethics, so that really shows how we treat our virtual assistants and how we treat our clients and how our, you know, culture is inside of our company.

Really, we have two sets of clients. The virtual assistants we have to keep happy, give fair wages, um, you know, make sure the process for them is as seamless as possible to get in our ecosystem. And then likewise, the clients, obviously, you know, we need to support the relationships and make sure that they’re long-term, [00:13:00] um, and that the whole structure’s there and supported, you know, by our company.

So a, a, a lot of the consultations I get on, people come to us because we are a more reputable firm, and they tell me, "Well, I went to Fiverr or freelancer.com or

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah.

Timmy Van Vonno: uh, uh, hi- hired a VA and, you know, it sucked, so how are you different?" And I’m like, you know, that’s where I start. "Well, you know, it, it’s really about the infrastructure of the support system with- contained within the company you’re using."

So there are a few players in the space that do a really good job of that, admittedly. Um, but there now are, you know, hundreds of VA firms that claim to have that infrastructure and support the relationships in the way we do, um, but that, that just don’t. So, you know, the big- the biggest thing I’d, I’d say is if you are interested in learning more about VAs and potentially using them within your business is just really be careful where you put your time.

Because what you don’t wanna do is go out, [00:14:00] spend a month or two with some firm trying to figure out a VA, they get you set with someone, and then, you know, you never hear from them again, and then you’re two months into it. You expect, you know, two months of progress in your business that, you know, you have to go back now to the drawing board.

And those are a lot of, I’d say, you know, probably 20 to 30% of the consultations I get on are people like that, that had a bad, had a bad experience and reluctantly are like, "You know, we’re reaching out to a couple more companies to see what you can provide." And, you know, a lot of them come to us, you know, because, uh, because of our tenure.

And we’ve s- you know, the company 24/7 VA particularly has really scaled linearly. Um, and what I mean by that is year on year, you know, our head count internally grows, our VA count that’s, you know, outsourced to customers grows, and w- w- the internal head count matters so much because we’re building out these teams to support every relationship.

Um, so it… you know, if the internal head count doesn’t grow and you’re scaling, you know, [00:15:00] exponentially, that’s where I’ve seen a lot of VA companies where, like, they’ll be on the Inc. 5000 in their first year, and then, you know, their growth is like this or, you know, even going down after that because they just weren’t set up properly to support the relationships.

And And these sorts of, uh, you know, in, in our, in our particular niche, you have to support your enterprise clients exactly the same as a solopreneur, um, you know, with one 20-hour VA. And, you know, that’s the only way the model really works on both ends

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. Well, and s- so now with AI, I mean, you mentioned AI. I, I mean, it, I will admit that AI has reduced the need for any help in, in my business for, like personally. I use AI as an assistant for, in a lot of ways. Can you tell me what the difference would be between using AI heavily as an assistant versus actually hiring a person?

Timmy Van Vonno: So I, of, of course, you know, I, I have a, you know, very strong [00:16:00] background over the last couple years, you know, with AI. Uh, when I first decided to kind of make the career transition back towards the end of 2023, I started studying it, um, you know, every day and figuring out mostly, you know, related to business application, how it can help business.

Um, so, you know, what I tell people is, you know, administrative data entry, you know, type positions, um, you know, doing research, those sorts of things, a lot of times AI can help with. Um, but, uh, my pitch always is that it’s always important to have a human in the loop. So since we’re on a podcast, I can talk about, you know, one of our podcast products.

So something I’ve introduced to the company are AI plus VA training programs, and what that means is teaching a VA how to utilize certain AIs to enhance their workflow. So one of our, one of our biggest niches is podcast VAs. So we attend PodFest in Orlando every January And how I’ve [00:17:00] structured the training programs for the podcast VAs is here’s a workflow of how to use Descript, um, to take, you know, take a video and, you know, make it into, you know, what, what you want it to be.

Here’s a workflow on how to use Opus Clip to make a podcast like this into 50 different segments. So what, how I’ve, how I’ve approached the AI, you know, w- because AI has obviously taken over many portions of the market. There’s a lot of businesses, you know, not ours, but many businesses that are hurting because of it.

Um, but I’ve more gone from an approach as AI is not gonna replace virtual assistants, but they need to be further trained on how to use different AIs so that one VA, one podcast VA now can do the equivalent to what three or four could do a couple years ago, um, you know, utilizing these different VAs.

And there’s generally a lot of commonality between the AIs used in the different niches. So for podcasting, CapCut, Opus Clip, Descript, Riverside FM, um, you know, those are some of the bigger ones [00:18:00] that we train VAs on how to use. Um, and other industries that may be teaching for marketing, let’s say, really teaching the VA how to utilize ChatGPT or Claude to really build out these marketing campaigns and help accelerate that.

Um, and then there’s some clients that don’t wanna use AI at all and are completely scared of it. And, you know, I try to tell them, "You know, you should go into it with open eyes." Um, but, you know, uh, we’ve done our best as a company to pivot from AI replacing VAs because, in my opinion, having a human in the loop is always important.

Um, a lot of the AI systems I’ve built out inside our company, yeah, the AI can do all the lead enrichment going into a consultation call now, but there still needs to be someone to review that, make sure all the data’s correct, brief the salespeople based off the correct data. So it gets it to a point, um, you know, where it does the SEO research, does the, you know, uh, social media handles and those sorts of things.

It finds all the information they can on that [00:19:00] particular company, the website, LinkedIn. Um, but then it’s the responsibility of, you know, one of the sales managers to come in and really evaluate that and make sure the information’s accurate, so that way the sales team goes in with, uh, you know, a proper assessment of the client, can really custom tailor those conversations.

And that’s just one example, um, or a couple, you know, with the podcasting. But that’s been our approach as a company. Um, I think AI still has a long way to go before it’s, you know, w- running businesses for people. But the, the, the thought acceleration is really where I see the value. If I have an idea or if I’m in a meeting and I’m like, "God, I wish there was a better way to do this," you know, I go straight to Chat or Claude and, you know, work with it for 20 minutes versus 20 hours, uh, it would be five to 10 years ago, um, doing it yourself.

And- You know, I, and the more you work with these sorts of GPTs or LLMs, they learn you. So, uh, uh, after working with an LLM, uh, being, you [00:20:00] know, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, uh, Grok, you work with these for, you know, six months or more, and they really understand you. So you ask it a question, and it almost can get inside your brain and at least get you 80 to 90% there

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I, I, and I see it kind of similar to, to what you see. I, I, I don’t think it’s gonna replace people, but it… Well, sorry. It is going to replace people because it’s gonna reduce the number of people that it’s gonna take to complete a p- specific job. Like, like you said, I mean, uh, instead of having a VA, maybe, maybe you’ve got an organization where there’s a hierarchy and, you know, there’s someone that reports directly to you as, like, a executive VA.

Well, they might have had several people working underneath them to, to do some of this, this work, and now that particular executive VA can handle probably a lot of that on their own using, using, um, AI to do some of these things. And for me, I, I, you know, I feel like, I feel like it’s not going anywhere. I mean, it’s, it, it’s there, and for the people that are using it, they love it, [00:21:00] and it’s really improving the way that they do work.

So it’s not gonna go, it, you know, and we’re not gonna be able to get mad at it and it disappear. It’s, it’s

Timmy Van Vonno: Sure. Yeah. A-a-a-and, you know, there’s still some sentiment, you know, a, a lot of clients come to me asking about, like, you know, the AI voice calling, and people still know if it’s a human or, or an AI bot. I, I, I imagine over the next, you know, three to five years, that may get to the point where it’s scarily close

Tim Melanson: Yep

Timmy Van Vonno: to a normal person.

So, you know, the, the acceleration of AI was also a big thing that got me out of construction, um, because I just saw the way that was gonna take over the world, and I wanted to s- you know, start working with a company where I could apply my skillsets I was learning almost day by day, um, and, and, and really have an effect there.

Um, from a, from an executive or, you know, managerial perspective, I think the, you know, the downside of AI is there’s no one really to hold accountable. So that’s, you know, th- that’s why the human in the loop is always important. Like, hey, you know, [00:22:00] we may accelerate 70 to 80% of this workflow, but that 20% of QC’ing, you know, what’s coming out of it needs to be on you, and you’re the one responsible for it.

Um, so that’s, that, that, that’s how I think when I’m setting up a lot of the workflow automation and different new A-AI things I’m introducing into 24/7. Um, you know, I, I always view it as there’s gonna be a human in the loop at the end of it, um, to make sure the output matches, you know, what we expect

Tim Melanson: Right. And, and as the business owner, I mean, if, if I’m… Let’s just say I don’t have any VA or any type of assistant. Well, I’m still responsible for everything in the business, even though I’ve got different GPTs maybe handling different parts of things, but I’m still the, I’m still the bottleneck, right?

And as you grow your organization, y- you know, maybe, you know, in the past you could get to a certain level and then you needed to hire. Now maybe that level is a little bit more. But still, it’s the same [00:23:00] principle applies where, you know, you’ve got too much on your plate even though you’re handling a lot more, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah. Uh, uh, I mean, if I could go back to college now, and obviously that, that, that ship has sailed, uh, we, uh, you know, as, at least as far as I know. Um, but prompt engineering really is where I see, uh, uh, you know, what’s, what’s gonna take over the whole market and where the most value’s gonna be, you know, on a position basis.

‘Cause I know a lot of software engineers that were making, you know, hundreds of thousands out of college that I went to school with that, you know, are having a much harder time, um, you know, uh, you know, uh, finding, you know, those sorts of lucrative positions now. Um, because if, if you know how to prompt AI properly, that’s really the key to getting, um, you know, what you want.

And OpenAI, Claude, they have all these free resources, um, you know, uh, uh, on their websites where you can really learn about this stuff,

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Timmy Van Vonno: um, a- and learn, and learn how to structure, you know, using the AIs properly. But yeah, I mean, [00:24:00] I, I, I think for now, uh, uh, I still see a lot of value in having humans in the loop, and there are data security issues that come with it.

Um, so, you know, those are a lot of the things, you know… But str- strategically as a business owner, I mean, you know, getting the opinions of, uh, you know, AI consultants and understanding where AI fits into your business, um, definitely, uh, is a good idea, um, depending on the size of your company

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. And, uh, you know, let’s keep in mind too that there’s, there are times when, I mean, uh, just think of, of yourself as a consumer and you’re, you know, you’re talking to a company. Well, there are times when you probably don’t care whether you’re talking to a person or not, you just got some, a couple, couple questions that you want answered, and the AI is getting pretty good at answering.

Hey, you know, 5, 10 years ago, it was impossible to get a question from one of those, right? The question answer. You’re like, "Agent, agent, agent," right? But now they’re pretty good. I mean, uh, I can contact a [00:25:00] company’s bot and get quite a bit of information, but then there’s also times when I really need to talk to a person.

And so there’s always gonna be a value to have a person attached to that entire infrastructure, even though you are utilizing AI for a, for a lot of it, and I think that’s where it comes into play, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: uh, uh, and I feel like a lot of the voice agents are more for much bigger box companies where client sentiment really doesn’t matter for them. I mean, Go- like, like when you call Google, I mean, they don’t care if you’re pissed off, you know? I, uh, Facebook, you know, Meta, like, uh, that’s where to me, like, oh my God, it makes so much sense for them because, uh, it, it, there’s really nothing bad that’s gonna come out of it for them.

But for definitely for smaller to medium sized businesses, I, uh, I’ll always be a believer that the human connection is, you know, important, you know, which is why I’m on all of our sales calls, and I do as much client facing stuff as I can just to make sure that our clients know that there’s a, you know, th- there’s a higher up in the company that, you [00:26:00] know, you know, is supporting the relationship.

And, you know, then, you know, most of the line level staff and managers, they do a great job, at least with us, um, of handling the whole process. But having, you know, the, the human in the loop, I, I, I’m still a strong believer that that’s far from being something that’s gonna be evaporated out of society

Tim Melanson: I, I agree totally. And I mean, I keep on coming back to this on this podcast ’cause, I mean, I want to inspire more people to start their own businesses. And I, I really do think that this is giving a massive opportunity to just about anybody to start a small business and use these tools to get a leg up on some of these large, large, uh, companies.

‘Cause these large companies are also reducing their workforce in the same way that we are, right? Uh, only the, you know, the difference is that if I’m a small business and I have just a few people on staff or maybe it’s just me, well, someone can talk to me, and that’s gonna be rare, I think, in a lot of these big [00:27:00] businesses.

It’s gonna be a chatbot mostly for, for some of these companies, and it’s gonna be very difficult to talk to an actual person. So, uh, I think that that’s gonna be something that’s going to kinda like, uh, level the playing field a, a lot, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Absolutely. Yeah, I, I, and like I said, my opinion always, you know, with, with the, with the AI is it, it’s in your best interest to learn how to use it, where it fits into your business. Um, but you know, always being careful to trust it too much and, uh, still, you know, natural thought and, you know, the origi- original ideas, I, I still feel like, you know, hu- you gotta drive that, you know.

You gotta put your expertise into the AI or, you know, what you’re doing. You can’t just rely on it to build out solutions for you or your business, um, per se. But the acceleration of thought is where I see the most value. Um, a- [00:28:00] a- and as long as you keep that organized on the back end, you know, and don’t just have a million different chats of where you were thinking one moment, and then you go on to the next thing, and it gets lost.

But if you’re able to really, like, when you have an idea, input it into chat, take the result, file that, you know, and then revisit it maybe, you know, next, next meeting or next time, you know, you’re looking at it. Um, also with AI, you know, we’re a Microsoft tenant, so Microsoft Copilot has been, you know, life-changing for us in how it summarizes meetings and is really able to follow along with the context of your company because it’s built into Microsoft.

Um, so you know, Copilot’s definitely something. Microsoft’s a more expensive tenant, um, you know, especially on the enterprise level, but Microsoft Copilot has done a lot for, for us as well, and I would recommend it, um, you know, to, to any company looking to l- looking to get… you know, maximize the value out of AI.

And Google has a similar setup, so if you’re a [00:29:00] Google tenant, you know, with Gemini, same kind of thing. Um, but the meeting transcription and everything being contained in one ecosystem versus having, like, Fireflies join your meeting and using chat for one thing and using Claude for something else. So, uh, you know, the, the organization of how you’re using AI is also something that’s pivotal

Tim Melanson: Oh, I love it, yeah. Well, it’s, it’s cool to have this conversation ’cause I mean, we’re talking about people, right, with the VAs and AI at the same time, ’cause I find that some people are… It’s like one or the other. It’s like I’m angry at the, you know, at the AI for taking these jobs away a- and I wanna hire people instead, and then other people are going, "No, no, no, no, you’re losing out on a big opportunity."

But there is a way to make it work together, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yes, sir. Yeah, I mean, I, and that’s why I went into the podcast VA, you know, trainings that we do now with the AI plus VA workflows, and that’s something that, you know, is, is very universal. But not only, you know, podcasting, like I said, lead generation, a lot of these other niches, um, you know, [00:30:00] where AIs make sense.

And slowly but surely, you know, AI’s finding its way into every different niche. Um, so, you know, credit repair is another industry that we know we work with heavily, and just in the last few years, you know, their CRMs have been, you know, widely, become widely AI driven. So now, you know, to, to create dispute reports, a lot of it’s just clicking a button, you know, through their CRM.

And then at the end of that all is, you know, someone needs to check it and make sure it’s accurate. Um, but, you know, the, that’s where, you know… So AI, you know, AI has products, yes, but AI’s also being integrated into pretty traditional CRMs like Dispute Fox, um, and, you know, put together in such a way where it’s automating almost everything through their CRM now.

Um, so it, uh, so, uh, that’s a big thing that I’ve really focused on, is just making sure that our VAs are AI adept and have a, you know, at least a surface level [00:31:00] knowledge of how it can be utilized, you know, in whatever certain niche or field, um, that we’re pairing them with a client in

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, I really like… So, I, I mean, my experience, like I said earlier, especially with my first VI, the VA that I tried to hire, is that I had… Th- they didn’t have any real training on the things that I needed them to do, right? It was more or less, it was more or less, "Hey, I know how to do accounting, I know how to do, you know, customer support," but they didn’t have any ideas on what my systems were, and I, I needed to get those SOPs all sorted out.

But the second level of that is that what I’m hearing from your organization, and we can talk about this in your solo, is that you do actually provide some training on what many entrepreneurs will need so that it kinda like bridges that gap where i- in a way, sometimes many of us entrepreneurs need to know how to hire a VA because it isn’t just straightforward where you’re like, "Okay, you’re hired," and then off they go.

You, you, you can probably train [00:32:00] me on what I need to do and what I need to get ready when I’m hiring a VA. Is that what, kinda what you do?

Timmy Van Vonno: Absolutely. Yeah. And, and that was, you know, a big thing I was going back to earlier about the infrastructure of our company. So this might be a good time to explain kind of what the process looks like with us and what we can provide. So our process is, you know, a four-step process. You get on a discovery call with us.

The discovery call’s gonna have your account manager on it, a sales representative, and usually me. Um, and what we do is we try to dissect your company first. So who are you? What do you do? Where do your pain points lie? Whether they come to us with a, a- an obvious need that they spell out on their submission, or if they come to us saying, "I don’t know, you know, what we’re gonna use a VA for, but it sounds like a, you know, novel concept and we wanna explore it."

So we, we learn about their whole company on that call, and these are like 30 to 45-minute calls. Um, dissect, dissect, you know, where the needs [00:33:00] lie, build out a whole job profile. So we really ask the per- you know, the, the client, "Okay, you want lead generation, but what does that mean?" You know, lead generation has a million different avenues, you know.

Um, so, you know, a client may say to us, "Well, we want them to do, do lead research. We want them to make the outbound calls. We want them to nurture them, and eventually set, set appointments with us." You know, that’s an example of a lead generation workflow for one VA. Um, so that’s how we try to build out the positions.

Once we get off those calls, we draft that job profile, email it over to the client. Once they approve the job description over email, it goes to our internal endorsement department. Our endorsement department are the ones that evaluate the candidates applying to the position. Um, every candidate with us is gonna have gone through our seven-step vetting, so that includes two rounds of interviews, two rounds of assessments.

All of our VAs are fully remote, so we have minimum device standards, ’cause they’re working in their personal, uh, workspaces. Workspace checks, primary and [00:34:00] backup internet checks, uh, multiple rounds of interviews, like I said. One of my favorite things we do during our vetting on the initial interview is we get the VA on with our recruitment team, um, and ask them to pull up their personal social media, ’cause that’s normally the first, the first place you find a red flag if they have, you know… And, and, you know, uh, to be, not be explicit, you know, we, we’ve, we’ve seen a lot of different things on those. Um, you know, like, you know, maybe they have a gun on there. You know, s- just weird things. That’s what… That’s normally the first place we go. Um, but our vetting is one of the most extensive on the market.

It takes the VAs about three to four weeks. When they go through that, they fall into our bench pool. So, like I mentioned, when that job description’s approved and it goes to our endorsement department, that’s the first place we go to try to find the VAs. We promote it out to anyone we think would be a fit for the position.

They actually apply and give their letter of intent for the position. Um, and at that point, our endorsement team selects four, [00:35:00] the four to six best ones that they feel are really custom fit for the job profile. Um, those are sent over to the client with their resume, work experience, a big paragraph, you know, bullet list of why they were endorsed by our endorsement team member, and a video of them talking, which is probably my favorite thing.

So we actually include a video link on each of the candidate profiles that we endorse over, um, of them explaining why they’re fit for the position. Which I think is so cool, ’cause you can assess the communication and you’re not just looking at a sheet of paper or, you know, a web link and saying, "Oh, you know, this looks great," but then getting to the interviews and being like, "There’s not a personality fit."

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Timmy Van Vonno: Um, so that’s, so the, the goal out of that is out of that four to six, the person wants to move forward and interview one to three, let’s say, of the candidates. So we’ll set those up back to back to back o- on their own time Um, and the interviews, uh, uh, that’s something we’ve gone back and forth with over the years, is the [00:36:00] necessity of really pushing people to do that if they’re sure they wanna pick someone from the original endorsement.

But I’ll be the first to tell you that VA 1 may work perfectly with me, and VA 3 may work perfectly with you, Tom. Um, so, you know, th- that’s really… You know, you gotta assess the personality fit ’cause this is someone you’re bringing into your company, just as you would during a job interview. Um, the nice part about our company is that whole process is free.

Um, so we don’t sign… We don’t lock you into any contract, we don’t lock you into any, any monies that you owe to us. Um, we’ll find the people for you, present them, let you interview them, then you select someone. Um, once you s- once you select the VA, then you get your guided onboarding scheduled. So this is looping back to what you were just talking about with the training.

So we do have an internal training team in our company. One of our expert SMEs for your particular niche or type of service will be assigned to the combo. Their job is to set the VA up for success with [00:37:00] you. So you mentioned SOPs and getting them set up in a good daily workflow, all the things that business owners kind of…

Their heads kind of spin thinking about how to do this with someone virtually. Um, that’s the trainer’s job. So any SOPs that need to be created, all those initial meetings between the client and the VA, we always ask, let the trainer sit in on them to make sure that everything’s hammered home, documented correctly.

Um, so that describes the training leg. There’s also an IT representative assigned to every combo. They get the email set up, the company email, um, all their account management set up. So we use a platform called LastPass, and what that allows is the business owner or our IT team to add passwords in there, and then the VA’s access is click access, so they don’t have the, you know, the actual password.

Um, so IT gets them set up with all that, and then ongoing, you have an account manager that lives on with you through your tenure with our company should you ever need to raise or decrease [00:38:00] hours, add additional VAs, stop the service, pause the service. Your account manager’s the one, you know, your source of truth for that and the one you communicate with.

They also check in periodically with the client and the VA, so they’re a really good bridge of the communication. You know, a, a, a, a, a VA wouldn’t wanna go to his boss and say, "You know, I’m really unhappy with this," but they’ll tell the account manager that and then they can translate that in an eloquent way, you know, back to the business owner.

Um, so that really, you know, goes through our process. You know, other things about us, you know, we work on a week-to-week subscription model. So when you s- do select a VA, we collect a week deposit equivalent to their rate. So if the VA’s $10 an hour working 20 hours a week, your deposit would be 200, only ever used for the last week of service.

So that’s how we’re able to offer the seven-day window for cancellation, and then you’re billed weekly. Um, so it’s, you know, very low commitment. That’s why we’re so attractive to especially startups and smaller [00:39:00] businesses, ’cause I just tell them, you know, uh, see the candidates we’ll put in front of you.

If you do decide to go with us, it’s very low commitment, very low cost. Um, and, you know, it’s a really good starting point for this startup or sca- you know, s- scaling businesses who need support but can’t afford to bring someone in-house. Um, you know, because the in-house employee costs are i- in the US obviously very significant.

Um, so all the relationships are on an independent contractor basis, so the tax forms are simple, the accounting’s simple, and the, the monies paid out, you know, to have this resource are very minimal, um, you know, compared to an employee. And I apologize if I went on a tangent there, you know, just about the, the, the training, but I, I figured I’d, you know, tie it all together.

Um, and separately on the training aspect, we do, like I said, have internal training programs very specified to different niches. So, you know, construction training programs, real estate, [00:40:00] credit repair, advanced training programs, lead generation advanced training programs. So we do everything we can while you’re going through the sales process and after you select someone en route to them starting to really do as much training as possible, so that way on day one, they’re really locked in and ready to go.

Um, and, you know, and, and these are VAs that, like I said, have gone through our vetting. They want the positions very bad. Um, you know, they’ve applied to them, they’ve expressed, you know, considerable interest. So, you know, that’s always a hard part of VAs is since they’re all over the world, you know, really finding out what type of person they are.

Do they wanna work? Um, so that’s where the vetting and support and monitoring that we provide really comes into play. Um, you know, whether it’s the, the time tracking we do of them or the supplemental training, um, or the account management and check-ins. Um, but, you know, we support these relationships through and through and, you know, we’re an accessible, not sales-driven company.

Um, you know, [00:41:00] our focus is our VAs and our clients, and most of our, you know, o- our traffic is organic that comes to our company just because of the tenure and what the AIs say about us and what Google and our reviews do.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So how do we find out more?

Timmy Van Vonno: Um, uh, the, our website’s, uh, 247va.com. So that’s the number 2, the number 0, F-O-U-R, the number 7, V as in virtual, A as in assistant .com. Uh, uh, as you can see, I’ve said that before on webinars and stuff, so I’m pretty well versed there.

Tim Melanson: That’s

Timmy Van Vonno: but that’s the easiest way to find more info. Um, I’ll also, you know, provide you, Tim, our, our pre-consultation link.

So if anyone, you know, listening right now is interested in VAs, there’s no pressure. Um, you know, uh, get on a call with us, and we’ll explain to you how they can fit into your business, um, you know, once we kind of get into the nitty-gritty of the conversation. And, you know, a lot of people get on a consultation with us.

We’ll figure out a [00:42:00] structure, a job description, give that over to them, and then they’ll say, you know, "We probably need two to three months while we’re refining the startup of our business or really figuring out where, how this transition’s gonna happen into the VA space." And then they come back, and they’re ready to go.

So, uh, what, what… We’re not g- we don’t get on those sales calls and say, you know, "Okay, sign the contract, give us a deposit, and, you know, we’ll start finding people." It’s very low pressure, and, you know, uh, and I really love that about, uh, about our sales process because a lot of companies will look really polished on their sales calls and have this presentation and make all these promises, whereas I’ll be the first to tell you, or any of our sales team will be the first to tell you what your expectations should be.

You know, a VA is not gonna come in and run your whole business, but they can come in and operate different siloed parts of it, um, you know, under your direction and, you know, with the help of our training and, you know, account support

Tim Melanson: So, uh, just one more question. Like, uh, when it [00:43:00] comes to, uh, the type of person that would be the best fit for working with you, like how, how do I know whether I need to hire a VA or, or when whether you’re gonna be a good fit? Like, what, what size of business do I need to be? Like, what, what would be the indicator?

Timmy Van Vonno: Well, a- any size. Um, you know, I, I… obviously, you know, I think enterprise level companies, many of them are the simplest fits because they’re bigger companies. They’ve been doing the same process that they’re looking to outsource for many years. Um, but we work with everyone from startup, solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business, medium, large, all the way to enterprise.

So the, the easiest way to tell is really just to, you know, sit down with a pen and paper and think about, you know, write down everything you’re doing on a daily or weekly basis. And then the second step is look at that paper and say, "What can be done remotely that doesn’t require

Tim Melanson: Your specific expertise, yeah,

Timmy Van Vonno: yeah, your specific expertise or you specifically to do?"

Um, and, and that… [00:44:00] and then from that, you know, that’s normally a good point. You’ll see, you know, and then you put the number of hours you’re doing each one of these things. So maybe checking emails is five hours a week for you, and, you know, managing calendars and your podcast bookings maybe is a few hours for you.

On- once you get those listed out, then that’s when the VA profiles start to make, you know, more sense. Are you spending many hours doing your editing? You know, I’m, I’m assuming you’re using a plethora of AIs, you know, to help you with your production and stuff. If you had a VA come in that could operate, you know, some of those workflows for you, would that save you 10 to 20 hours a week?

Um, and our minimums for hours is only 10 hours a week all the way up to 40 or more. So, you know, there’s a low barrier of entry. You know, my recommendation always, if it’s your first VA, get them for 10 to 20 hours a week. Fill out that block of, you know, time, which would be two to four hours a day, Monday through Friday.

Um, you know, and they work to US business hours. [00:45:00] Um, and then once those are filled out, you go to your account manager, "Hey, you know, let’s put them up to 30 hours. I have a whole new set of tasks." Trainer gets roped in, SOPs are created, they continue work.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I think that’s a good, uh, uh, th- right there, that’s a good answer to the question ’cause, uh, once you get to 10 hours that you think you can de- you can delegate, th- there you go, right? ‘Cause,

uh… And, and then, um, and then it just grows from there because I imagine what you probably see all the time is someone starts with those 10 hours and then goes, "Oh, okay.

Well, I think I can, I can grow that up, I can grow that up. There’s more things that I can delegate." And, and I, I imagine, like, once you start to s- free up some of that brain space that you freed up with the 10 hours, now you can start to think a little bit differently, you can position yourself, you’re focusing more on the direction of the company.

You know, now some of these other tasks can get thrown into that as well, right?

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah. A- and that’s one of the things I always pitch is, uh, you know, just the openness to getting those first 10 hours filled out, and [00:46:00] it’s not always, it’s not always a quick thing w- with VAs. Uh, you know, because we’ll match the skillsets with the people we’re endorsing damn near exactly to, um, you know, what, what, what the job description says and what you need at that juncture.

But the longer you work with someone, you learn they have additional skillsets and they’ve done different things. Um, so it’s really an evolution. So if it’s a very clear workflow driven position that’s, you know, very linear, bring them in at 20 to 40 hours a week and get them started if, you know, you know that time can be filled out.

For more variable entrepreneurs and sorts of businesses, which there are many, um, my recommendation is always, you know, grow with the person. So start them at 10, fill out that time, learn more about them, figure out more areas they can help you in your business, up them to 20 or 30 or 40. Um, but th- that natural progression is also where you feel the least amount of financial pressure.

You’re not looking at, you know, [00:47:00] 350 to $500 a week, but for a full-time VA you’re looking at, you know, 100 to 150 for, you know, a part-time person doing 10 hours a week where… You know, so the, the dollar amounts are in such a way where it’s not super high pressure. I know when you bring on an employee and you’re instantly looking at, you know, many, many thousands per week, you know, b- between them and the taxes and, you know, all the different 401s and yada, yada, um, it’s a much higher pressure to make sure, like, they’re coming in and 100% operational day one.

Uh, whereas the VAs, I’ll always say, you know, two to four weeks to really get them in a good flow is, is reasonable

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. Okay, well, one more question before we go here. Let’s get into music. So tell me, who’s your favorite rock star or band?

Timmy Van Vonno: Uh, I, I just saw Kanye a couple weeks ago, but he’s definitely not my favorite. Um, but I, I, I, I’m a big ’80s band guy. Um, you know, that, that, that’s a re- reflection of my dad’s music taste growing [00:48:00] up. Um, so, you know, Billy Idol, AC/DC. I lo- I love, you know, all the rock stuff, but I also love kind of the ’80s, ’90s, uh, more pop love songs, you know, like the Toni Braxton, the Lionel Richies.

Um, so I, I, as you can imagine, I have a, I have a big mix of, uh, music I like. So I, I don’t know if I can narrow down one, one favorite, but I’d say, you know, Journey is probably one of my favorites of all time. Um, yeah, so I, I, I have a wide spectrum of music. Probably if I said some of the artists I like, you know, I already mentioned Kanye, um, reluctantly, but, uh, if I, if I, if I mentioned some of the other ones, you’d be like, "Whoa, really, Timmy?"

But, um, yeah, I, I, I’m kind of all over the place with music and I, you know, I, I enjoy that because I don’t like keeping myself secular to one genre. You know, if you’re at a, at a bar on the beach, you probably wanna be listening to like, you know, house [00:49:00] or some sort of like, you know, uh, you know, Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville type music.

And i- if you’re, you know, if you’re in a different setting, you know, another se- you know, genre of music may work. So I, I don’t hold too much credence on the type of music, you know, but I, I’m a big music lover for sure

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s awesome. Well, this has been a really awesome episode. So much information here. It’s probably overwhelming actually for someone listening to it, so hopefully they can listen to it on slow.

Timmy Van Vonno: Yeah, and it, it, it might be. And, you know, I know I’m a talker, so, um, it might… All I would say to your audience and anyone interested in having a discussion with me, whether it’s about VAs, um, or not, if you just wanna have a, you know, more professional discussion on, you know, talking about some of the things I’ve mentioned on the podcast, I’d be more than happy to get on a call, um, with anyone and everyone, um, from your audience.

So I- I’ll make sure all that information’s shared with you, Tim, so you can have it, you know, in the, in the bio of the video I’m, I’m [00:50:00] assuming is what you do or, you know, what- whatever you, whatever you tell me to do.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jimmy, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Timmy Van Vonno: Yes, sir. Yeah, Tim, thank you very much

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

[00:00:00]

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the CEO of Franchise With Max, and he helps people to find a franchise. I mean, this is really cool. You actually help people start a business. So that’s, uh, one of the main goals of this, uh, podcast, and also many of the franchises I imagine are work from home.

So that’s, uh, a double hit on this one. So excited to be talking with Max Emma. Hey, Max, you ready to rock?

Max Emma: Yes. Hi, Tim. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it

Tim Melanson: Oh, awesome. Yes, gonna be a good time. So we always start off here on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Max Emma: Well, story of success, I guess me coming at the age of 18 from the former Soviet Union without a word of English. Uh, learning English, uh, by just practicing here and there any moment, every opportunity I would get, and then getting my degree, working for corporate America for four [00:01:00] years just to realize that corporate life is not for me.

My joke is that I’ve constantly been kissing the wrong butt. So I gave it up and started my own business. I went from three employees to 96, lost everything in bankruptcy when the recession of ’08, ’09 hit. Um, started the business again, it was more successful, sold it, and while doing it, created a bookkeeping company because of need.

My background is in finance. Uh, my co-founder background is in accounting. So we did, uh, started the business and then took it nationwide and eventually franchised the concept. So, um, I couldn’t see that happening. We, again, did it because we couldn’t find the right bookkeeper, but then we made it the only bookkeeping franchise in the United States.

So I guess that’s a success. It’s still work in progress. I mean, we’re still getting there, but just a few months ago we made it to Entrepreneur 500 list, which is like a Fortune 500 for, uh, franchises in the US, which is awesome. I don’t take it lightly. [00:02:00] So for me, it is a success

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is a success. And I mean, hey, we always talk about the bad note too, which is the failure, but it sounds to me like you got a couple in that story,

Max Emma: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Look, by bankruptcy, I mean, now I’m looking back, it was the best MBA I could have gotten, but at the time it wasn’t fun because with one baby at home and one on the way, it was pretty hard. And, you know, nobody was hiring, which I’m grateful that nobody was at this time, ’cause I probably would given up being an entrepreneur.

‘Cause I told myself, "Okay, just not for me. Didn’t happen. I’m gonna go and find a job and go back into corporate." And I was good with that, but nobody was hiring. So I’m like, "Okay, I have to feed the family," so had to open another business. Was more successful that time

Tim Melanson: Okay. Well, how did that, how’d that come about? Like, what, what, uh… I mean, first of all, I imagine there’s a lot of stigma around bankruptcy, for sure, and I’m wondering, were you afraid to do it? Like, was it a good… Like, h- how did all that work out for you?

Max Emma: I was super scared because for me, you know, coming from, [00:03:00] uh, Russia, for us bankruptcy it was, I don’t know, close to killing somebody in, in our minds. Which, you know, in the US it’s obviously a legal process that goes back to 19th century. You can do it legally. You get discharged. But in my head, this is it.

This is the end. I will never, you know, go back to normal. I mean, what did I know that Henry Ford, don’t quote me, but I think he declared bankruptcy seven times, so a lot of people went through that. Again, there is a legal mechanism in the US. And the reason I had to do it, it not because it was my choice.

I was actually fighting till the last moment but, you know, we were doing track homes. We’re doing, uh, landscaping for track homes. I had 25 trucks, cranes, all the equipment, and then they stopped building because the recession hit. So I had all the bills that I had to pay for the equipment and no income.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Max Emma: in the United States, and I’m not sure about Canada, in the United States you have to personally guarantee all the equipment. So that’s why I had to do it personally. And California is a [00:04:00] communal state, so my wife had to do it as well. So it just, you know, like a event after event after event and we had to do it.

I mean, there was nothing… I didn’t owe anybody anything personal, but I did owe… You know, the company did. So that’s why it was like a domino effect

Tim Melanson: Wow. Now you said that it ended up being a good thing, so h- how did that work out?

Max Emma: It, well, it worked out because I learned, you know, that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And, you know, that you can figure anything out. Again, I started the bu- second business. It was, you know, worked hard and, you know, again, sold it for profit, which was, which was great. But again, you only can connect the dots looking backwards.

So back then, I did that out of necessity. I had to feed the family. I didn’t know what’s going to happen. It, it was super scary, Tim. That for me it was just, you know, I thought I’m a failure and I’m never going to get out of that

Tim Melanson: And but clearly you [00:05:00] did right? And things are better because of it, right?

Max Emma: I, I did and, you know, again, as I said, it probably was my best MBA ’cause I learned to, uh, pivot right on the spot. I didn’t have an opportunity to, like, sit down and think about it for a long time and plan it. One of the things that I learned, um, again, hard way, that a good plan today is better than perfect plan tomorrow.

So if I have something like a business idea, whatever, and it’s 80% ready, I’m just running with it. I’m not gonna make it perfect because, A, you can probably live all your life and never make it perfect, and B, you can miss an opportunity because somebody else will come up with this idea. So 80% is good enough for me.

So if idea is, like, almost ready, I’m just rolling with it, and then I’m learning as I go and making it better

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well now, uh, I mean some of this, uh, some of the what happened was just circumstance, right? I mean, recession and, you know, th- things happening. Uh, but is there anything that [00:06:00] you learned that you now do differently so that it doesn’t happen again?

Max Emma: Yeah, you plan for it and you listen to smarter people around you. People were telling me, "We’re not gonna get out." I mean, they saw the trajectory of where the business was going with all the equipment and, you know, the sales going down. And I’m like, "No, no, I can make it happen." I did not give up. I was going, uh, so like actually I renegotiated the, uh, terms with pretty much every bank.

I got the best deals. They’re like, "Okay, we’ll give you five years, six years to pay us off." And I’m like, "Cool." So I had all of that renegotiated. I just could not renegotiate having zero income, which was beyond my control. So right now, um, we’re just paying more attention to the finances. And again, that’s why bookkeeping started because if we had a bookkeeping company…

And look, I was a village idiot with bachelor in finance. My wife at the time, she had master’s in accounting. She was the smart one. So we understood the accounting and finance. We were just [00:07:00] so busy growing the construction company, we did not pay attention to the finances

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And that is a lot of business owners will not necessarily pay attention to that. And I mean, I get it, right? Because you’ve got your, your thing that you’re doing. Your, your business is hard. I mean, you’ve gotta wear a lot of hats. And you’re spinning them all at the same time, right? So wh- when you’re out there trying to get new clients, ’cause ob- obviously that’s important, you may not be noticing that the numbers are pointing in a down direction, right?

But I mean, if you had somebody that was, that was keeping up on top of that, you would have those regular reports. You’d have somebody th- telling you, like, "Hey, something’s going on here. We need to, we need to pay attention," right?

Max Emma: Mm-hmm. Absolutely

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Okay, cool. So now, uh, speaking of the people around you, I’m wondering, tell me about your band.

Like, who do you have? Or maybe I’ll ask you this question. Who was the first person that you hired on your team?

Max Emma: So [00:08:00] depends on which business you’re talking about, but if we’re talking about, um, the bookkeeping company, so I started it with my, uh, wife, who is now an ex-wife, but we still run the business together. We actually started the franchising together, and unlike many couples who are divorced that are fighting, we actually, you know, created another baby.

We already have two real human ba- babies, but this is like a business. And look, Entrepreneur Magazine just found out about us and did an interview with us about a month ago. Uh, y- because for them, it was really interesting that people who are divorced actually not only not fighting, but are starting something new and making it to the Entrepreneur 500 list.

So they approached us, and I’m like, "Okay, that’s a great PR." So, um, I don’t want to say I hired her, but when we started bookkeeping, I was literally going, uh, um, getting the clients, and she was doing the work out of our youngest son nursery. So we kicked him out to his [00:09:00] brother’s room, and that became an office

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. That is quite a story though, to be working with your ex-wife, like, and, and even the fact that you brought her on after you were already divorced, right? Like, that’s, that’s

Max Emma: started a new business together. She was always part of Bookkeeping. We started it together. I mean, I was mostly running it. She had other gigs. But, uh, right now she’s, uh, back in the business, and again, she’s a professor. Um, she got her PhD. But, you know, she is an instrumental part of, like, executive coaching for all of our franchisees and all our employees

Tim Melanson: So how important is it to delegate work to other people?

Max Emma: Uh, that’s huge. Honestly, I did not see company growing. Uh, it– I thought I’m not doing something right because I was the bottleneck. I was doing most of the work, uh, myself that I could have delegated long time ago. But my logic, which was completely wrong, was, "You know what? I’m just gonna [00:10:00] do the proposals at night while I’m watching Netflix."

I mean, it’s not really work. I’m just sitting there and doing it. It’ll take me longer, but whatever, I’m watching the show. If you would have asked me what the show was about later on, I probably would not be able to do it because I was doing both at the same time, and without realizing I was working 12-hour days because I was spending my evenings doing it.

So– and that’s when I had one business. Now, with three businesses, I have executive assistant in each one of them. And, um, hiring the executive assistant was absolutely the best thing I’ve done because turned out I could delegate 80% of my time, uh, and my, my, um, you know, responsibilities, and I could start doing more of strategy, what hopefully I’m good at, and, you know, planning and do the, uh, business development and sales and building the relationship.

So I’m part of the organization called Strategic Coach that honestly changed my, uh, life, both personally and business, and [00:11:00] they just teach you that you have to spend 80 to 90% if– in your unique ability. You have to figure out what you’re good at, what you enjoy doing, and just keep doing it because that’s not real work.

If you like being around people, like if you, for example, like, uh, playing music, I mean, for you, it’s not work. For you, it’s fun, right? I mean, for me, being around people and exchanging the energy, it’s not work for me. I’m really enjoying it. But, you know, put me to do bookkeeping and I’m gonna kill somebody, and then I’m gonna kill myself, even though I run a bookkeeping company

Tim Melanson: Well, that’s funny. Well, and, and that’s just it, right? I mean, a- and, and now with your, uh, executive assistant, like, how did you find these, these people? Like, w- what was your hiring process?

Max Emma: So for executive assistant, uh, right now all of my executive assistants are outside of the US, so they’re working from home. So am I. I ma- made a point to travel to, uh, Colombia and Salvador and [00:12:00] meeting them in person because I want to develop this relationship. But again, we speak all the time on Zoom and the phone, and they work, uh, for, uh, for me.

But again, I just– few months ago I went to Salvador for sole purpose to meet my executive assistant who’s been with me for two years, and we just spent couple, couple days together, which was great. Um, so I used agencies for at least one of them. Another one I just found through a friend’s recommendation.

And look, I’m– I believe in hiring agencies, uh, uh, to help you. Yes, you pay their, the fees, but they do all the due diligence for you. They check, make sure the references are fine. Plus, look, I want my employees, all the employees that I have, and between three businesses, I have employees in nine different countries, they all have benefits.

They all have vacation. So they actually have employee, employer of record in every country. So yes, it costs the company more, but [00:13:00] I’m gladly paying that because, you know, it’s worth it. I mean, people get, you know, all the benefits. Like, to give you an idea, for example, in Colombia, same as Philippines, you have to pay people thirteen-month salary.

So at the end of the year, they get double salary in December. In the Guatemala, where I now have an office, you have to pay them thirteenths and fourteenths month salary. So in December they get three salaries. So an employer, I get charged every month just so they do it. But I, I want to do it and, you know, every, everybody gets medical, dental and visual and all, all, all, all the benefits, whether they’re in the US or outside of the US.

Tim Melanson: So why did you decide to hire outside of the US, though?

Max Emma: Um, well, interestingly enough, until about 2016, 2017, when I just had the bookkeeping company, all my flyers, I still have them somewhere, it says 100% in the US. We are all, you know, we don’t offshore, so I was proud [00:14:00] of that. And then I realized that I’m missing out. There was very hard to get talent in the United States.

Like, I had, in two cases, people snatched out of my company by a large corporation. I remember I had a lady who did not have a degree. We were doing M&A, buying bookkeeping companies throughout the United States, so I bought one, and this employee, you know, came with the company, and she stayed, and she was running the office.

And then one of the large corporations, very large, gave her an offer to come and do accounts payable, accounts receivable, I don’t remember, in-house. They doubled her salary. Doubled. And for them it was just, you know, for me it was a lot of money. I think she was making, like, 35,000 at the time. They gave her 65 or 70, and I’m like, "Good luck.

I’m wishing you all the best. I just can’t even come closer to that." So, like, literally, "Thank you for giving me two weeks’ notice." And at this point, that’s what the company were doing. They were just, you know, like, what’s [00:15:00] 30, 40,000 for Facebook or for Google or for something else? Nothing. So they just were getting good people.

I’m like, "What can I do?" And that’s gave me an idea, so maybe it’s time to pivot, and it’s time to start hiring outside of the US. But before I opened the first office in, uh, uh, Philippines, uh, I actually traveled there, learned the culture, met people, traveled around the country before I realized that, okay, I do want to have business in this country.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, because that, that’s the thing is that the dollar is worth so much different that you can pay them something that you can afford, and to them it’s a huge, it’s a huge, um, paycheck, right?

Max Emma: Yeah, I mean, look, my, my, um, a lot of our employees have their own personal cars and everything else. So day and night, it’s not, I’m not running a sweatshop, I can promise you that much. So people make really, really good money, uh, working for us.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, where,

Max Emma: compared to the US salary, it’s less than minimum wage.

I get it. But, you know, [00:16:00] for what they make in this particular country and what the cost of living is, um, they doing really, really good. I mean, I would say that they’re probably doing better than a lot of US employees if you take into consideration, you know, the cost of living in the US

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and it’s probably less likely that someone’s gonna come and offer them double the pa- double the salary, right? It just

Max Emma: Oh, it’s, it’s been done before because for a lot of companies, because they’re paying less, not double, but they’re like, "Okay, we’ll give you an extra $1,000. We’ll give you…" And that’s a lot of money there. So therefore, extra $1,000 a month, people will jump ship. And again, I– this is my policy. I do not, uh, you know, negotiate.

If somebody comes in, "Well, this is the price I’m getting," well, good luck. I mean, I’m not gonna just start matching it. If the, our cultural values and other values are not important for you, then maybe you’re not a good match for the company anyway. So go. I mean, good luck

Tim Melanson: So when you lose somebody though, doesn’t that really [00:17:00] hurt your business? Now you have to tre- retrain somebody? Like

Max Emma: It, it does, but, you know, um, all I can do is to, um, expect that it might happen at some point, so we cross-train everybody. We always have several people working on different, uh, uh, the clients. That’s for the bookkeeping side. For the franchising, uh, uh, and for franchise consulting or brokerage, I use a lot of AI, so hopefully nobody gonna take that away from me.

And over the years, I just learned that if somebody leaves you, then probably the next person gonna be better. So it’s gonna be a shock and tragedy in the beginning, but after a while it’s gonna work out. So, um, I am, I’m fine with that. This is just cost of doing business

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and, and I think that when you… I mean, o- one of the things that you learn, I think, pretty quickly when you’re trying to hire somebody is that you have to have, like, some systems in [00:18:00] place to train people. And once you build those systems, that same system just gets better and better as, you know, it gets more refined.

And so if someone leaves, you’re just using the same system to train the next person. Yes, like you say, it’s gonna hurt some stuff, but you have a system in place that you use to train, so you can train somebody else, right?

Max Emma: Oh, sure. Yes

Tim Melanson: yeah. Now, so when you talk about, uh, um, you know, learning all the things that you’ve learned, you know, in this thing, do you hire coaches?

Do you, do you have people that you hire?

Max Emma: Y-y-yes, I do. Like, I would not be able to do it without coaches. I did the CEO group for, for a while, and now I’m, and again, as I said, a str- strategic coach. And, um, you know, so I travel once a quarter to, uh, Chicago and, you know, spend a day or two, full day with– in a room with other CEOs, and I’m learning a lot from that.

Um, also, I’m trying to read as much [00:19:00] as possible and listen to podcasts. Uh, I actually made it, uh, um, you know, my daily routine. Like, I like– I live, uh, right on the bay, and I like to do 10K walks. Uh, that’s, uh, my cardio workout, and I’m listening to a podcast. So I’m doing my steps in, and then also I’m listening and hopefully training my head.

So I’m actually, um, w- doing a lot, trying to get better. Uh, and the, there is no stop to it because, you know, there is no limit to how you can improve yourself. But look, I’m– I don’t have, like, a lot of expectation. Like, when I have a new book, if I get one nugget out of a book, it’s a great book. So I’m not gonna spend four months, three months reading it.

I’ll listen to it really fast, and again, I get couple ideas. There are some books that I’m coming back to. I use the service that gives you a 15-minute summary for– And that’s not, you know, Shakespeare. I’m talking about business books or [00:20:00] self-development books. But, you know, for me, it works out really well.

But in a day, I can do two books, which if I read them completely, it probably would take me, like, with lack of time, over a month to finish one. But now I’m doing– I’m not doing it every day. Call it 30, 40 books a month. And then again, I write down one idea. So I get one idea out of this book, perfect, and then I implement it or trying to

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s amazing. And, and that’s the thing is that a, a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, we hear this all the time. Number one, y- you, you also mentioned, like, working out and doing walks. I hear that so much that people who are entrepreneurs have some sort of self-care routine, and they’re learning all the time, right?

And it’s one of those things where, uh, you, you, you don’t necessarily hear that quite as much in, uh, you know, people who are employed with somebody else, right? Do you make sure that your employees, though, have those types of routines?

Max Emma: [00:21:00] Well, I can’t make them. I mean, I believe in leading by example. They know that, like, I, I start my day early, but around 4:00 PM, I shut down. I mean, the– everybody, my 4:00 PM and on the West Coast, most of my employees already done because they’re in different time zones, like Central mo- most of the time. Um, but, you know, uh, they know that after 4:00, I’m going to a gym, and that’s my, my time.

So that, that’s it. Because if I don’t, it’ll be 8:00 PM, I’m still gonna be in front of the computer without dinner because there’ll be always something to do. And I’m running a marathon, not a sprint. So in order for me to run the marathon, I have to, you know, pace myself. ‘Cause, you know, if I just do work 14-hour days, I can do it for a day or two, but then, you know, I get tired, and I need a few days to get my energy back.

So again, uh, when people say, "Well, I’m working 20-hour days," great. When I was [00:22:00] younger, I probably could have done that, but as you get older, you know, you get depleted of your energy. At least I do

Tim Melanson: Me too. Yeah, I, I mean, you get sick too, right? And, uh, I think that’s feedback

Max Emma: but, but having said that, if you do what you like, again, being your unique ability, you’re enjoying it so much it stop being work. I mean, I see you have Beatles T-shirt. I’ve seen Paul McCartney twice live. The guy was on the stage for three hours and 20 minutes. That was right before COVID. I saw him in New Orleans.

Three hours and 20 minutes, he hasn’t left the stage once, you know? And he doesn’t do it for money. He, he’s got it, but the guy enjoyed it so much, like, I think if you would’ve let him, he would do another two hours

Tim Melanson: Yeah, he probably would’ve. I would’ve let

Max Emma: Yeah, no, for sure. But my point is, and then I did, like, went to private si- soundcheck before, which, you know, all the money went to charity. He did 45-minute concert [00:23:00] before the concert. So it was, like, four hours of, of Paul McCartney. But again, for him it’s not work. I understand it’s all rehearsed, I understand it’s a show, and there are a lot of elements.

I get it. So it is work, and he’s com- getting compensated, as he should. But I bet you he’s going there to have fun and get energy from this, you know, 40,000 people at the stadium

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, speaking of the fans, like, tell me how do you, how do you… Like, I mean, the world has changed so much over the last, you know, uh, 20, 30 years, and nowadays, I mean, everyone is online. It’s so easy to connect with people. But you have to get them converted into fans. Like, and there’s so much noise out there.

So I’m wondering, what are some of the strategies that you use nowadays to get people to buy from you?

Max Emma: Well, first of all, I don’t want to sell to them, so I am always trying to be always in a buyer’s mode. [00:24:00] So even when I sell somebody services, I’m actually buying for, uh, I’m buying my customers. So what I mean, I’m not desperate, at least that’s how I train my head, to sell them something. Because when you’re selling, you are willing to do anything.

Like, "Okay, give me 5% discount and I’ll sign there." And you want this deal so much, you’re like, "Okay, yes, I’ll, I’ll give it to you." And then they start pushing, pushing. When you’re buying, it’s totally fine. Like, if they don’t want your services, it’s okay, then this is not for me. So when I sell franchises, for example, a bookkeeping franchise, yes, I do want franchisee.

Yes, I want to open more offices throughout the United States, but I’m taking my sweet time to find the right person, and I’ve said more nos than I’ve said yeses. Even though, you know, I could have made money on it, but in the long run, it would not be, um, it would not be the right choice for, for the company.

And look, um, yes, everything is online, so we’re trying to automate as much as possible, but when I get [00:25:00] an opportunity to meet somebody live, I’m always doing that. ‘Cause for me, uh, like when I sell, for example, bookkeeping franchise, I make a point of going to the city where I sold it later on and meet this person for lunch, dinner, drinks, coffee, whatever, and spend time with them, ’cause I want this connection.

For me, nothing can replace… I can’t be in front of the computer for a long time. If I do, I have to, you know, call some of my friends or colleagues, say, "Hey, let’s go have a cigar. Let’s go have, have a drink." Just so I have a personal communication with somebody

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that theme is coming up a lot more often, and I, I get it because now with AI and all that stuff and, uh, I mean, now if you can make the effort to actually meet someone in person, it’s a big deal, right? Or, or even on, even on video it’s a big deal, right? ‘Cause people are just trying to send emails or trying to just connect with people on social media, and it doesn’t land the same way.

I mean, we, we do business with people, right?

Max Emma: Well, sure. And look, like social [00:26:00] media, it’s a lot of your energy. Uh, one of the biggest things that I’ve done to myself, and it helped to run three businesses now, I have a block for social media from 5:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day. Yes, I can undo the block, but it’s a special process I have to go. But right now, I wake up in the morning, I don’t immediately start looking what’s going on on my Facebook, okay?

Yes, I mean, I have– it goes back on at 5:00 PM, so if I’m, you know, doing whatever at night, I can look at, you know, my l- you know, messages. But, uh, during the day, we don’t do it. I mean, I don’t do it. But I do have a, a social media manager for, uh, the companies. That’s his full-time job, is to actually do the posts business related.

So he is– he has access to my social media, but he’s doing it for business. But I don’t have access to it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Well, let’s get into your solos. Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now then

Max Emma: Well, um, [00:27:00] as I mentioned, you know, one business, uh, ran, I mean, actually led to another business. Like, I started bookkeeping, then by accident I started doing bookkeeping for a franchise brand. Then two, three, and I started going to franchise conferences, and I really like being around franchisors, so I franchised the business.

As I mentioned, we’re the only bookkeeping franchise in the US right now. And then I realized that some people are not a good match for bookskipping, for bookkeeping franchise. So I did open the franchise brokerage, and I’m really enjoying it because I do get, I call them corporate refugees, for example, somebody who doesn’t wanna work for corporate America for whatever reason.

Maybe they lose their job, maybe it’s their choice. And in some cases, by the way, it’s because they don’t want to working in the office 8:00 to 5:00. I have, I placed couple people who exactly said that, like, "We don’t want to be have… We want to have a flexibility." So I have over 600 franchises to choose from, and it’s a little bit of art.

You listen to the person like, "Have you considered this?" Like, "Oh, I haven’t thought that, [00:28:00] you know, I would enjoy, you know, painting franchise." Because a lot of people, they, um, mix up hobbies and the business. And I always say that, look, you can be the best cook and you be, you could be horrible in running a pizza franchise because, you know, nobody cares that you know the best recipe of pizza.

A Domino’s not gonna allow you to use your grandmother recipe. The pepperoni pizza has to be exactly the same in Beijing, San Diego, and planet Mars, you know? Because that’s their, um, recipe, and they don’t really care what you know and how good a cook of, or cook you are. So a lot of people mix it up, and that, that’s the mistake.

So I’m always trying to break through it. I’m like, it’s not about your hobby. It’s not what you’re good at. Are you good with people? A lot of candidates, they don’t realize, they think McDonald’s for example, it’s a restaurant. Well, between you and me, it’s not. Average McDonald has 50 plus [00:29:00] employees. So if you buy a pack of two or three, you have 150 employees.

You are in human capital business. You have to deal with 150 employees because most of the owners of McDonald’s have at least three, okay? That’s, that’s a different business. Yes, you do have managers, but if, you know, because you pay mostly minimum wage, ’cause otherwise the system not gonna support itself, and then people leaving and going somewhere else and you are short 10 people, what are you gonna do?

Tim Melanson: Go help.

Max Emma: Exactly. I mean, so, so my, my, my point is that people don’t, don’t think beyond what, what they’re good at. Well, I’m an accountant, so I’m only gonna buy a bookkeeping franchise, for example. First of all, you don’t have to be an accountant to buy a franchise, because we do train. But second of all, um, there are other options.

I mean, I’ve seen some CPAs who are running, um, male, uh, uh, hormones clinics, and they’re [00:30:00] doing great. I mean, uh, I know two of them that own six or eight each, and they have a successful CPA practice

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. So then what’s the process? Uh, like if I wanted to buy a franchise and I wanted to connect with you, what do I, what would I do and, and what would I expect?

Max Emma: So, I mean, that’s why I created this website, Franchise with Max, where people can go and choose if they wanna talk about bookkeeping for their business, if they wanna talk about book keeping franchise or help with, uh, um, you know, choosing over 600 different franchising. Um, it’s, it’s a conversation. So we’re just having a conversation.

I just wanna know more what you want to, uh, do with your life. I mean, how many hours do you wanna work? What are your expectation? I mean, I have some, uh, clients who just want to do it part-time. They’re like, "You know what? I like playing golf." I mean, in my stage of life, uh, they’re saying, "I want to go and enjoy, you know, five hours a day, I want to play golf.

So I don’t mind [00:31:00] working the other half day, but I don’t wanna work 12 hours." Well, if you don’t wanna work 12 hours or 14 hours, then probably a restaurant is not a business for you unless you wanna have a general manager. If you want 8:00 to 5:00 business, then, you know, open a B2B. Like, because, yes, you might…

if you open book keeping franchise, you might need to get and do some work over the weekend, but you’re not probably gonna talk to a client on Saturday or Sunday. Nobody expecting you to return the call at 10:00 PM. If you opening a dog boarding business, I mean, I have friends, they own couple, uh, dog hotels.

They’re doing really great financially. But, um, interestingly enough, New Year’s Day, and then day after Thanksgiving, almost everybody calling in sick. And these two guys, they’re doing really well, have to go at 4:00 in the morning and feed the dogs. So they’re actually two brothers. One of them is always in town.

They, they can’t, uh, travel, you know, at the same time. One always has [00:32:00] to stay for that particular reason. Yes, they’re making ton of money, but they’re limited. They

Tim Melanson: they’re

Max Emma: you know, go together and s- you know, have fun.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. Okay, so then if we wanna find out more, we go to franchisewithmax.com. Is there any other way to get in touch with you?

Max Emma: I mean, LinkedIn would be great, uh, and but FranchisesMax is probably the easiest. Franchisesmax.com, there is a QR code here. Um, you know, my services are completely free. That’s very important. We get paid by a franchisor if somebody buys a franchise. If not, doesn’t cost you a conversation. But, uh, not only we getting paid by franchisor, I’m sharing part of it with my, um, uh, candidates, and also I pay for nine months of their sales training, because I want them to be successful.

So I’m pretty much giving close to half of what the money that I make on my commission. So it’s not only free, I give you money, I give you the money back. And if you go directly to a franchise, by law, they cannot give you [00:33:00] any cash discount because you called them directly. So our fees, broker’s fees, coming directly from a franchisor, uh, as a compensation.

But again, if you call directly to this particular pizza franchise, they will not give you any discount because you skipped the broker. So use us. We are consultants. I mean, it’s… we’re not even brokers. Uh, it’s, it’s a word of the past. It’s a franchise consulting. It’s a conversation. I mean, I went back to school to get my certified franchise executive.

I do know a thing or two about franchising, so let’s have a conversation. That’s all I can say. And for some people, um, they want to work from home. So out of 600, I would say 300 of them are home-based businesses. So if that’s the case for you, do it. I mean, A, you don’t have to get the storefront, you don’t have to sign a five-year lease, and you can work from a spare bedroom or living room

Tim Melanson: Oh, I love that. That’s great. All right, well, before we go, I got one more question for you. Let’s talk about music. So who is your favorite rock star or [00:34:00] band?

Max Emma: So I am a huge Beatles fan. I mean, as I said, I’ve seen McCartney, McCartney twice. Uh, uh, and I went to see Ringo just because I wanted to see, well, there are two live Beatles, uh, and I want, I want to see them both. Um, I like, uh, Queen. Obviously, I didn’t get a chance to see Freddie Mercury, but I’ve seen them touring with Adam Lambert.

I’ve seen them two or three times. Elton John, Billy Joel, I’ve seen each of them four or five times. Sting, probably six times. So I– and, and look, whenever there is a famous band and they’re getting older, I always wanna make a point to see them because it might be your last chance. Like, I’ve seen Aerosmith, and in Vegas, I flew for that because later when they had the farewell tour, it got canceled.

I had the ticket, and I got my money back. I didn’t see it. So you never know when is the last opportunity to see this artist. Like, I’ve seen Bob Dylan a year ago, but he just came back few days ago to San Diego. I didn’t go again, but who knew if [00:35:00] he’s gonna be touring again or not? So, so whenever I see, like, the older name, like I’ve seen– I went to see Tony Bennett a year before he died because I knew it’s probably one of the last opportunities to do so

Tim Melanson: Wow. So you’re a big supporter of live music. I love that.

Max Emma: Oh, yeah. I, I go, I go all the time. Whenever there is live music or live theater. I’m a huge Broadway fan, so, uh, whenever I get an opportunity, I go. Like, I just came back from a franchise conference in New York, and I saw five shows in three days

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow.

We must have taken some extra time in,

Max Emma: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I, I go by work hard,

play hard

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s awesome. So awesome. Thank you so much, Max. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you for rocking out with me today.

Max Emma: Team, thank you very much for the opportunity

Tim Melanson: Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Ethical Persuasion and Training and Consulting, and he’s a certified coach and licensed trainer with the Cialdini Institute. I’m really excited, ’cause what he does is he helps professionals to be more ethically persuasive with their communication using the science of persuasion and human decision-making as taught by his business partner, Dr. Robert Cialdini. Man, I’m so excited for this episode. It’s gonna be so cool. We’re talking to Patrick Van Der Burght. Hey, Patrick, you ready to rock?

Patrick van der Burght: I’m, uh, I’m ready to rock, and thank you for, uh, putting me in front of your audience. I remember when I was discovering this material, I was, you know… I wanted to be more successful with my business, and I didn’t wanna lie or cheat either. And, um, yeah, I discovered this and I was, "Oh, my goodness, is this how it works? Is it this simple?" And I remember the excitement, and I see that same excitement when I do a keynote or teach a [00:01:00] workshop. Uh, I see that same look in my audience. And so today I’m imagining that your audience will have a similar sort of experience, and, uh, yeah, so I, uh, I’m grateful for you putting me in front of them

Tim Melanson: Oh, no problem. A- and I totally agree. Like, when I first got into sales myself years ago, you know, there’s so much, uh, misconception actually in, in the first place about what people think sales is. People do think that sales is swindling people for some reason, right? And, uh, and, and it’s, it’s really awkward getting into trying to sell yourself. I, I know even as a musician, like, isn’t it weird that you, like, you, you know, you, you’re doing well, you think you’re a pretty good musician, but it’s really difficult to tell people that, right? It’s like, it’s, it’s like it’s so much easier to have a manager or to sell your buddy who’s a really good musician than it is for you to sell yourself. So, uh, I’m very interested in hearing about more what you have to say, so this could be really cool. So we always start off on a good note, so tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.[00:02:00]

Patrick van der Burght: Um, maybe it’s interesting to cover how I actually got started with this, with this whole thing. I was a, a sales rep selling scuba diving equipment. I was on the road. I had my business, you know, from home, but I, I was on the road most of the time. And, um, I was looking out… I’m based in, in Australia, in Melbourne, and so I was looking after the states of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, and that… I mean, Australia is big. That’s, you know, three of our states, and that’s a, a decent stretch of land, and so lots of time in the car and lots of time listening, listening to cassette tapes for those who can still remember what those are. And, um, I was putting a lot of effort and time genuinely trying to look after my retailers and, and helping them as best I could, and I was hoping to grow how much product they’d buy from me versus my competitors, and I wasn’t really I wasn’t… I was a bit frustrated with the progress I was making. I think I was putting a lot of time in, and I was not really getting the returns. And, um, [00:03:00] my boss had hired a business coach to help him grow his business, which is, of course, always a good idea to get some outside perspective and input from a business coach or trainer. And, um, this trainer realized that scuba diving retailers are, uh, um, very enthusiastic, lovely people, but not necessarily great at running a business. So he started training us sales reps to be sort of business coaches so we could sit down with our retailers and help them grow their business. And the idea was if we can help them double their business, we would double with them. And, um, at the same time, I was confronted with a, a, a challenge. Um, and I, I should say that the business coach was local to Melbourne, and, uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever met a Dutch person, ’cause that’s my, uh, my heritage. That’s where the last name comes from. If you ever meet a Dutch person on holiday, and you said, "Ah, if you’re ever coming to our side of the world and you need a place to stay, give us a call," don’t do that with Dutch people. [00:04:00] They turn up, right? Free nights accommodation, they turn up. And, um, he was, uh, he was based in Melbourne, and he said, "Oh, if you ever wanna discuss these, uh, strategies, right, come by our office in Vermont." And so I turned up, right? And he started lending me educational cassette tape series, right? And they used to be expensive. Now you can buy them so cheaply. Um, but I can remember paying, like, $1,200 for a set of Brian Tracy CDs. And, um, part of that was Dr. Cialdini’s work that he, uh, he borrowed me. And, um, the challenge was, that I bumped into, that I’d taken on a, an additional brand, and it was a, a type of dry diving suit. And, uh, they’re supposed to seal on your neck and your wrist, keeps you dry, and it was an Australian-made suit, very qualitative, best suit of that type I’d ever used myself. Wonderful product, but what I didn’t know is that the year before, they had, uh, um, a change in material, and stuff delaminated, and all suits sold that year had leaked.[00:05:00]

Tim Melanson: Well

Patrick van der Burght: all had to be replaced. And so I’m coming into my retailers’ stores, and they knew me quite well by then, and I said, "Oh, you know, I’ve picked up representation of Hot and Dry." It’s still around now. And, um, they laughed at me and said, "Oh, you’re a nice fellow, Patrick, but we’re not touching that again after last year d- last year’s debacle." I said, "Well, what do you mean?" Right? And now I’m finding out that, you know, um, this, this problem. So I was bas- s- s- you know, literally being laughed at, and they didn’t wanna touch it. And I thought, "How am I gonna turn this around?" So I dived onto Dr. Cialdini’s principles, used what science I could at that time- to turn that situation around, and long story short, within 18 months we were market leader. So ever since, I’ve been, um, converted in the fact that you don’t have to lie or cheat, you just have to r- bring the right pieces of information that make it easier for someone to make a decision. You bring that to the surface, and the impact can be dramatic. And that’s why I’m also so excited to share that here [00:06:00] today because, you know, especially if you’re starting out with a home business, you don’t get an avalanche of opportunities coming your way already. You gotta work really hard to start getting some opportunities, and you cannot waste the chances that people will say yes to you, right? If you, if you ask something one way, you have a, you get a small amount of yeses. But when you ask for something a different way, you get a lot more yeses. Well, you cannot afford to to not ask it in a way that you get a lot more chance of getting those yeses. And so hopefully we’ll, uh, we’ll share some strategies today people can use immediately.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s true. And when you tell the truth, you tend to get referrals, and that’s really the lifeblood of most of these small businesses, right, is through referrals. Yeah

Patrick van der Burght: do a great job for people and build strong relationships

Tim Melanson: Okay. So now over the time, uh, of your business, I mean, it’s been a long time, th- there- not everything goes as planned, and I like to talk about these bad notes and these things that, uh, mistakes, I guess, or whatever you wanna call them, [00:07:00] because it is what holds people back from getting started in the first place. And I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned, then how you recovered from that?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, well, that example I just gave I think is a good, uh, is a good situation where things didn’t work out so

Tim Melanson: That’s true

Patrick van der Burght: So it’s important when things don’t go so well, especially when we make mistakes, that we own up to it. Um, there’s some research on that, that if we ignore our problems and try to plow through it, we’re actually, we come out stronger by admitting that something went wrong, and we then raise how we’re going to address that. Uh, that can increase our credibility and believability and which helps us go forward. The fact that we recognize something didn’t go right on our end, but we’ve identified what the problem is and we’re gonna deal with that from, you know, in this way going forward, um, that’s a strong approach to making mistakes and dealing with those

Tim Melanson: And so why do you think people don’t f- fess up to those mistakes?[00:08:00]

Patrick van der Burght: Probably a bit, bit embarrassed or, "Oh, it wasn’t our fault." As in if we, if we blame external forces, um, then our audience feels, okay, well, there’s things in your business that you seem to have no control over

Tim Melanson: too, ’cause, uh, that is probably what they’re thinking, even though you might think that, "Well, it’s not my fault," you know? Uh, at least if you own up to your mistake, then you can say, "I, I know I did wrong, and I’ll do better next time," and that feels more in control, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, absolutely

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. Cool. So let’s talk a little bit about the band. Now, uh, when it comes to, uh, delegating, subcontracting, is that something that you do in your business?

Patrick van der Burght: Uh, yes. I, um, I mean, not so much in the beginning, but certainly now try and delegate as much as I can. So I make good use of, uh, virtual assistants, even though I hate that word and I’d never call them that. And they’re just other people. Um, so yeah, there’s websites you- where you [00:09:00] can go to where you can, um, you know, either ask somebody to find you, uh, a virtual assistant, somebody who works from home. Um, you can get those, of course, in any country, and there’s countries in the world that speak very good English, but their wages are cheaper. So, you know, it’s, uh, depending on where you go, you can, you know, get a personal assistant. You… I’ve got, I think, about five VAs now. Um, I’ve got a personal assistant. I’ve got a lady that, uh, edits my podcast recordings, works, you know, basically the manager of the podcast. She edits the videos, publishes, takes care of all of that. I’ve got, um, some VAs that, um, do my social media marketing, so they make posts, and of course, they need to learn about the business like any employee, so they take time to sort of get used to your business. Um, and then I’ve got, uh, web developers that look after the websites. Um, so yeah, a nice way to

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: delegate and get some manpower or lady power on the, on board to, um, you [00:10:00] know, to help you. And it’s, uh, especially as, as a, a smaller operator, hirer, hiring an employee is, is frightening. I mean, wages are expensive and depending on which country you live in, for example, Australia, if you hire someone and is really not turning out well, as in, you know, they’re either, the, you know, your personalities clash or they’re just not good at their job, you can’t just say, "Oh, sorry, you’re fired now." You, this is, you can’t do that in this country. You’re sort of stuck with them. So, um, a virtual assistant is a nice easy way to sort of ease into that, grow the business, produce more income, and then get, for example, somebody in your office.

Tim Melanson: Right. So what you mean by that is that they’re subcontractors rather than employees.

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I, I agree. I… And, and plus, I mean, I think the other benefit to that is that they’re running their own business, and you know how they say that y- no one will ever work as hard for your business as you do? Well, if you hire other people that are running their own business, well then [00:11:00] g- it’s kind of a hack, isn’t it? Now they’re trying to do the best in their business, which is also helping your business instead of hiring an employee, which comes with a whole lot of other, you know, challenges, I guess, on their own, right?

Patrick van der Burght: And it’s, uh, I mean, yeah, um, you can go and find somebody yourself and then the whole hiring process is, is on your plate, and it can be challenging to find the right person. I mean, people can promise they can do lots of things, and then when they work for you they might not actually be able to do that. But there is also agencies you can use that you might pay a little bit more per hour for that person, but they’ve checked these people, or they might work on the equipment of the middle person. So there’s different levels to, uh, you know, um, sort of use that. But yeah, there’s a number of countries in the world like the Philippines, South America, Kenya, um, you know, where you can get people who speak great English, are well-educated, um, and, uh, you know, very keen to do a great job

Tim Melanson: Nice. What was the first [00:12:00] one that you hired? What, what, what was their role?

Patrick van der Burght: Uh, basically a, a PA. Uh, Nancy, uh, has been with me for years now. And, um, basically, yeah, whatever I could hand over, um, you know, I, I, I passed on to her, what didn’t need my time specifically. So, uh, looking at the, all the email accounts, things coming in, answering everything she could answer. If she ran short on knowledge, she would ask me to, you know, to chime in. Um, admin, um, things, making invoices, that sort of stuff. Everything but handling the bank account, let’s say. Um, you know, she could do reconcile bank accounts, all that sort of stuff

Tim Melanson: Hmm, cool. Now does she, uh, act as you or does she act as herself and p- like, in, uh, like, and then sends things to you?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, no, X as in herself, right? I, I teach ethical persuasion, right? So we can’t pretend to be someone else. And, um, actually that’s an interesting [00:13:00] side note. Of course, now we also have AI,

Tim Melanson: Yep

Patrick van der Burght: We can get AI chatbots for our website and all that sort of stuff, and it’s crucially important that you don’t try and make AI pretend that it’s a real person, because people have a, a big need for human connection, and we are already separated from each other because of technology. But now when we’re confronted by someone pretending to be a real person, but they’re not, um, when we figure out that we’ve been duped, that has a backlash. I mean, goodness, you know, over here, uh, in Australia, there’s a famous, uh, instance where… And this was just using ChatGPT. There was a real estate agent who’d asked ChatGPT to write an, a, a, you know, a text for on the website to sell a property, or it was a, a rental listing, can’t remember. But when she copy-pasted the, the, the pro- she copied the prompt with it.

Tim Melanson: Oh gosh

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. So it said, you know, "You know, the, we [00:14:00] have a three-bedroom apartment, you know, write me a pr- you know, write me a, a, a section for on the website, piece of text." And so that came with it, and so she got found out that, oh my goodness, she used AI to

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Patrick van der Burght: write this text, and she got in the news and, and, you know, it was like a big thing, poor girl. Um, but yeah, now with AI bots, it’s very tempting to, to make them pretend, "Hi, my name is John. How can I help you?" Um, I think we should be upfront and tell people, you know, "I’m John, our AI bot. How can I help you?" And it’s interesting with AI, though. In the very beginning, I thought there would be a more, a bigger backlash in terms of making people interact with AI. But actually turns out people also open up more to AI. When you’re talking to a real person, they’re asking what your income level is. You, you know, you get a little bit of pride going in. You might quote a little higher. Um, when you know you’re talking to a machine and you get quick answers, there, there’s, there’s something, you know, efficient in there as well, and a little bit more, [00:15:00] uh, less pride, let’s say. Um, so people, you know, don’t seem to be actually, actually minding dealing with AI as long as we know that we’re not being duped and we know we’re talking to AI.

Tim Melanson: Agree. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I, I think that there’s a part of it that we don’t wanna waste people’s time as well, right? And so when you’re dealing with an, with an AI bot, like I, I know that there are certain things that you’re just like, "I wanna talk to an agent. I wanna talk to an actual person," right? Right away. But there are also other things that you’re just like, "I just wanna run something by. I just wanna see if I can get that answer quickly." And you know, when you’re talking to a real person, you feel like, you feel like you’re, you’re wasting their time, but you can just waste that AI bot’s time all you want asking them a bunch of questions, and it’ll keep on answering these things. Um, so I, I think that might be part of it, too. I know for me, even, like, running through ideas and, and, and trying to strategize on my business, when I was talking to somebody about that, like a, a person about that, I felt like I was, like, wasting their [00:16:00] time, right? But now I can do all that same stuff with, uh, with an AI bot, and I mean, it’s not really giving me I mean, it is doing research sometimes and finding out some things that I probably wouldn’t have known on my own, but I’m just talking things through. And, and sometimes talking things through is all you need to do, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, exactly. And yeah, like you said, it’s easier to, you know… It’s a little bit like a search engine, you know? I mean, I can plow myself through your website for the next 15 minutes looking for the answer, or I can ask the AI bot and get a quick summary of what it is I’m a- after, ’cause it sort of understands what I’m after and knows exactly where to get that information.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But I do know that I, I, I hope that we kinda come up with some, I don’t even know what it would be, legislation or even some sort of, like, guidelines on… ‘Cause AI right now is totally Wild West, and I totally agree with you. I think there should be some rules around how it’s, um, how it’s [00:17:00] used and how it’s also, uh, portrayed. Because like you say, there, I, I think right now it’s fairly easy to see that you’re talking to an AI. I mean, it, you know, if you train it properly, maybe there is some things that you can hide, but give this another year or two, right? Uh, like, look at how far it’s come, and at some point it’s gonna be very difficult to know whether you’re talking to a person or not, and I th- I, I agree with you that I think that that should be disclosed upfront, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, absolutely. And of course they can use AI with, you know, with voice, um, you know, with voice as well you can get AI to ring out and make calls on your behalf and follow up leads and that sort of stuff. And, um, yeah, when you do figure out it is AI, you really feel duped. You don’t have a good feeling about that business either. Where if we’re just open and honest about it, um, you know, you might actually get easier interaction from people

Tim Melanson: Oh, a- absolutely, because, uh, like you, what you just said [00:18:00] earlier, people actually don’t really have a big problem with dealing with AI when they know it’s AI. So why not just own it and be like, "Hey, I’m, I’m the AI bot that, you know, can I get some information from you?" Like, it’s just like an assistant really. The assistant that, you know, sometimes they can answer the question directly for you, but oftentimes they’re just there to gather some information to send to you so that you can call this, you know, client or this prospect back and, and know what you’re talking about, right? So why not use the AI bot for that and be upfront with it? Makes sense to me. So let’s talk a little bit about… Actually, let’s get right into p- to persuasion because we’re talking about getting fans and having them trust you and buy from you. What, what would be the, something that maybe a, a mistake that most entrepreneurs make when they’re, when they’re going out there and trying to gain some sales and gain some trust from people?

Patrick van der Burght: The biggest problem that I see [00:19:00] every single day is that professionals… Let me, let me rephrase it. When, when we are an architect and we’re gonna build a skyscraper, we tend to use the available science to do a good job. If we didn’t use the science that’s available to design a skyscraper, the end result wouldn’t be s- yeah, wouldn’t be so wonderful, right? That building might not last that long, or it might not even end up being completed. Um, in business, we’re in the business of convincing other people that what we have to offer is going to enrich their lives, and those people need to make a decision about that. Now, there’s a science about how decisions are made, and too many people in business have no idea how this works. So they’re a bit like an architect trying to build a skyscraper without knowing the science. And I [00:20:00] see this… I mean, we all s- see the world through the lens of our own expertise, right? If you’re a chef, you’re having dinner in a restaurant, you go, "I mean, I can’t cook to save myself," but, um, you might sit in the restaurant and you might go, "Oh my goodness, if they just used a little bit of, uh, coriander in here, it’d be perfect," right? You can’t help but see the, the, the world through your expertise. And so I can’t help seeing the world through the lens of ethical persuasion. I can’t sit in a restaurant, look at the menu and go, "Oh my goodness, how much money are they losing because this menu is in the wrong order?" Or I can see advertising and I can see products that are presented in the wrong order. I can hear people, um, say something that very effectively and subconsciously achieves the absolute opposite of what they’re trying to do because they’re highlighting the wrong things. Um, so people in business tend to not know how decision-making work, and therefore [00:21:00] you have a certain potential of people that will say yes to your request. And most people in business, or many people in business, dramatically underperform their potential, and so they’re leaving business and success on the table, and that’s what I highlighted before, especially when you’re starting off. You can’t afford that. You, you, you wanna maximize your chances. And it’s not like this is a very difficult science to grasp or even learn. I mean, we do, uh, formal training courses, which is about an investment of just 20 hours over eight weeks, um, to really make an impact in learning this. So it’s not a university course that’s gonna take you years, um, but most people in business are at it every single day without using the science.

Tim Melanson: Do you know what I find interesting is when I, when I was initially learning about persuasion and about, um, sales, uh, you know, I, I bought, I bought some books, and there were some people around me that weren’t in business, they were employees, and they sort of saw [00:22:00] that as being unethical. Isn’t that kind of odd? They, they would look at me and they’d say, "Oh, you’re learning all this stuff. That means that somehow you’re, you’re trying to…" I, I, I don’t, I don’t know, game the system? I- isn’t it weird how people will look at learning about ethical persuasion as being unethical in the first place?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, and, and thank you for bringing that up. I mean, the reason we tend to, I mean, me and my colleagues, why we tend to wedge that word ethical in front of it, in, in front of persuasion, is because when people hear the word persuasion, they often hear manipulation, and that’s absolutely not the same thing. Manipulation is about giving someone no choice Where persuasion involves the, the use of words and images to, um, increase the chances that someone will say yes to us, but that decision comes from within them. And a, a good comparison, one of my colleagues talks about when [00:23:00] the, um, when the, the boss is away, you know, the saying is that when the boss is away, the mice will play. Um, but if you persuade someone, if they make a decision that comes from within them based on their own values, when you, um, when you persuade someone to do a particular task… And, and we’re talking about sales, but persuasion is not actually per se about sales. It’s about behavior. Now, I can stimulate buying behavior, which of course for sales is, uh, you know, imperative. But, you know, you might have, um, VAs that you want to follow a certain procedure that you’ve set out. That is a behavior, right? If you have employees and you want to, them to follow the safety procedures, that’s a behavior. If you want customer service, um, to get better results with clients or the client is happier about the experience they’re having, that’s behavior. So this all fall- falls [00:24:00] under the topic of persuasion. Um, but yeah, so what we want to do is use this ethically. And what, what’s very nice is that research also shows that what we teach can be used in an unethical way, but whilst it might produce short-term results, it is long-term disaster. Because people who, you know, didn’t get out of the arrangement what they thought they were gonna get out of the arrangement, they never come back. You get found out in the, the cycle of business.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: And so it’s long-term disaster, where research does show that when we use persuasion science ethically, we get short-term results and long-term success. It actually builds strong, loyal relationships. So yeah, with that whole word sales, um, yeah, I would just substitute it for helping people, right? I mean, even if you’re, you know, if you’re in a, in a [00:25:00] band, let’s say, and you’re trying to, you know, get a gig somewhere, y- you’re trying to give somebody opportunity to have, you know, great music that night. You’re just helping people and that, you know… I, I think that’s a great different angle to where to come from, and yeah, often people think of sales as a dirty word. But if you just see it from genuinely wanting to help someone have a great service, have a great experience, um, and that gives it a different light to it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and I mean, I, I think that the, I think that the catch-22, I guess, is that as an ethical person or a person who’s trying to be as upfront as they can, you know, not learning about persuasion because you think it’s gonna make you unethical to, to learn about it is very counterproductive. Because in the end, all you wanna do is you wanna help people, and if you are literally doing the opposite of the science that’s gonna help someone because you think that doing the science of helping them [00:26:00] is gonna hurt them, then y- you’re, y- you’re never gonna get forward. And, and I mean, I think, I think it’s just one of those mental blocks, and I, I I mean, maybe it’s movies. I mean, movies show us these unethical people, super rich and doing all these, uh, you know, unethical things. But in practice, like what you said, I, I, I don’t normally see that. I see people who are very successful as being very ethical and actually helping people, and I see people who have been swindling people have to keep on moving, right? And going to another area and trying to figure out something different because eventually they get found out. And, and like you say, I mean, they, they, the, the, the business cycle weeds them out eventually, and I think that we just get s- maybe fooled by our culture of … I mean, that makes a good story with somebody who’s, who’s unethical being at the top. But that doesn’t tend to really happen. It, it, it doesn’t work that way, right?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, and, [00:27:00] and, and I mean, something we should, I mean, uh, also bring up, a, a lot of sales training is not necessarily ethical. Um, as in I, I talk to a lot of people… I mean, sales is, is where I help most people, you know, with that topic, even though persuasion is much broader than that. But I talk to lots of people that say, "Oh, yeah, I’ve, I’ve done a few of our sales training courses in my, in my boss’s company, and you know what? I don’t use any of that be- because I don’t like treating people like that." Right? A lot of sales training does have a, you know, sort of underhanded, you know, tri- you know, trick people into compliance. I mean, if we, if we go back a few years, you know, you heard a lot of, you know, and you s- I mean, I’ve been to business conference, and they’re still teaching it to people, mirroring and matching, right? I mean, if you, if, if somebody puts a hand in their pocket, if you put a hand in your pocket, people start getting that feeling. Because this, this is something that happens [00:28:00] naturally, right? We start mirroring each other when we like each other. And so if we start man- you know, manipulating that, we’re purposely doing that. Okay, they’ve got their foot out. I’m, I’m gonna put my foot out. Okay, they’ve got one hand in their pocket. I’m gonna put the same hand in my pocket, so I’m, I’m mirroring. When I do that on purpose, I’m not being genuine, right? So therefore not ethical. But just imagine for a moment that the person you’re doing that to knows exactly what you’re doing You would be done, right? You lose that appointment and they’ll never touch you again. Given the opportunity, they’ll probably warn people about you. And now in the, you know, in the world of social media, it is so easy to get caught out and to have a big… For that to blow out, right? I can give you an example. The research was done in supermarkets with bright colored labels, right? Because normally when there’s a sale on or something, we put a bright colored label on with, you know, what [00:29:00] the special is. And so what they started doing in supermarket, they took a random amount of products and they just put bright colored labels on it with the price. No special, just a bright colored label with the price. And then the next day they would take all the labels off and they’d give, let’s say 100 different products, bright colored labels with the price. What’s the effect of that? It doubled sales because it’s a shortcut for the brain. We have learned that a bright colored label normally means this is a good deal. This is lower price than it normally is. And so just by whacking on colored labels, they’re increasing their sales. Now, there’s lots of… You can look this up on, on social media. There’s lots of videos of people really angry and, and justifiably so, recording like, "Look, there’s a sales sticker on here and you lift it, there’s the same price underneath it," right? "What are they trying to do here?" And there’s even, even politicians commenting on these videos that retailers shouldn’t do that. Now, that has a massive impact on people’s credibility, [00:30:00] and there’s no need to do that. If we just know the science, we can use it in an ethical way to actually build strong relationships and coach more people to agree with something when it’s in their favor to do so

Tim Melanson: I love that. I love that. So working from home, uh, you know, getting your jam room set up and your home office set up can be a bit of a challenge, especially, uh, with all the distractions around, and I’m wondering, how do you have yours set up?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, in terms of, uh, uh, the office, I mean, I work mostly, uh, mostly from my desk. But as a lot of people, I think, who work from home is you do, um, meetings with people. I mean, you either go out of your office and you meet people or you, you know, you make phone calls or send messages. And, um, maybe this is an interesting thing to, uh, to raise. The- we have different channels of communication that we can use, right? We could meet someone face-to-face. We can send an email. We can make a phone call to someone. We can now do video calls as well. We can [00:31:00] send an SMS or, let’s say, a WhatsApp message. So we have different ways of communicating, and all these different channels have a different level of persuasiveness. Uh, now Tim, what… Out, out of those options, face-to-face, video call, um, um, email, SMS, what do you think is the channel that has the biggest chance of getting someone to say yes to you?

Tim Melanson: Oh, I think face-to-face

Patrick van der Burght: Absolutely. Face-to-face. Glad to hear it. Great. So if… But for face-to-face, we have to leave the office, right? For the other options, we don’t have to leave the office. So if we consider the other option, which do you think is then the most persuasive

Tim Melanson: Well, I, I think it’s Zoom. I think it’s o- it’s video calls.

Patrick van der Burght: Video call. Absolutely. That’s the second one. What comes after that?

Tim Melanson: Uh, probably like a phone call

Patrick van der Burght: Phone call, exactly. So with video call and phone call, we still have tonality, right? Which we know is so important. What is that old thing? Was it [00:32:00] 86% of a message is the tonality, right? So we still have tonality, but with the video call, we also get body language, right? So video call is, is richer, let’s say. All right, so video call, let’s say more persuasive. After that, phone call, and then we have left, let’s say, um, SMSes, WhatsApp, let’s put them in the same sort of basket, and we have email. Out of those two, which one, uh, do you think is the most persuasive?

Tim Melanson: Uh, the SMS, the, the text messages

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. People are still in a habit of dealing with their SMSs and WhatsApp messages as they come in. We’re still clearing those little red dots. But email,

Tim Melanson: Is the last for sure.

Patrick van der Burght: we’re over it, right? We get so many messages, um, it, it’s hard to get through. Now, what do we use in business all the time?

Tim Melanson: Email, yeah.

Patrick van der Burght: Email, right? We’re using the least persuasive channel of communication the most. Not saying it’s a bad channel, but when you’re trying to [00:33:00] get compliance from someone, it’s the worst thing you can do. Depending on which research you look at, if you compare email with video call, some research says that it is 200% more persuasive. Other research says it is 1400% more persuasive. Chances are that you’ll get a yes. So any tip for people driving their business from home, stop… Well, not stop emailing, but realize that it’s the least persuasive thing. If you are communicating or you want to communicate a proposal to someone Do that via video call. Run them through it during the video call, and afterwards you email it to them, or you email it to them at the same time so they can open it and you can guide them through it. But if you send the proposal via email, you’re using the least persuasive channel at the most important time. Um, so choose a channel that’s more persuasive and you’ll already get more yeses. And we, [00:34:00] we haven’t even gotten into the principles of persuasion yet. Other thing from home that I, uh… I always, always cringe when I see it, is that if we are doing video calls, we, we have a, a background behind us. And, um, a lot of people, they use a blurred background, and then our audience can’t help but think, "What are you hiding?"

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: Right? What’s so terrible that I shouldn’t be looking at for you want… to want to use a blurred background? Or they use a virtual background. I mean, um, I don’t know what that bridge is that Zoom puts in. I think that’s, uh, San Francisco or something, the sunset red bridge, right? You see that in so many meetings, right? Everybody’s using the same bridge. But again, what are you hiding? If you’re gonna have a meeting with someone and they don’t know you, when people are uncertain about you, they look for outward clues to make a split second… and it really is a split-second [00:35:00] decision about how much stock they can put into you, how much credibility you have, how professional you are. And when you turn up with a blurred background or even a virtual background, that’s not doing you any favor. So if you run a business from home and you’re gonna do video calls, pay some attention. Invest some money in what is behind you. Um, I mean, I, I do a lot of teaching online, so as you, you know, those who are viewing this, um, I’ve got a television behind me which has a special lens on it, and I’ve got, you know, video lights here, I’ve got a camera there inside a teleprompter. right? That lens in the TV doesn’t reflect the light. I can put different things on there. I can put a picture of me talking, you know, at a keynote or something, which highlights the principle of, uh, social proof and authority, which subtly helps people, you know, to get them persuaded to pay attention to me. Um, I can put that behind me. [00:36:00] But having, having a decent background, a real background, um, that says a lot more, or can say a lot more about your professionalism and credibility than a blurred background. So please pay attention to what’s behind you.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Well, so, uh, that’s awesome because the, the screen that you had behind you is one of the reasons why people will use virtual backgrounds, ’cause then they can prot- project anything that they want behind them, right? Uh, so that’s a really, really cool hack. Now, for, for me, I, I, like, I do use a virtual background. And the reason why I use the virtual background is because as a, a work-at-home person, I tend to move around sometimes, and I want consistency and branding behind me at all times. And this allows me to be anywhere in the house and still have the same background behind me. So what would you say about that?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, uh, you, you do what you can when you can. But I think if you have… I mean, you can have a professionally designed [00:37:00] virtual background that actually has some information on it that would be persuading people in an ethical yet effective way about, for example, your expertise. Um, but yeah, just, I mean, yeah, again, it’s if people don’t notice, they don’t notice. But, you know, when you raise your hand and we see that little webbing between the fingers, right, then we know, oh my goodness, what’s really behind you? Are you sitting in a kitchen? Are you sitting in a shed? Um, it, it’s about that split second decision, and if you had something behind it. If you’re doing an important business call, if you’re trying to land a deal, um, I think you should probably do that from your primary location and, and have the best chance of portraying a good, um, subconscious message from what’s behind you. You know, if, if you’re, if you’re out and about and you can’t do it, you can’t do it. But, you know, in, in most cases I think we should try.

Tim Melanson: Jeez. Uh, you know what? Maybe what I’ll do is I’ll, I’ll work on my [00:38:00] background behind me, and then take a picture of that, and if I’m not there then I can just put d- the virtual background of what my actual background is in normal days.

Patrick van der Burght: Maybe, maybe that’s a nice in between

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Cool. So now let’s get to your guest solo. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, what’s exciting, I do w- a fair bit of networking, um, which, uh, which is also a great way for people working from home to, uh, you know, to have a, a team of people, as in the people in your networking organization who are looking for business opportunities, uh, with you. Um, what’s exciting with me in terms of, uh, of offerings, um, we have, um, an eight-week course that we teach people, which I’m most excited to, uh, to teach. Um, we have, you know, online workshops people can join, but there’s a, a problem with, with learning in a, in a short time. Research shows that we lose about 90% of new information within a week

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: follow-up. And so [00:39:00] attending a keynote or attending a workshop, whilst it’s, it can excite us, it can introduce us to a new topic, if nothing comes after it, we lose about 90% of it. So it’s a very ineffec- inefficient way of actually learning something that we’ll end up using. There’s… Knowledge is not power. Application skills, that’s power. And so when it comes to learning, we, we have to take, um, steps to what we call break the forgetting curve. We, we want to increase retention, and so a, a training program that lasts a bit longer than a day or two or three days, um, we s- spread that over a number of weeks, then it gets really exciting with people’s retention rates, building application skills, and building up their confidence, and that’s where I get most excited because I want my students to, of course, use this stuff, not just get excited about it and not use it. Um, yeah, so that’s, that’s exciting. Um,

Tim Melanson: Now this, [00:40:00] this training’s been around for a long time, hasn’t it?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, it’s sort of shape. I mean, Dr. Cialdini, uh, you know, he’s, um, past 80 now. Uh, he published that book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion back in 1984. And, um, I know we had a little chat, uh, before we started. Um, you could ask the question, is this still relevant? You know, as in this is, this is stuff from 1984. Um, and yeah, it has been republished in, in 2015, and we got a, a seventh principle, which was unity. Um, but it’s actually more topical now than it’s ever been. Um, we live, and I’ll quote Dr. Cialdini, "We live in the most information-overloaded, stimulus-saturated environment that has ever existed in the planet." And people are getting more information thrown at them than ever before. We are asked to make more decisions on a daily basi- ba- basis than ever before. [00:41:00] And so how our brain works in terms of decision-making has not changed, but our environment has, making it so that we lean even more so on the intuitive part of our brain, which relies a lot on shortcuts, and the seven principles of persuasion are shortcuts for the brain to an easier decision. And so we rely more heavily on that. Uh, Professor Daniel Kahneman pointed out in 19- I’m sorry, 2002 that 90% of our decisions are made by the intuitive part of the brain, not the logical, rational part of the brain. Um, and that percentage is now said to be at 95% and, and increasing still, and it all has to do with our atten- or not all, but a lot of that has to do with our attention span. We used to have an attention span of 20 minutes in the ’80s. Do you remember what the attention span of the famous goldfish is supposed to be, Tim?

Tim Melanson: Wasn’t it like seven seconds or something?

Patrick van der Burght: Very close. [00:42:00] Nine seconds for the

Tim Melanson: seconds, yeah

Patrick van der Burght: Our attention span is seven seconds.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Patrick van der Burght: We’ve been beaten by the goldfish, and because of that, we rely more on sh- on shortcut information, which is what the principles of persuasion are

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, that’s a…

Patrick van der Burght: through those quickly?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s do it

Patrick van der Burght: Okay. So there, there’s seven principles of persuasion, and they’re universal. What we mean by that is that they work in all languages, all cultures, and all countries, which is exceedingly powerful because, well, our cultures are intermixed in our own country, but it’s also very easy to now do business with people in other countries. So this is something that works everywhere. Um, so the seven principles, let me run through them. And for those, uh, watching this, they’re also, uh, behind me. So we’ve got the principle of reciprocity. We have a tendency to want to give back to people the same type of behavior that’s first given to us.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.[00:43:00]

Patrick van der Burght: And in the context of compliance, we tend to agree with more or comply more with people who we feel we owe something to. And, um, in business, we’ve taken that as in, okay, we’re gonna give people stuff, right? And if we look at, for example, sales figures from companies like Costco, it’s, it’s very clear the more you give away, the more comes back. People buy more. And it doesn’t matter if you give cheese away, lipstick, or pizza, right? It, it, it, it works. It comes back. And I always find it fascinating when you go in the supermarket and you get presented with a tray of cheese to try. Most people who take that cheese think that that does not change their behavior, and the research is very clear. You give things away, people buy more. And what I think is fascinating beyond end is that even if you hate the cheese, it doesn’t matter. You buy more of something else because it’s not about the cheese, it’s about the behavior. You were [00:44:00] kind to me, now I need to be kind to you, right? So in reciprocity, basically we wanna genuinely ask ourselves the question, how can I help this person genuinely, right? And that activ- There’s a lot more to this than I can cover in half an hour or 20, 40 minutes. Uh, but in essence, a good thing to keep in our mind is, how can we help this person genuinely? Not because I’m trying to set it up so you will reciprocate to me later. How can I help you? Uh, that’s a good tactic to start using some of reciprocity. Then there’s the principle of liking. We like people that are like us- We like people that like us,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: and we like people that like us and say so, right? So that’s three, three elements there. We like people that are like us, means similarities, right? Research has shown, [00:45:00] um, this was a study, um, Northwestern versus Stanford, where they had email negotiations they were doing. We just covered how difficult email negotiations or email communication is, but they found in this setting 30% of negotiations ended up in deadlock, which represented an enormous cost. By asking the negotiators to initiate the meeting first by sharing some personal information about themselves, as in, "Oh, this is what I like to do on the weekend. I like having a Korean barbecue, and, um, I like scuba diving, snorkeling, walking on the beach. I’ve got a motorcycle," and blah, blah, blah, right? Share something about themselves. Reciprocity kicks in, right? So the other person gives back the same type of behavior we first gave to them, so they start sharing their personal insights and what they like. Deadlock negotiations dropped to 6%.

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: By just figuring out, by sharing some personal [00:46:00] information, and it wasn’t about how much was shared, it was about how many similarities were uncovered,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: right? So we’ve gotta find out, be genuinely interested in someone, right? Have a conversation, personal first, and then go into business. Um, much more to liking, but let me move on. So unity was the last principle that was introduced by Dr. Cialdini. Unity is often confused with liking, but liking is more about similarities, where unity is about a feeling of what we call we-ness. When I can describe the, a group of people that I’m part of, as in you and I are part of, as we, then there’s a shared community that g- that, that’s happening, a feeling of community. So let’s say you’re in an airport and, uh, you’re talking to a complete stranger, and they’re from the same town as you, or they grew up or they went to the same university as you. All of a sudden, y- [00:47:00] it’s like you know each other, have known each other for so long, right? And there’s all this familiarity that’s going on. That same energy you can have the next business meeting you have, but not if you don’t do any homework to see if there’s any communities that you both feel part of. Um, again, much more to unity, but it’s one element of it. Social proof. Uh, I’d like to think we’re most, uh, most of us are familiar with that. We can identify social proof as follows: People tend to follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, and when the others are similar to us, when we are uncertain, right? This is why testimonials and reviews are so powerful 98% of online shoppers say that detailed, detailed online reviews are an important factor when deciding what and where to buy. So we need to collect [00:48:00] testimonials. And what I do always … I mean, it’s lovely that business owners are collecting testimonials already, which is great, but social proof has so many other strategies to offer which are equally, if not more, powerful than testimonials, and most business power- most business owners have no idea about these other strategies. Yet they know that, that they wouldn’t wanna take away the testimonials that they’ve got on their websites or on their brochures or what they mention to people. Um, but the, the thing with testimonials is we want details. So I don’t think it’s unethical if you ask somebody, "Would you mind…" And the best time to ask is when they thank you, right, for a service well done, for a product they’ve enjoyed. "Oh, this was lovely. Thank you so much." "Oh, so glad to hear it. Could I ask you a favor? Would you mind, you know, leaving a little testimonial on our, on our re- re- review page, right? So that other people who are considering using our service can sort of learn from your experience. And if you’re willing to do so, would you please provide some detail [00:49:00] about your experience?" You know, when you see a restaurant review and it’s, "Food was great, loved it," it, there’s no detail, right? It f- it feels ingenuine, where if there’s more details it feels more genuine and it’s more believed

Tim Melanson: Agree

Patrick van der Burght: Um, all right, social proof. I’ll move on. So principle of authority. People have a tendency to follow the advice of other people who have genuinely more expertise or wisdom on a particular topic. This makes sense, right? We can’t know everything, and we’re generally better off if we take the advice of people that know a lot more about it. That’s why if you have a proposal going out, you can support your proposal with the opinions of experts, right? Maybe a doctor or a professor has said something, or a study has revealed something. That gives your argument more weight. But then on the other hand, you are also an [00:50:00] expert in your field, right? You have a certain amount of expertise. Now, you said something earlier that I picked up on. Um, you know, y- you were saying, like, it’s so much easier to have your manager sort of sell your services or, or s- tell people how good you are as an artist, and that’s exactly right. It feels a little awkward singing your own praises, right? If you’re going, "Wow," you know,

Tim Melanson: I’m so good.

Patrick van der Burght: are…

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Patrick van der Burght: That’s right. My name is Patrick, and here are the 34 reasons why you should listen to me today," right? This is what I’m basically saying. And whilst when we’re, when we’re talking about it like this, we know how it is uncomfortable, but you hear people in business do this all the time. They’re all singing their own praises, and they do that because they want their audience to recognize that they have expertise and that they should listen to what you’re saying with the gravity that it deserves. But what they don’t know, it’s socially unacceptable to sing your own praises. And so in the subconscious of your audience, they’re gonna go, [00:51:00] "You’re full of yourself," right? Y- you’re gonna lose authority, and you lose liking. It’s lose-lose, right? But you can organize for someone else to introduce you. Or what you could do, and goodness, I’m giving a lot away to your, uh, to your listeners today. You could, before you have a meeting with someone, let’s say you have a meeting at 11:00 and you’re gonna do a video call or something. You could send half an hour before, you could send an email or even two hours before saying, "Hey, really looking forward to our meeting at, uh, 11:00. And, um, I’ve attached a PDF explaining something about my background so you know where this information that I’ll be sharing with you, where that’s coming from. I hope you’ll take a couple of minutes to peruse the information, and I’ll see you at 11:00." People are typically curious. They’ll go and have a look, and in that PDF you can say you have a master’s degree in this and you went to that and that university and, and do all. There it’s socially acceptable, and it is not taken as [00:52:00] boastful. And you can bring your authority up and have people process what it is you’re gonna say from the very first word with the gravity that it deserves Is that a good one?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a great one.

Patrick van der Burght: Cool. All right, two, two principles left. So we have the principle of consistency Um, consistency works because we feel an internal pressure to stay true to past actions and statements that we’ve made,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Patrick van der Burght: right? We have nasty names for people who say they’ll do one thing and then do something totally different, right? Uh, uh, on a good note, we call them unreliable, but other than that, we have a lot more nasty names for people like that. And because we are quick to judge people like that, we don’t wanna be judged like that. And so when we’ve said something in the past that’s important to us, something we’d want to do, when then later a [00:53:00] decision needs to be made which is logically consistent with what we pointed out earlier, we wanna stay true to that past behavior. Um, in my podcast, I do an interview, uh, I think it’s episode eight, where I do, uh, an interview with one of my colleagues, and he also runs dental practices. And in- on his patient intake form, right, what people fill out before they fir- do the first appointment with the dentist, they’ve added a single question. A single question. And that single question has increased case acceptance, which is what a dentist call, calls it when the client says, "Yes, dentist, I’ll do what you’re recommending." Uh, that increased by 33.5% across four dental clinics. A single question, which had to do with that principle of consistency. If people are interested, they can go and listen to episode number eight of Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. So but this is how powerful this can be, [00:54:00] right? 33.5%. Wow. Um, so yeah, consistency. So we want to either figure out what is important to people and link what we’re offering to what’s important to them, or we create opportunities for someone to reveal what is important to them, as the case of this question on the intake form, and then link that to our proposals later on. Lastly, um, the principle of scarcity. We value things more that are s- that are scarce, that are rare, that are about to run out, their time is limited, or they’re, you know, dwindling in availability. Um, and this is very automatic. It’s, it’s sort of hardwired in us. It’s survi- survival, um, strategy really. If we have a certain amount of resources, getting more resources is nice, but if we lose resources, that could be detrimental, right? So we pay attention to potential loss. Yet in [00:55:00] business, we have a nasty habit of always telling people what they stand to benefit, what they stand to gain from working with us. Oh, you get there faster, you’ll save money, it’s good for the environment. That’s all things we get more of. Extra. Where if we phrase the exact same thing from a perspective of what losses are we avoiding by buying this product or using our service, we are far more persuasive. Uh, I can give you a quick example. There’s a company that did home assessments for insulation value of a home, so that at the end of the assessment, they could tell people if they were to insulate their house fully, how much money, how much difference that would make in their wallet, right? Half of the people were told, uh, of course, per house the value would be different, but let’s take a dollar example. So half of the people were told, "If you insulate your house fully, you’ll be [00:56:00] able to save a dollar a day." The other half of the people were told, "If you fail to insulate your house fully, you’ll lose a dollar a day."

Tim Melanson: Wow

Patrick van der Burght: 150% more people decided to insulate their house fully under the loss instruction instead of the gain instruction

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow, that’s fascinating

Patrick van der Burght: I know, right? That’s why I love this so much

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, people,

Patrick van der Burght: So those are the, the

Tim Melanson: how people think, eh?

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, exactly. Um, and that’s why this, this, this is interesting and fun to learn. It works in business, but it also works privately. When you’re trying to convince your teenager to clean up their room, you’re also gonna have to be persuasive. When you want the… When you’ve got that holiday destination that you really like to go on, you’re gonna have to persuade the rest of the team to agree with [00:57:00] that, right? You’re gonna have to be persuasive. So this is a… I mean, the World Economic Forum does a report called The Future of Jobs, and they do it every two years, I believe. In 2023, they ranked leadership and social influence, social influence is another word for ethical persuasion, as the fourth most urgent skill that businesses need to develop. In 2025, the last report came out, and they upped it to position number three, in a world of AI making things more uncertain, it is our interpersonal skills that are becoming more and more valuable. Um, so yeah, it’s an important soft skill that we need, and yet it’s not taught in schools, which is one of my community projects, by the way. If anybody here has kids, uh, I’m happy to donate my time to a limited extent to go to schools, even over video calls, to introduce this concept in a lot more detail than we’ve done today, um, to help introduce this to new, you know, to [00:58:00] people who are yet to go into the workforce. Because how silly is it that you’re gonna write a job application without knowing how to be persuasive? If you’re gonna get even in- invited to an interview, if you’re that lucky, you’re gonna go to that interview without knowing how to be persuasive, and goodness, you might get hired. Now you’re gonna have wage negotiations without knowing how to be persuasive? It… This is not… This is a skill that’s valuable everywhere, and it’s wonderful if halfway in your life you figure out that this exists, but you, you really should have this before you enter the workforce

Tim Melanson: Agree. Wow. All right, so remind us how we can find out more about this.

Patrick van der Burght: Thanks a lot. Um, so of course I’ve got a website. Uh, it’s ethicalpersuasion.com.au. I’m sure Tim will put links in the show notes. Uh, of course, I’m on social media as well. On the website, there’s also some freebies that people can get access to. Um, just go look in the menu for g- the complimentary and free, uh, uh, options. Uh, one thing is a downloadable e-book. You don’t even have to put your [00:59:00] name or your email address in, just right click and download. It’s yours to have, so that’ll be helpful. Um, there’s also a seven-day email challenge. Um, th- for that, of course, we do need your email address a- and, uh, a newsletter. And of course, I’ve got my podcast, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked, that you can find in all the usual places. Uh, with most podcasts I get… You often get told by the host, "Don’t listen to my first episodes. They weren’t so great. They’re better later on." Uh, my first 20 episodes are probably the most valuable ones, so I’d urge you to start at episode number one. And, uh, I, I don’t think I’m overselling it. You’ll, you’ll probably, um, be cruising through the rest of the series, uh, with, uh, eager ears

Tim Melanson: I love that so much. All right, before we go, one more question. This might be the hardest one. Let’s get into some music. So who is your favorite rock star or band?

Patrick van der Burght: Um, I, I like, uh, I, I, I like, I don’t know if that necessarily needs to be associated, but I’m a motorcycle rider. I’ve got [01:00:00] a, a big-ass Harley that me and my wife like to, uh, to, uh, spend our spare time on. So I like, you know, sort of Bon Jovi sort of, uh, music. Uh, also sort of, uh, you know, the 1945, uh, you know, sort of war music, uh, you know, The Andrews Sisters, that sort of stuff. Yeah, I like that

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. A motorcycle rider. That’s awesome. My drummer’s a motorcycle rider.

Patrick van der Burght: Well then you and my, me and, uh, your motorcyc- your, your, your drummer have already got unity between us. You ask him, right? If he says, "I just interviewed a motorcycle rider," well, we’re already halfway to being good friends

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Patrick, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun and very informa- inform- informative

Patrick van der Burght: I’m, uh, I’m glad, uh, it’s been of interest and, um, yeah, I hope we’ve empowered people to do a few things better and, uh, to dig more to find out more about the subject ’cause it has a big impact on what they’re doing

Tim Melanson: Yes, [01:01:00] absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, and thank you so much to the listeners for listening in, and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. As always, you can always go to workathomerockstar.com for more information

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today, I am talking to the owner of Matt O’Neill Real Estate. He’s also, uh, Tide Property Management, and also he’s a happiness coach. Super excited to hear more about that. But what he does is he helps people get out of the nine to five.

So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Matt O’Neill. Hey, Matt, are you ready to rock?

Matt O’Neill: What’s up, Tim? Ready to rock

Tim Melanson: Ready to rock. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, man. I, uh, I thought I was gonna be an engineer my whole life because my dad was an engineer, my older brother was an engineer, my little brother became an engineer, and I was going to school for engineering. And, uh, I went actually on an internship to General Motors as an engineer, and I hated it. It was the w- it was like, it was like a slow death in a cubicle.

And I thought, "Man, I can’t do this." Like, I can’t, I can’t do this for the rest of my life, [00:01:00] this like stuck in a cubicle, pushing spreadsheets, trying to work up this corporate ladder And, uh, I w- I went back to s- to college that fall, and I walked into what I thought was, like, a, a fun department, the marketing department.

I’m like, "Man, this might be more fun than engineering." And this guy grabbed me at the front desk as I’m trying to talk to the girl about becoming a marketing major, and he’s like, "You know what? You should take my sales course." And I’m like, "Dude, I’m way above sales. Like, I’m an engineer, you know? This is… I, I’m not gonna be some salesperson."

And he said, "Well, you can say that, but you do need to sell your marketing ideas to the CEO, so my sales course will help you with that." He was a great salesman, by the way. His name’s Jim Eckert. He runs the sales department at Western Michigan University. I signed up for his course, and then I fricking loved it.

Like, I, I… It was just like, it was so fun because I like talking with people, and I enjoyed the psychology behind it. So bec- I switched my [00:02:00] major to sales. And then getting out of college, I took a 9:00 to 5:00 sales job because, you know, it’s kind of like the path. You, you get out of college, you take a job.

And then it was soul-crushing as well. I was selling the toner cartridges that go inside of copy machines,

Tim Melanson: Wow,

Matt O’Neill: and nobody cares, man. And it… And they weren’t even new toner cartridges. I was selling ones that were recycled. So we took old garbage out of the garbage in these recycled toner cartridges and filled them back in with toner, and then that’s what I sold through the streets of Denver, Colorado.

And the bosses were really, like, on, on us. Like, super oppressive. It was a Christmas Eve afternoon, like 4 o’clock or 3 o’clock, and we’re goofing around and laughing in the office because it’s Christmas Eve. And the boss comes out of his office and yells at us to get back to work. Like, it was total Scrooge scenario.

And I thought, "Okay, I can’t keep doing this, man." [00:03:00] So, um, I did love sales, but I just didn’t like that type of environment. So I thought, "How could I work for myself and use this skill that I enjoy?" And I decided I would get into real estate because no boss, right? And I can sell, and there’s nobody to r- you know, basically you are your own business owner.

So I got into real estate. But then what I didn’t know was that I would have 40 bosses, because every client that hired me was now my boss. And so I worked into this situation where I was really successful and learned a bunch about how to sell real estate, but my weekends weren’t actually free. It wasn’t the freedom I thought it was gonna be.

Um, people were upset, or, like, somebody was supposed to show their house and didn’t show up, and they’re calling me on a Saturday night, like, drunk and, and so upset about this thing that happened. Or somebody let the cat out. And I’m like, "Wow, how did I go from one [00:04:00] boss to 40 bosses?" And, um, then I thought, "Okay, so there’s gotta be a better way than this."

And I thought, "I will, I will teach other people how to sell the real estate, and so they can have all the bosses." And I did that, and started to just hire a bunch of people, and then let them work with the clients and train them. And that’s, that’s one of the things I do now. Um, it’s just, uh, there is a, there’s a book called The Cashflow Quadrants that was written by Robert Kiyosaki,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Matt O’Neill: and he, he talked about the first quadrant is you work for somebody, and the next quadrant is you work for yourself, and that’s what I was when I was that real estate agent.

The next quadrant is you own a business. And I really didn’t own a business because all the people that worked for me selling real estate, they, they count on me, so I have a job. Even though I can… I’m in, I’m in my home right now, and they’re out there doing their thing, I still, I still need, um, you know, [00:05:00] I still need to, to coach them and help them and train them and all that stuff.

So I thought, "What is a business that has recurring cashflow that I could, that I could own and not work in?" So three years ago, we started a property management company, and that is a true B quadrant asset where I hired somebody to, to run it. I hired people to, to sell in it. I hired people to do all of it.

And I just sit back as an owner, not a CEO, and let those people run this particular company, and it’s, and it’s becoming really successful. I’ve got a lot of experience in sales and marketing and all these things that I learned over the years running a real estate company. So I’ll guide them and give them some advice, like I’m, I’m like on their board.

But, um, that is a true work from home style business asset

Tim Melanson: Wow. Matt, that was such a great story. [00:06:00] And you know what? I, I have a similar story, too, and I hope people listening can get that. It’s like every time you get to one point, you’re like, "Okay, that’s what I thought I wanted, but now I need to refine that." You keep on refining and refining and refining until you get to the point where you’re actually free, because I think a lot of people will get there.

And w- what I want to take out of that story specifically is that y- instead of quitting, right, and going like, "Wow, obviously this is not what I thought it was gonna be," and going back to the job, you just keep on refining a little bit more and getting a little bit closer to what it is that you wanted, right?

And that, I think that’s the key, is that it’s not a matter of, like, you- you’ll never get there. It’s just a matter of, like, it takes, uh, it’s one step at a time, right? That you learn something from what you just did, and you go, "Okay, well, now I have 40 bosses. What’s the next step," right? And I love that about the story.

It was so good for that, right?

Matt O’Neill: Well, I wanna, I wanna say something to the person listening to this that is thinking about [00:07:00] this but is really scared.

Tim Melanson: 嗯。

Matt O’Neill: Every step I was terrified. So when I had the 9:00 to 5:00 job selling the toner cartridges, I was making good money. To quit that and become a real estate agent, which I knew nothing about, and there was no paycheck coming in, was a terrifying step.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Matt O’Neill: And then once I had all those clients, and though, though I didn’t like it, that paid my bills, and I’ve got four kids and a wife and a mortgage and all the other things. And I’m like, "If I stop serving these clients, that income goes away, and yeah, I’m taking a bet that I could hire people to do it, but I don’t know if that’s gonna work."

So there’s risk behind every one of th- these decisions. You know, just deciding to start a property management company, there was huge risk with that. I was paying somebody’s salary with no clients and no income. So there was, there was an, it was an investment into an idea that I thought could work but might not.

So the person that’s [00:08:00] listening to this that has this idea in their heart, my opinion is God wouldn’t give you a vision that you couldn’t accomplish. So the idea is there, but what’s standing in the way is massive fear that you could lose what you have and it might not work

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yep, uh, yeah, that. And I, I mean, ’cause when I was… I, I think my experience was that I got into the tech industry, actually I was a programmer, and it was right when the bubble was bursting. And so that safe job was not there ever, ever. I, I mean, I started working, and within a few months they started laying people off.

So I think for me, I was in that… I, I, I never felt like, oh… It was always like, "Oh, okay, I got a paycheck for another two weeks. I’m, I’m okay for now," right? So there was some fear where I currently was, right? So the fear of the next step of, like, breaking out on my own wasn’t that much different. I- it was just [00:09:00] now instead of me sitting there and going like, "I can’t do anything about it."

Like, I mean, if that, if I get laid off, I, I, I can’t… There’s nothing I can do. I can’t work harder and try to keep that job, right? So when I started my own business though, I could work harder. I could, you know, sort of like pivot and like, "Okay, well maybe I can do this. May-" Like, there was lots of other ideas that I could have that could change my outcome over the next two weeks versus sitting in that cubicle and going like, "Hope they don’t lay me off," right?

Matt O’Neill: You, you bring up a point that most people in a nine-to-five never consider. They think… Because I, I’ve, I, I hire people who have nine-to- fives all the time to become real estate agents and, and be independent business owners as a real estate agent, which you are. You, you basically are running your own business when you’re an agent.

And they’re always like, "Yeah, but I got a paycheck every two weeks." And I, and, and I say the same thing that you just brought up. It doesn’t matter how safe you think it is, someone else could [00:10:00] fire you at any moment. And if they do, yes, you can go get a new job, but that safety that you think you have is this illusion.

Once you create your own thing, no one can take it from you. It’s completely up to you, and if you bet on yourself and you know that you’re willing to put in the work, then, then you have more freedom than the person that thinks they have this security with this nine-to-five. Like, I think there’s more security being a business owner than there is working for somebody

Tim Melanson: I, I agree with that for sure. Although it’s probably harder to see until you’re there, right?

Matt O’Neill: Or until you get fired, it, you know, or whatever. Your business implodes and you didn’t see it coming, or your boss decides that he’s got an issue with you and you didn’t know that that was happening, and

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Matt O’Neill: taken from you, and you’re like, "Oh, that, this was a false sense of s- of security."

I was just on a podcast last week with somebody that was a C-level member of some international [00:11:00] corporation. The corporation merged with another corporation, and then they downsized the C-suite. And he’s like, "Man, I, I put in 20 years." And, you know, you would think you work your way up that corporate ladder and you’re at this big level, and the corporation’s doing great under your leadership, that you’re safe.

Uh, but it, you know, cor- corporations can merge, and then they can downsize people. Like, it’s, it’s just out of… It was out of his control

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, now also with taking those risks, sometimes things don’t go as planned, and I do like to talk about the bad notes because that is another fear. People are like, "Well, what if I make a mistake," right? Uh, and, and those mistakes will happen, and I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered from that?

Matt O’Neill: Absolutely. Yeah, so I s- uh, I started a, a home flipping business three years ago and I thought, "Oh, this’ll [00:12:00] be, this’ll be fun. This’ll be something new. Uh, I’ll have the agents that are out there f- looking at properties, and if they see one that they think would be a good property that, that we could purchase and then put some, you know, some, uh, money into and then turn around and sell it, that I’d split the profits with them."

And so we ended up with 26 in the first year, and it was, it was going what we thought really well, and I… But to get the loans for all these properties, I used hard money, and we had 4 million in, in loans out. And something that I couldn’t see coming, the government decided to double interest rates in 30 days, and we’re sitting on 13 mid-construction properties, and all of a sudden they’re worth way less than we purchased them for after we’re putting 50, 60, 100K into each of them.

And my wife is sitting there [00:13:00] with me as we’re looking at this impossible situation. We’re like, "Man, we don’t have $4 million to pay these loans off, and all these properties, I can’t just put on the market and sell. They’re all, like, studs and construction sites." And, and even when we’re finishing them, we’re, we’re having to bring 60,000 in cash or 100,000 in cash to the table just to get out of it.

And she’s like, "Man, they might take our house." And I said… I’m like, "That, this was a, this was a riskier situation than I expected." the, the, and this was, uh… It was a really tough situation for us to be in. Um, at that moment, I thought, "Man, I didn’t, I didn’t think I was betting it all." It just seemed like a good business venture, that I know real estate, I know these, I know what houses are worth.

What I couldn’t see was what I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see that the government would double interest rates and then values would plummet in 30 days. Like, I… That was, that [00:14:00] was what would seem like a black swan event that you couldn’t see coming. Um, ultimately, we ended up taking our lumps, and one at a time I sold each of the properties for losses, and we got out.

And it was July, I think. It took me, like, eight months to finish them and then just, and, and just get out of it. And then, and then that was great. We got the $4 million paid off. We lost a bunch of money. Um, but I didn’t lose it all. The 4 million in, in hard money would’ve, would’ve taken us out, but there was enough as we sold them that we got it back that we could pay the, the, the loans off and get out of that tough situation.

What I learned from that was, um, don’t risk your house.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s a good lesson.

Matt O’Neill: It was a great lesson, and I, and I promised my wife I’d never do that to us again. I just read this awesome book on finances by Morgan Housel, um, called The [00:15:00] Psychology of Money, and he had a line in there that I circled and circled and then wrote down and then thought about a whole lot because of the experience I had.

And he said, "Don’t risk money you do need chasing after returns you don’t need."

Tim Melanson: Wow

Matt O’Neill: And he said, and it was exactly what I did. I, I needed money to keep my house and have a place for my kids to live, but I didn’t need the extra returns from this home flipping company. So could we have flipped maybe two or three homes at a time instead of 13 at a time?

Absolutely. I just didn’t… And this is what he said. He, um, he said, "During the course of the United States’ GDP, it’s always up and to the right," and he had, like, 200 years of up and to the right. And then he said, "During this 200 years of up and to the right, we’ve had five major world wars, four presidents have been assassinated, the market has dropped by 10% or more 100 times.

The market has dropped by 33% or [00:16:00] more, like, 30 times." He said, "So whatever bet you’re about to make with leverage and debt, can you, can you hold this thing if everything drops by 30% in value?" And he said, "If you can’t, then you shouldn’t make that bet." And that’s exactly what happened to us, is I’m holding a bag of $4 million and everything I thought w- had value had dropped by 30%.

It was just one of those black swan moments for real estate that you can’t… And this is, it’s his whole point. You can’t see coming the next president assassination or major war that, that’s gonna happen, that’s gonna disrupt everything, or COVID, the pandemic that can come and change the world. So, um, that would be the lesson there, is that if you’re gonna make a bet, make sure you can withstand a 30% drop.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s… I can’t even add to that. That’s incredibly good, good sense, right? And, uh, and I think that that ends up being something that does happen to people who are, well, I mean, [00:17:00] a lot of us entrepreneurs are, I, I don’t know, wanna say overconfident, but maybe overconfident is the right word, right? We, we, we have this very, very positive outlook of what could happen, which is why we’re in business in the first place, right?

We, we, we didn’t let the fear stop us. And so oftentimes we can be presented with these opportunities that we’re seeing and we’re going like, "Wow, I can’t lose," right? But the thing is is that, like you just said, there are circumstances around us that do happen. Like, okay, fine, we do have the control to pivot and to move and all that stuff, but, but also there are some things that are gonna happen throughout the term of your business that you can’t see happening, and there has to be some sort of- Mitigation of that, right?

And I, I think that’s really, really good sense. If it’s 30%, that’s a really good number. It’s clear, right? If we can just sort of keep that in mind, can I lose 30% and still be okay? I don’t want [00:18:00] to, but that, that is a good place to start, and I like that. Thanks for that. That’s a really good one

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, in 2008 and 2009 I was in real estate, and, um, I- a lot of people took their life during that time because they… I mean, this is just, they weren’t able to… They were over-leveraged.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Matt O’Neill: And, um, and I saw people just filing for bankruptcy. I saw people losing their house. I saw people doing short sales. It was a very…

It was just really common. And people that were well over-leveraged were, were in big trouble. And then, and if you tie your worth to your net worth, it’s gonna be a bad situation. But we do need this money to survive, and sometimes we think, "Oh, I’m not gonna make it." Um, but I, I thought at that time, I’m like, "Okay, I’m not gonna over-leverage," and then I still did it.

And it’s exactly what you said, man. We… To be, to start your own business, you have to have a level of boldness to get u- through the [00:19:00] fear, and you have to have a level of confidence and optimism it’s gonna work. So, and this is what Sean Housel, or, I’m sorry, Morgan Housel talks about in his book too. He says, "The thing that will get you in trouble is always over-leveraging and over-optimism."

Tim Melanson: Um, yeah

Matt O’Neill: you have to have a le- he said getting rich requires boldness and optimism. He said staying wealthy requires some cynicism and skepticism

Tim Melanson: Oh, man. So good. So good. And I can, I can map all my mistakes to that, all of them, every single one of them. The big ones can all be mapped to me just being overconfident and going, "Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine."

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, so, so I, I wanna, I wanna finish this whole thought and put a bow on it. Um, the… So he’s like, "All right, you still have to take risk. You have to, because that’s what got you here." But he, he said, he said, "I want you to think of your money as a barbell, and one part of the barbell is the money [00:20:00] you need to survive.

So this is the money for your home, the money for your groceries, the money that takes care of your family. That you can never touch." And so whatever that amount is, maybe it’s six months worth of savings, or, um, maybe it’s paying off the house, which is what s- when we got, when we got out of the big mess and we paid all the loans off, the next thing we did is we said, "We’ll pay this house off."

And that was, like, our intense focus so that if the house is paid off, they could never take the place that we live, and that… And, and we were able to do that in a couple of years and, um… But then what’s crazy, man, it came, it crept back in again. Uh, a huge deal showed up. I’m like, "Oh, this is a winner." And I’m like, "We’ll just mortgage the house and get…"

And my wife is like, "No. You said, you said it’s a barbell. This is the money that makes us safe. The house we’ve paid off, so you can’t touch that." And so once you have your one piece that keeps you safe, whatever that amount is, you don’t touch it, [00:21:00] and then you risk the stuff that’s above that. Um, so that’s, so as long as I can remember that, I’m saying it out loud here on this podcast so that I stick with it.

Tim Melanson: And having a sane spouse is a good thing too, right?

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, she, and she, she is overly cautious, which totally balances out my boldness

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, my spouse is the same thing. She’s very, very cautious, and exactly what you just said, "You said that we needed this part about…" And I, I’m, I’m like, "Oh, you’re right, I did say that. Okay, fine."

Matt O’Neill: And, and you respect her, and I respect my wife. And I’m like, "Man," I’m like, "We are a really good team." I’m like, "I…" So the reason I was five minutes late jumping on is that I was looking at a triplex that hit the market this morning, and the l- the fourth quadrant of the cashflow quadrants is I, which is investor, where I don’t own a business, I own investments.

And I, I went and looked at this triplex. It just looked like a great deal, and my wife [00:22:00] is like, "Well, where is the cash from the triplex gonna come from?" And she’s all stressed about that. And I said, "Well, I own this other piece of real estate in cash, and it has a value of 400,000, so I’ll take a small note out on that, and that’ll be the down payment, and this property will cashflow."

And she’s like, "Man, I’m super… I don’t know." And I said, "Well, in some cases, your skepticism is gonna be something we shouldn’t do, and in this case, my boldness is, is telling us that this is something that’s gonna help our family in the long run." So, so both can balance each other out

Tim Melanson: Agreed. Yeah, that’s awesome. So l- let’s talk about, I mean, you mentioned earlier the sales, and I, hey, I agree. I think sales should be taught, like, at length in schools, uh, you know, as early as you can. Because really, even if you do decide to be an employee your whole life, you’re still gonna have to sell your ideas.

And, uh, but now, w- when people become self-employed or they start their own business, y- you, I, I mean, it’s even more important [00:23:00] now, and I don’t think that that’s something that people put enough emphasis on. I think that they think, oh, I’m a great whatever it is, web designer or hairdresser, whatever it happens to be.

I’ll be fine. But you learn real quick that no, no, you won’t be fine unless you get out there and do something about it. And so I’m wondering, how do you get the fans? How do you get people in the door to be, uh, you know, to like you, I, I guess and, and do business with you?

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, sales is the lifeblood of every business. And, uh, I’ve got, I’ve got friends who buy underperforming businesses and turn them around, and the biggest lever is sales and sales systems. Um, so it… And I’ve also heard the, uh, y- CEOs really only have a couple of roles, maybe three roles, and it’s building a team, and it’s being the chief sales officer, and the chief marketing mind.

Uh, and that doesn’t, you know, people are like, "Man, that doesn’t seem right. A CEO shouldn’t really [00:24:00] have to be involved in marketing and sales." Well, if you watch companies that were absolutely thriving, that then stopped thriving a- after a CEO successor takes over, a lot of times they hire the operational guy,

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah

Matt O’Neill: the COO, the one that, that understands how to make the widgets or make the system run right or, you know, do all the operating.

And then great, the operations are efficient, but they start losing customers and the company gets into trouble,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Matt O’Neill: and then they, they have to bring back in that creative sales forward-thinking person. So if you’re thinking about owning your own business, you have to be relentlessly focused on improving your ability in sales and marketing.

It is all about customer acquisition. You can’t be more efficient with customers that you don’t have. You can’t have better operations when there’s nothing to operate on because you didn’t make enough sales. So that’s my obsession, is how can we get [00:25:00] more clients? How can we get more ideal clients? Where do they live?

How can we find them, and how can we market to them in an effective way? If it’s an obsession, then you study everything you can study, you read every book that you can read, and then you’re thinking about it in the shower, and, like, new ideas come to you. I… Like, I’m always testing and trying. Um, I love talking with other people to see what they’re testing and trying.

Um, so I feel like you kinda have to have a test budget where you’re making small bets all the time. Like, um, I started a YouTube channel. It was a bet. You know, I didn’t know if, if, uh, having a YouTube channel was gonna be successful in real estate or not. There were some people who were doing it to a high level of success.

The cost was pretty high. It was like 50 grand for the year to do this. I, I took a risk on it, and then it paid off, and then all of a sudden we’re the number one YouTube channel, and people from all over the country are watching these videos for long periods of time, having [00:26:00] a lot of trust in me, and then, uh, coming to work with our team.

Other things I try out and I take a bet on, they don’t work, so then we cut them. I usually want to give something that we’re testing six months to 12 months. So, um, that’s the other piece of it. If you’re gonna try something out, you have to have enough patience to see it through.

Tim Melanson: I agree. Now, when we talk about, you know, m- building a band, right? I mean, finding people in your business to work for you, whether it be partners or whether it be subcontractors or employees, is there sort of a process that you go through to make sure you’re finding the right people?

Matt O’Neill: Yeah, man. It’s the most important thing. Uh, our real estate company was named the number one place to work out of 470,000 companies in the state of South Carolina.

Tim Melanson: Congratulations

Matt O’Neill: thank you, man. It’s like the one thing that I’m, like, the most excited about is that people like to work at the place that we’ve created.

But they like to work together. Like, uh, if you look at what do people [00:27:00] want in their workplace, the most important things are not compensation, but that’s one of them. So you have to, you have to pay… In my opinion, I wanna pay better than average. I don’t wanna say, "Okay, this is what, this is what everybody’s paying.

I wanna pay above that." I don’t wanna pay the most premium because then I won’t be able to afford other things. It’s like an NFL salary cap. You only have so much money. Um, but, but I’m gonna invest a little bit more in my people than some other areas, um, because the number one expense is also turnover.

But then you can’t have any turds. No turds can work for you. So just a-holes, not okay. Backstabbers, step on other people to get ahead type people, high performers with prima donna attitudes, it doesn’t go well no matter what the job is. Um, so I, I look for first when I’m hiring somebody, and this could be a partner.

I only have one partner. [00:28:00] Um, so a partnership is like a marriage. Like, you gotta be really sure because a divorce is super ugly and, and difficult. Um, but if… So if it’s a partner, man, you better know this person really well and say, "Man, can I spend my life with this person?"

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Matt O’Neill: Um, but if it’s a vendor even, they’re gonna, they’re…

The way that they behave is gonna be a reflection of you. And definitely if it’s somebody that’s gonna work for you, um, I start with core values. So in the book Good to Great, he talks about you should set five core values for your company and no more, and this is, these five words should mean exactly who you’re looking for.

You should hire people that match those, and you should fire them if they don’t match them. So I just took that to heart, and that’s what we do. Our, our first core value is that we work with integrity. That’s doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. That’s our, so that’s our one-liner definition about what that means.

So then people that we see doing the wrong thing, we’re like, [00:29:00] "Man, you’re not a fit here." like, "Hey, you s- you stole this client from somebody. That’s, that’s a, that’s a lack of integrity. It’s just not a fit with who we are." And because I take the people that do the wrong thing out, all the ones that do the right thing wanna stay because they’re like, "I don’t like working with people who do the wrong thing.

Like, I wanna be able to just trust who I work with." Our second core value is kindness, which is we’re kind to people even when they’re mad. And you work with kind people that do the right thing. Kind people that do the right thing wanna work there too. You attract who you, who… You know, like, so the whole company now has an energy field, and people that are like that are like, "Man, I’m looking for a place that’s like this."

And they come in, and now you have to protect it. As soon as someone’s unkind, and we’ve had a lot of them, um, man, they can’t stay. And e- sometimes they are super big producers, and they’re like, like we, we had a, we had a [00:30:00] girl that was running the entire operations system of, of the property management company.

She was like the go-to piece, and yet four people quit under her leadership in eight months. And I’m like, "This isn’t right." And she, she was putting on a front to us like she was doing everything right and it was always these people’s fault. But the evidence showed that it was the opposite. So we had to do the tough thing and let go of the leader, and then that means that leadership fell on me and my partner because we didn’t have a leader, and then we had to go hire and train and, like…

It, it can be difficult to make the right decision about a people problem. But ultimately, you’ll always be further ahead if you’re putting your culture before your own comfort

Tim Melanson: I agree 100%. And, uh, I mean, that’s something that’s very difficult, I imagine, for any business owner to look at somebody who’s producing extremely well. And I mean, that, that’s just, uh, you know, a lot of human nature is [00:31:00] just, uh, big head, right? You know, you’re, you’re doing really well. You’re performing really well.

You tend to, you know, some certain people will tend to start treating other people poorly because of that’s, that’s what’s going on. And from a business owner’s perspective, you’re looking at the numbers and going, "Wow, this is going really, really well." But what you’re not seeing, as you mentioned, is that everybody else, and it’s, it’s just a toxic person in that, in that group.

And unless you only need that one person, then everybody else is gonna, is gonna be tainted, and you’re, you’re better off to get rid of the person that is performing in those situations, and that could be a, a tough thing to do, right?

Matt O’Neill: It, it is. And toxic is a good word for it

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Matt O’Neill: It, and sometimes, sometimes people are driven to perform because of emotional things going on inside where they don’t, where they don’t like themselves a whole lot, and so they’re trying to perform at a high level to prove that they’re worthwhile. [00:32:00] Well, if they don’t like themselves, they will project that own self-hate onto other people, and it’ll show up as coldness and a toxic work environment.

And it, you know it, I, I’m a happiness coach. I help people with these, uh, emotions and, um, but man, they’ve gotta want to as well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Matt O’Neill: So I, I’ve tried… You know, my first step, because I, I also value kindness, is to, is to offer some coaching and some support. Um, but we can’t, we can’t offer coaching and support forever when it’s harming other people

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I mean, that kind of just goes to the next step, which is that person will never really look for help until there’s a problem. And if they keep on getting rewarded by, you know, we keep getting rid of the, the good people that are doing that are n- you know, underperforming, whatever it happens to be, and leaving that person in those positions, well, then they’re never gonna know that it’s a problem.

But if they keep on getting let go, [00:33:00] well, then eventually they’ll get to the point, "Well, maybe it’s me," and maybe they will go and seek that help. So in a way, you’re doing them a service by, by actually letting them go, you know, in a kind way so that they can recognize the problem and maybe go and figure out what’s driving them to act the way that they’re drive- that they’re acting, right?

Matt O’Neill: Uh, yeah. I, I agree, man. Sometimes, sometimes it is the wake-up call that they need. I can only hope that for the people that we’ve let go, that if, uh, that we’ve had those conversations with. Like, "Hey, we, we like you as a human being. Um, we think you can grow. Hopefully this is a, a opportunity for you to, to grow in these ways."

But I, y- you know, you don’t know if they will. It’s, it’s up to them

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So let’s move to your, to your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Matt O’Neill: Man, the most exciting thing in my business is working less

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Matt O’Neill: had a, I had a mantra last [00:34:00] year, which is, uh, which is do less. Because we’ve got four kids. My oldest is 12, and she’s already, like, so… She spends so much time in her cheerleading and with her friends. Uh, I’ve heard the statistic that you spend 80% of all the time you’ll ever spend with a child up until the age of 12, and that once they hit the age of 12, you only have 20% of the time you’ll ever spend with them for the rest of their life. And I’m like, man, that’s pretty, that’s pretty tough because I got one that’s 12. My 80% is already gone. And then I’ve got another that’s 10, so I’ve got two years left of that 80%, and, uh, another one that’s eight, and then another one that’s four. And I was on the board for Make-A-Wish South Carolina, and I’m very…

I’m a big fan of that charity. And it didn’t seem like a lot. It was, uh, you know, a meeting once a [00:35:00] quarter and fundraising and things like that. But there’s… E- even though I’m passionate about helping the kids and I’m passionate about the organization, and it didn’t seem like much time, it was psychic energy that was going into it.

And then I had this podcast, and my podcast was helping people be happier, and it had nothing to do with business and success. I just was… I’m just passionate about helping people with mental health. And that didn’t seem like much time. Just, you know, it’s just an hour episode every week, but y- you know, finding great guests and preparing great questions and recording the episode and then promoting the episode and all the things that go into it.

So these were two big things that I really enjoyed, that I was passionate about, and I shut both of them down last year. And then, um, and then I let go of my office at work, and now I’m working… And, and we built this hide-a-bed in our guest bedroom, you know, [00:36:00] that is… So now I, I get to work out here. And I did all of this intentionally so that when I get done with work, I’m just here with my kids.

And, um, and that when I’m done with work, there’s not these other little obligations that are also pulling at my attention so that I can spend these last few years before the age of 12 soaking it in. And, uh, and last night… So we did, we did something else too, and this is a pretty cool tip. We decided, uh, like maybe eight months ago, we would do no screens Monday through Wednesday And that includes me.

Um, and screens, that’s my phone, right? So they’re like, "If I can’t be on my iPad and I can’t be watching TV, you can’t be checking an email on your phone." So I deleted the email app off my phone. I deleted all the social media apps off my phone so my phone would become less interesting. I could still, of course, log into my computer and check my email or log into my [00:37:00] computer and, and check the social media things.

Um, but so yesterday was Monday, and it’s a no screen day, and I’m tired as heck. You know, it’s the end of the day, and Mondays are big days for me. And my son starts crying because my wife is taking my daughter to cheerleading and sh- and he’s like, "Oh man, I wanna be with mommy." I’m like, "All right, dude, what do you wanna do?"

And he’s like, "I don’t… I just wanna be with mommy." And I said, "What if we took a ride to the big park?" like, "All right, I could be kinda into that." And, uh, I gra- and then I went to my 10-year-old and I’m like, "Hey, I’m thinking of taking Brady to this park. Do you wanna go?" She’s like, "Yeah, I could be kinda into that."

And so we get to this big park and played tag around this park for like two hours. It was a beautiful night. We’re running all through the park. [00:38:00] We get home. My daughter’s like, "Hey, do you wanna, do you wanna play a game of horse in the driveway?" And I’m like, "Sh, why not?" So I’m shooting hoops with my daughter, and this is one of my, my goals is to, is to play with my kids.

So the no screen thing Monday through Wednesday, it’s, it is more work, it is more effort, but man, I’ve got memories of chasing my kids around that park and playing horse with my daughter that I wouldn’t have had if w- they were allowed to watch TV or, or sit on an iPad and I was allowed to look at my phone

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Wow. Brilliant. That’s amazing. So, ah, wow, so much there. So now you obviously help people to get out of that nine to five. So how can people find out more about, you know, being able to create those memories like you do?

Matt O’Neill: Well, I do, I, I do do happiness coaching, and, and if anybody’s interested in kind of my philosophies on that, I wrote a book that talks about how to get out of the eight primary negative [00:39:00] emotions that keep us from happiness, and then how to choose positive emotions. There’s two parts to the book, and the best place to find it is on Amazon.

It’s called The Good Mood Revolution. Um, and that’s a really good place to, to start to plug into the, to the way that I think

Tim Melanson: Awesome. One more question. Let’s get into music a little bit here. So tell me, who’s your favorite rock star or band?

Matt O’Neill: Man, I’ve had a lot of them over the years. When, when I was in high school I was, I was obsessed with The Beatles, and, um, and it… I think to me it’s the greatest band of all time. I just heard that what made The Beatles so extraordinary was Paul was classically trained in music, so he had all the musical training to, to keep the scales right and, and follow the patterns that good music is, and John had no training.

And so John was doing all these [00:40:00] out of the box things, and then Paul was, like, putting some structure behind John’s wild ideas, and which is what made them such an incredible music group. So, um, that’s… I, I’m just gonna stick with them

Tim Melanson: Yeah, Beatles my favorite too. I, that, I say that same story many times. It’s actually a- amazing what they were able to do because of that. And you know what? Business follows that quite a bit too, right? I mean, if you’re thinking, uh, within a box, well then you’re not gonna come up with these crazy ideas that nobody has thought of before, right?

Matt O’Neill: But if you’re all out of the box and you’re super crazy and there’s nobody keeping some structure, it can just sound messy and, and not, a- and not actually be great. So you need both pieces.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Right on. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Matt, for rocking out with me today. This has been an, an awesome episode

Matt O’Neill: Tim, I really appreciate it

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to the CEO of 10X Travel, and what he does is he teaches people to utilize credit card rewards to save money on travel. Very interested in hearing more about that. But first, hey, Travis Cormier, are you ready to rock?

Travis Cormier: Let’s rock

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Travis Cormier: Yeah, uh, when I joined the company, I was the second full-time employee, and we were really just like many small companies trying to figure out moving from being like a solopreneur to operating as an actual company, uh, and doing it while we were fortunately going through a lot of growth. Uh, we managed to make the Inc.

5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the US, and [00:01:00] like all of these are great things, but it can cause, uh, a bit of like chaos and turmoil ’cause so much is changing, um, at the same time. But what really made me so proud throughout that was not only did we make the list of fastest growing private companies, but we also made Inc.’s list of best places to work in the US.

Uh, yeah, so like we managed to not just scale the business, but also just make it a good place to, to work. Um, you know, we, we, we did that by looking at like, what do we do? What do we value? What do we try to deliver for our audience, and how can we also deliver that for people within our company? Um, you know, one of our core values is [00:02:00] to help connect dreams with reality.

We said, "Okay, how can we connect the dreams with reality for our employees?" Beyond just like a paycheck, right? Like beyond what you just expect people

to do. Um, so one of the things that we instituted is a, a program that I love called 1K Your Way. It’s $1,000 every year to just pursue an interest. The only way it gets rejected is if it’s related to work, you know.

If you’re like, "I wanna use it to go to this conference." No, no, no. You can go to the conference, but use it for something else. Um, we’ve had people take scuba diving lessons. We’ve had employees… Actually, last year a n- one of our employees in the Philippines bought a motorcycle ’cause he always just wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle, so he used it to, to buy a small motorcycle and then do a tour, uh, around one of the islands.

So just like really [00:03:00] cool to get to, uh, do that for our people, and also it just helps us connect more, especially over such a, such a big distance. You know, I think in the world of remote work, some of that personal touch and personal relationships can be hard to sustain sometimes.

And so when you can bring an element of Personal relations that aren’t just work-related and encourage it just helps, like, build, build a more fun, fun place to work.

You know your peop- you know everybody more, you know what their interests are, and it just gives you something to talk about that’s not just the weather or something.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah, you get to know everybody’s interests through that program as well. Hey, can they learn guitar? Is anybody learning an instrument?

Travis Cormier: I, I actually plan to use mine this year. Um, I was a, a band nerd through, through [00:04:00] high school. I played French horn. But I always wanted to learn piano, so I’m actually planning to use mine this year to get a little keyboard and take, take some lessons

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Oh, and nowadays it’s so much easier with the, the, the keyboards that you can put your headphones on as well, and you can also learn right directly from YouTube or from various other online subscriptions. It’s… A- and now’s the time to learn an instrument.

Travis Cormier: Yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m really excited for it.

Um, I think, I think it will be fun. And actually we did have one employee, uh, buy a guitar and take guitar lessons, so

I, I won’t be the first

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. So now along with the good note, though, sometimes things don’t go as planned. You know, there are gonna be some mistakes being made along the journey, and I like to normalize those so people can see that you still, you can still live. You can still get through it. And I’m wondering, can you share with me something that we can learn from and maybe even how you recovered from it?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Um, one of the biggest [00:05:00] unintentional mistakes that we made, right? I think this happens a lot in small business, is you run into things that when you started them was not a mistake, but it became an issue that you needed to, to solve later. Um, what happened to us was we… We’ve- we’ve really leaned into, like, building community and building a personal sense of connection with our, with our audience, which when we were small meant our founder…

Um, I’m not the founder, I’m the, the incoming… or I’m the new CEO. Um, but when we were, we were starting, our founder put his email everywhere, and he said, "Hey, you got questions? Just email me.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Travis Cormier: email me." And that’s a great way to build that personal relationship with people. But then as your audience in this [00:06:00] consu- in a consumer-facing business starts growing, and people are still emailing your, your, this one person, like, that burden can become so large.

And I was talking to him once, um, and he said, "I don’t know how to solve this, because I’m spending 20 to 30 hours a week responding to emails. It’s one of my favorite parts of, of my job. I love this connection with people." But this j- this isn’t scalable, right? And, and that’s, that’s the, the accidental mistake when you’re, when you’re small you might have a part of your business that’s n- doesn’t scale, but you don’t

Like, the time and world where that happens might just be a pipe dream then. But if it, if it, if it happens, it, it does. So how, how do you solve this really odd [00:07:00] conundrum of we’ve built a business based off of this sense of, uh, of connection with people, particularly with, with our, uh, with our CEO, and ma- maintain that sense of personal connection but make it scalable?

That was, like, where we, we, we got pretty, pretty stuck. Um, but what we, what we … How we approached it that ended up working for us was realizing that personal access and personalization aren’t the same thing,

that what he was providing was personal access and personalization. But people are reaching out because they trust the brand and the business, um, and he just happens to be the point of contact.

So h- so we just need to solve that personalization part, um, to [00:08:00] deliver that high-touch intimate experience that people come to expect from our brand. Um, so the way that, that we did this was, you know, we built out a, a small team of people to handle these questions that, that come in. Uh, but we actually empowered them with tools like Loom.

Um, if you’re not familiar with Loom, it’s kind of like a screen recording. You can record yourself. Um, and that’s how we, we answer a lot of them. Not all of them, but a lot of them we record a Loom and send it to them. So now instead of just getting a wall of text, you get someone talking to you over email. So it keeps that sense of personalization and connection with your audience in a scalable way, um, that’s not tied just to that, to that personal aspect

Tim Melanson: That’s, that’s a great idea. Yeah, and, uh, it, it would get so overwhelming to have to answer all that. Hey, nowadays you have chat though ,

Travis Cormier: Yeah. [00:09:00]

Tim Melanson: that might save some time

Travis Cormier: In my, in my, you know, it was def- this was definitely pre- pre-AI days. Um, and it, and honestly, it’s one of the places we, we love AI, but it’s one of those places where, uh, like that’s not worth it to us. It’s not worth it to lose that, that sense of personal connection. Um, you know, if people are reaching out personally, they’re doing it for, for a reason.

If they wanted the, the, the answer from chat, like, I don’t know, they could probably just go to ChatGPT and

ask it directly

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose, eh? If you’re doing, if you’re supposed to, like, actually read the email and respond to it. But I mean, oh my goodness, that would be so much time, you know, especially as that grows. And for the CEO, I mean, that’s, you, you know, that’s, that’s a full-time job right there.

And what, how can they run the business now at this point, right?

Travis Cormier: Right, exactly. Like, uh, in a small business, as regardless of what seat you’re in, you’ve got multiple hats. The CEO does, anyone in the [00:10:00] organization does.

And when one of those hats is taking up 75, 80% of your time, how are you leaving enough bandwidth to, to handle everything else?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But no, with the, uh, the whole Loom idea, that’s a great idea. And, and I mean, a, a, a benefit that you could do there is that there’s probably some times when you get the same question over and over again. So if you record that one Loom, as long as you don’t use their personal name in it then

Travis Cormier: Yeah

Tim Melanson: you might be able to be in the situation where you just send the same Loom to, you know, a bunch of people.

It’s still you talking and handling that question, right?

Travis Cormier: Exactly, yeah. And that’s exactly one of the things that we did. Um, you know, we- you don’t always get the same question, but the people that tend to be asking questions the most are your newer audience

members who are learning and trying to gather information. So a lot of times they are sending the same, the same questions. Uh, and yeah, by just not saying, "Hey Tim," [00:11:00] saying, "Hey, thanks for reaching out," like that simple removal means you can send the same one to, to multiple people and still

maintain that, that personal touch

Tim Melanson: Totally. So let’s talk a little bit about The Jam Room. Now, I see there’s a dog in the background there.

Travis Cormier: Uh-huh

Tim Melanson: So I assume that’s part of your home office, is it?

Travis Cormier: It is. Oh. She, she decided to, she decided to move. Yeah, I decided not to blur my background, you know? It’s, the theme is, is

Tim Melanson: Working from home.

Travis Cormier: from home rockstar,

so like w- let me not hide where I work from, from home,

Tim Melanson: Yep

Travis Cormier: and share it. Um, yeah, that’s, that’s, uh, one of my two at-home coworkers. The other is on the floor behind me.

You can kinda

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I see. I didn’t see that at first.

Travis Cormier: down there. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: That’s so awesome. And, like, I, I mean, the thing about it is that nowadays, I mean, since the last five or six [00:12:00] years, it’s been a lot more normal for people to work from home. But before that it was like people didn’t understand it at all, right? And now it’s, it seems to be a lot more normalized just because people had to go through it, you know, even in the corporate atmosphere.

And there was a lot of companies that just didn’t want to embrace it at all, right? Before they realized that, hey, maybe we can still get productive employees, you know, with, with a work-at-home model, right? And, you know, it sounds like you’ve got a remote model as well, so I’m wondering, like, how is that working for you?

Are- do you feel like you get just as much, if not more, from, from the productivity of your people

Travis Cormier: Uh, I, I think so. Um, I think people knowing that they have a little bit of that flexibility, um, means that they understand when, you know, i- if they need to run an errand during the day. Like, we’re all adults, right? Like, no one wants to have to ask for a hall pass to go out and ru- and run an errand.

It’s just [00:13:00] about understanding that, like, your, your job is to get work done.

So as l- as long as people are are completing their, their deliverables, completing their work. Like, I tell everyone, "I don’t really care if it takes you two hours or 10 hours." I mean, I, I do in a sense, but at the end of the day, you know, if it takes you two hours and your work is done for the day, be available, but I don’t expect you to be sitting there just waiting on something else to come in. Because on the flip side, there’s gonna be those weeks when there’s fires and, and extra work that has to get done where you’re gonna work a little bit more. So it’s a bit of give and take, and I think when people are working from home, it makes it a little bit more palatable than, "Oh, I’m at the office and I’m done, so now I just kinda have to sit here and wait and bide my time and not be personally productive."

[00:14:00] Whereas when working from home, like, you can be personally productive. I can go unload the dishwasher. Uh, I can go do a load of laundry if I need to. And it, at the end of the day, like, it- how is that any different from going to the break room and grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting around chatting with coworkers?

Like, and there’s, there’s definitely benefits to that. I don’t

wanna, wanna downplay that, but, um, like, it’s just about respecting people, people as adults. Um, and for, for us, w- we’ve not found productivity to be, to be an issue at all

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I think that there are people that are more suited for an office, and then there are people that are more suited for working from home too. But I do find that a trend that I’ve, I’ve been noticing, not definitely in the, in the home business area, but even in corporate areas, is focusing a little bit more on [00:15:00] maybe productivity and deliverables rather than focusing on time sitting there, right?

And, and I think that’s an encouraging way to look at it, right? Because it really does reward the high performers. ‘Cause now, I mean, if you can get your work done, you know, in half the time, w- well, isn’t that great? Like, wh- why would you be penalized by having to sit there for the other half of the time and do nothing ’cause you’re already done your work, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, I mean, I, I think basing productivity on hours worked is just lazy management. It just says, "I don’t actually know how to manage deliverables and manage my team," but it’s the easiest thing to point to, to say, uh, "My team is working 100% of the time assigned." Like, cool, but how do you know that that’s actually accomplishing the, the goals and stuff?

It’s just lazy management, and it’s just an excuse for, for not [00:16:00] knowing how else to, to manage people

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I think, I think for most businesses, productivity is gonna be the thing. The only ones that would count, you know, for how much time you’re there is maybe you’re working a storefront, and you actually have to be present for that specific time, ’cause customers are gonna come in. Um, you know, but that’s not, that’s different, and, and that’s not the same as most businesses.

Most businesses have these deliverables that they have to create, right? And i- it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to do it. You don’t have to be sitting there and waiting, right? So I, I like that. I think it’s encouraging, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I, I, I agree. I mean, my former job, I used to be a chemist. I can’t bring chemicals home. I had to be there.

I

Tim Melanson: There you go

Travis Cormier: if, if they told me to bring chemicals home, I would, I would be a little weary of wherever, wherever I’m working. So you’re right, there, there certainly are some jobs and some careers where it’s necessary, but for the vast [00:17:00] majority of office jobs, uh I don’t, I don’t see it as

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, a- and even as a chemist too, like, uh, there’d probably be things you have to accomplish during the day, so even that doesn’t necessarily have to be, you know, clock in at whatever time, clock out at this time, you have to be there during that time. That would only really apply to a storefront thing or a customer support thing where you’re actually handling a shift.

Other than that, I mean, if you get your work done and you do it faster than everybody else, I, I thi- I just think it, it, it encourages you to bring on better talent, right? ‘Cause now the people that are encouraged to be faster and better, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Yeah. And it also just gives you better access to talent, right? I mentioned we have some employees based in the Philippines. We couldn’t do that if we were an in-person company. Um, it– We don’t even have two employees that live in the same city. So, uh, like, when we go to [00:18:00] hire, we don’t have to limit ourselves.

You know, I’m in, I’m in Houston in Texas in the US. If we were in person, I would limit myself just to Houston, which not a– It’s a big enough city. We’ve got plenty of people here. But I can cast a nationwide or even international net to be sure that we’re, we’re getting, getting the right person. And I, I also think it helps with retention.

Like, people really enjoy the work from home, those high performers, especially if they’ve worked somewhere before that really drove them to, to burnout. Um, the, the work from home life just I think for a lot of people works better.

You know, it can be lonely at times

Tim Melanson: It can be. It can be. But, I mean, there is ways you can get around that. You could go work at a coffee shop or, uh, you know, or if your dog is right there,

Travis Cormier: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: that helps, right?

Travis Cormier: [00:19:00] Yeah. Or like, like I go to the gym at 4:30 every day, and it’s group classes, so I see the same people. I’ve got friendships. That’s my

Tim Melanson: coffee shop. Your, your, your, uh, yep, that’s your water cooler talk

Travis Cormier: Yeah, exactly. And those times when I’m like, "I don’t even wanna talk to people, I just wanna work around people," like you said, go to a coffee shop, go to a co-working place.

Um, but it gives me that flexibility to, to choose that rather than be forced into it

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Let’s, uh, you know, let’s get a little bit more into the band then and the people in your team that have success. I’m wondering, uh, you know, you- you’ve got a pretty large organization. You came on to the organization, so you, so you didn’t necessarily build it from scratch. Um, but you’re probably very focused on making sure you have the right talent and you also make sure you get rid of the wrong talent, right?

And do you have… What kinds of processes do you have to make sure that that stays true?[00:20:00]

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Uh, one of the, the big things that we do, um, that was… We, we work, we work with a business coach who helped us implement, um, our quarterly alignments, is really what we call them. You know, uh, yes, it is a bit of a review, but part of it is to be sure that we’re aligning with people on that, that personal level.

Um, so yes, we do review based off of your, your work deliverables. We also measure based off of the culture fit. Um, being a remote company, maintaining that company culture does come with some additional challenges. So we look at both. We look at work performance as well as cultural alignment to evaluate people.

And it all, for, for me, it all comes back to intentionally creating the space for that to happen. You know, we can often let [00:21:00] things start to slide, um, and if it’s not addressed, then It, it can start going too far. By doing it once a quarter, it just creates the opportu- opportunity to have those, those candid conversations with people.

Because sometimes it’s just we’re going through different phases of our, of our lives. You

know, your person who’s consistently an, uh, an A plus, a, a member of your A team, might dip down to the B team, and that doesn’t have to be a red flag. It should be a warning sign. But by have… creating the intentional time and space to talk about it means we can’t avoid it.

And a lot of times when you have those conversations, you just realize, oh, okay, you just have some stuff going on in your life. Okay, like, A, is there an opportunity for us to help you with that? B, like, even if not, it can just be about [00:22:00] getting aligned on it. You know, I experienced that myself. My mom got sick during the pandemic. Uh, she lived four hours away by herself. And so days when I wasn’t working, uh, because I was still a chemist for the first half of the pandemic, I left work, drove to my mom’s to go take care of her, stayed there, then came back, went to work, back and forth, which meant not a ton of time with my wife, not a ton of time with my dogs.

And that doesn’t mean that I’m a… Like, my, my work inherently suffered because I never really got time to decompress personally, and that doesn’t mean that I’m a bad employee or that there’s a systemic problem that, you know, needs to be addressed through performance management.

But if y- if you don’t talk about it and don’t converse about it, like, it can [00:23:00] be easy for a manager to look and say, "Your performance isn’t there, so now we’re gonna put you on a performance improvement plan."

And it can just help contextualize the lives that we’re going through. And as a remote company, creating those intentional moments, uh, for me is, is paramount to, to success because you don’t have those kind of organic water cooler type moments that you have in person. So it’s about creating that intentional space to talk with people and determine then, you know, uh, is this something temporary? Sometimes it’s not. Like, the, the truth is sometimes it’s not, and people’s performance just is not keeping up. Maybe their skills aren’t keeping up. Um, and it does need to be addressed through performance management, but it’s about having the space to determine what the right approach is rather than just kind of dismissing everything and really, like, recalibrating.[00:24:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And this is one of those things that, um, when you’re thinking about starting a business, uh, uh, or when you’re thinking about what’s important in your business, a lot of people will focus more on the sales, you know, on the, the actual, the transfer of, of income and all that stuff, and these soft kinds o- kinds of things are things that kind of get pushed on the back burner, I imagine, right?

A, a lot, right? It’s just ’cause y- you’re like, "Oh, do I need to spend my time doing that right now?" But, you know, as you’ve probably already discovered, if you don’t spend that time, then it, it will, like, it- you’re just in a reactionary mode because things start to fall apart and you don’t know why. Whereas if you, like you say, have this intentional time set and you put a priority on it, you know, and there’s probably lots of other examples of things like this that you need to be intentional about, um, and spend your time on it even though it doesn’t directly relate to dollars in the bank account, right?

Travis Cormier: Right. Yeah. And [00:25:00] like it, it not only goes towards understanding your employees, but also like, like in what they’re going through, but for them to talk to you about what they’re experiencing too. Um, because if they’re feeling burnt out or they’re feeling overworked or they’ve got stuff, stuff going on, and you’re just dismissing it, not addressing it, like that’s when people start looking for

another

Tim Melanson: work, yeah

Travis Cormier: well.

And so then if they leave, well, would you rather have spent two hours once a quarter versus now they leave and it’s gonna take maybe at least two to four weeks to hire someone, a couple of weeks to get them, them trained up? And that’s even more time that’s taking away from your ability to do, to do other work.

Uh, so it, it can be hard to prioritize some of the soft work that needs to be done that [00:26:00] it’s not necessarily moving the revenue or the profitability directly, but it’s, it’s securing it more. You know? It’s, it’s helping to, to protect it, um- It’s a give and take sometimes when you’re scaling. Like, there are some stuff that you choose not to do, and you’re building up, uh, I call it, like, institutional debt.

You know, you’re building up s- up this backlog of work that you know needs to get done someday, and you’re choosing not to. And you’re, you have to accept that risk. Like, you have to accept that you can’t do all of it.

Um, someday the bill is gonna come due for that institutional debt. And, uh, like, uh, that’s okay.

Like, that’s, that’s okay. That’s the natural phases of business. You know, I mentioned we were on the Inc. 5000. Very few companies, like, go through growth and just stay like [00:27:00] this forever. Everyone would love that. I don’t know a business owner that wouldn’t love that. But the simple nature of business is it’ll probably eventually plateau, and you have to set up for the next stage of growth, and realizing that that’s when you’re gonna be able to repay some of that debt.

Um, but it’s choosing along the way which debt is okay to, to wait on and which ones you can’t. Um, and I think if you wanna build a good culture with places to work, uh, the, the work around people management is one that you can’t set aside

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, uh, I, I love this, you know, aspect because one of the things I’m trying to accomplish with even this podcast is to inspire more people to take better control of this stuff. And because I think that a lot of these very, very large m- monopolies have, have sort of [00:28:00] like created these work atmospheres that are not super good for most people.

And so I think that number one, you know, you can become self-employed and take control of that stuff and be a solopreneur and make a living that way. But also, you can create your own business as you guys are doing, and actually do it with people in mind and with culture in mind, and with, you know, a, a really clear focus on making it a good place for people to work to contrast against the many bad places for people to work, right?

And, you know, th- there’s gonna be people in all of those buckets, ’cause the bottom line is that we’ve gone through this many times on this podcast, is that not everybody is gonna be super well-suited for running a business, right? There are people that are far more comfortable with working for somebody else, and that is totally cool because there are also a lot of people [00:29:00] that wanna run a business and employ other people, right?

So they need people to work, right?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: So we can all get a, get those dreams met, and we can create atmospheres that are really good for people to work in, and we can create this new economy that I think is being created right now

Travis Cormier: Yeah, definitely. Um, I mean, one, one of the things that I think doesn’t get talked about enough about running, running a business, owning your own business, um, like people talk about how exciting it is and how cool it is and how freeing it is, and all of those are true.

Like, all of those are true. But too often people don’t discuss the emotional burden that comes with it.

Um, uh, you know, when it’s your business and it’s not just, you know, if you’re a solopreneur, it’s your livelihood, and that’s a very different emotional toll than [00:30:00] working for a big company that’s generally probably gonna be pretty financially secure. Like, you’re typically not worried about your paycheck bouncing.

Um, like there’s this emotional side to it that I think many people don’t expect and aren’t prepared for.

Um, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it applies if you’re a solopreneur. Then if you grow and have employees, like their livelihood depends on you, and that’s a pretty heavy burden, I think, uh, to, to carry that- Isn’t talked about probably ’cause it’s not the fun side of bu- or it’s not the side that people who are selling courses

about starting your own business,

uh, want to be, to be honest about.

But it’s the truth is that, like, people are putting their, their trust in, [00:31:00] in you and your company to be able to deliver so they can maintain their livelihoods. And, uh, that can be a very different weight that people aren’t expecting. Um, and some of the hard decisions that, that can come with that. You know, you mentioned it- it’s easy to talk about keeping good people, but when it’s about truly people who aren’t performing and aren’t delivering and letting them go, like-

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Travis Cormier: Man, that’s, that’s tough.

Now, it’s worse for them. Like, I will always admit that it is worse for the person that, that’s being let go. But when you’re in that situation, like, you just became the villain in someone’s life story.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Travis Cormier: And that’s something you have to, you have to live with, and, you know, those aren’t the, [00:32:00] the fun, sexy stories on LinkedIn that, that help get likes.

Um, but it is the honest truth of the, the emotional burden that comes, whether it’s personally or the responsibility to other people

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I will say though that, um, I don’t know if it’s completely impossible to avoid that situation, but, but there are ways that you can improve it. And yeah, I mean, you’ve mentioned a few of them. If you have really good onboarding and really good hiring processes and, like you said, those quarterly reviews, things that will actually, you know, kinda keep

‘Cause I mean, like what you said earlier, there’s a possibility that whatever’s going on, especially if they were a good hire, now they’re not, there’s probably something going on in their personal life. And if you don’t know what that is, then you might end up in a situation where you’re letting them go and you just don’t get it.

And it really is just something that they need a little bit of grace on to get through something, and then they’ll be back, right? Um, but yeah, they … I mean, that just goes right back to what your m- main point [00:33:00] is. If you don’t spend that time doing those things, then you’re gonna be a villain, villain pretty quickly, and nobody wants that, right?

Travis Cormier: No, no,

Tim Melanson: So it’s worth it to spend the time.

Travis Cormier: It is, even, even just for your own mental health.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Travis Cormier: Yeah

Tim Melanson: Right on. So let’s get into your soul a little bit. So tell me what’s exciting your business right now?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Um, what I am really excited about, um, is we’re going through kind of a fundamental shift in, in our business, and it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s scary. Um- Our current revenue model, uh, pretty heavily relies on affiliate marketing. Um, so full transparency, you know, you mentioned we teach people how to use credit card rewards.

We partner with the banks, and we get a commission if someone opens a credit card through us. We don’t hide that. We’re honest with people about it. Um, and what that means, though, is [00:34:00] that we are always subject to the whims of the credit card companies. Our revenue is not… It’s not ours. Um, uh, and what I mean by that is if the banks change policies, if they decide to just not do it anymore, it really impacts our business.

Um, we saw this during the pandemic when our revenue dropped 80, 90% over the course of a, a couple of weeks. Um, so we’re really working to diversify that. Um, we have, uh, a BHAG, if you’re familiar with that term. If not, it’s a big, hairy, audacious goal. It’s, like, what’s, what’s that big goal that you’re really working towards?

Um, so our, the one we’re working towards right now is called FTB. It’s free the business. Um, and it doesn’t mean we don’t want our affiliate revenue, but it, it’s the– We know that we have accomplished it whenever we can cover 100% of our operating [00:35:00] costs from non-affiliate revenue. Um, so because then we’re not subject to, to the banks.

If they change their policies, we don’t have to inherently react to the way that we operate. And this isn’t something we’re doing as a response to anything or from the banks. It’s about, like, we have a mission to, I mentioned before, to help connect dreams with reality, to educate our audience, to empower them to travel the world and save.

And so long as our revenue is dependent on factors that are outside of our control, that mission is at risk. And so we want to try to recapture as much of that control as, as we can so we can continue providing value for people, um, even if, even if the banks decide they don’t want to, to do affiliate marketing [00:36:00] anymore. Um, if they wanna keep doing it, like it’s, it’s, it’s great, but we want to at least protect it, so that way we can be there in the long run, serving our, our community and our audience. Um, I’m really excited about it. It means we’re really having to rethink the value we provide to people. You know, we’ve always…

Our value proposition has always been- You don’t have to pay us anything. Like, if you get value, just use our links and someone else will pay us. Uh, whi- which is a really cool value proposition, right? To, to tell your audience, "You don’t have to pay us anything to get value from, from our company." Um, but the truth is, is that that means that the value we provide is going to continuously be at risk.

So we want– I really wanna be sure that if our audience is providing us directly with, with their hard-earned dollars, that they’re truly getting good [00:37:00] value, um, getting more return than what they, they are paying us, so that way it can be just a win-win relationship where they can get more value than what they’re paying, and they know that we’re gonna be around here for the long haul, uh, with their best interests in mind

Tim Melanson: Right on. So how does the program work?

Travis Cormier: Yeah. Uh, so we typically tell people to start with our course. Um, they can go to 10xtravel.com to, to find it. Um, I know that it’s a lot to ask people to start with a course, but the reason why we do it is we feel that it’s important to be ethical and responsible, uh, educators in, in this space. You know, when we’re talking about credit cards, you and I were kinda chatting before, there’s definitely some risks to be aware of.

Like, you can easily go into debt. You can easily pay a lot of money. You can mess up your credit. And we don’t take those risks lightly, and that’s why [00:38:00] we ask people to just check us out, start with our, our course. It’s free. Our c- our introductory course will always be free, um, because it, it sets that foundation to provide you with at least a little bit of baseline information to get started and to make the decision about if this is right for you.

Uh, without that, I don’t know that I would feel super comfortable telling people to just go open up credit cards. It’s let’s be sure that you’re educated about what you’re doing first and making the, the right decision for you and, and your family

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that, I love that. That sounds so responsible too, because, I mean, we were talking a little bit before this, this call, and, and credit cards are so misunderstood and just so thrown out there. Like, people will just go and open up credit cards and open up store credit cards and just, just like nothing.

And okay, might be fine, right? But, but on the other hand, you know, there, there’s a lot of like, I don’t [00:39:00] even know what I wanna call it, fine print, I guess, like, on, on how they work, and you can get yourself into trouble really quickly. And then the other aspect of it too, which just kind of goes through our society, is that we tend to not talk about money, and especially problems with money, with people around us, including our families.

A- and, and so you’ll end up, you’ll end up, you know, just struggling silently with this thing that was just pushed upon you with no education at all. And, and now, you know, you’re kind of in trouble. So i- I mean, if nothing else, I mean, if you’re offering a course on that, that’s enough I would think for anybody to just go take the course to understand a little bit more of it.

You could… I, I, I mean, do you have to… Like, is this a sort of something you could do anonymously as well? Or, like, how does that work?

Travis Cormier: Uh, so the, the online, the, like, text-based version of our course, uh, they do have to register for our software platform.

Um, but if you do wanna do it, uh, do it more anonymously, we actually have our own podcast, [00:40:00] and the first six episodes of our podcast is the course in audio version.

Tim Melanson: Oh, well, that’s great. What’s the podcast? Tell me more.

Travis Cormier: Uh, it’s called Take Off!

A Points and Miles Podcast by 10x Travel. So a lotta people kept asking us for an audiobook version of the course for years, and that just … Something just didn’t feel right about an audiobook

version. Um, and finally one day we said, "What if we tried a podcast format?" So we did. And, um, now the podcast keeps going, but it let us set that foundation, "Hey, you don’t have to register.

You don’t have to, to read it. If you wanna listen, there you go."

Tim Melanson: So is this something… Now, okay, I mean, if you don’t have a credit card yet and you’re listening to this podcast, go learn about it ’cause it, it could get out of control really, really quickly. But I’m wondering, is this something that someone could benefit from if they already have credit cards and maybe they’re already in some trouble?

Travis Cormier: Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, if, if they’re already… I- if, if you [00:41:00] already have credit cards and you’re managing it fine, you’ll learn how to optimize them to get more value from the credit cards you have or maybe change your card portfolio a bit. But also, if you’re already in trouble a little bit, some of that underlying knowledge and information just about how they work can help you better understand what you’re, what you’re dealing with, um, to work on fixing things, um, and just preparing yourself.

Um, in fact, we have an episode as well in our podcast with our, uh, social media manager and our community manager who he had to go through fully repairing his credit, um, before he, he could get started. Um, he had unfortunately, like, just gotten in a rough patch of life and his credit, um, wasn’t in a great spot.

Um, but it’s a wonderful story of how he went from rebuilding his credit, understanding it, and [00:42:00] putting himself in a better position to, to manage it going forward, so that way he then could take advantage

of, of the credit cards

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Yeah, because, I, I mean, that’s the, the flip side of it is that these, the point systems and, you know, all the, the cashback things and all the credit cards, they, they offer all these really good programs in a way. I mean, a lot of it is just free money. And, and that’s what kind of catches people off guard is ’cause, uh, uh…

But, but I mean, the, the way I, I always thought about it is that, okay, nothing in this world is free. S- that doesn’t make any sense. So if they’re offering you this great, you know, travel pack where you’re gonna be able to go and take all these vacations and all that stuff, somebody’s paying for that somewhere, right?

And so I mean, if you’re, you know, uh, taking Travis’s courses and learning how to use it, and now all of a sudden you’ve got a situation where you’re benefiting from these programs, then that’s fantastic, but somebody isn’t, right? [00:43:00] And, and I think that the, the, the goal really now is to not be that somebody who isn’t, right?

And, and try to get a little bit more education on that. And if it was easy, if, I mean, if it, if it was something that, oh, you know, it’s just a little mistake, well then they wouldn’t be giving free vacations away to people. Like, for… Like, it clearly is a big problem that people are getting themselves into, otherwise they wouldn’t have that kind of money to give back to people, right?

Travis Cormier: Exactly. Yeah. Um, between that and, uh, you know, if, if you have a business, you- and you take credit card payments, you know you’re paying, m- m- here in the

US maybe 2% or 3%.

every time someone swipes it. They, they’re making money there too.

Um, so it’s like if they’re taking that away from your, from your business, do whatever you can to, to get some of the pie back for

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, and, and that’s the part that I think probably people are like, "Oh, but that’s where they make their money." Yes, that’s one of the places [00:44:00] where they make their money, but interest is significantly more, right?

Travis Cormier: those in- those interest rates are a lot more than 2% to 3%.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Right on. Okay, so we’re running out of time here. I got one more question. This might be the hardest one. Who’s your favorite rock star or band?

Travis Cormier: Ooh. Uh, you know, here’s what I’ll say. Um I’m gonna twist it a little bit because I, I have way too many come to mind. The best live show that I’ve ever been to,

if this is a fair twist, uh, proud to say Lady Gaga,

Tim Melanson: Wow

Travis Cormier: on such an incredible performance. We saw her here in Houston, and had so many flames going that you could feel the heat every time that, that it came off.

Um, really just incredible. Um, I’ll probably [00:45:00] also give a shout-out to the Foo Fighters, who I saw at Austin City Limits, I think two, maybe three years ago. Um, they’ve been doing it a long time. They know how to work a crowd. They know how to put on a great show. And part of what made it, uh, extra special was they were performing at the same time as Shania Twain, and my wife really wanted to go to Shania.

And I said, "Shania has her Vegas residency, so we can go see her in Vegas. I don’t know when we’ll get to see the Foo Fighters again." Well, Shania finished 30 minutes before the Foo Fighters and came over and got up on stage and sang Best of You with the Foo Fighters, so, uh, yeah, great. Just great being out there at, like, 9:30 at night. At least getting to see both of them, um, was, was also really, really memorable

Tim Melanson: That is so awesome. Thank you [00:46:00] so much, Travis, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Travis Cormier: Thanks, Tim. I really enjoyed it

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar podcast

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I love this next guest’s, uh, business name. This is really, really cool. He’s the president, founder, and CEO of LIWMI Logistics, and what that means is Life Is What We Make It. Love that. That’s so cool. And what he does is he, he inspires people to take control of their lives and build something meaningful.

Very excited to be rockin’ out today with Randy Vlasic. Hey, Randy, you ready to rock?

Randy Vlasic: Let’s go. Let’s rock, Tim. Thanks for having me on the show

Tim Melanson: Love it. So we always start off on a good note. So tell me a story of success so we can be inspired by.

Randy Vlasic: Oh, wow. Okay. Um, you know, when I was a kid, I, I wasn’t a great student. So just, just to give you a brief, um, uh, start of where, where I got started, I, I… When I was in school, I didn’t really do well because I didn’t love what I was doing and I didn’t apply it. So I, I, I didn’t really have that curiosity to go and learn it, right?

So as I got older, I kind of had to figure out my way and, um, and I did. So I, I started to get obsessed with trying to find, um, people [00:01:00] that were successful and try to, to copy some of their habits and learn from them so that I could do the same thing. So I went through retail and multi-level marketing, but I ended up into, in, in logistics eventually in my early 20s.

Uh, started out in sales, did really, really well, and eventually decided to start my own company. So I started my first company in 2014. Um, I, I, I, uh, was mid-20s at the time. I, I was doing sales for about four years, but I ended up building that company and, and selling it, um, two years later for, for seven figures, um, when I was 29. So it was, it was a wild ride, you know, up to that point and getting to there. It was just a, a whole, a whole, you know, river of different rapids and decisions that came about and, um, you know, I always choosed, always chose the challenging path and wanted to grow as an individual and it, it worked out. So that was probably the biggest success in my early in my, early on in my career

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s amazing. I, uh, I went through the multi-level marketing industry as well, and, uh, you know what? You learn a lot through that, [00:02:00] don’t you?

Randy Vlasic: You know, it was probably one, I, I think one of the best experiences that I had because, you know, with the MLM model, like, it, it was about selling somebody a dream, right? And for me as a young kid who didn’t really have a college education, like, I was always looking for that. So when I found somebody who was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year that told me I could do that, I was in.

You know, like, there it wasn’t any hesitation. I was jumping, um, both feet in at the same time, right? And so I got into it and the… I learned so much from so many of those people that were successful in the MLM model. It also forced me to become really good at recruiting, right? So getting to know people, finding out what makes them tick, trying to in- to, to sell them a dream and help them understand my vision of where I was going and how they fit into that.

And so I think I took a lot away from multi-level marketing in the business

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, me too. And I don’t think a lot of people necessarily think of that getting into it. I think first of all, they’re trying to make a, a buck real quick, which is, it isn’t. [00:03:00] I mean, it’s a, it’s a course really. It takes you a little bit of time to g- to get through it. And then, and then, um, you know, just, uh, the, the number of people that I know that didn’t necessarily make a bunch of money in multi-level marketing, although some of them did, and I made some money as well, but were able to just spin off and t- and start a business out of that, that actually did do well, it’s, it’s crazy.

I mean, you’d, you know, you, you don’t hear those stories very often. You hear about the people that failed, right? You know, and, and, and are complaining about it. Mm

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, people made it work. There were people making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I saw, you know, my wife I met in, in that multi-level marketing company. I saw her make, you know, it was insurance, mortgages, and investments, and, um, hence why I got out in 2008. But I saw a lot of people, uh, uh, you know, earn a good living there.

I mean, I was 22 at the time, 23, and I was making, you know, $90,000 in that space. And, um, so at the time I thought I was doing really [00:04:00] good and it, you know

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, you did a lot better than most do it, that’s for sure. That’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, so

Randy Vlasic: though, um, when you mentioned the guys that spun off, I think almost everybody that was on my team is now running a different company and doing really good

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It, it’s one of those things where if you do, if you do take it seriously and you do learn the things that you’re gonna learn, uh, you can’t, uh, it’s very difficult to go back to a job at that point. You know, you don’t, you’re, you, you have, like, control of your life, or you at least learn that it’s possible, right?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, that was like the first point in my life where I was like, you know, A equals B, right? If I put in the effort, I get the result. And so when there were days where I was like, "Man, I can’t pay my, I can’t pay my car payment. I need to go sell something," like I went and sold something, you know? But that’s the first time you’re like, "Man, this really works and I can do this."

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and that feels very similar to when you do start your own y- you know, your own self-employed business as well. I mean, it’s, I, I just remember sitting in that cubicle being an employee, and I mean, if money’s tight, what do you [00:05:00] do? Nothing. You just sit there and wait, I guess, for your next paycheck.

Whereas when you’re, when you’ve got your own thing, it’s just like to your point, it’s like, "Okay, well, I need some extra money. Well, if I go and hustle today, you know, maybe I can, you know, pull in an extra sale and…" Right? I mean, it, it,

Randy Vlasic: There’s always a

Tim Melanson: of that.

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, that’s correct. There’s always a way, it’s just, it’s just finding that way, right? And then going out and being able to execute on that. And sometimes it’s really weird, right? Sometimes that, that unique scenario that you’re in, um, you know, I know we’re gonna get more into this, but, um, when I started this company, LIWMI Logistics, which we’re a third-party, you know, transportation arrangement, it was in, uh, right after COVID happened.

Well, we had this big influx of inventory that came into the market in, uh, 2022, and then in 2023 the market dropped o- dropped off. There was so much inventory, there was no trucking movement. I’d just hired a brand new employees and I, I couldn’t make payroll, and I was like, "I gotta find out, find [00:06:00] another way to make some money."

Well, I had this forum that I was running with other freight broker owners I’d put together through Facebook Marketplace, and one of them was wanting to start a, a freight brokerage in California. So I actually went, went out to California and launched her company at the same time I was building mine. So I set up a six-month consulting agreement just to pay the payroll,

Tim Melanson: Wow

Randy Vlasic: so I could get my business back to stable before I went out and, you know, was able to come back to it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That, that’s the thing, right? I mean, it really does teach you that problem-solving mindset of like, "Hey, I’m in control. Hey, life is what you make it," right?

Randy Vlasic: Right. Well, we make it, right?

Tim Melanson: Life

Randy Vlasic: I don’t think anything in life we can do by ourselves. It always takes more than one

Tim Melanson: Oh, I love that. So now, along with the, the good note, sometimes there’s some things that don’t go as planned. So I do like to talk about the bad note because it seems as though that is the number one thing that holds people back from getting started. They think, "What could go wrong?"

Right? And I like to talk about it because, uh, uh, I- there’s probably something that went wrong, and you’re still here. [00:07:00] So can you tell us, you know, something that went wrong and, and how you recovered?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, I think, um, there’s two really major times in my career that, that stand out to me. The first one is, is I didn’t really know myself. Like, my identity wasn’t really great when I was, uh, s- running my first company because it was all about money and profits and making money, right? And that’s all I cared about, and I built my entire life, right, my whole identity was built around this business that I created.

It didn’t have anything to do with anything outside of that. And then when I sold it, you know, I had all this money, but I didn’t have that business anymore. So it was like I lost it, and I didn’t know really who I was anymore. So for a year, I was, like, probably in the darkest place I’ve ever been. You know, I got, I got really depressed at the time, and I started to really look back at some of the things that I did as a, as a leader in that business and some of the lives that I impacted and some of the bad decisions that I made.

There was a lot of people that I reached out to, and I, I apologized You know, but I had to find my identity, and so I, I started to get back into church, and I [00:08:00] started to, to find other people in my life that could help me get out of that, that were mentors and that were in, in good places. And, um, you know, there were a couple friends that I made through that journey that really helped, helped get out of that, and helped me get started and build Life is What We Make It.

And so that’s kind of where this whole concept came from, right? Life is What We Make It. It was about people building each other up, bringing each other together. That was a really dark place in my life, and so I think finding my identity was a, was, um, one of the most important things. Because before I could build anything, I needed to know who I was first, right?

And, you know, at the end of the day, I’m, I’m, I’m a man of God, I’m a father, I’m a husband. Um, I’m a builder. And the… What my, my concept is is what Life is What We Make It is, is to deliver inspiration, inspire people to take ownership of their lives and build something meaningful. LIWMI Logistics, that freight brokerage company, that’s the tool that we use to enable everybody to do that.

You know, it’s not about just profits. It’s about using that as the tool to help people achieve the lives they want. The, the [00:09:00] second one is the one I just told you about, where, you know, the market crashed and, uh, I lost about 60% of my business. We didn’t lose customers, we just lost volume, you know? And, um, and, and I didn’t know what I was gonna do.

I didn’t know how I was gonna make payroll. And I just randomly, I’m like, "Hey, you know, maybe I’ll ask if, if I can start this other company for, for this lady I’m coaching." And she was in. And so that was it. I was running two companies at the same time. I’d have the same meeting schedule, back-to-back meetings.

You know, I’d run with, with my team, then I’d run with her team, and I was building her team at the same time I was building mine. I did that for six months, and I was traveling all over the place, and it was, it was wild. And, um, it was a cool thing, too, because, you know, you go back to the MLM model, you know, the people that I had just hired, like, I had just sold them this dream about how awesome this was gonna be and how we were making so much money and where we were going with the business, and they come on board, and then all of a sudden the business tanks.

You know? And a lot of them took a chance on me. Like, they were taking pay cuts to come here because they knew this was a good opportunity, and they, they’ve worked with me in the [00:10:00] past, and they knew what I was about. And so now I had to show up for them. I can’t just go lay these people off. You know, I could’ve, but then I went back to being a self-operator, so I had to find another way.

And that, um, was weird, right? Like, trying to come up with an alternative solution. I’ve never actually coached somebody before. I had to figure out how to coach them. At the same time, like, I’ve never ran two companies at the same time, so this is kind of scary. But you know what? I gotta do it, and this is a great opportunity.

And then, you know, I just dove in.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow, that’s amazing. Now, is there anything that you do differently coming out of those experiences like that, that you learn from?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah. You know, the, um… After selling my first company and really thinking about the relationships that I had, you know, I, I, I didn’t have a lot of relationships from that previous company. Um, I was so focused on the results that I didn’t really spend enough time on, on focusing on the individual and really getting to know them, and so I realized that [00:11:00] afterwards.

And so now, you know, if… I, I would hope that if you’d ask anybody on my team, they’d say that I am 100%… I’m, I’m really a softie at heart and I care, and I always wanna make sure that I am doing everything I possibly can to make them successful before we ever get to a place where, you know, it’s not working out right and we have to go the other way.

And so getting to know them, um, is really important to me and, and what makes them tick. You know, I like learning about their interests because let’s face it, like, their job is not what they’re passionate, uh, their most passionate thing in their life, right? There’s something else. It’s being a musician or, you know, running a podcast or having a, a Twitch channel or a stream or whatever that can be, or their kid’s in soccer.

And so if I learn about those things, then, you know, I can use LIWMI Logistics as a tool to, to help them achieve some of the things they wanna accomplish there too. You know, maybe it’s sending somebody some nice equipment so they can start their Twitch channel or, you know, giving them a, a, you know, a, a giant [00:12:00] soccer net that I had sitting around that we’re not using because I know their kid loves soccer.

And sometimes those small things just make such a big difference. So I really try to focus in on the, um, just on the person and really getting to know them. I genuinely love people

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and figuring out the why, right? Because that is, that is the reason why people get out of bed. There’s gotta be a reason, right?

Randy Vlasic: 100%, yeah. And everybody’s different. Sometimes it’s, it’s surprising

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it is. Let’s talk a little bit about practicing. So, uh, I mean, this can go anywhere, but I’m wondering what, what does practice mean to you?

Randy Vlasic: Uh, you know, I call it, um, mastery, right? It’s like I- I- for me to learn something, first I have to, I have to be interested in it. I have to generate that curiosity to really want to learn it, right? So just like as an instrument, if I wanna learn how to play the guitar, I’m doing that because I love the guitar.

I love the way it sounds. I wanna get in there, and I wanna, wanna understand it. So now I’m watching the YouTube videos. There’s passion there and excitement. So I have to have that curiosity, number one, but once I have that, it’s just em- um, embracing it, right? I think [00:13:00] mastery comes from stepping into that environment and getting to know that environment, and then putting yourself in that uncomfortable situation and getting comfortable in it, right?

It’s like getting on a podcast for the first time. You don’t really know if you’re gonna say the right things. A lot of times you probably don’t. But the more times that you’re in that environment, you know, the more comfortable you get in it, the, and the more mastery or, or, or the better you get at that craft.

I mean, I use sales as an example, too, ’cause I’ve seen so many people who’ll be like, "Well, I’m, I’m struggling in sales." Well, what do you need? Well, they’ll say, "Well, I need more training. You know, I need more training. I wish I had… There was this secret thing." And it’s, there’s no secret sauce to say, "Hey, if you said this, you’re gonna close 90% of your deals."

There isn’t. For m- most of them, I just like to say, "You know what? Practice makes perfect. You gotta be on the phone. You have to be talking to somebody. You have to be in that environment. You have to be getting hit with objections. When you get those, when you get stuck, bring that to me. Let’s work through some of those things."

But we can train on everything today, but [00:14:00] until you put it into practice, it’s really not gonna stick, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and I found, I found something really fascinating to me is that when you do that kind of coaching with multiple people in your team, it’s interesting that there are some objections that are the same that everybody gets, but there’s also, like, differences as well. And do you find that that’s, that that happens to you as well, that certain people get certain objections all the time?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, I think it, um, it depends on how that individual’s delivering themselves sometimes, I think, right? The, the objections, a lot of, lot of objections are similar. Um, but sometimes it’s just that the way that the person is delivering a certain topic or, or the questions that they’re asking that they’ll get at the same objection that somebody else may not be getting.

So sometimes it is that individual

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and it may, it might have something to do with just the belief and that aspect of whatever it is that they’re offering, right?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah. I mean, belief is the biggest thing, right? It’s, if you can believe in what you’re [00:15:00] selling, you know, you’re gonna be more successful, right? I always, I always use it as this ex- use this example. Like, if you, if I came to you, Tim, and I was like, "Hey, I know you have cancer, and I have the cure for cancer, and I wanna give that to you, but it’s gonna cost you $100,000."

Now, cancer is a significant thing, right? You– if, if, if you had the funds then you, you probably would say yes. But let’s just say you’re like, "No, I don’t, I don’t really want this." My, my conviction on this, this, this cure, though. You’re like, "No one’s ever done this before." I’m like, "No, but I know this." The way that I feel about selling you this pill, the conviction is so strong that I can’t s- I can’t let you say no, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Randy Vlasic: You know, you have to say yes, and so I’ll have to find a way to do that. That’s always an example I like to use

Tim Melanson: Yep, it’s true. Yeah, and, and, and yeah, I mean, that’s the thing is that if the person doesn’t want on the other side, then it, it, it’s really just a mismatch in what they’re looking for. And then that just probably comes down to more questions. You know, you [00:16:00] didn’t ask the right questions to find out if they actually had cancer in the first place, right?

Randy Vlasic: Yep.

Tim Melanson: I mean, that’s an odd example, but yes.

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, I mean, it all comes down to, you know, to understanding the individual that we’re talking to. Like s- I don’t think sales is some… There’s definitely some technique to it, but most of it is just building a relationship and then getting to know what makes the person tick and what they’re trying to accomplish, and helping them do that.

So if we can identify that problem and give them the solution, then there’s a good chance they’re, they’re gonna take it

Tim Melanson: Yep. And I do think that o- as time goes on too, uh, I mean, the, the, you know, the, the tricks, I guess, are less effective as more time goes on, I think, because, uh, I think that, um, you know, especially with AI coming out and all that stuff, there’s lots of, of, you know, tactics and things that you can use. But really people do business with people, and so the more real you are about, you know, yourself, you know, they’re, they’re gonna be attracted to you ’cause they like you, you know, rather than the next person over there that can sell them the same thing, right?

And oftentimes that’s the [00:17:00] thing, is it’s a lot of different people offering the same solution. Why would they choose you, right?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, so

Randy Vlasic: I, even in, in the logistics side of things, I mean, I could give you an example. You know, we roll out LTL as a service, which is less than truckload. It was a new service offering we had, and we’ve never done it before. And I’ve, I have done it at my previous companies and managed, you know, $50 million of it.

But, you know, as a new service offering, going to a customer and being able to say, "Listen, I know you guys are doing this. I know there’s opportunity there. I know I can offer a solution, and I wanna build that for you, and I want you to be the one to help me build that. Help, help me understand what’s important so that I can build this solution to really meet your need."

And they love that stuff. You know, it’s not just like, "Hey, let me sell you LTL." It’s like, "Let me- let’s make this together." You

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Hey, your, uh, your background looks awesome. That, is it, that’s a real background, right?

Randy Vlasic: It is, it is, yeah

Tim Melanson: So let’s talk a little bit about your jam room. So what does your home [00:18:00] office look like?

Randy Vlasic: Oh, man, it is a production studio, Tim. I love my home office, um, so much, and I’ve invested a ton of money into it and, and time. And, you know, when I first started working from home in 2017, I think it was, um, you know, I had a, I had an office room, and it had this big giant desk in it, and it had another desk in it, and it had a, a file cabinet and all this stuff in there.

And, like, I had a standup desk that sat on top of that, and it was just cluttered. And it wasn’t, um, a place that I really loved because it was like the storage closet, right? My wife would, like, she needed to h- to stick something somewhere, she’d put it in the office, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Randy Vlasic: So I got stuff all over the place and I’m like, "I hate this."

You know, when I walk into work every day I’m like, "Man, this environment is just not, it’s not motivating me," you know? And, uh, so I’m like, we had this, this room in the front of the house. I, I called it the museum room. It was the room where, like, we had all the nice furniture but nobody ever really sat in it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Randy Vlasic: And I’m like, "I’m taking the museum room over." So I [00:19:00] took that over. I have, um, the VariDesk, which is one of my favorite desks. They’re just super durable. They’re kind of expensive, but Vari makes them. Um, it’s a standup desk. Underneath me I have a, um, uh, a treadmill. So I typically like to walk when I’m working during the day.

I sit down when I’m doing stuff like this. But I spent a lot of time, you know, in, in getting good equipment, cameras and lights and, and making this a place that I really love to come into, and sometimes I’ll come in here for fun, you know?

Tim Melanson: That is awesome.

Randy Vlasic: yeah.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome, yeah. And, and, and that’s just it. I mean, if, if your, if your job is at home and you’re not excited to get into your office, then how are you really gonna get anything done, right?

Randy Vlasic: That’s right. So I, I definitely love this space. You know, my kids love, love this space too, and I like to keep it clean and tidy when I can, and yeah

Tim Melanson: Uh, have you, uh, do, do you have an issue with, like, people interrupting you during the day at all, or?

Randy Vlasic: Um, yeah, [00:20:00] sometimes. I mean, my kids are… You know, my son’s on this e-bike kick, right? And so it’s like every time he needs something with the e-bike, he just walks in, he’s like, "I need new tires. I need new brakes," whatever it may be. And so he’ll walk in, and sometimes it happens, but for the most part, you know, they can hear me or they see that I’m on a call, and they know that, you know, when Dad’s on a call, don’t bother him.

Um, and then they’ll come in, and they’ll sometimes they’ll just give me a wave and they’ll walk by, and I’ll know they need something, and I’ll go find them afterwards. And sometimes, you know, I just had an example where I was having a conversation with a, an employee the other day, and my son, he just made the honor roll, right?

Comes home from school super excited. He comes running into my office. I can see the excitement on his face, and I know, I’m like, "Man, this is something I probably need to listen to." And I, I asked, you know, the employee, I was like, "Hey, man, listen, can you give me a couple minutes? Can I call you right back?"

Had him sit down and tell me all about it. He was so excited. Um, so there’s times like that, too, you know, where I, I, I will, uh, uh, stop what I’m doing to give him the time, and I think that’s the benefit of working from home, right? You’d have the same interactions if you’re sitting at a desk in a cubicle.

Someone’s gonna walk up to you and bother you in the middle of the day, and you’re gonna [00:21:00] stop what you’re doing and talk to them. So rather it be my kid, you know-

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And, uh, I mean, I think that this kind of thing maybe might keep people from starting a business from home, thinking that, "Oh, I’m just gonna get interrupted all day," and I don’t know how… And, and number one, I think kids espe- especially more than adults, they get it faster, right? I mean, if you, you know, maybe, um, and I know when I first g- started working from home long before lockdowns and all that stuff, people didn’t quite understand it.

They thought I could help them move ’cause I was doing nothing.

Randy Vlasic: That’s right.

Tim Melanson: right? But

Randy Vlasic: go golfing?

Tim Melanson: go ahead

Randy Vlasic: You know, or somebody asks you to go golfing or whatever during the day, I’m like, "I’m working."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. They’re like, "Ah, I got the day off, let’s go golfing." And you’re like, "Oh, come on." But, but I, I think that for, for kids it’s like th- they don’t know any different, so it’s, it’s a matter of like, "Oh, Dad works from home, so he’s working.

Like, okay, I gotta leave him alone." So you, you do find that. But then the, the next thing you mentioned about when your kid comes in, how do you think that, like, the, the, how did the customer react when [00:22:00] you had to go for a second?

Randy Vlasic: Um, it w- it wasn’t a customer. If it was a customer, I- typically I would tell my son, "I’ll- give me a minute and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll reach out to you." Unless it’s somebody that I’m really close with and I could say, "Hey, David, you know, we’ve worked together for a long time. Can I just call you back in a minute?" I think the customer will respond, uh, well to that.

You know, I, I, most people find, like, when it’s something that’s really important to you like that, like your kids and, you know, they have kids and they can share in that too, like, they’ll, they’ll promote that. I think as somebody who’s considering to work from home, you know, man, I have kids at home, and is that an interruption?

Like, yeah, I think working from home is the absolute best because it gives us more flexibility than working in an office. First of all, I’m saving, you know, whatever it is, 13, 30 minutes, half an hour, an hour drive time each single, every single day. If I was working late, I’m working at the office, so I can’t just come out and have dinner with my family and go back in.

Here I can do that, right? I can step out, I can go ha- have a meal with my family, I can get them off to school. I can come back in, I can get back to work. And I think that’s [00:23:00] the, that’s where working from home really is super valuable, and I think that work-life balance that it provides to our employees too is the same, you know?

Like I have, we have people that their kids get off the bus at 3:00. Every day at 3:00, they’re going to get their kid from the bus. Like it- that’s great. Go get your kid from the bus. Like I don’t expect you to sit here from 8:00 to 5:00 and work nonstop and, and ignore everything that’s going around you. All what I care about is, you know, did we meet the KPIs and the expectations?

Are we getting the results that we need, you know? That’s all that matters to me. If you can– If you’re a salesperson that can deliver exceptional results better than any other salesperson and do it in four hours, nobody’s pissed off about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Randy Vlasic: You’re leading the sales team, but you’re gonna do it in four hours.

Everybody else is doing less, and they’re doing it in eight. Like no one’s mad about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, number one, I, I agree. I, I think that clients and, and team members actually, I think it probably benefits you to show that you’re a human and you have, you know, y- [00:24:00] you love your kids and that kind of stuff, right? Like, I think that that’s a super benefit. And then the second part that you mentioned too, like, yeah, I mean, there’s just so many people in the corporate world that are focused on how much time they’re at the office rather than what kind of productivity that they’re producing.

And I mean, that’s really what’s important. And w- as business owners, we should be more interested in what they’re producing rather than how much time they’re sitting at their desk, right?

Randy Vlasic: I mean, it all comes down to results, you know? And I definitely don’t wanna be the person that has to micromanage you. You know, I can … I don’t need a software tool that runs on everybody’s laptop that tells me, you know, what they’re doing ni- every single minute of the day. I just need to know that our business KPIs are this, you know, maybe it’s Y, and we need to hit that KPI.

And so as long as we’re hitting that metric and that metric is, is operating, great. Now, if we’re not hitting that metric, then we’re having a conversation about that. But I’m not sitting there going, "Hey, you’re, you, you turned yellow for, for 30 minutes. Like, what have you been doing?" Like, I don’t wanna be that guy.

I wanna give that to the team and let them run with it, [00:25:00] you

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So what tools do you use in your business to get you success?

Randy Vlasic: Um, well, I think my home setup is my biggest, my biggest tool. This is a command center, right? From a, from a digital standpoint, I am having so much fun with artificial intelligence.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Randy Vlasic: So much fun with it. I am, uh, you know, I, I’m, I am not, uh, a programmer by all means. You know, I’ve launched a personal branding website.

I just launched, um, lifeiswhatwemakeit.com, which is, is about giving, giving back to, to, to drivers. And so there’s, you know, gear that we sell and stuff like that, and then we give proceeds to, to the driving community and give them healthy meals. And like, you know, I’ve built that stuff and, and by myself in a matter of hours.

You know, I remember when I first built my first website for LIWMI Logistics, it cost me $10,000 to build that. You know, when I went to go build randyvlasich.com, they wanted 4,000. Then I found AI, and I was like, "Pfft," and I built it in three hours by myself, and I never coded a [00:26:00] single thing before, right? So I’m also using AI a lot of times, like, to be my executive assistant.

It sends me an update every single morning in my email. It tells me where the numbers are at. So I’m us- loving AI in that way. It’s making me… It’s like unlocking superpowers for me. Like, it fills all the gaps that I had, and all the things that I hated doing, it does those great.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Ugh, I can’t say enough about it as well. All that left brain stuff, right? I mean, it allows you to be creative and it lets all the monotonous stuff, it does it for you, right?

Randy Vlasic: Time-consuming stuff. Like just, you know, I can come up with the, the, the content that I wanna deliver, it can help me build it, and then I can just do it, or I can have it run an analysis, and then I can just validate it for a customer. From an analog perspective, um, you know, I, I, I like to read a little bit.

Um, I’m not great at it, but I do like to read a little bit. My favorite tool, my favorite instrument though would definitely be the pen.

Tim Melanson: Hmm

Randy Vlasic: Um, I love fountain pens, and I think everything starts for me with the pen. [00:27:00] And, you know, when you th- when I- we talk about goals and things like that, like I’m, I’m a … I like to journal every single day.

I like to, to ta- to see how my day went. It forces me to slow down, to, to think intentionally, to write it down. And then when I get into the business side of thing, when it comes to planning, like I like to just un- disconnect from, from the digital world, and, and just sit there and really just write, plan, strategy, mind map.

Um, even like my business, uh, business vision, right? I mean, we all have goals in life. I think vision’s, the vision of it is the most important, and having a document to me is, is the best because if I can look out three years in my business, and I have it written down on a piece of paper, and I have that in front of me every single day, I’m always looking at it.

And if I get off track, I can very specifically see where I’m off track and what I need to fix. And so for my vision, I like to look out three years and then write it in present tense. What do I see in the, ar- around me? What are we doing as a remote company? What are we, uh, [00:28:00] philanthropic things are we doing?

What are we doing as a, as a community? How are we getting together? How are we helping other people? And I can write that in, in present tense and then have that document to do it. So for me, it’s definitely a pen and paper.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah, and so you do… It’s, it’s almost affirmations, I guess, right? Where you write it in the present tense

Randy Vlasic: Yeah. So, um, yeah, just like affirmations, right? I’m a successful person. I’m, uh, you know, I’m a CEO of a $100 million company and, uh, we have a worldwide remote team and, you know, we’re, we’re getting featured in, in a lot of different articles, and companies are coming to us and they’re, they’re asking us how we, how we run the successful remote team, and they’re learning from us and operationally how they do it.

Like, it, it puts you in that environment, right? And then you can, you can see that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And they work. I mean, I know a lot of people think that they don’t, uh, but it is, it is sort of this magic, right?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah, I mean, otherwise, you know, the, the alternative is, and I’ve done it too, I’m like, "Hey, I got an Excel file that has what I wanna be as an individual, what I wanna be as a [00:29:00] business owner, what do I wanna be as a father and a husband," right? And I got all these, these things that I wanna accomplish. But that sits in a file in a folder that I never have opened.

So the only time that I’m seeing that is if I’m doing, you know, intentional reviews weekly, quarterly, monthly. But if I have a document that sits on my desk, I can share that document with somebody else now. So when I interview somebody for a job, I’m like, "Hey, read this first. Tell me what you think about it.

Where do you see yourself fitting into it?" Now I have something that’s tangible

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. I love that. You know, the, the physical, there’s, there’s something to be said about that, and even physical books, right? Rather than, um, you know, e-books or even audiobooks. I mean, audiobooks are super helpful because you can listen to them while you’re doing something else. But the physical books, I mean, there is something to be said for it, right?

Randy Vlasic: 100%. I, uh, the books that I read, um … So I have attention deficit disorder, ADHD. So typically when I read a book by myself, I read a book or I read a whole chapter sometimes, and I get to the end and I’m like, "What did, what did I just read? I don’t even remember what happened." I have to go read it again. And so what I’ve [00:30:00] learned is, that works best for me is I’ll, I’ll, I’ll order the book as an audiobook, and I’ll listen to the book while I read it, and then I just use the book for notes, and I take notes in the book, and I highlight things as I’m listening to it, but I like to listen to it

Tim Melanson: That’s an excellent idea. I never even thought to do that. That’s a great idea because you just order it in two different formats, and now you can follow along in the book just like your parents read to you.

Randy Vlasic: That’s right. And then I have, again, that tangible thing that I, if I wanna m- I’m like, "Hey, there was that book that I read and I love that spot." I can just go grab it off the bookshelf, and I can open it up, and I can see it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Love that. So I’m excited to hear your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your, in your business right now

Randy Vlasic: Oh my gosh. Um, so I just launched Life is What We Make It, like the real movement part of it, about a month ago. Um, so the cultures and the values all live in LIWMIlogistics.com, and we’re doing amazing things. The freight market is absolutely wild right now.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Randy Vlasic: Help companies understand their transportation in such a way that it becomes such a value proposition to them in the [00:31:00] market.

But Life is What We Make It, um, the whole goal of it is to inspire men and people to, to take ownerships for lives and build something meaningful. And so I’m trying to build a following and share some content that’s, that’s able to help some other folks that may be be in similar industries, and bring on maybe a couple guests that can share some of their stories.

Um, and then I’m just using LIWMI Logistics as kind of the tool to, to, to enable m- myself and my team to be able to do those things. So the movement is, is starting. It’s very new, you know, and, uh, and again, it’s one of those things just like anything else. It’s scary, man. I, I … This is my seventh podcast and I can’t

You know, every single one I get off and I’m like, "What was I thinking? Why did I say that?" And then this is the same thing. I’m like, "Why did I roll that content out? Oh my God, I, I didn’t put music on or I did something wrong." And, but it’s fun and it’s ins- it’s exciting for me. And the, um, what it’s doing for other people is the most rewarding thing.

You know, I have 20-something-thousand TikTok followers [00:32:00] on TikTok, right? And I got that through, through a weird video I posted with my daughter that we made together. But now that I’ve shifted to Life is What We Make It, and I’m sharing content that has to do with like finding your identity, building your vision, how do you master your habits, what are the people that help you get there, what does m- m- uh, um, momentum look like?

Now I’m having all these kids reach out, and I never even thought about inspiring children, but I’m having my son … You know, I’ve had kids that my sons know or these kids that are reaching out. They’re like, "Hey, I never even thought about this. This is really helping me in my life."

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. That’s

Randy Vlasic: And so yeah, it’s been, it’s been a wonderful ride.

I’m having a lot of fun with it

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more?

Randy Vlasic: Um, the best way to find me is just go to randyvlasic.com. Um, it links to all my social platforms there and everything that I’m doing. Um, it links to, um, our movement site as well. Um, so again, just randyvlasic.com

Tim Melanson: And so where’s the podcast available then?

Randy Vlasic: Right on randyvlasic.com. It’s hosted on, on [00:33:00] all the major podcast networks. So you can find it on Spotify and, uh, I have it on YouTube, um, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, but all of the links for everything that I do is on randyvlasic.com

Tim Melanson: Oh, love that. Right on. All right, so maybe the toughest question of all, and we’re gonna get into the music side a little bit. So who is your favorite rock star or band?

Randy Vlasic: Oh, God. I think, um, man, I love Kid Rock. I w- yeah, I think from a rock star standpoint, like definitely it’s Kid Rock, but I love all kinds of music. The only thing I don’t listen to is hard metal, but outside of that I’ll, I’ll, I’m rap, rock, and, and country all in the same car ride.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Well, I mean, those, those are kind of like getting mixed together nowadays, isn’t it?

Randy Vlasic: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt it is. It is

Tim Melanson: Have you ever seen Kid Rock in concert?

Randy Vlasic: I did. Last time I saw them was at, uh, Summerfest in, in Milwaukee. I went with my wife.

Tim Melanson: That’d be quite the show, eh?

Randy Vlasic: oh, it was a great show. Great show

Tim Melanson: that’s awesome. Well, thank [00:34:00] you so much for rocking out with me today, Randy. This has been a lot of fun

Randy Vlasic: Oh, Tim, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having on me, or having me on the show

Tim Melanson: No problem. And so we’ll see you next time on the n- on the Work At Home Rockstar podcast, and make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information

Randy Vlasic: Take care