Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s guest, we have the CEO of SSSE, and what he does is he specializes in using creative deal structuring to purchase cash flowing assets and to build ground up institutional grade self-storage facilities. I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Fernando Angelucci.

Hey Fernando, you ready to rock?

Fernando Angelucci: I am, Tim

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

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, um, I think the, the biggest success I had was leaving the corporate life and deciding to chase my dream. Um, I read a book by Tim Ferriss called "The 4-Hour Workweek," and it had a very interesting exercise in it, which was called the fear setting exercise. You know, I was so afraid to leave my engineering job.

Um, I didn’t know what would happen. You know, what if I would fail? And basically what the book said is put basically two lines on a piece of paper, number them from zero to [00:01:00] 10. The top line is, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Zero is nothing changes. Uh, 10 is you die. Nine is you go to prison for life.

So there, there’s your range. Now score it. Then go to the second line, also zero to 10. This is what is the best possible thing that can happen? Zero is nothing changes. Ten is you’re living your, your absolute dream life. And so I had ended up doing the, you know, the mental gymnastics, and really the worst thing that could happen was I put it as a three.

I, I still had my degree. If it didn’t work out, I could always go back into the job market. If I was tough on cash for a little bit, I’m sure I could, you know, stay with friends or family, et cetera. But on the positive line, it was a nine. Uh, I should have put a 10 knowing what I know now, but it was a nine.

I said, "Hey, three to nine, that, that makes the most sense." So I ended up quitting, um, basically jumped out of the plane and built the parachute on the way down. I cash advanced almost $100,000 off of 12 different credit cards to [00:02:00] start the business, and then, uh, never looked back. Um, today, uh, I run a, a self-storage private equity company.

We’ve done over 55 transactions across 26 states, over $240 million. I travel nine to 10 months out of the year, uh, working from virtual offices, if you will. Um, and it’s… I’m living my dream life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So you didn’t, uh, burn the candle at both ends and keep it, keep the job and work at the same time? You just went all in

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, you know, I started just a little bit, so maybe a couple months doing that, and I r- I realized how much output that I was being able to achieve just in the nights and weekends. And I realized that the longer I keep this up, either I’m gonna get burned out from the business that I wanted to create or the job or both.

And that was not a healthy strategy. So instead of trying to keep my foot in both sides, I figured the best thing w- to do was just focus [00:03:00] 100% of my, my attention on the one thing that I wanted to do that I think would move my life forward, and that’s, that’s what I did. So I, I did some real estate on the side for a couple months and then decided to quit.

And the way I quit was a way that made sure that I’d have no way to come back to that same company ’cause I, you gotta, you know, you gotta set, you gotta set the ability to, to hold yourself accountable. And if you always know that there’s a way to go back, um, you’re not gonna really try as if it’s the last possible thing that you can do.

So I had to make sure that, um, there was no other option but success.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s awesome. Well, I mean, that’s a really cool exercise that you got into. I, I’m wondering, uh, how did you find the book?

Fernando Angelucci: I’ve, you know, since I was a teenager, uh, I never thought I liked to read, um, but then picked up a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert [00:04:00] Kiyosaki, and then that’s when I discovered the kind of, I hate this word, but kind of self-help books. Books that are not fiction or, you know, things that you can actually apply in your life to make your life better.

Um, maybe sales psychology, personal psychology, mindset, et cetera. So I just started going down that, that rabbit hole of, you know, buying one book, reading it, finding it fantastic, and a lot of these books, they usually reference other books. The authors will reference other books in their books. So then I start buying those, and then all of a sudden in a couple years I have multiple bookshelves filled and, uh, Tim Ferriss’ was one of the ones that I had gotten early on.

I think I was 19 when I read his first book

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah, I was in probably my early 20s, so just a little older than you when I started getting into the self-help stuff, and I just remember, like, people, like, thinking I was so weird, ’cause I was always reading these, like, business books instead of the fiction that they’re reading, right?

And they’re like, "Uh, when you say you like to read," they’re like, "Yeah, but [00:05:00] that doesn’t count." I’m like, "It, it counts, I think," you know?

Fernando Angelucci: I agree.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Now, okay, so, uh, along with the good notes, sometimes there’s some things that don’t go as planned when you’re, when you’re setting up your business, when you’re getting moving, and I don’t like to call them failures, ’cause, I mean, they’re all, all learning experiences, but

Fernando Angelucci: Right

Tim Melanson: they are what keep people out of the game a lot of it, a lot of times, right?

They’re just scared about that stuff happening. So I like to, I like to bring a couple of them up or one of them up that might be a bad one that might scare somebody, but you can… You’re still here, right? So can you share a, a story with me?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. Um, you know, I think the, one of the biggest challenges people have when they go into, you know, business, working from home, being a business owner, is thinking that they should do everything themselves because they wanna keep the max amount of profit that, that, that they can. And the problem with that is as you start scaling, you start [00:06:00] burning out, and now that thing that usually made you excited to wake up in the morning, the thing that, that got you out of bed, becomes something that you don’t look forward to doing anymore.

And that’s usually because you’re overworked and you’re not using systems and processes and procedures in your business to either, you know, automate, eliminate, or delegate tasks to people that have, uh, lower per hour, uh, value on their time. So one of the, the first times I burnt out, uh, I was in the single family home space and, uh, buying, fixing and flipping, wholesaling single family assets, not, basically not building up the team like I should have, and I was working too many hours.

You know, I, I went from working a 60 hour per week corporate job to working 80 to 85 hour per week. Basically, I built a job for myself. It wasn’t– I couldn’t call it a business because I wasn’t an owner. I was basically just the, the main [00:07:00] employer, one of the main employees. And then I got burnt out, and it, it, it really made me want to quit and go back into the corporate world.

Um, but luckily did a reassessment, got, um, got some third party advisors into the business, showing us what we’re doing right, what we were doing wrong, where we can put systems and processes, procedures in place. And from that point on, we started to scale pretty heavily until we decided to finally, uh, get into the commercial real estate, um, space or self-storage spec-specifically

Tim Melanson: Hmm. When you say we, who was we at the time?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so when I started the business, it was just me, and every time I would get a quick win, you know, a small check here or there, 6,500, 10,000, I would take a picture of it and I would send it to my best friend that, uh, was my random, uh, randomly assigned roommate in college freshman year, uh, Steven. So eventually, you know, s- Steven was being a g- good guy about it.

He didn’t like his [00:08:00] job. He wasn’t making a lot of money, and, uh, he eventually said, "Listen, you either gotta stop sending me pictures of these checks or you gotta show me how to do this business." And I said, I, you know, "I thought you’d never ask." So finally brought him in w- and since then we’ve been, um, we’ve been 50/50 partners all the way

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay, that’s awesome. And so w- uh, if you were to do it again, like would you do it any different or did you need to get to that, to that burnout mark before you could hire?

Fernando Angelucci: No, no, I would have done it. Knowing what I know now, you know, a decade or more later, I would’ve started larger. So a lot of people think that you have to start small and then bank, you know, a l- a little bit of cash here and there to eventually get to the point where you can go to the next level, and then do the kinda the same thing.

That takes a ton of time. And when you look at, you know, our lives, people don’t realize kinda how finite it is. One of the things that I like to do is break down what your life expectancy is into weeks, [00:09:00] and then see what you’re doing on a weekly basis, and you really don’t have a lot of time. So why put the same amount of effort in going after, let’s say, a $100,000 payout when you can put the same amount of effort into going for, for a 10 million or a $20 million payout?

So what I realized in the beginning is that I should have just started adding zeros onto what my goals were and what type of deals I wanted to do, and then realized that I don’t… Again, uh, going back to the previous, the previous no- uh, point, I didn’t need to do everything, and that includes my money. I didn’t have to use only my money.

I could have s- from the beginning, started raising capital from external, you know, third parties to help build the dream, and then give them a great return along the way. And that’s how we’ve been able to scale so quickly over the last, you know, seven to eight years, is by focusing on the point that doesn’t need to be my cash equity, it doesn’t need to be my debt.

You know, someone else can, can sign on the debt for me, as long [00:10:00] as they’re properly compensated. You know, as long as I have the, the operational wherehow, the opportunities, the deal flow, um, I can put that all together much faster. So I w- I just wish f- for… You know, in the beginning, I was flipping $40,000 houses on the south side of Des Moines, Iowa, when I could have already just been building 10 million, $20 million assets from the get-go

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, was there some people that came into your life that helped you, to help you teach this stu- or to teach you this stuff, or?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So this is one of the things that I always tell kinda new real estate investors is, you know, s- surround yourself with people that are successful in your field. Um, there’s, there’s a great saying, I forgot who said it, but you’re the average of the five people you spend the most amount of time with.

So, you know, if you’re spending time with a bunch of people that are making minimum wage, you’re probably going to be making minimum wage. But if you have the ability to surround yourself with people that [00:11:00] are, you know, at the next level or the next two or three levels of where you wanna get to, that will start rubbing off on you.

So easy ways to find this, there’s always local meetup groups, um There’s also, you know, paid membership groups. So if you wanna get really serious about your craft or your trade, you know, you gotta go to the places where, you know, most of the masses aren’t allowed to go because there’s some type of paywall.

Um, and in most cases, that paywall makes sense because then, you know, the, the guys that are doing 100 million a year, they’re not gonna go to the, you know, the community center free meetup on a Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday night, right? They’re gonna go to the 35, $50,000 a year paid, you know, once quarterly, once a, a week-long trip.

So these masterminds are super important. Um, I have always been parts of masterminds g- going through the business, uh, you know, life cycle. I, I learned this from, uh, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, where he talks [00:12:00] about masterminds and how important they are. So I’ve always had a general business mastermind.

Didn’t have to necessarily be about my, my asset class or industry. Uh, and then I would also be a part of a, a, a mastermind that was specific to what I was trying to do at that time. And, you know, you don’t have to start at the $50,000 level. What I always tell people is set aside a number of top-line revenue for educational purposes.

So, you know, start with 1% or 5%. I think 5% is pretty aggressive, but if you wanna scale faster, that’s how you do it. And then that money goes into a special education account. And in the beginning, it may only be a couple hundred bucks, but a couple hundred bucks can buy you some really awesome books, right?

Then all of a sudden you maybe get 1,000 bucks or 2,000 bucks, and that’s a great three-day weekend course that you could pay for. And then very quickly that starts growing, and then all of a sudden you have 10,000 in that account or 20,000. Now you can start paying to get into those higher level rooms, those higher level groups where you [00:13:00] really…

It’s crazy how fast you can compress learning. Something that took somebody 20, 30 years to learn how to do, just by being next to them and, and going to these, these masterminds, you can compress all of that knowledge, all the, the successes and failures that they’ve had into a period of one year for you.

So now you’ve– you’re getting to catapult and almost, you know, skip over all of that pain and heartache and discovery that someone else had to go through. So I always tell people, you know, you can learn from other people’s successes, but you can also learn from other people’s failures. But to learn from people’s failures, you have to be in a room where people are willing to be vulnerable and share those true failures.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, and then that’s the next question. Like, h- uh, what do you think is in it for them to be vulnerable and share those failures and, and, and help you?

Fernando Angelucci: You know, they’re in the room for the same reason. They’re trying to grow and, and level up. Um, there’s that old adage that, you know, two heads are better than one. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh [00:14:00] perspective for somebody to see something that you have been stuck on for one, two, three years, and sometimes it comes from somebody in a different industry than yours.

Because in their industry, they do things a little bit differently. They look at problems differently the, than the way that you look at problems in your industry. That’s why I always say it’s important to not only be in a mastermind that is industry specific, but one that’s just general business, ’cause then you can learn how other industries are tackling problems.

So they’re there to, to learn as well. It’s not like these are people that aren’t getting anything out of the groups. The people that go to these groups, typically the structure is you go… It’s multiple days. They’re broken into rooms, and then each person has to present anywhere between 30 to, you know, 50-minute presentation on a give that they’re giving to the group, something that they learned, something that they think is valuable to the group.

And then at the end of that presentation, they have maybe 10 minutes for an ask. Here’s what I’m working on. Here’s what I’ve been struggling on. You know, q- Q&A. Let’s, let’s figure it out together in this room. So it’s kinda like a sounding board, [00:15:00] almost like a, a board of directors that you don’t have to pay for their insurance and healthcare, et cetera.

So it, it’s, it’s super awesome structure

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and sometimes you can learn from somebody who is even at the beginning of their journey because, uh, maybe you might have gotten away from some of the fundamentals, right? And you’re like, "Oh, geez, I used to do that, and I got success, and now I’m stuck," and maybe that might be the kind of the aha that you get from someone who’s just getting started, right?

Fernando Angelucci: 100%. 100%.

Tim Melanson: So now you do a lot of traveling. H- how do you, how do you set up your, your, your jam space, your, your home office if you keep on moving?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So the, the key is to have a, an office that is easy to set up and take down on, on a moment’s notice, but then also to have kind of processes and procedures in place to make sure that you’re always in a reliable space or reliable mindset. So for example, anywhere I’m traveling, I do a lot of podcasts.

I always find podcast studios to rent. So this is not in my office. This isn’t a virtual [00:16:00] screen. This is a real podcast studio that I rent on a, you know, on an hourly basis. Uh, the other thing is to kinda… For me, because I try to travel as light as possible, I travel around with just one backpack. It’s a travel backpack.

I think it’s 45 liters. Um, so my workspace has to be super refined. So laptop, phone, um, a Wi-Fi- uh, satellite Wi-Fi, uh, just in case I, I’m in an area where there isn’t reliable internet. Or like we were talking before we started recording, you know, there was a period of time where I worked from a Airbnb that I rented in the middle of the, of the, the tropical rainforest, so there was no internet connection there at all.

Um, and then, you know, making sure that you have a proper work hygiene. So just because you’re working from home, I mean, and this is just my opinion, so I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would disagree with this, but just ’cause you’re working from home doesn’t mean that you should be working in your pajamas, you know, rolling out of bed.

Treat it like I at least like to treat it [00:17:00] like I’m going to work. I get up, I take a shower, I brush my teeth, I eat breakfast, I put on work clothes, and then I go into my work space, wherever I set up that space to be. Typically, it’s not in the space that I’m relaxing in because that mental separation is not only good for when you’re trying to get things done on the work side, but then also when you’re on the, you know, the, the balance side, the work-life balance side.

You know, when you’re done working, when are you actually done working? F- and for me, it’s I put away all my stuff, I take off my work clothes, I put on my chill clothes, and I’m done for the day. Um, because, like I said, you want– Uh, for people that have been business owners for long enough, burnout is a real problem, and if you lose your passion for what you’re doing, all of a sudden you’re in a nightmare of your own making.

So you gotta make sure to set boundaries, just like you would set with someone else paying you. You know, you’re not gonna answer phone calls and emails on the weekend when you’re with your family. Why would you do it in your own business, [00:18:00] right? So just making sure that you have that, that proper hygiene is super important.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s, that’s really good. I remember actually when I was first starting to do, uh, cold calls, I, I actually did put on a suit and tie to make phone calls, and it, it actually did help. I, I was, I was more confident on the phone. It, it just was, it is what it is, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Look good, feel good. You know what I’m saying?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, uh, I, I imagine that, uh, it might be a little bit weird for the people around you.

Like, what are you doing sitting in your office with your, with your suit on? But I mean, hey, if it works, it works, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, exactly. There’s a ton of books on, on, uh, the psychology of this exact aspect of working from home and how do you separate work-life balance that I’ve read, and it’s– I think it’s super important. It may seem weird, it may seem cheesy, but it really does have awesome results, uh, both from stress levels and from, you know, being laser-focused when you are in work mode, and then being super relaxed when you [00:19:00] go out of work mode into, you know, chill mode or, you know, I’m at home.

You know, ’cause y-you’re in the same space usually. You’re in your home, you just move from, I don’t know, your kitchen or your office to your, to your living room, or in some cases, like when I first started, I was in a st- a studio apartment. So there was no different zones, if you will. You ha- I had to, like, make my own zone.

So that’s why I forced myself to, you know, put away all my things, put them out of sight, ’cause just even seeing my laptop would, would start making me think about th- work again when it was 9:00, 10:00 PM. It just started disrupting my sleep. That’s not healthy. So making sure that you have proper work hygiene, I think, is one of the most important things, um, for your kinda jam space if, you know

Tim Melanson: Now I don’t, uh, I don’t remember, um, I, I don’t know what’s going on in, in, uh, school systems today, but I know when I was going to school, I don’t remember a real big, um, curriculum on cash flow and, and that kind of stuff. And I, I’m wondering, like, uh, is, you know, how do you learn [00:20:00] that? How do you keep that going?

H- how do you make sure that you’re making more than you’re putting out? Like, do you keep an eye on those numbers every day? Do you have somebody

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, you know, there’s obviously levels to this. So at the beginning it was, it was just me. Now I have a full, you know, bookkeeping team and an accountant to handle that stuff for me. But in from the beginning, you know, for your listeners that are thinking about taking the plunge, you always gotta focus on your profit first.

I know this sounds kinda backwards. Most people think, "Hey, here’s the revenue, pay all your expenses, and then whatever’s left over is what I’m gonna take home." But what you end up realizing is expenses start growing as the business start growing. So if you don’t take profit off the table, you have problems.

So there’s a really good book, I’m, I’m s- blanking on the author, but the name of the book is called Profit First. I really recommend people take a look. I not only use that system in that book for the business and the, the multiple businesses that we have, but then also for my personal life. I created a profit first flow that makes sure that I’m taking [00:21:00] chips off the table all the time because I…

You know, in these masterminds, I’ve met guys that, you know, that they had successful businesses for a decade, two decades, and all of a sudden they f- they file for bankruptcy. How can that be? Right? How can you be successful for multiple decades and then have nothing to show for it at the end? And it’s usually ’cause they were never taking chips off the table.

They just kept reinvesting into the business and then all of a sudden, once the business was no longer viable because either the economy changed or we had a p- global pandemic or whatever happened, they had nothing to show for 20 years of work. So I think that’s a huge mistake that a lot of people make right off the bat.

So definitely read Profit First. I think it’s Mike Michalowicz, I think is the name of the author. Super cool guy. I saw him speak in person, really animated dude. Um, so go out and ch- and check out that book. And then the second thing that I’d, I’d tell people to focus on is when you’re… You know, you gotta have clear goals.

So when you go into business [00:22:00] being extremely vague, um, you don’t really go anywhere. It’s like getting into a car without a GPS or a map, and then just driving hoping that you’re gonna get to your destination. That doesn’t work. So the other book that I tell people to read is, uh, Traction by Gino Wickman, Gino Wickman.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman, and it basically shows you how to set up a operating system for your business with very clear and concise goals on a 10-year, three, five or three-year, one-year, 90-day, one-week, and daily level. So you know exactly where you are and ha- you have a scorecard that you can easily look at to see, am I on track or am, am I not on track, and why?

So those are two books I really recommend for as far as cash flow management goes.

Tim Melanson: I love that. What other tools do you use? I mean, you’re, y- I mean, you probably have a pretty good tech stack, right? Be- being, with doing all your traveling. What, what, what do you use?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, now it’s been getting a lot easier, but when we first started this business over a [00:23:00] decade ago, um, the– we– you had to be very, um, nimble, and you had to be able to kind of MacGyver things together. Uh, now there’s a lot of full tech stacks that are kind of all, all-encompassing. But then what I found out is, you know, that the KISS method, keep, keep it simple, stupid, is still a really great adage to keep in mind because you can get, you know, over your skis and all of a sudden decide that this, you know, this Salesforce massive package that costs $10,000 a month that’s gonna solve all your problems will solve all your problems, and then it doesn’t.

So what I found is that, you know, e- I l- I live on Excel. I love Excel. No, no reason to migrate from that. Email, email client is great. Um, I do have a, a CRM that I use. It’s kind of… It’s called Asana, but there’s many similar to like ClickUp and Monday, and there’s a ton of them. Just kinda helps keep projects-oriented tasks, and the great [00:24:00] part about it is those tasks also have deadlines that they start pinging you via email or even text message if you allow it to, um, so you can kinda stay on track.

So, you know, as far as total tech stack goes, we have, um, Asana is where we live kinda most of the time ’cause that’s what keeps the rest of the team and the rest of the company oriented towards their specific goals for their specific departments, et cetera. But then also it flows up to the company-wide goals and what we as the owners are setting for everybody.

Um, and then, like I said, just kind of super basic stuff, keeping it simple. Excel, uh, G- we use Gmail. We use the, the corporate version of Gmail, but it’s still a Gmail account. Um, pretty, pretty basic. And then, you know, with, uh, with all the AI stuff that’s coming out nowadays, um, we, we do dabble a little bit into, you know, some of these LLMs that help reduce the amount of time it takes to produce certain deliverables like presentations [00:25:00] and, and summaries of financial data, things like that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Um, and, and that’s the thing. I mean, sometimes these all-encompassing sort of tech stacks might be kind of mediocre at everything rather than picking something that’s, like, really good at what it does type thing, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, and then not only that, but then it’s also a single point of failure. So we saw recently when there was like a massive outage, I think it was the Cloudflare, C- Cloudfla-flare, something like that outage, took down something insane like 23% of the internet. So if you had everything in your business housed on one of these CRMs that was a do everything for you CRM, and now you have no access to that CI- CRM for gosh knows how long, that could be a huge problem in your business, especially if it, your business deals in kind of very tight deadlines and large money transactions, things like that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and you see a lot of businesses running their, you know, their whole marketing on Facebook or whatever happens to be their social media platform too, which is super [00:26:00] dangerous, right? I mean, something could happen. You could lose your profile, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. Sing-single point of failure. You always want at least two to three vendors for every, every thing that you need, every vendor that, that, that you’re looking at to use, so

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Let’s get into your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, uh, up until recently, how we’ve raised money for every one our deals were what are called single asset syndications, which means that when I need money for a deal, I go out and tell people, "I need money for this one deal." And the hard part about that is before I can raise the money, I have to get everything else lined up, the financing, the deal, everything.

Which mean- meant that I usually only had couple weeks, three to, three to eight weeks to raise all the money I needed for some of these projects that were pretty large, you know, $15, $16 million build that I had to raise $3 to $5 million on. The cool thing that I’m super excited about now is we have launched our [00:27:00] first fund, and it’s actually a general partner fund which offers kinda higher returns than what a limited partner fund would offer.

So now we have kinda like this, this, you know, this track record from the single asset syndications. All these investors are coming into the GP fund, which now means that we have cash to play with before we actually need the cash, which allows us to do some very creative things. So for example, when we’re negotiating, um, a purchase on a property, we can say, "Hey, here’s the regular price.

Here’s a severely discounted price, but we’ll pay you in 10 days. We’ll give you your entire purchase price," and it could be a couple million dollars, right, in 10 days. And usually there are some people that are willing to accept that because time is money to a lot of people. So super excited about the GP fund.

It is our first fund. It’s a $25 million fund, um, and it invests alongside me and Steven as the owner on a lot of these single asset syndications that we do. So, um, super excited about that. I know it may sound a little bit like gobbledygook to some of the [00:28:00] people that are out there, but in the syndication space it’s a, it’s a huge milestone.

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Cool. Now, what is the type of person that would benefit from that?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so we help, um, you know, a lot of high income, um, business owners and W2 investors. So a lot of what we do is focus around tax advantageous structuring of deals. So for example, we closed on a deal in Rochester, New York, uh, at, uh, on New- uh, literally on New Year’s Eve. Um, and every investor that invested into that project, for every dollar they invested in, they got to write off 90 cents on their, uh, tax returns, uh, for any passive investments on their K1.

So that was huge, and it helped a lot of our investors out that were trying to, you know, plan taxes. They, maybe they didn’t, uh, hold tax money in a reserve account as they were working throughout the year, which I know has happened to a lot of new business owners. [00:29:00] It happened to me when I was a new business owner.

You know, because now no longer it’s being taken out of your paycheck ahead of time, you’re just getting all that money and then you forget to set things aside. So then they come scrambling to me and say, "Hey, Fernando, I have a $300,000 tax bill. I have $50,000 to pay this. What am I gonna do? Can you help me out?"

I said, "Actually, I can. I have these deals that you can invest in that will lower your tax burden." So, um, y- you know, typically high, high income W2 earners, uh, business owners, especially if you’re a business owner that you have passive gains that you need to offset, we’re very good at offsetting those

Tim Melanson: Hey, interesting. All right. And, uh, I mean, that leads to something that we could have talked about earlier, which is the tax issue, right, in, in your business and making sure that you save enough money for the taxes, right? Wow. So now how would someone f- what’s the process of someone finding out more information about this?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so there’s, there’s– I always tell people there’s kind of two ways to reach me. So if you’re more of a active outreach guy, you’re a cold [00:30:00] caller, you’re a sales guy, you’re, you’re listening to this right now and you’re just like, "Fernandez, just give me your number. I wanna call you right now," here is my cellphone.

My, my real cellphone number is 630-408-8090. So for all my extroverts out there, 630-408-8090. If you’re somebody that’s more of an introvert, let’s say, or a little bit slower to, uh, reach out when you have questions or, or interests, you know, I always tell those, those folks to go to our website. It’s www.ssse.com, and there you can find out all about us, what we do, uh, the 100-plus podcasts I’ve been on, um, a f- a FAQ page with video responses to every question.

I think we got like hundreds of questions on there. Uh, and then if you want to schedule a call on your own time and terms, there is a link that you can go right to my calendar, and you can schedule a time that works for you

Tim Melanson: Okay, awesome. All right, so before [00:31:00] we go, let’s talk a little bit about music. Who’s your favorite rock star?

Fernando Angelucci: It’s a tough,

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Fernando Angelucci: a tough question. Um I mean, I know we were talking about this before. I don’t know if I can pick one of the guys in the band, but my favorite band of all time is Umphrey’s McGee. It’s a jam band. They are pretty rock heavy for a jam band. So I’d say if, if you’re allow, allowing me to answer with a whole

Tim Melanson: fine. Yep.

Fernando Angelucci: Okay. Umphrey’s McGee

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. And so y- you like, w- what do you, have you seen them in concert? Or like, how, how, do you follow them?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, I’ve, I’ve probably seen them more than 40 times live. I go to the, you know, I go to the music festivals that they headline. I, I camp out in a, in a tent. Nowadays I’m getting a little bit older, so it’s more of a, I rent an RV and then rent an RV space to g- camp out instead of just being on the ground like I used to.

But yeah, I, I follow them around all the time. I love the, I love the music [00:32:00] festival culture and the food and, uh, exploring new music that you hear just from walking from one stage to another stage. So really love that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever played an instrument?

Fernando Angelucci: I have. So, uh, piano, guitar, I sing. Um, nowadays it’s more of a hobby than, than something I spend a lot of time on. But, you know, high school, college days, I, I was playing guitar a couple hours every day. Piano when I was at home. My parents have a piano in their house. And now, uh, like we were talking before we started recording, uh, because I travel a lot, I go to countries sometimes where I don’t speak the native language.

I found that one of the easiest ways to connect to people that don’t speak your language is to go up onto the stage and sing some karaoke, and you end up making a lot of friends for life real fast.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That is an awesome, awesome tip for sure. Rayon, well so, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Fernando. This has been a lot of fun

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. It has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on, Tim

Tim Melanson: No [00:33:00] problem. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

Tim Melanson: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Very excited for this episode. We’re talking to the founder and president of Business Whit, and what he does is he helps business owners and work-at-home leaders to move from chaos to clarity by designing businesses that don’t depend on them for every decision.

Wouldn’t that be great? We’re talking to John Whitt. Hey, John, are you ready to rock?

John Whitt: I am, I am. Thanks so much for having me

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

John Whitt: Um, so real success for me, I’ve been doing this coaching business for 16 years, and so some of my best successes are being able to take somebody from, you know, a, a business that is just consuming them to them being able to triple their revenues and move to the East Coast, semi-retire, and basically participate in the business when they chose, as opposed to having to be there all the time.

And ultimately, that sets the stage for what I [00:01:00] really want to happen with everybody

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Yeah. Wow. And i- isn’t that interesting that, uh, you know, we often get into a business because we want some sort of freedom, right? And then does that happen all the time? I’m not sure, right? We do get some flexibility, right?

John Whitt: You get some, you get some time flexibility pretty quick, right? So one of the reasons why I started my practice is that, um, in my corporate world, I was flying around, I was gone all the time. I missed a lot of my children’s events. When I started my practice, I was able to go to my son’s football games on Thursday afternoon.

Now, that meant I worked Thursday night, but, you know, I had that flexibility, whereas in the corporate world, I didn’t have that flexibility.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: The issue, I… You know, I’ll just explain this. When, when people start their business, they build it by default. They try a l- they get an idea, they get a service, product, they try a little of this, they try a little bit of that.

And that default process, a lot of times it’ll generate some revenue, and it takes some hustle to make that happen, right? It doesn’t [00:02:00] happen just because you didn’t work hard. You gotta get after it. But you realize over a period of time that all of those little things that you did are really inefficient.

It’s like people, they build the airplane while they’re flying, and that plane isn’t very aerodynamic, and it caps at some point. At some point, you get enough customers and there’s no more hours in the day, you can’t take on any more. And I see tons of business owners, tons is not a great word, but they- they’re doing their invoices late at night.

They’re doing their financials. They’re responding on quotes on Saturday. They’re working at night, they’re working on weekends, they’re working… And basically, the business has consumed them. That’s what happens when you build a business by default. My goal, understand how to build a business by design so that doesn’t happen

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. And, you know, I think there’s a different… Uh, I, I think there’s parts of our businesses that we probably love so much. Like, I mean, if you look at music, I mean, you know, if you’re late at night, you know, [00:03:00] playing a riff and practicing or something like that, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But there are also parts of your business that are s- not super fun that you have to do as well.

Now, I’m wondering, is that kinda what you’re saying? Like, can we maybe focus more on the things that actually light us up in our businesses and less on the things that don’t?

John Whitt: Yes, absolutely. And it’s about building the design, the team, the system around you that takes care of the stuff that doesn’t light you up, so that you can focus on… And usually the things that light you up are your one-of-a-kind you things. They’re, they’re the things that only you can do. You’re the only one that can think those rhythms, that, that material, and that’s where you need to spend your time.

And so all those other things that can be done by other people, we want other people to do them. But we have to build a business that serves them, that makes enough money to pay them so that you can do your thing

Tim Melanson: That’s an excellent way to put it because it, it is true. The, the things… I, I think we, we, we, we need to feel [00:04:00] some sort of sense of purpose, and so the things that only we can do are the things that we are really excited about, and also you, you, you can’t actually delegate that to someone else, and if you do, it- we wouldn’t be happy ’cause now you’re not doing the things you love anymore

John Whitt: It is, in fact, it’s one of the frustrating things when you’re having to do those things that you don’t love. It’s not, it’s just not a pleasant, pleasant experience. You know, I, the, the tool I teach is called the Freedom Stack, and it’s delegate, automate, and elevate. Um, and it’s exactly what you said, but that elevate piece is what are you supposed to be working on?

How do we elevate that so that, that, that is where your time and energy goes, not into the delegation, because somebody else can do that, or the automation, because that’s another good concept.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I was once told, um, that if you procrastinate on something, then chances are that’s the thing that you should be delegating. Is that… Does that make sense?

John Whitt: In many ways [00:05:00] it does. Um, and as, as you’re looking at it, as you’re looking to the, like, what should I delegate? Um, we start with the tasks that you can buy somewhere else, right? You have an hourly wage that if you, if you figure out what your income, what you want your income to be, you get to decide what that is, right?

And so let’s just say you decide that you want $100 an hour. If you’re doing tasks that you could buy for $25 an hour, you’re actually costing yourself money. You need to do the work that generates $100 an hour. And that’s what happens is you look at it and say, "Well, man, my, my real purpose, my real, is up here, right?

And I’m doing this down here." And that’s where the procrastination comes from. And so yeah, move that off your plate

Tim Melanson: I wanna make a, a, a reference again to music again. So, uh, one of the toughest things about being a musician is that we love to play music, and there’s a lot of musicians that would love to do it for free, right? We love doing [00:06:00] it so much, right? And so I think that maybe that aligns a little bit to some people and how they see their business, and especially the thing that they love to do in their business, right?

And so when they say they wanna make $100 an hour, that’s like, it’s weird because they feel like they’re almost even cheating a bit because they’re getting paid all this money for something that they would do for free. Is that, uh, d- do you think that that happens in, in regular businesses as well?

John Whitt: I, I th- I think it does. Um, but a couple things you have to understand. When you do it for free, people don’t appreciate it as much. They don’t value it as much.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: You can’t do it for free, and you can’t do it for cheap. You wanna figure out what is that, that spot in the middle that, you know, you’re getting compensated and they’re feeling value

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

John Whitt: ‘Cause I, you know, coaching for free, and I do that.

I do some pro bono coaching, but I do, like, work with nonprofits and things like that. Um, but the reality is the, the clients that I work with that really need my services, that are gonna make a big difference to them, [00:07:00] they don’t look at it. If I was free, they’re like, "You’re not good enough."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there’s a, I, I think there might be some, like, sort of deprogramming that we’re taught to think that work is hard and work is not fun, right? When it is… Now, we- that’s what you’re telling me right now, is that it is possible that you can have something that you’re passionate about that you would do for free that provides enough value to someone else that you could be paid handsomely for that thing that you would do for free anyway.

And isn’t that a great place to live?

John Whitt: That is a, that is the place to live. That is not a great… That’s where you wanna be

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, okay, so there are some things that don’t go as planned on the journey, and I’m wondering, I like to get those out because people really let that hold them back on getting started in the first place, is w- worrying that they’re gonna make some mistakes. And wondering, can you share with me some, you know, mistakes that you’ve made over the years that we can learn from?

John Whitt: Oh, that’s a long list. [00:08:00] Um, well let, let me explain the mistakes curve real quickly, ’cause I think this is helpful. Whenever you’re learning something new is where you’re gonna make some mistakes, right? ‘Cause you don’t know it, you don’t know how to do it. You can think about back when you learned how to ride a bicycle or if you ever learned how to drive a manual transmission car.

It’s, there’s a lot of craziness in that early stage, right? But eventually you learn from your mistakes and you get better and better, and pretty soon you can drive the car, you can ride the bike, you can snowboard. They all play that, that place where you have to, you have to practice, and you get feedback when you do it wrong.

So if you crash the bike, you did it wrong. You gotta, you gotta get better at it. So understand that, that that’s just part of the process. So I am a guy that has always enjoyed really big projects. Really… You know, some people, you know, one project for the whole year, they’re in heaven. And other people, you know, one, that would kill them.

That would just be like give them another hole in the head. Um, some people need more variety. I’m the guy that likes the [00:09:00] deep stuff. And so, um, a lot of times that involves a lot of… And I, I have a sort of an innovation background as well, so that has, um, a lot of net new learning parts to it. And I’m currently engaged in live virtual events, and live virtual events I’ve done in person on stage events, but live virtual events includes all this technology.

And then there’s the learning to do the, the marketing and the development, everything else, um, for a new type of service delivery. And there are, like, 1,000 moving pieces, and none of them, not one of them is, like, complex or too hard. It’s just there’s so darn many of them. And so I go through and I, "Oop, I forgot to do that.

Oop, I forgot to update that text. Oop, I forgot to do that." And so it’s building for, ultimately it’s building systems that allow me to remember to take care of all of those little things, but that doesn’t happen overnight. So I’ve made many, many, many [00:10:00] mistakes

Tim Melanson: And you’re still here.

John Whitt: And I’m still here. And I keep, and I keep plugging along.

And the, the, I think the, the trick is to not get depressed about not making the progress that you want. So the, the way I teach is, you know, most of the time we’re forward thinking. We’re looking like, "This is the goal. This is where we wanna go." And you get up in the morning and it’s not any closer, or maybe you found something and made it even farther, and it- that’s like, "Ugh."

The, the thing to do is turn around and look behind you and see where you’ve come, because I guarantee you the distance that you traveled, you, you don’t, you’re not thinking about that. You’re not thinking about measuring that. But when you look back and you go like, "Well, yeah, I know I still got a way, but man, I’ve got a lot done.

I’m a lot different today than I was a year ago or six months ago or three months ago." And that’s a place where you can pick up some energy to restart the, the goal process

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I think that we, not only do we compare ourselves to who we think we wanna be in the future, but we also compare [00:11:00] ourselves to other people too, and you’re only seeing their highlight reels, right? So you’re kinda

John Whitt: They don’t tell you the things, they don’t tell you their struggles. Right now, a few, a few of the influencers out there, um, will share some of their struggles, and they teach from that, and that’s– I, I appreciate that. That’s one of the things that I try to do as well. Um, but most people are just talking about their highlights

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow. So let’s talk a little bit about The Jam Room. Like, I mean, you’ve been working from home for quite a while now, and so how do you, how do you stay productive in your home office when there’s so many distractions around?

John Whitt: Well, um, I learned this a while back from Dan Sullivan, who is the strategic coach. He’s been coaching longer than I have. Um, at night, uh, we’re gonna go do a quick little evaluation of what we got accomplished today, and we’re gonna identify three things. Not 10, not one, but three things that we wanna get done tomorrow, and we’re gonna put those in priority order.

And ideally, one of those is a big thing, [00:12:00] and a couple of those are some side things. And so that’s my focus for the next day. And I, I actually start that the night before. And what happens is your subconscious mind kind of kicks that around while you’re sleeping. You don’t know that, but it does, right?

And you wake up in the morning and you’re like, "Oh, okay, now I know what to do, and I’m ready to go." And I’ve already built the focus, like do the hard thing, the big thing first. Um, and so that’s, that’s kind of how I keep my focus. And I also know that I, I have to be careful because I am distracted by shiny objects at this.

And so, um, I sort of have learned in- leaned into this concept of kind of picking my head up from whatever it is that I’m doing and just evaluating, am I still doing the thing that I should be doing? Now, in addition, I think that there are some rest periods that are there. So it’s very easy to just try to work three, four, five, eight hours in a row, and frankly, for me, that doesn’t work anymore.

I was a competitive chess player in high school, and so a chess game– I played in the US Chess Championships in 1976, and a chess game would [00:13:00] be four hours. And so when I was 16 years old, I could concentrate for four hours. I gotta be honest with you, that is not in the cards for me any longer, right? I’m happy when I get 90 minutes.

And so I really sit there and say, "Look, I want, I want some 90-minute bursts. I want a 90– I want two 90s and a 60." If I get two 90s and a 60 every day, then I feel pretty good. And that gives me some time to get up or walk around and take the dog for a walk, uh, maybe check something, do a little reading, do a little…

You know, that kind of thing. And if I sit too long, my back gets sore. It’s just, this is the, the problems with age, right? I’m, I’m not talking to anybody in particular. It’s just me

Tim Melanson: Of course. Of course, yeah. Oh, geez. Well, and I, I think it works on two sides too. It also, uh, for people that have a hard time concentrating, I mean, you’re- you’ve got the opposite thing where you could concentrate for longer than, you know, m- a lot of people are kinda like 10, 15 minutes and all of a sudden you’re onto another task.

Like, having those bursts is, is really good to keep you focused for that amount of time too, ’cause you, you do [00:14:00] build a roll, right?

John Whitt: Absolutely. And I, and I, so I think I call it the sprint, right? Understand that a 15-minute sprint is really hard to get something significant done.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

John Whitt: Just not enough time, right? So a half an hour, there’s an opportunity to get something done. An hour, there’s really a great opportunity to get something done.

90 minutes is complex. So if, if all you can do is a half an hour, try to get to a half an hour, right? Just learn to focus, sit on your hands, stay in the game until you have a half an hour. And actually, with practice, it gets easier, right? It’s, that’s just part of the, part of the process. Um, but with, when…

Even if you break your tasks down into a half an hour, half-hour batches, you’ll, you can make a lot of progress in the course of one day. And, you know, for me, that would be, what, 90, 90 and 60, so six, seven, eight half-hour sections if I could, if I could get that in. It’ll probably be a little bit longer because of the startup function, right?

So you work on something for a half an hour and you’re deep into it, [00:15:00] and then you gotta take a break. Well, it takes a little while to get back into that space the next time, right? It just, it’s just hard. That’s why interruptions are so difficult. I have said to turn off the phone. Like half an hour, everybody on this planet can probably give you a half an hour at any one particular point.

You say, "No, I’m not gonna do it now. I can’t do it now. I need a half an hour. I gotta get this done." Now, sure, are there some emergencies? Yeah. So if the house is on fire, let’s go take care of it. Or if somebody got hurt, then let’s go take care of it. But there really aren’t that many, that kind of emergencies.

Um, and so learning to not get distracted by shiny objects, right? Turn everything else off. Don’t respond. Turn your phone upside down, which I do, because otherwise it lights up when a call comes in. Um, yeah, so those are, I, you know, this is how do I, how do I stay focused working from home

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And you do have to find some tools to help you with that because especially if you work on a computer, that is where all those [00:16:00] distractions are, well, a lot of those distractions are coming from. So, you know, if you’ve got those things banging in the corner , you gotta figure out a way to, to block those, right?

John Whitt: Yes. Turn off all the notifications, all of them, for that period of time.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: Uh, and I, I’ve just discovered, I’ve been doing this, you know, 16 years running my own practice. I worked in hotel rooms when I was flying around when I was in corporate. Same concept. Um, I’ve just discovered that I can turn those off and then I then decide when I wanna go look at it.

It’s not like I’m ignoring everybody. I’m gonna go look at my texts when I choose. I’m gonna go look at my emails when I choose. I’m not a once a day guy either. I’m probably, you know, two or three, four times a day, um, because I don’t wanna go to the end of the day. But, you know, I get to decide when I do that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So now, I, I think that when, um, when a lot of people get started in their business, uh, especially if it’s a very small one, they start as this solopreneur, right? So they’re, they’re wearing all the hats, they’re [00:17:00] doing all the things, right? And m- maybe they love it all, maybe they love the control of it all, maybe they- maybe things are going good.

But as you mentioned, at some point, that… I, I mean, something’s gonna happen in your life at some point that’s gonna take your time, and if you’ve scaled to a point where you’re working a lot of hours, now you’ve got a problem. I mean, what if you have to take a week off, right? And

John Whitt: Yeah, you’ve got no capacity

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So, um, getting other people to help you is, is one thing, but then there’s also the… I think there’s some real stress in doing that for a lot of people, of, you know, trusting someone else to, to do something for you. And how do you think, uh, a person who has that stress would respond? Like, what, what, what do you think that, that they should know to help them to let go of that piece?

John Whitt: So you are speaking the truth here because that’s a big problem for a lot of people. You know, the, the control, will they do it right, et cetera, et cetera. [00:18:00] So, um, in the model where you’re trying to build some additional capacity with outside resources, whether it’s 1099s or service providers or whatever, um, it’s not about whether they can do it like you.

It’s about whether they can do it well enough so that you can elevate your time to the higher value priorities. So that’s one of the first things you have to look at. They’re not… They’re– You’re not duplicating you because that’s just not possible.

Tim Melanson: Okay

John Whitt: The second thing is we wanna be very clear on what are the tasks and the duties.

So I, I look at, I look at three things that you have to evaluate when you bring in somebody on board. Do they have the knowledge to do what you’re asking them to do? Do they have the experience to do what you’re asking them to do? And do they have the behaviors to actually do it when they said they were gonna do it?

And ultimately, those behaviors, those attitudes, those are actually the most important of the bunch. So what are the attitudes that you need? And then how do I, how do I interview [00:19:00] for those attitudes? Because we interview for skills and experience all the time, but people hi- get hired for skills and experience and get fired for attitude all the time

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: So really what we wanna do is how do we get– how do we interview effectively for that? And then now they come on board, how do we measure their performance, right? What, what kind of performance do I need so that I can check and see early whether it’s working or it’s not? No such thing as perfection.

You’re never gonna hire the right person every time the first time. That’s not the, that’s not the case. But, you know, the idea is to hire slow and, and fire fast. If they’re not, if they’re not doing it, then you gotta move them on, so you have to have a system to measure their performance. Are they on time?

Do– Are they doing what they’re new? What’s the quality of their work? Depending on what you’re trying to achieve. When you have a system and a model and a process, then that fear, trust issue, I won’t say it ever goes away, but it, it re- it gets reduced. It gets compressed [00:20:00] to something that becomes manageable

Tim Melanson: Yep, I think, I think that’s right. Yeah, c- and, and I think your f- the first part of it is probably the most important because they’re n- y- they’re not gonna do it like you do it. Or maybe they will, but that would be one in a million, right? Th- they’re… You know, everybody’s unique in the way that you do it.

And, and maybe that might be something that’s connected to the last piece that you said about the process. Because if you know how you do it, then you know how to check if they’re doing it the way that you do it. But if they’re doing it differently, then how do you check to make sure that they’re doing it right if they’re not doing it right, quote-unquote, right?

John Whitt: Well, at the end of the day, it’s the, it’s the output, right? That’s what we’re gonna measure. Does the… And again, do they do it like you? Can they do it as well as you? No. But is the output that they deliver good enough? Is it good enough that allows you to elevate? Because that’s what you’re really trying to do.

Otherwise, you get sucked into those low-value tasks, and now you’re, you’re trapped. But [00:21:00] you wanna elevate. You wanna elevate to where you get to work on your musician musical skills.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: Uh, in the doctor world, for example, my first client was a doctor. I had no expectation of that. But, um, the doctor is the technician, right?

If he doesn’t go into surgery, he doesn’t make any money, so he has to do that. He can’t get somebody else to do that part, right? What we wanna do is make it as easy as possible for him to get into the surgery, get into the operating room as, as often and as frequently as he wants to, because that’s where he generates the revenue.

And so the management of the office, we don’t want that on the doctor’s shoulders. If he has some ideas or concepts on how to be a better doctor, yeah, that, we want him, that on there, and we need him being the technician. So we, we want to… We need to decide what we can, um, delegate and what we can automate.

And you as a musician, you can’t, you can’t automate your musical prowess

Tim Melanson: No. Yeah. Well, um, but then I’ll just throw this out there, is that you could get [00:22:00] surprised, and the person who is not doing it your way could actually be more productive and actually doing, bringing more to the business than you would have thought that they would, right? ‘Cause you just w- they were just doing it differently, and they may, they may have something that you never thought of, right?

John Whitt: And that is high-level success, hiring people that are actually better than you,

Tim Melanson: Yeah

John Whitt: right? Hiring people that are better than you. Um, you know, you’re the leader, you’re the organizer, you’re the orchestra, um, conductor, and bringing in the right talent, you know, like, they, they might be way better at IT than you, or way better at marketing, or way better…

It’s okay. Let them be better

Tim Melanson: Yeah. What is the difference between marketing and sales in your opinion?

John Whitt: Um, well, I, I, I really see that as, like, two halves of the same whole.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

John Whitt: Um, the better your marketing, the easier your sales. But marketing in- includes… The model I always follow was the, um, [00:23:00] AIDA acronym. Um, awareness, interest, desire, and action. That’s what marketing is trying to do, and we’re trying to identify the ideal target, and we’re trying to get them interested and, and to get them to want what we have, to understand the value that we provide, and then to take action to us, towards us to, um, introduce themselves, fill out a form, whatever, something of that sort, right?

And then the sales part is just making sure that we answer all of their questions so that they are fully satisfied in making the investment with whatever your product or your service is, and at some point helping them move forward, because if you know that your product or your service is going to move them Then you kind of owe it to them to help them get to that space

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, like w- w- when you think about, like so the marketing is really the qualifying step. It’s, it’s, it’s bringing people in the door that already want what you want, but it’s also a [00:24:00] disqualifying step, and I think that’s uncomfortable for a lot of people too, right? They don’t want to say that they can’t help you, right?

I mean, how often do I hear people say, "Oh, I can help anybody," right? Have you heard that?

John Whitt: Yeah. Oh, w- w- many, many times. Yes. Um, and, and so yes, you can. But here’s the thing, there are people out there that benefit more from your services and products than others.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

John Whitt: Those are the people that need you the most. Those are the people that you wanna market to. And so every time you bring somebody on that isn’t that level, then somebody that is that level isn’t getting your help, isn’t getting the service that you can provide.

And when it comes to marketing, we’re gonna market to that person that gets it the most. Now, if somebody comes knocking on the door and says, "I need your help," I’m not saying turn them away. I mean, you could help them, but you’re not marketing to them, right? That’s not your ideal client. And when it comes to your capacity, who’s in charge of managing your capacity?

You [00:25:00] are, and so you gotta decide whether or not you have the capacity to handle that, or do you have somebody that you can refer them to

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, that’s just it. There’s only one you. And so really saying yes to one client is saying no to everybody else, right?

John Whitt: Well, if you s- if you think it, yes, but there are, again, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a circular pile, a group, I’m not using the right words here, um, of Customers, prospects that could benefit from your services. Um, but yes, every time you say yes, that, you know, you’re saying no somewhere else, right? There’s only so much space on your calendar.

And as you build your practice, um, there’s gonna be less and less space, and so you have to allocate your time in a tighter and more effective window as you expand

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And just like you said earlier where, um, the mistakes that you make are usually in the very beginning [00:26:00] ’cause you’re, you’re learning, right? And so if you’ve sort of figured out who it is you serve and what they have in common, and you start to get really good at, at handling that specific scenario, you make less mistakes.

You deser- you, you deliver a higher quality product, whereas if you’re constantly taking on different types of things, sure, you could do it, but you’re, like, starting over every time in a way too, aren’t you?

John Whitt: Right. It’s hard to be an expert at everything,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

John Whitt: right? If you’re gonna be an expert, you know, be that top level nine or 10 level on a scale of one to 10, 10 resource, ’cause that, that level actually commands the market. Anything under a nine or a 10, there’s some gaps and, you know, you end up responding to the market as opposed to telling the market what works.

But there’s a lot of work and energy and effort to become a nine or a 10 at something

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, and then just to wrap up that part, uh, like I, so I don’t like nos. I’ve, I’ve learned to accept them, right? Uh, however, I think what you’re, what you’re saying now is that if you get really [00:27:00] good at the marketing portion and you’re having sales calls with people that are most likely to be your target market, then you’re gonna have less of those nos, aren’t you?

John Whitt: Absolutely. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re pre-qualifying them. So before they jump in, they look at your material and they say, "Yeah, this guy’s talking about me. I’ve got that problem. This guy can help me with that problem. I gotta talk to this guy." That guy’s pretty ready to move in, right? And, and take you on, and your job is to serve him, as opposed to somebody that’s kicking the tires.

‘Cause who knows? I don’t wanna spend a lot of time with tire kickers. There’s a lot of them out there

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there is. There is for sure. So it’s time for your guest solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business

John Whitt: So for me, uh, exciting is this live virtual event space. So I spent I grew up in Southern California. I just moved here to the northwest in Washington, Vancouver, Washington five years ago, and it was a tough [00:28:00] transition because in 2020, not only did we have this big pandemic thing, I also went through a divorce, and I also had heart surgery.

And so it was a tough, tough year, and I kinda took some time off and sort of restarted. And one of the things coming out of the pandemic that I realized is that, and we’re seeing it today, that this concept that it’s less risky to work for somebody else isn’t really true anymore, right? Because then they get to decide whether you get a paycheck, and they get to decide whether you get healthcare, and, you know, I just, I don’t want, I don’t think that’s the right thing.

And so I think more people need to take control and understand their business. But most people are an inch wide and a mile deep, and they don’t have the hat, the broadness of the hat, right, that you need. You don’t need to be a mile deep in every business enterprise. Like, if you don’t have… I am not a mile deep in accounting or finance.

That’s not my style, but I know enough to understand what I need and where I’m at, where I’m going. That’s the level that you have to figure out where you’re at, and then I can get a resource to come in and [00:29:00] help me with bookkeeping and accounting and finance. And so, um, I started doing these live virtual events, and what’s really cool, before the pandemic, uh, I was using Zoom, but a lot of the world really needed to be educated on how to use Zoom.

But coming out of the pandemic, everybody knows how to use Zoom. And so we realized that the, you can now deliver a virtual event that is very, very similar to a live onstage event, uh, without leaving my dining room. You see my, my living room right behind me here. Uh, dining room is my office. And I have, um, now there’s a certain bit of equip- equipment, but it’s not a lot, right?

So I’ve got two monitors, I’ve got a teleprompter, and I got a television, which is actually actioning, acting as a really big monitor, and a really nice audio microphone, right? My desk goes up and down if I wanna stand or not, and that’s it, and now I can deliver virtual events to the world, and I can help people, [00:30:00] um, understand what it takes to move from being employed to starting and running their own business, their own, their own practice.

And ultimately, um, help them understand how to move from that hustle culture, ’cause, you know, hustle culture’s absolutely necessary if you’re gonna start running a business. You don’t have a choice. You, you know, you gotta get after it, but there’s a point where it caps, and that’s where it gets really frustrating for a lot of people.

Like, "I just don’t know how to get out of…" You know? And so then it’s, then it becomes systems and processes and concepts, and that’s where I specialize and help you move into that next level space. So, um, live virtual events, I run a, a webinar once a week. Um, it’s called Build It Strong. Um, and it’s really, you know, the concept is if your business still requires you to be present- Then you built it wrong.

It’s not gonna get you where you wanna go. It’s gonna give you the results that you got right now, and you might have heard this before, what got you here is not going to get you there. It, it’ll get you what you got now, [00:31:00] but it’s not gonna get you the next, the next step. Um, so I have a webinar that kinda outlines that and why design is so important and valuable, and then what are the, uh, steps that you can take on your own, whether you do it with me or not, um, to, to start to design your business more effectively.

And then I have a three-day event that if you’re interested in some detailed implementation activity, a three-day event that I run once a quarter. The next one is April 23rd to the 25th. Um, and it’s essentially three days where we go through the whole program, but because we have three days we have a lot more time, and it has the implementation, it has a workbook, it has guest speakers and all kinds of other fun stuff.

Because you can do that with live virtual events. Live virtual events don’t cost the money. Like, you could do it from there. You didn’t have to make an investment. You gotta get your own snacks, that’s all you gotta do. Your own water, right? And nobody tells you what you have to wear, right? And it doesn’t matter.

And if you wanna eat while you’re on camera, it’s fine, it’s okay, and you have a front row seat, right? Everybody has a front row seat. You’re not, you know, sitting 50 rows [00:32:00] back. And there’s this opportunity for engagement and interaction and breakout rooms and all kinds of fun stuff that, that really make a difference.

And so that to me is how I can take my, um, what I call my zone of genius, and I’m not trying to brag here, but just the things that I do best, and, uh, and deliver it to the world, as opposed to the one-on-one coaching business that I had before, which is very effective, but there’s only 10 people I get to work with at a time.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, so, uh, I know one thing is for certain is that we are not taught how to run businesses in school. Like, so the average person is

John Whitt: not certain schools, I’m not certain school’s doing the right things these days anymore anyways

Tim Melanson: No. But, but, but, uh, but I think that there’s a bit of a, of a, of a transition. I, I like where you’re going because, uh, you know, when you start off, you sort of g- are taught to be an employee, and then you decide that, okay, uh, uh, you know, I want my own thing now. I want a [00:33:00] little bit more flexibility. And so you basically transition your employee mindset into a, a business as a solopreneur, where you really just have a job, but now you’re working for yourself, so you have that flexibility.

And I think what you’re saying is that there’s another step after that where you can actually start to pull back from that as well, and now you can be a lot more free to do the things that you wanna do rather than just having a job where you’re your own boss. Is that

John Whitt: You’re absolutely right. Yeah, let’s build a business instead of build a job. Now again, I think building a job is gonna give you a lot more flexibility, but you’re, you know, you’re still tethered, so to speak. You can’t step back

Tim Melanson: Yeah, which is, I- I mean, which is fine for some people. I mean, if that’s what you want, ’cause I mean, you can obviously probably do that and, you know, invest your savings and be able to retire eventually and all that stuff, and that’s great, right? But what you’re ta- talking about is that next level where you can actually now retire, quote unquote.

I don’t know what [00:34:00] that means to some people. I mean, I, I know, I know some people that are retired, and they’re having a hard time figuring out what to do with their time. So why not do the things that you love out of your business while you’re not having to go into the office? Is that kinda what you’re wanting to

John Whitt: yeah. So let’s, let’s just get to the point where we get to choose,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

John Whitt: right? You get to choose. You know, if you’re really good at what you do and you like it, then let- you can dip in and you can do it, and you can go deliver. Um, but you don’t have to. So if you get sick or if something happens, or a once in a lifetime travel opportunity occurs, you, you have the ability to, to, uh, lean into that as opposed to, you know, being tethered to the desk or the office or wherever that happens to be. You made a great point. Some people are very happy with just the revenue and the job and consistency. They got good clients, and they don’t wanna do the work to build a business, and that’s fine. I support those people. There’s millions of them out there on the planet, and we’re good for them. [00:35:00] Um, and so my clients, that’s not my client.

My client’s the guy that wants to build a business. He wants to do something different. And often he’s got some things that he wants to do outside of just this business. So if you have enough money, right now all of a sudden nonprofits become a target, right? You can do some special stuff. You can do some charity stuff.

You can do some serving stuff. You could– There’s a whole lot of things you can deliver to the world that the world needs because you’ve built something that allows you the freedom to do that, and you’re not constrained by money, by the cash, ’cause you’ve built a machine that takes care of that

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So if I’m that person and, and I’m looking to get to that next level and I wanna know more about you, is there a way, ways that I can find out more about you to see if you’re gonna be the guy that’s gonna help me?

John Whitt: Absolutely. Um, so I have a website, Business Whitt, right? So the word business, my last name, W-H-I-T-T.com. And on there you’ll see all the things that I have going on. Uh, there’s a contact us thing there. If you’re [00:36:00] interested in either the webinar… And the webinar’s free. This is a great way to kind of just taste, test the waters, do a little taste test.

Um, that’s businesswhitt.com and then /builditstrong. It’s just that simple. Everything is businesswhitt.com. Um, if you wanna know more about individual stuff, I have a strategic planning questionnaire. I’ve got a bunch of tools. Probably just wanna visit the website, see what it’s like, maybe have a conversation, visit the webinar.

I think that’s the right process to see if it really fits. And if it does, then you can lean in and take the next step

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Yeah. ‘Cause I think that’s important to, to have, to have a little bit of that because, I mean, I do see there’s a ton of coaches out there. It seems like that’s just blown right up, and how do you know which one’s gonna, you know, resi- uh, resonate best with you, and how do you know if it’s even real, right?

John Whitt: Well, yes. Yes. So I started coaching in 2010, and it wasn’t nearly as big as it is

Tim Melanson: No. Mm-hmm

John Whitt: Um, and in any business, you’re gonna have [00:37:00] people that perform well and perform less well. I mean, one of my favorite lines is, like, what do they call the medical student that graduates last in his class?

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

John Whitt: Doctor,

Tim Melanson: Doctor, man

John Whitt: right?

But that doctor is different than the guy that was at the top of his class. And so w- coaching is the same way. You have that everywhere. Uh, everybody says, "I can do it, I will do it," ya-ta-ta-ta-ta. The question is, you know, is that true? Is that accurate? Does it work for you? And I really think that things like webinars and whatnot are the way to kinda get to understand somebody and do they really know what they’re talking about, can they serve you.

You… I, I totally, you know, s- believe in doing your due diligence, finding, finding the right thing, um, because that, that’s the right s- that’s the discernment that you need to make good decisions

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Awesome. That’s awesome. Great. Okay, this might be the hardest question. We’re gonna talk a little bit about music here. So John, who is your favorite rock star?

John Whitt: Well, [00:38:00] um, geez. When I was growing up… So I grew up in the ’70s, ’70s and the ’80s, and so it wasn’t a rock star, it was a band. I was a Led Zeppelin guy.

Tim Melanson: Ah.

John Whitt: Um, that, and, and it’s funny because their music has stood the test of time. My kids are Led Zeppelin fans. They didn’t grow up with Led Zeppelin. When they discovered Led, Led Zeppelin, they were like, "Wow, these guys were really good."

Um, I like, uh, jazz. I’m a Miles Davis fan. I mean, there are a lot of others that are out there, too. I don’t know the artists as well, uh, but that’s kind of my style

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Y- you’re 100% right. So I, I host a jam night, uh, a couple nights a week, and, uh, one of them is at a restaurant, and so until 10 o’clock I’m allowed to have kids in there. And so, uh, I’ve had a, a few young, like, high school bands that have shown up to a jam night to play, and what are they playing?

They’re playing Led Zeppelin, they’re playing Black Sabbath. They’re playing a [00:39:00] lot of that old, like, classic, you know, heavier rock, and it’s just fascinating to me that a 17-year-old today is still aligning with that music the same as a 17-year-old back in the ’70s, right?

John Whitt: Right. Black Sabbath was, uh, my favorite before Led Zeppelin.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

John Whitt: it w- ’cause they were just a little before, but, um, yeah,

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

John Whitt: Yeah

Tim Melanson: Yeah, good music is good music, right? Just

John Whitt: Absolutely. Uh, and I can say these days I’m, I’m, uh, I really like a lot of jazz. Um, I d- I… And it, you know, there’s different genres of jazz, but, um, I like it kind of where it’s a little, uh, fast-paced.

Um, I love a saxophone. Um, there are just some things there that are just fun. They’re toe-tapping, and they’re, they make for great background music. Now, again, Led Zeppelin doesn’t always make great background music, right? It’s not good, not always good thinking about stuff music. Jazz is great for thinking about stuff

Tim Melanson: [00:40:00] Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today, John. This has been a ton of fun

John Whitt: Tim, I have enjoyed the heck out of it. I appreciate it. Thank you

Tim Melanson: Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we see- 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. Excited for today’s guest. She’s the founder and executive director of the Association of Ghost Writers and as well the president of of her own, uh, business book, ghost Writing Firm. So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Marcia Layton Turner.

Hey, Marcia, are you ready to rock?

Marcia Layton Turner: Let’s rock.

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

Marcia Layton Turner: Well, I, I think I have two to share. One, one from early days. Um. So growing up, going through high school and into college, I, I never really thought of myself as a writer. Could never have conceived that I would eventually become a writer. Uh, my dad was a fine artist, so when other future novelists were writing stories and stuff, I, I was painting pictures. I was making the dr the illustrations for those books and, um. Went to a, a demanding high [00:01:00] school. So I was definitely like, just a little bit above average, but then I went away to college and at my college you had the option to either take an exam at the end of the semester or write a paper. I like to be in control of how much time I spend on things, and so I always took the paper option. So over the course of I, I graduated early, so three and a half years of writing papers for lots of classes. I sort of figured it out, but I didn’t really know that until I went out to the University of Michigan to get my MBA and we’re writing papers and they’re easy, and I’m getting A’s, and I distinctly remember thinking, wow, I figured it out. I got it. Okay, this is good. And so I went on to, uh, actually join the marketing communications department at Kodak. Rose quickly through the ranks, became, uh, director of one of their B2B divisions, then [00:02:00] left to run my own marketing company, and that eventually evolved into what I do now, which is business book Ghost Writing and running the Association of Ghost Writers. But I, I think the lesson that I really want your listeners to hear is that you can learn new skills in adulthood. Just because you didn’t learn it when you were in elementary school or middle school or even high school, you can still learn and get better and obtain new skills maybe that you never thought you could have, because I, I really never would’ve thought that I would become a writer.

But through the years I’ve really worked at it. And so I encourage people if there’s something that you’ve always like wished you could do. You can do it, it just needs, you just need to spend some time working on those skills. You know, I took online classes and read lots of books and went to conferences and things like that. Um, so, so it is possible, and it’s the skill now that my business is based on. [00:03:00] So, so that’s, that’s the first one. But, but then the second story, which I think is really relevant for everybody, and I keep threatening to write a book about it, is the power of asking questions. And I think this is so important for newer home-based business owners, is not to be afraid to ask questions. Um. And the, the best story that I can think of to illustrate this is back when I was starting my home-based business and I was doing marketing. I was primarily serving startup entrepreneurs, so I was helping them with marketing plans and business plans, and really just understanding how to get started. And I had heard, or I think I saw an ad in Entrepreneur Magazine for this series of conferences that they were running nationwide. I remember there was San Francisco, la, Miami, and New York major ones, and I thought, wow, that, that looks like a really good conference, but. When you’re in startup [00:04:00] mode, you don’t have a lot of money and

so I, I really wanted to be sure this was gonna be worth my time, but there wasn’t an agenda.

It was just come to this all day event, or actually it was three days, so I. Emailed the organizer and said, Hey, do you have an agenda for this? Can you tell me what the sessions are? Who’s speaking? And she said, oh, we’re still working on that. I said, oh, well, what’s, what’s the process to be considered as a speaker? And she said, well, what do you, what do you wanna talk about? And I thought, oh, this isn’t set in stone yet. And so, um, I said, well, I help people write business plans. I’d love to teach, you know, your attendees. And she said, well, send me a proposal. Which I did ultimately, as you can guess, she said, Hey, well sure you wanna come, you wanna come speak. So I just by asking questions about how does this work, what’s the process? Can I be considered? I was in front of the room in front of eight, I think [00:05:00] 800, 700 people at the Meadowlands, I don’t know what it’s called now, outside New York City for three days. Positioning myself as the expert in business plan writing.

And that was very early in my career. Again, just because I bother to ask questions about like, how does that work? So I would encourage people, I think you really can get so far just by asking

Yeah, what, what’s, and, and especially if they say no, asking, like, well, tell me more about that.

Why? Why is that a no, I don’t get it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It doesn’t hurt to ask that extra question, right? Because you might end up getting some insight or you might even find a different angle to go at it next time, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Exactly. You get feedback. It’s, I always encourage people, like in the Association of Ghost Writers, if you don’t get a project, ask Why.

What? What was it where? Where did you think I was weak? What did the other person have that I didn’t have? One time I discovered that I didn’t ask enough questions. Hey. That’s [00:06:00] great intel. Now I come with like pages and pages of questions, so yeah, just ask.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s funny when you said about how, you know, you can learn new skills later in age, I think. ’cause I mean, you have that people that say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Is that what they say? Right.

Um, now I, I think it’s because I, I remember when I, when I first started looking at becoming self-employed and.

You end up getting just thrust into this whole area of having to learn all these new things and read all these books. And someone had said something like, you know, most people don’t read another book after they graduate high school. And I thought to myself that, you know, that’s a good point. You know, maybe it’s not that they can’t learn new, new things.

Maybe it’s that it takes some time to relearn how to learn. Does that make sense?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, or maybe they didn’t know how to learn in the first place.

Tim Melanson: And that’s true too. Yeah, exactly. Because I mean, a lot of, well, [00:07:00] especially now, most schools just push you through, right?

I mean, it’s not like it used to be where you actually failed. Right Now

you can’t fail anymore, so it’s

possible you could get all the way through school and not even know how to learn, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. And, and reading comprehension is at least to me, a critical

skill, not just reading and, um, you know. Being able to regurgitate information, but really process it and wonder, okay, so what does that mean for me? What does that mean for my business? What can I take away from that? And I, I think too few people have that skill.

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

I agree. And it’s too bad. But I mean, the, the, the good news, I think anyway is that I was far more. Interested in the topics that I was learning right when it came to business than I was in the things that were thrust upon me in school. And so I’m, I’m guessing that probably everybody’s like that.

You know, once you get out, you, maybe you, you have this negative opinion of learning because you were learning things [00:08:00] you didn’t wanna learn, but now you can learn anything you want, right? And make it something that you love. Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Well, and I think even going. Back to school. In college when you had the choice between taking all those required courses and then you got to take the courses in your major. I

think inevitably for most people, their GPA went way up.

’cause as you said, you’re studying stuff that you’re interested in, you’re curious about it.

You’re paying attention.

Yeah.

you’re gonna do better.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s exactly it. I remember when I was taking, I never had an option between an, an exam and a paper. It was always a paper and a speech for us, and I always chose the speech, but I mean, I was, it was very few, there was very few of us that chose the speech.

Most people wrote, chose the paper and I thought that was a lot of work for me.

Right. The speech was. I thought easier, but I mean, I guess every, it depends on people, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Uh, speech was probably shorter, and for [00:09:00] you, probably easier because I think you’ve probably always been very comfortable talking to people and

getting in front of the, of the room. But for those of us who are introverts mm-hmm. Oh, I would’ve taken the paper.

Tim Melanson: You would’ve taken the paper, of course you would’ve.

Marcia Layton Turner: I just slide it into the professors, you know, not having to get up in front of anybody. Yeah, that would’ve been my choice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, most people did. And, uh, but yeah, the, just being able to, to, to get in front of people, like, it’s, it’s, um, I don’t know. I mean, I, I’d be interested to know which was graded. More, uh,

fairly, I guess. ’cause I think that just getting in front of a class, I think that that is just generally known as something that’s scary.

And so you might even be able to get away with a little bit of extra mistakes because you’re the one that got in front of the class and did that, whereas the paper probably was a little bit more strict. Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: I bet the professor was in a better mood sitting back in the class watching you speak and then giving you a grade [00:10:00] rather than having to read like a 10 page paper times however many people in the were in the class. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. But both of those, I mean, both of those would’ve been useful. ’cause I mean, hey, the people that wrote the paper would’ve been, you know, in your area and maybe they might end up being writers, right.

Marcia Layton Turner: May maybe. Maybe. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: So now not everything goes as planned. Sometimes there’s some mistakes that we make along the way, and I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered from that?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know that, um, what I’m gonna call like a recent failure was necessarily due to lack of planning. But I’ve, I’ve had time to think about this. So my ghostwriting business, which I started. Early two thousands, let’s say. I don’t know the exact year when I really moved into that, but my revenue has grown steadily into the, you know, multi-six figures.

And it was just booming through COVID, booming. ’cause everybody was [00:11:00] home and wanted to write their books. Right. And then. End of 2023, things started to slow down. Like I didn’t really have projects that were on my books for 2024, and I, I thought, well, you know, it’s just seasonality.

Um, not gonna worry about, I’m just gonna enjoy the holidays.

Well then 2024 comes in and it doesn’t pick up. I had a couple of projects, book projects that, um, the authors ended up. Not wanting to finish for whatever reason. So 2024 was quite the anomaly, but I was really nervous that this was not an anomaly. And this

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Marcia Layton Turner: the way things now were

my new normal. And, uh, it, it was a really scary time. I had, I had never had a year like that. And so. I think ghost writers face this regularly. You never know like, where’s my next project coming from? Or freelance writers in general, am I gonna get another project? You start to [00:12:00] wonder, and it took several months, but about middle of 2024, I realized, okay, this is not turning around. This is not really, um, my fault, but I gotta do something different.

And so. You know, they had this saying, which I kept repeating in my head, um, definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different

results. And I thought, I, okay, I’ve gotta do something different because I haven’t done anything different and nothing is changing.

So I overhauled my marketing. I started blogging much more consistently to get my website ranked higher in Google. I hired a LinkedIn consultant to help improve my LinkedIn profile and then also do some regular LinkedIn outreach. Um, I would. Pursuing more podcast opportunities, speaking opportunities. I created a lead magnet about the value of a book and how it can help authors get more opportunities. [00:13:00] So I really just started to introduce all these new things that I hadn’t been doing, and within a couple months I had a new project. So that was the end of 2024 and going into 2025, things started to happen. I can’t point to any one thing that I necessarily did right. But I, I think maybe the momentum of just

doing so many things to get my name out there to explain to people what the heck ghost writing is, how it works. Um, it started to bear fruit. And so by 2025, even like second quarter of 2025, I was busy and I was booked throughout the year. Started off 2026. Already multiple six figures booked. Like things things are back on track. But that was a really scary time and I think maybe the takeaway for your listeners is if you get to that point where nothing is happening, you, you just have to try something new.

And I might even encourage you to check out AI [00:14:00] for those kinds of discussions of like, here’s what I’m doing. Based on my business. What do you recommend? And sometimes it’s really interesting to see what recommendations come through.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree. I use AI quite a bit for that ki kind of brainstorming. ’cause

it is nice to, sometimes you just, you flesh out these ideas by talking to somebody. And now you don’t have to take someone’s time.

Now you could take the AI’s time, right, and just work through it. And sometimes you get some pretty good ideas.

Sometimes you get garbage though,

you know, just to put that out there, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Agreed, and I’ve tried different platforms to see what kind of information they’re going to recommend because they pull from

different sources. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

But, uh, but I think that like, so every business is different and some businesses get off to a really great start and then slow down. Sometimes you get, have a really difficult time getting started and then it takes time, time to build up. I think actually the, the first [00:15:00] one is a little bit harder because if you, if you’re having a hard time getting started.

Then great. I mean, you’re learning all the things you need to do to get that momentum going, but if things go really, really well at first, ’cause maybe you have a really great network or you know, whatever it is, and then it drops. Like

that’s the situation you’re in. That is very difficult. ’cause you don’t even know, like,

it’s like I gotta start from like scratch now and I don’t even know what that feels like.

Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Right. It’s what happened and what do I do about it? And I at the time had some inklings of what was going on, but I really just had to figure out, okay, what’s the workaround?

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because there is something there, there is something. And, and it’s good. I mean, I, I think that, uh, the faster you recognize that you gotta start to do

something a little bit different, the better. Uh, but on the other hand, like it’s one of those things where it’s always been working. So you sort of had this idea of like, well, maybe it’ll just come back.

Right. [00:16:00]

And how long you’ll hold onto that, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Exactly. And also you need to consider what is, what is enough time.

’cause ’cause there is, um, the argument to be made that you could pivot too quickly,

Tim Melanson: yeah,

Marcia Layton Turner: You have a couple weeks where business isn’t where it used to be and you think, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta start over and you know, revamp my website and do all these other things, when actually it was like the holidays and that’s just how things are.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think so. I think that if probably the most dangerous one would be that you have work on your docket, whatever it is. That you’re working through, but no new work is coming in. That’s probably the most dangerous, right? Because if you, if you lost everything and you had no clients to work on, well then now it’s like, what am I gonna do when I get up?

I, I might as well do something. Right. So that, that makes sense. But if you have work to do, [00:17:00] but you got no work new coming in, it might be by the time you end that, that project, now you’re like, okay, now I have to start all over again. Whereas if you had sort of like, just. Carved out whatever it is, you know, 10% of your time or whatever it happens to be, just to this, the new marketing activities and recognizing that, well, I haven’t gotten a new, like, I don’t have anybody in the pipe right now.

Uh uh, that’s, that’s a problem, right? Like

so.

Marcia Layton Turner: You, you have hit on exactly sort of the definition of why feast or famine happens in freelance writing in general.

It’s exactly that, that you have business that is filling your time and you feel like you have so much work that you don’t have time to market. And you’ll get to that once you’re done with this assignment.

And so you keep your head down, you’re working, you’re doing great things, but then when you lift your head up and you realize. Oh, I don’t have anything. Then you’re starting from scratch and that’s when you know you get these dips, so you have nothing. So you put a hundred percent of your time in marketing and [00:18:00] things start to come in, and then you get fully booked again.

And so you stop the marketing and like, it’s not, it’s not an efficient or effective way to be. You need to always be marketing, to your point.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I, and I, I mean, I, I don’t think it’s just ghost, right? I think that’s, everybody

kind of ends up in that situation, especially when you’re a solopreneur or when you’re got a very small team because you’ve only got so many hours in the day and

it’s like. If you’ve got all this work on your plate, you might as well, like, you just think, well, I

just gotta get that work done.

But there is something to be said for just going, no, no, no. Spread that out a little bit. Make sure you have that, that small little snippet of stuff that you’re doing that continues to bring in more business. Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, it’s, can I take, okay, is this thing due today by five or is it due in two days by five? Well, if it’s due in two days, you don’t actually have to finish it today. Take some of that time and spend it on LinkedIn, commenting on people’s posts. Or working in a blog post or pursuing podcasts and [00:19:00] then like, finish it tomorrow.

You’re still ahead of the game. But don’t, I think sometimes people make, um, sort of makeup deadlines

and, um, that’s not always, it’s great to be finished early. Clients will love you, but if you just keep only doing the work and not doing the marketing, it’s, it’s not gonna build a sustainable business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and that kind of hits on another issue with getting done early too, is that now the expectation from the client. ’cause clients will always push for as much as they can get. Right.

And if you jump too fast. That’s great. I mean, if you’ve got nothing going on, then great. You can jump fast. But what that kind of sets you up for is in a few weeks when you have a bunch of clients you’re working on, and now every one of them thinks that you’re gonna jump on that task as fast as you did the last time, now you’re in trouble.

Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Yep. E. Exactly right. And that actually happened to me early on in my career. I developed a reputation [00:20:00] among publishers as being a really fast writer. And I am, but exactly as you described, I. Was given all the, um, emergencies here, Marshall handle it, you know, send it to Marshall. She can get that done. And while I was thrilled to get all the work, it was, after a while, you should just get burned out

because I never actually pushed back and said, well, do you need it in a week?

Or can we have two? And so over time, I’ve gotten better at setting boundaries and resetting expectations when they come and say, yeah, I, I need a book by, you know, like February 1st, April 1st. No, let’s be reasonable.

Tim Melanson: You know, what I’ve been doing lately, uh, and is, uh, making use of the, of the schedule of an email, like that schedule thing that you can do with Google.

Because sometimes like, I mean, I, I like, sometimes I just like get in work mode at nighttime, for example. Right. And

it’s off hours. I should not be working there.

I should not be sending emails at that time because [00:21:00] then people are gonna expect you to be working at eight

o’clock in the evening. Right. Or whatever it is. So what I’ll do then is I’ll do the work, I’ll get everything all ready to go, and then I’ll set it to schedule to send it tomorrow or the next day, and then it’s, it’s off my plate.

I’m not thinking about it anymore. But now it gets sent in a timeframe That makes more sense for your business, right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. Yeah.

When people would expect to be receiving emails from you. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Right. Yeah. I mean, there’s always ways to do it. ’cause I mean, you also don’t wanna, like, it’s a balance, right? I mean, if, if you’ve got like inspiration and you wanna be, especially in your area when you wanna be writing, well, it is not just like, well, I shouldn’t be writing right now, so I’m just not gonna write.

You can write it and get it done and then just set it to be sent out in a few days. Right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, with, with writing, especially, I think when you, you get into the flow,

you know, you’re, you’re writing and it’s going quickly, you don’t really wanna stop. So it’s best to just go with it. And so I’ll do that when I’m working on something [00:22:00] that’s due like later in the week, I’ll try and get a draft done, so I’ll, I’ll sit with it, I’ll work with it if I can get some momentum going. Um. It’s, it’s much faster that way. But yeah, I don’t, that doesn’t mean I immediately send it in. I’ll set it aside.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Set aside. So now what about your jam room? So tell me a little bit more about your home office. Like how do you be productive at home?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. Well, early on I paid attention to what colleagues were doing and so many writers apparently like to have, um, soft classical music in the background.

Or they’ll go to coffee shops and work ’cause they like the hustle and bustle, like the energy, I think it

is around them that helps them write. And so I tried all of these things thinking that that was like the secret to being productive. Mm-hmm. Not for me. So I need silence. Silence is golden. So I have a home office that has a door. Um, [00:23:00] my desk is not facing the window because if I face the window, I’d be looking at it all day long. Um, my office has carpeting, it has window, you know, treatments to absorb sound. So when I concentrate, I hear nothing else.

And that’s, and that’s key. Um.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Marcia Layton Turner: then I, I also have tech, so in addition to the, the basics I have, well, I have computer, I have a huge monitor. I have, you know, a ring light, Yeti mouse. I have an ergonomic keyboard. I have an ergonomic chair, unfortunately, that keeps breaking. Uh, but I just try and I’m trying to be prepared for whatever situation I may need to contend with, whether it’s like a podcast interview, whether it’s, um, an interview I need to do and get transcribed. But just, just try to be prepared. Quiet.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. So when we’re talking about your [00:24:00] equipment, like what’s your opinion on like the quality of the equipment that you get? Like do you think that it’s okay to just go with the bare minimum or do you think you should splurge a little bit for that?

Marcia Layton Turner: I, I think if it is something that you’re gonna be using on a daily basis to help you produce whatever it is, you, you gotta go high end, or at least I think it’s worth the money. I go through keyboards like you wouldn’t believe because I’m typing all day long and so I, I, you know, the letters get.

Tim Melanson: Wear them off.

That’s hilarious. Yes.

Marcia Layton Turner: Um, and I invested it an ergonomic one, probably five keyboards ago because I was starting to get what I think was carpal tunnel. Um, so now I pay the big bucks for this pricey keyboard that allows me to continue to work. So it means that I am more productive. ’cause my wrists don’t get tired. My

hands don’t get tired. Um. So I, I think if you’re using it regularly, go all in. If you’re testing something out, you’re not really sure if you [00:25:00] need this, then maybe you can try the off-brand version. But I, I think it’s risky.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think you’re right. I, I mean, I imagine there’s probably some things that the minimum would be okay, but I mean, usually the higher end versions of it are like they, they’re, they’re more convenient. They’re, they’re, they’re

made that way to be more of a better experience when you’re using it. And so.

You know, if this is your business, like, right. I mean, and, and I

think about it from the perspective of like a, like a company, like a big, big company, oftentimes when they buy their stuff, it’s not all bargain basement stuff. They, they buy the equipment that’s gonna make their workforce most productive.

And so if you’re looking for ways to cut costs. You know, maybe that’s not the place to, to cut it. I mean, maybe not the top of the, of the line, but definitely somewhere near the middle. The, the top end of it, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: I, I think, um, this is especially relevant with [00:26:00] printers,

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah.

Marcia Layton Turner: what kind of printer you have, but you know, there are printers that are, it’s like, it’s like the um, the razor and the razor blades. So you can get a printer for 25 bucks on Black Friday,

and then you’re gonna pay tons of money for those toner cartridges that last about a week. I discovered this when I was in my doctoral program and I had to be printing out case studies every week. Oh my gosh. I went through a toner every five days. It was crazy. So then I upgraded the printer to one that had more capacity for toner. Cartridge, paid probably 500 bucks for the printer, but now my cartridge lasts more than five days.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I, I barely print anything anymore. So,

but, but yeah, for, for that right there. I mean, it’s one of those things where you do, I mean, I, I do remember like some, like print cartridges are more expensive than the printer in the first place, like.[00:27:00]

Marcia Layton Turner: Yes, yes. However, I think the more you spend on the actual equipment, the more that can help keep your, your printer expenditures down

Tim Melanson: Agreed. Now what about the band? So tell me about the team that you have working around you.

Marcia Layton Turner: well. When I came outta Kodak, I thought I needed to build this empire. You know,

I surround myself with people because that’s the environment I came

out of where everybody had their team. And, and I tried it. Um, I hired a couple employees, had a couple part-timers, and I realized that what I actually needed, uh, was people who were already experts in their fields. Uh, the employees that I hired, they were great, and I, I probably was a terrible manager. They couldn’t work at the speed or provide the same level of, um, output as I could. And

so I let them go. And for the last oh, 25 years [00:28:00] probably, I’ve relied on outside experts. So I have, I’ve had a virtual assistant for at least 25 years, like before it was even popular because I wanted to be able to hand off things that I didn’t wanna learn how to do. Like Tim, I, I don’t really need to know about the backend of a website. She handles that when I need updates here and there, I send off an email. I don’t need to do that and it’s not the best use of my time. So that’s kind of how I think about, um, my band members is what else can I hand off to them and, and what do I need to retain?

Well, I need to retain all the writing ’cause that’s why people are hiring me.

Tim Melanson: Yes.

Marcia Layton Turner: handles the tech stuff. I have a computer consultant who deals with any viruses or issues with my actual computer. I bring it over to her. She’s local. I have a graphic designer who also happens to be local, but I do use other online platforms if I, if I need something. Um, I have an [00:29:00] online researcher who’s not local. Um, I have, you know, accountant, attorney, um. Other people. Oh, transcription. I have my transcription service. They’re based in Ukraine. Um, so I just try and identify what are the key aspects of my business or my process that I don’t personally need to do. And I think I’ve at this point, pretty much delegated everything besides the writing.

Tim Melanson: Now, did you start by doing it all and then you started to delegate, or did you

like build that right at the beginning. Okay. You did? Yeah.

Marcia Layton Turner: I, yeah, I was doing it all myself because you know, when you’re in startup mode. At least I wanted to build a sustainable business. I didn’t wanna spend all my money the first, you

know, month and then be wondering how I was gonna pay for mortgage and stuff. So I built it slowly. As business would come in, I would try and identify, okay, who’s better at this than me?

And I quickly learned that a virtual assistant is worth their weight and gold because they know how [00:30:00] to do things that I don’t know how to do, and they can do the tasks faster than I could ever do them. So it’s actually. More profitable for me to hand off things to them. ’cause they’ll do it in 10 minutes when it would’ve taken me four hours.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Okay. And also another thing that is that since you had a hand in everything, you knew what to look for as well, right? You

knew whether the person was actually good at what they do or not, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: good point. Good point. Because early on, if you don’t really know how to do anything, it’s hard to judge. Like is, is this person, could they do it better than me?

And sometimes you’re not really sure and you have to take a chance. But I think the good news about hiring contractors and consultants and people like that is that you don’t have an ongoing relationship. If they turn out to be duds and they can’t actually do the work that you need them to do in the timeframe that you need it, you can cut ties and find somebody else. And it’s much easier than if you have hired someone full-time. It’s, [00:31:00] you know, it’s a process.

Tim Melanson: So now I’m actually just curious and maybe, um, but were there any parts of your business that you felt you were really good at, but you still delegated it and why?

Marcia Layton Turner: I thought for a long time that I was really good at research.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Marcia Layton Turner: And I, and I still think I am pretty good at research. When I went back to get my doctorate, that was the primary res reason. I wanted to get better at research. I wanted to, um, you know, be faster, find better information, and I did that. But I discovered that when I got really busy and needed to hone in on the writing itself, I needed to hand off the research.

’cause it just like, I wouldn’t get any sleep if I was trying to do everything myself. And so I found someone who was, who had access to the same resources that I did, you know, scholarly kind of [00:32:00] resources. And she worked fast. So, yeah.

So then, and then once you have somebody else who does that thing, unless you love doing that part of the process, I mean, I think that’s a reason to hold onto it too.

If you, if you love something and it just brings you joy, well then you don’t have to delegate it. Unless it’s impeding your progress and growing your business, then you should consider it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And in this case, it was something that you didn’t necessarily love, but you, you were still good at it.

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, I thought I was good at it. I probably overestimated my speed and yeah, I think I was probably above average. But then again, when you go to somebody who, whose business it is to do online research, they’re

gonna be better.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and uh, and also like to what you said earlier, people are hiring you to do the writing. Are they, they’re not necessarily hiring you to do the research, so that could be the reason why you’d go, okay, well, between these [00:33:00] two things, which 1:00 AM I gonna offload? Right?

Because you you don’t need to be doing the research, but I mean, what would be the point

of hiring you if you weren’t doing the writing

right?

Marcia Layton Turner: but handing those pieces off gives you more capacity to either get the client work done faster, take on more client work, you know, it, it’s makes you potentially more profitable.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, on the other hand there, is there a learning curve? Like, like is there like a step back before you take a step forward when you hire somebody?

Marcia Layton Turner: I. That’s a good question. I think, yeah, you do have to spend a fair amount of time evaluating your options. And even if you go to Fiverr, Upwork, you’re gonna have lots of candidates and you do need to invest some time figuring out who’s going to be the best one. And you may make a misstep, you may choose someone who’s grid on paper, but who doesn’t actually have the ability to do what you need them to do. [00:34:00] So you, you can. I don’t wanna say waste time, but you can spend time that doesn’t end up to be all that useful or productive, but that’s necessary.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s just a matter of the scaling a, a aspect of it, right? Because I think

I, I think that there’s a lot of people that are good at a lot of different things, and I mean, if you’re an entrepreneur, you probably are, you probably are pretty good at a lot of things, so you could do it all,

but when it comes down to it, you’ve only got so many hours in the day.

And we all know that when those hours are gone, you know, you can’t

take on any more work. So a decision has to be made at some point if you want to scale that business that you’re gonna have to let go of some of that work. Right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yep. Yep.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So now let’s talk a little bit about, about the tools that are available to us now.

And there’s a lot of them, right? Which tools do you use that are getting you the most success in your business?

Marcia Layton Turner: Well, [00:35:00] there are, I think, business tools and then there are writing tools. So, um, you know, some of the business tools that I’m using, zoom. It’s my preferred video platform. There are a bunch of other ones, but I just find it the easiest to use. Um, I use bench for my online bookkeeping,

um, so it’s automatically connected to my accounts, so they just download all the reports and then crank out the numbers for my accountant at the end of the year.

I don’t have to spend any time on it. It’s great. Um. Those are, yeah, some of, some of the businessy ones, but then for the writing, we’ve got, well, of course the Microsoft Office suite.

PowerPoint I use to some degree Excel and Word the most. Um, I use Speech Pad for, I think I mentioned for transcription. So I’ll do a Zoom call, I’ll record it, I’ll download the audio file and then I upload it to [00:36:00] Speech Pad. They have humans that will transcribe it. I love it because kind of back to your question about, um, efficiency’s kind of what we were talking about, speech pads provides. Results that I don’t have to go in and tweak. It’s formatted nicely, very accurate. So I don’t have to spend time going back through and trying to figure out, what was that word?

That doesn’t sound right, which happens a lot with some of the free services. Um. I also use Grammarly kind of in the background because I have a tendency to miss commas. It’s shocking. Uh, so it will tell me, you know, Marcia, you need a comma there, you need comma there. Um, yeah, it’s the, those are the basic ones. Just, and, and they’ve taken time to figure out, I’ve tried other ones. Some writers use a tool called Scrivener to help them with organizing material. I, I find that I like [00:37:00] word, I like starting with a blank page and then just figuring out what makes sense for me rather than being given a structure. Um, other people use. Team software like Asana

or Basecamp or things like that. I’m not generally working with a team, it’s, it’s mainly just my piece, so I don’t use those. Um, yeah, those are the basics.

Tim Melanson: so many tools. How do you decide which one to choose? Like, because there’s so many options in every one of those categories.

Marcia Layton Turner: It’s, uh, well, some of that, like the transcription is trial and error. I, I tried them. Oh, you gotta try Otter. Okay. So I tried Otter

and the formatting was.

It was difficult for me to follow the, the results probably were very accurate, but the, the formatting made it hard for me to find the quotes that I wanted. So then I tried Rev and it was not as accurate as I [00:38:00] needed. So then somebody suggested Speech Pad, which is humans, you know, behind the scenes. And once I had it, having seen the results that were, um, not optimal. I stuck with it and if something else comes along that’s even better, I might try it, but you know, I’m very happy with the results so far.

So yeah, it’s, it’s trial. Trial. See if it works. Oh, I tried a CRM system, Pipedrive,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Marcia Layton Turner: uh, because I wanted to do a better job of managing the leads that I get. I get a lot of leads and I wanna stay in touch with them and. Back to our discussion about marketing. Sometimes when I’m too in the weeds with the work, I don’t do a great job of following up and so I bought Pipedrive, but it is so complex that, uh, I ended up canceling it ’cause I, I just wasn’t using it.

Tim Melanson: Hmm. I find that happens a lot with a lot of the tools is that [00:39:00] the tools are trying to be too much and they get too much work to figure out what they’re doing. Like a lot of these tools are like these all in one tools and you’re like, holy smokes. Like you’re doing more than what I need. And you know what?

That probably sounds a whole lot like the same thing that we talked about in the band, right? When you’re

hiring a person, you want to hire the best at what they do. You want them to be specialized because they’re probably not gonna be awesome at everything,

right.

They’re, they’re gonna have their thing.

And same thing with the tools, right?

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah, but you don’t need somebody who’s able to do everything.

That’s again, why I went to just hiring the experts. I need you to do this one thing better than anybody else,

you know? And I’ll pay you for the half an hour that you have to spend on my task. Happy to pay more because still it’s gonna give me a better result. But

yeah, it is. It is trial and error a lot of the time.

Tim Melanson: Agree. So let’s move to your guest solo. So tell me what is exciting in your business right now?

Marcia Layton Turner: Well, you know, I [00:40:00] think, um, there are two sides and, and we gotta talk about ai.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep.

Marcia Layton Turner: So, ’cause that’s, that’s a big thing in the writing and publishing industry right now. Um. On one hand excited because I’m finding it really helpful for back to the research piece when I need to verify a quote, for example, or find a date for something.

I’m using AI tools to, to verify information. I’m not using it for writing. I won’t. That’s, you know, again, not why people hire me, but I think. It has the potential to make us more efficient and help us get done all those ancillary activities much faster. So I’m excited for that because I’m all about efficiency. The one thing that scares me about and I, is that I think some aspiring authors. Um, expect too much or are [00:41:00] thinking that AI is going to be the solution to writing their book this

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Marcia Layton Turner: And it worries me because there are some really big limitations that I think people need to be aware of with respect to AI and book writing. And the biggest is if you use AI to generate your manuscript. Based on whatever prompt you wanna give it, um, it cannot receive copyright protection. So you’ve created this thing and essentially it’s gonna be in the public domain. Uh, publishers also won’t publish it if you admit that you used ai ’cause they don’t want it. Uh, more publishers are including, uh, clauses that require the author to state that they did not use ai. The other problem is plagiarism that you’re not aware of. If you put in a prompt to AI and say, tell me about this, and it regurgitates information, you don’t know where it has pulled that information, and it could be directly from a book that somebody else [00:42:00] wrote,

so you can be hit with a plagiarism CL claim even though you didn’t. Know that you were plagiarizing. it’s it’s just all part of the problems with the system. So I’m excited, but I really hope that people are aware of some of the downsides. Again, especially with respect to publishing. There’s some really big issues and I think AI and people. Experimenting with, it was why 2024 was so quiet for me

because people were so excited, you know, about the possibility, Hey, I won’t have to pay a writer or a ghost writer.

I’m just gonna use ai. And then they suddenly started to see, oh, they’re big downsizes. So, so now things are picking back up again. Um, but yeah, just, I, I hope people will investigate some of the issues.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. I, I think, um, yeah, I think you’re right. I, I think that there’s a lot of, um. Well, I mean, there’s a lot [00:43:00] of lazy people out there. I think that AI is just gonna do it for them, and it’s, it’s not now. Uh, one of the ways that I’ve been using AI to generate content for, ’cause I, I built websites is one of the things that I do, is I will, I, I will actually either get the client or myself I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just dictate.

All the content and get it to reformat it for me. And it’s really brilliant at doing stuff like that because it’s taking me and just fixing it a little bit. Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: and, and that’s, that seems to be working really well, but I have not had any success with just saying, write this for me, and I don’t think it ever will.

Right.

Marcia Layton Turner: Right. I, what I’m seeing people doing is they’re creating their own GPTs, which is like kind

of like a tool

and they’re uploading all of their content into it so that it now has like a library of me then based on that. Asking for new [00:44:00] content, and I could see how that could be interesting. It may not be perfect, but if it’s drawing from you, then it’s gonna sound like you, based on your background, but you still have plagiarism.

You can self plagiarize and you know that’s, that’s a problem too.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. You could plagiarize even. Yeah. But, but I mean, I do, I do think that that’s where the power is gonna be is by

teaching it who you are.

Uh, because I mean, technically. I mean, wouldn’t it be, I mean, if, if AI just takes you and rewrite something that you just wrote, well, that’s kind of what you’re gonna do too.

Like, so I, I mean, I, I, I think some people are like, uh, some people are. Too scared of it and some people aren’t using it enough.

It’s somewhere gonna be in the middle. I think where it is a, a super powerful tool and uh, for things like research, as long as you make sure you ask all the fact checking questions that you need to be asking, ’cause

it, it’ll go find stuff that’s not real.[00:45:00]

Right. But I mean,

it is like having a. You know, a whole research department in, in one prompt that’ll go out there and find a bunch of stuff for you. Uh, as long as you, like you say, you make sure that you, you fact check it properly. But, but I think it’s gonna be really interesting to see what the next few years are gonna be with

with ai.

I think it is gonna tighten up quite a bit. ’cause I mean, it has come a long way in the last two

years, so imagine where it’s gonna be in the next five, right.

Marcia Layton Turner: absolutely. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of where it was in, I think 2023 is probably the year I would guess that it went mainstream and that people really started to experiment. But yeah, it, it will be interesting.

Tim Melanson: We will. We’ll see. So

how do people find out more about you then?

Marcia Layton Turner: Uh, if they want to learn a little bit more about me, they’re welcome to check out my website, which is my name, Marshall layton turner.com. And if they are interested in exploring whether a ghost writer could help them with their writing, if [00:46:00] they go to the association of ghost writers.org, we have a find a Ghost writer. It’s one of the tabs, and you can search our directory of members, or you can fill out a form. And I’m happy to try and connect you with somebody who is legit and qualified.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. So what’s the, what does the process look like? They do. Are they, are they sending what they already have or like, does this start from scratch? Like, what, what, what? What? What do they do?

Marcia Layton Turner: Sure. So the form is really just some of the basics, and when I take that information and share it with our members, I take out identifying information. So it’s, it’s still sort of anonymized, but it’s basics like. What is it that you’re working on? Is it a book? Is it an article series? Is it blog posts?

What do you need?

What is it about? Um, what do you already have? If it’s a book, like do you have an outline? Do you have notes? Are other people gonna need to be interviewed? Just, just trying to get a sense of the scope. What’s your timeline? When do you need this buy or is [00:47:00] it just whenever? What’s your budget?

And we have some different tiers that you can choose from, along with an explanation of the level of experience you can expect

at each of those. Um, and then they. Fill that out shouldn’t take very long. It comes to me, as I said, I then check out identifying information and send it to our experienced members and say, who, who might be up for this?

Who’s interested, who has the background? And then I forward it on and the client takes it from there.

Yeah.

Tim Melanson: I love that. That’s awesome. And especially like, because you do blog posts, that’s great. ’cause I mean, I know that when you’re doing SEO, writing content is a big deal and sometimes, I mean, it can take some time, right? Even if you’re using ai, so,

so having some help with that is huge.

Marcia Layton Turner: and, and I think especially for authors, I think they don’t realize sometimes that a book is a great product to have. But even before you publish the book, you should be doing some of these other things

like blogging, writing [00:48:00] articles, things like that to establish yourself as the expert in your field if, if you’re writing a nonfiction book, of course.

Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So let’s talk about music. Who’s your favorite rock star

Marcia Layton Turner: Ooh. I dunno, I’m, I’m not as much of a rock person.

Tim Melanson: musician?

Marcia Layton Turner: more pop. Um, but back in the day in high school, I’m trying to think of some of the bands that we would listen to. Led Zeppelin, A CDC, um,

Tim Melanson: So

then what pop do you like? Then tell me what your favorite pop star is.

Marcia Layton Turner: It, it varies by the week. I, I have serious radio and so I turn it on. I have it on hits one and I’ll just listen to, I like things that are like bop, um, like there’s one, I don’t know who the artist is, but so unfair. I sing along to that song. I love that song.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Awesome. Well thank you so much for rocking out with with me today. This has been [00:49:00] awesome.

Marcia Layton Turner: pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

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’m talking to the CEO of mBolden, and what she does is she helps organizations and leaders navigate transformation with clarity and confidence. So I’m very excited to be rocking up today with Suzanne Knight. Hey, Suzanne, you ready to rock?

Suzanne Knight: Yes, Tim. I’m so ready.

Tim Melanson: Yay. We always start off when you’re in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Suzanne Knight: Well, I am so glad to be here. Thank you for having me. So my good note is around a bit of background. I started my business mBolden two and a half years ago, and I had a long corporate and big firm consulting career before that. And so my good note is to say it is possible to build a business where you work from home, where you build your own client base, you create a portfolio career, and you can actually. Reduce a lot of risk because the thing is that people talk about corporate world as that place where you can have security, stability, a steady paycheck. But the [00:01:00] thing is that for me, I deal with future of work and I have a large network and so many incredible people have been laid off over the past five, six years. And so that old view of being able to come into a company, spend your whole career working hard, adding value. with loyalty and receiving loyalty isn’t necessarily the case now, so I say is good Note. I’ve been able to build a business where the momentum, the client relationships, and the low cost base of not investing in an office outside has created security and stability for myself, my family, and my business.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Congratulations. Big applause for that one. That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: have been able to tell you two and a half years ago I had ambition. I wanted it to happen, but like, when you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know exactly how it’s gonna go. And so I actually had some moments, like probably [00:02:00] December when I was looking back at my year and I was planning out 2026 and I had that moment of. did something good, like I’m actually proud of myself. And often as entrepreneurs we don’t take that moment to stop, think, reflect, ’cause we’re just so busy doing and grinding, which is really how I had been running 2025. But it was that reflection point where I looked and added everything up and like reflected on the incredible clients I worked with and the keynotes I delivered and thought. I did a lot of things and I feel really good about

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: and kudos to you for running your podcast now 11 years.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: incredible as well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much. Yeah, it’s uh, it’s interesting that you say though, that the, you know, the days of the steady, stable job are over and because I think like, I mean, I talk to people about this all the time and I think everybody kind of knows that, but. The actions don’t necessarily match [00:03:00] what they already know, right?

Because I mean, I, you know, you, you’ll have someone say, oh, they’ll actually say, well, I can’t quit my, my job. I got that steady paycheck. And then you’re like, you know, that’s not really all that steady, right? They’re like, well, yeah, but like, okay, but you know that it’s not right.

Suzanne Knight: the thing. And I’ll say like there are people who feel like there’s a certain level of security because of employment protections, and if they get laid off, they’ll have some level of severance. But I’m seeing bigger and bigger gaps between people losing their job and finding the next

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: runs out, and I’m seeing that consistently.

And so I don’t think the protections that were there before in an. Active healthy labor market where you are on the bench or you have your open to workup and you’re immediately getting calls. I’m not seeing that happen the way that it happened before. And I’m also seeing it be very selective where some rules, at some levels are very much in demand, many of them are not. And so I think it’s really about people [00:04:00] taking that own risk profile and saying, with the work I do, the education I have, the experience I have, the market I’m located in. Am I in a position where a corporate job gives me stability and security or. Would I actually be more stable? Building a portfolio career, investing in my own learning, being open to gigs or to building even something physical Like I’m very much thinking these days about how people should be building something in the real world.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: AI continues to proliferate, I think about something physical, tangible, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service like coaching a basketball team, whether it’s something where you are adding value, where people are seeing you and and connecting. That I think will be harder for AI to replace and as people crave community and connection, having offerings that work in that space are beneficial and you can have an incredible portfolio [00:05:00] career where part of your offering is something, even if it’s a side hustle, something in the physical real world that will be future proof.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And, and I think, uh, it’s so, it’s so interesting ’cause I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next. Five years, like with this whole AI thing is just so unknown. It’s very, very interesting what’s going on. But you’re right, I, I think that most people are going to end up being like AI trainers or AI users, right?

They’ll, they’ll be doing their work with the help of ai. And so, um, I think that. Uh, I mean, these jobs are not gonna, like, AI can’t just work on its own. Like, it, it needs somebody to be moving it forward, right? And so when people are worried about losing specific jobs, it’s not that those jobs are gonna go away, it’s just that they’re gonna be, the people that are doing them will be far more productive [00:06:00] and there’ll be less of them to go around.

Um, but these big companies that are. Hiring people, they’re, they’re laying people off because of their employees becoming more productive with AI too. So, uh, and, and like what you said earlier about, um, like one of the things about, uh, how do you know whether you are in demand until you go and look for a job, right?

Like, it’s like you find this out when you get laid off. It’s not like, you know, you’re constantly looking around while you have a job because. Most people don’t do that. They, they’re like, oh, no, no. I’ve got my stable paycheck. I’m good to go. And then it’s when they get laid off that they start looking around and realize, oh my, okay, everything’s changed now.

It’s hard to get a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: a hundred percent. Okay, so here’s the thing. believe that people should think. If I were to get laid off today, what would I do?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Then on the other side, say, if I were to [00:07:00] be laid off in one year from now, what would I do today? Knowing that that would happen and to triangulate between the two to say. Maybe I would work on my personal brand. Maybe I would start to invest in attending more events and building relationships. Maybe I would do more favors for people and stock up on some goodwill. Maybe I would take a course or. Just learn more, listen more, read more, spend a bit more time future proofing myself so that I can survive agnostic of a company that I’m employed within, but that I have marketable, transferable skills. And I would also say. If you’re not restricted with your current employment, start that side hustle because you never know when that will actually be a supplement to your income, or it actually gives you something to anchor in on if something major changes, and there’s always that point of being laid off. But [00:08:00] you also might have family circumstances change. Like I have friends who were very happily working in their regular job, and then a loved one got sick and they decided they had to change their lifestyle to be able to spend more time with this person. So having another income source allows you to do that without blowing up your life in the moment that you’re also dealing with maybe an emotional or financially challenging circumstance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well one of the really good pieces of advice that I got years and years ago when, uh, so, well, I used to work in high tech and, um, my, the bubble burst right when I graduated. So I had no like, like heyday in, in, in it, like many people in it did. And so, uh, I was always kind of like thinking, okay, this some, something else is gonna happen.

But one of the people that gave advice when I was, uh, going through the layoffs was that. You know, the people that have a lot of success think about their job. They think that they think [00:09:00] about their lives as they’re self-employed. And I’ve got one client, which is my job,

Suzanne Knight: Yes.

Tim Melanson: and, and I thought that’s a really interesting way to think about it, because you know, if you’ve got one client and that’s your job, well what happens if you lose that one client?

Well, now I have to go find another client to replace that client. That’s a lot harder. Well, what if I had two clients or three clients? Because I think that, I think that a lot of people, when they think about starting a business, I think what scares them is they think that it’s gonna have to be like, I’m just have to, I’m gonna have to go find new clients every day and every month, and I’m just gonna be hustling, hustling and hustling.

But that’s not necessarily true. You can have retainer clients, you can have just a, a handful of clients. You can pretty much be working like you have a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: Yes. You, you totally can. So two things on this. One is you nailed it. Like the reason why I left corporate was exactly that point of one client versus many clients. So the work I do is I go into organizations and I help them execute on [00:10:00] their strategy. Many of my clients already have a beautiful strategy in place.

Maybe they worked with an elite strategy company to do that. Then they have a hard time translating that strategy into business outcomes. So I come in with my firm, mBolden, and we help build the governance, the prioritization, help the leaders lead in ways that drive action and mobilize their teams. So I say that because when I was in corporate world, I would do this for about two or two and a half years with one company and set them up for success. And I would almost work my way out of a job because if I was effective, then we would’ve transformed the ways of thinking, working, organization, design, automation. We would’ve made work easier, more seamless. And so then once that’s solved, all that’s left is business as usual, which isn’t really my. S, you know,

Tim Melanson: Forte. Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to operate.

Yeah. So the thing is that I did it twice in big corporate from the [00:11:00] inside after a long career in a big consulting firm. And then I said, I’m actually tired of having to rebuild from scratch. So it was while I was still in my corporate job that I said, this is the last corporate transformation I’m gonna lead from the inside.

I’m going to build my own firm so that I can transform an organization. I do under that umbrella of my company has actually built and grown momentum brand logos on a page, and then I do the next one and the next one, but it’s additive rather than me building and then starting from scratch with another job hunt.

So that, that is why I made the change and I think for people. I will tell you a bit about my business structure, if that works, and the portfolio career that I’ve created. So one is mBolden and it’s that large company consulting, typically multinationals or major multi-billion dollar entities. That’s my client [00:12:00] base, and I help those clients deliver on their results. But I also do keynote speaking. I get inbound leads from my website or from LinkedIn primarily, or friend or client referrals to come in and speak at their town hall, their manager offsite. Sometimes it might just be their C-suite or board. Group, like I could do a full keynote for eight people, 12 people, and really tailor it to that audience.

So keynotes, I get inbound. I also have a speaking bureau that finds opportunities for me, so, so that’s something where there’s a bit of an engine working, providing inbound and speaking tends to be a lower. Time commitment, lesser time commitment for the client and for me, like I might do one keynote or I might get booked for a couple keynotes in different markets, but it, it might be something like. sessions or five sessions, a consulting gig could be anything from [00:13:00] host my offsite for a couple days, do interviews with the leaders before that, and then provide us with to-dos. it could be six months or two years of hands-on driving implementation and delivery. It’s bigger, it’s meatier, and it’s harder to find the right clients ready to move into that transformation state. At that moment compared to keynotes where everybody needs a keynote all the time, then there’s more. started doing master classes in September of last year. That was because I got so many inbound requests for mentoring and people were asking me the same questions that I thought, let’s actually cluster them, cover the topics that they want.

Make a beautiful in-person experience of that. ’cause you know how I feel about in-person community connection, and that will actually be something that I monetize as part of the business, but I have full control over that. I’m not waiting for a. B2B sale to happen, or for a client to come to me, [00:14:00] advertising an event or an opportunity, and then people individually can sign up and I can scale it up or down.

It could be 12 executives or entrepreneurs in a room. Could be 50. Like I,

Tim Melanson: Hello.

Suzanne Knight: doesn’t matter to me as long as I plan for it.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. That’s a.

Suzanne Knight: I know it, it’s a lot, but you know, I, I want to go into detail because the thing is that when people are looking to start their own thing, I want this to be like a menu for them to know that you can seek out clients, you can also create environments where people can come to you and you can do the long term and the short term in your offering. And it’s kind of a good thing to build something so that you’re never stuck. You always have money coming in, and you always have relationships that you’re building that could lead to the next thing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. So now, uh, like about the bad note, like I, I mean, you’ve been doing it for a couple years [00:15:00] now. I know that that was for me when things started to go poorly, I just start making decisions. ’cause, you know, things do, do go up and down sometimes in business. Right. And I do like to talk about that.

I’m, I’m wondering has there been any big mistakes or any big things that happened that wasn’t as planned that we can learn from?

Suzanne Knight: Sure. So two things. The first bad note I’ll share is the bigger, more emotional one. When I started the business, I thought that things. Would start up faster than they did. So I started the company nobody knew about. It took me two months to actually get the website up and to start to understand what my own service offerings really would be.

And then it took me another two months before I landed my first client and then another month before I started working with them. all in all, it was about five months from the time I left the corporate world until I started with a client. And in that window. I [00:16:00] was terrified looking down this like long hallway with no light.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There were no clients or things that I was waiting for that if I just get to that point, this will happen. There was no certainty that I would ever have a first client and. There was no certainty that I would figure out the business before my finances ran out and that I would have to make a bigger decision around my lifestyle, my home. ’cause the challenge too is when you start a business in your late thirties, or you start a business, when you’re an established adult, you have established adult expenses. It’s not like you’re 18 living in your parents’ house. You know, all good. You just need to get through the day and someone will feed you and you have a warm place to stay.

Like as an adult with three kids, there was real risk, and so I was constantly thinking what needs to be true to be able to make the [00:17:00] money before my savings? Out and I had to make a decision. So that was scary. So what I would say on that is it can take months for people to realize what you’re offering, to even understand that you have made a change and that there is a service that they can procure.

And this is where I had no overlap between my corporate work and my entrepreneurial endeavors. I didn’t start anything until I was fully free and clear. I don’t know. I, I don’t know if that was the right move. Like I could go back, I would’ve had to balance non-competes ethics and compliance issues and be really careful about not crossing that line. But at the same time, if there was a way that I could have gotten an approval to have some non-competitive side hustle, so that at least I wouldn’t have been leaving a comfortable corporate job and salary in the moment to go to that. [00:18:00] Point of having nothing set up.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: think there probably would’ve been some middle ground.

So I would say explore within, if you’re thinking, if you’re in corporate thinking of starting your own thing, explore what is available to you, put it out in the open if you’re comfortable, or look at the rules, like actually look at the policies and say, can I start a non-competitive side hustle? That will give me some level of certainty. And maybe it’s just networking. Maybe you don’t officially start anything, but you start to build your network and your brand such that when you’re ready to start the business, you’ve built an infrastructure and foundation around yourself, even if you haven’t launched the company.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Suzanne Knight: That’s the first big one.

Now I’ll share another one. It’s small, but to me it felt very big. So tech issues. I cannot tell you how difficult these little micro problems are and how much they can derail my [00:19:00] days, my weeks, my months. So when I started the business, I had multiple email addresses. I had one from my consulting firm, mBolden. I had my personal Gmail that I had for years. I had one for the Women’s network. I had. One for a client, when they brought me on, they wanted me to use an email with their domain. think for email addresses means four calendars that you’re trying to sync up.

It means that you have your inbox where you’re getting constant inflow, but. They don’t all go to one place. I had times where I would have multiple computers beside each other, each with a calendar on it, and I would be manually syncing them all up. And this was before the point that I had an ea. It was all me, and it was incredibly difficult. And the thing is that I tried. Everything I problem solved. I tried Calendly, I tried Zoom. I migrated to Google Workspace. I tried the team suite, [00:20:00] Zapier like everything I could think of, and I had all the phone calls with my domain provider, with Google, with all these companies. Here’s the thing. I ended up finding out that these systems were incompatible.

The private email that I had through my domain was never actually going to sync up with something like Calendly, but there was never anything that told me that that would be the case. So I look back. sounds simple, calendars don’t sync. But the practical reality for an entrepreneur trying to build their brand and their business is that when you have double bookings coming in to multiple calendars and you have missed meetings because somebody puts something in and you don’t get a notification, it can kill your business, your reputation, and it is so incredibly stressful. The time it takes, like I spent so many days, nights, and weekends trying to problem solve an impossible problem. [00:21:00] I’ll tell you what I ended up doing. I ended up moving everything to Google Workspace. I ended up saying to clients that I’m not able to use their email addresses like I have my own. And that also creates separation as a contractor or consultant where it doesn’t look like I’m an employee of the company, which is. Also important. And then the other thing I did is I did get an EA who manages the calendar, and that has been worth its weight in gold. So I would say like an entrepreneur, you may not have the capacity and time allocated to deal with the problems that come up. You may not have started with the skillsets to be able to immediately solve those issues, but you will figure it out.

You will come to a solution. Because you have to, because there’s no one else to do it. You don’t have a tech department, an IT group to do it. You figure it out and while it’s hard, eventually you will.

Tim Melanson: Wow, wow. So much to unpack there.

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: The, the [00:22:00] first part, uh, that you had mentioned, like I, I, I had this, um, this advice once, it said the best time to build your network was before you need it. Right? So, so I think that that is a really great way to do it if you do have some sort of like non-compete because you’re going into a business that’s similar to the business that you’re already in.

Starting to build that network and starting to network online or, or even go to your Chamber of commerce would be a good way to, to start that. But um, but I also have heard that well in my. In my observation that it takes about three months to build that momentum. So that is, you’re right, very stressful if you’ve got like, if you’ve like burned the boats and now you’re off on your own and you’ve got nothing else, and now you have to wait three months for something to start to to catch, right?

Like that’s stressful. How do you know it’s gonna catch? Like it might not.

Suzanne Knight: this is the thing, and it depends what kind of business you’re in. Like for me it took five, six months before I got real traction and you [00:23:00] know, that was a long period of time to be burning through my savings. Other businesses pretend that you’re starting a product. Business and it takes a while to create the design and produce the thing and ship the thing.

There could also be a long timeline, like it’s not just service businesses where you could have a window and like when you’re starting and let’s say you get to that three months or six months. That doesn’t mean that you’re immediately replacing your old income, it just means that traction is starting.

Could take a year or two years. Who knows how long before you’re really feeling that that pull and you know people coming to you for your offerings. For me, I would say it took about. months from the time that I that I was starting this business and left corporate until the point that I thought, oh, this is good, like 14 months before I had the big break, and I had the big clients and the big pull, and it’s not that I didn’t have clients before, but [00:24:00] it was that I still had some level of anxiety about it and I didn’t know where the next client would come from. And then I would be grateful when the next client would come, but it wasn’t with certainty. At 14 months, I was in a position where I was able to rebuild my savings. And that gave me the confidence and stability that also allowed me to invest in more marketing and a better website. And to start exploring SEO and to I’m gonna have a better speaker reel.

I’m going to start to dress the part like. of that takes money and it takes certainty before you’re ready to put money back into the business at that level. So just don’t expect it will be quick, but with determination, with the right product, market fit, with listening to what. The business world and your client base are telling you and pivoting if you have to, you can figure it out and come [00:25:00] up with a thing that people are gonna want.

And it could work and it could be financially beneficial, but just don’t expect that it is guaranteed to happen

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, uh, I mean, having a bit of a roadmap to follow can help as well. And listening to podcasts and getting out there and understanding that there is a bit of a lag behind, but. Uh, I mean, I, I just, you know, I think that, uh, I, I know for me, I, I had a severance when I started my business. I think that it is just smart to have some sort of like backup plan to keep you through because it is gonna take some time to get going, right?

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent. And the thing about the severance is don’t underestimate when you’re applying for the job and in offer phase of negotiating the severance at that point. Because you

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: the corporate world with optimism saying, this is gonna be great. I’m gonna love it. I’ll be so good. Then maybe it works out [00:26:00] or it doesn’t, and you never know when you’ll be really grateful to have that severance.

You know, when I was in my corporate world, I never negotiated severance and I should have, and I heard from a friend that she ended up getting a very generous severance that she had negotiated upfront because she was employed in an impressive job. She left that job. After being headhunted to this new company and she ended up getting 18 months of fully paid severance that she negotiated in at the beginning, that in no way would’ve been offered to her if she hadn’t pushed for it.

So I say if you’re still in that corporate cycle, that is something you should negotiate and you should do it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Um, now on your tech stuff, so, um, I don’t wanna take too much time to talk about me, but I’m like, one of the things that I do is exactly what you, uh, were experienced. I figure out tech problems, I untangle them and I’m like 90% sure I would’ve been able to figure out your problem.

Suzanne Knight: Well, now I know I’m gonna call [00:27:00] you. You know, even two weeks ago I had the dumbest problem in the world, also tech that you probably could have solved for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: a coffee shop and I was working and reviewing some documents, and my laptop ran outta battery. So I plugged it in. It turned back on. But here’s the issue. The keyboard switched to a different language. it was blocked because I had had these key, that was another problem I had to figure out. I, I figured out that you can change the keyboard

Tim Melanson: you can. Yep.

Suzanne Knight: but here was the issue. For some reason, it was stuck, it was blocked. It wouldn’t let me do it.

And so what happened is the keyboard that was on wouldn’t let me put numbers. I have numbers in my password. I have numbers in my apple ID to reset, and I had numbers in my wifi code, so I was literally dealing with this. Block that I didn’t know how to do. I messed around with it for an hour and a half with chat GBT on my phone

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it out, and I eventually [00:28:00] just went to the Apple store, like the, you know, the neighborhood ones

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: Apple certified?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I just went and handed over the laptop and was like. I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care if you are charging me for this thing, like please just solve my problem. Like I’ve just wasted an hour and a half and I am now convinced I am not capable of solving this myself. And the woman unlocked it in like 30 seconds.

So

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Don’t try to figure it out yourself like you are wasting so much more time and money on, on doing something that’s not in your sweet spot. Just call Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and I think that that is, I mean, not called Tim, but I think that that particular idea is something that all of us need to take to heart because we spend, especially when you first start your business, you’re a solopreneur. You’re wearing all the hats, you’re doing all the things right. And that’s great.

And I, I think that there’s a certain amount of. Knowing all the parts of your business or, or at [00:29:00] least having an idea of what needs to be done. But then it has to be like really quick to realize that, okay, that area there, Uhuh, I need to find somebody. Because you are gonna spend a, a lot of time on something that you isn’t your gift zone, and that that time is money really, especially when you need to build up momentum in three months.

Right?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, a hundred percent. And that’s the thing that when you’re in scarcity mindset, it’s really hard to think about delegating or outsourcing. And you’re thinking, I’ll pay a hundred dollars to the Apple store to fix my thing, and that’s a hundred dollars. That could have brought groceries into my household, like it’s so stressful.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: At the same time, how much is an hour and a half of your time worth on client work, business development and the frustration and stress of sitting there dealing with something that didn’t even result in a solve with my case, with this, uh, keyboard issue. And so that’s the thing now where. I’m very clear on [00:30:00] what is in my jo, my zone of genius, what is not, what energizes me and what doesn’t, and I actually follow my energy cycles.

So I wrote a book. I realized for myself with this book, it’s not out yet, but I’ll update you guys maybe if Tim will let me later. Um, but the thing with the book is wrote best. In mornings and early afternoons. By the time it was evening, I was exhausted and if I was trying to write, it took me two or three times longer to produce what was probably subpar delivery.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it’s the same on the client side where like. I will have times that I am my best self ready to have meetings and engage. And then there will be days where I know I have a big proposal due, or I’m pushing for a delivery date for an actual engagement result. And I know that that is not the time to book unrelated client sessions because my, my [00:31:00] head’s gonna be somewhere else.

So I do time blocking and I try to group like. Work together.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I’ll do a full day of business development or a full day dedicated to a client if I can. And then the other thing is I follow those energy cycles and reflect on it. To sometimes say, here’s what I did today. Which of these things were in the best window for me? Like, which of these felt good to do? And which of these felt exhausting, burdensome. Like they really weren’t. The right fit for the time and place that I was working

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s great. That’s, that really is good. And so, okay. So the, the, the benefit that we had by working for ourselves is that we don’t have to work if we don’t want to. Right? We, we can, we can sort, sort of take a day off if we choose to and all that stuff. However, you know, the other part of it is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

So [00:32:00] now when it comes to like, uh, like, uh, doing the things that you don’t feel like doing, right? Like, like, uh, where is that sort of balance where you have to go, you know what, it’s gotta get done, let’s do it anyway. Versus. Let’s not do it right now and let’s wait till the energy is better.

Suzanne Knight: Very good question. So I look at a couple things. So I used to be a solo. Printer at the beginning. Now I have a small team and I also built, this is something I recommend. I built a freelancer network where I pre-screened, pre-interviewed, and did signed NDAs and client agreements so that. My clients are my clients.

If I’m subcontracting to someone, they’re still my clients. So I signed all of those forms after interviewing people So now when I have opportunities and there are things that are ready to be delivered, I have people I can ask. Another is I built systems where, let’s say for marketing, I’m very [00:33:00] happy to manage my own LinkedIn.

I write all the posts myself. I enjoy that process, and then I post them myself. But I find that I’m less willing to do that for video content. So I’m happy to be videoed, but I’m not somebody who’s going to enjoy or be energized by the editing or the music or the captions for the video content. But I’m happy to prepare and show up ready for a filming day and deliver what I have to deliver.

So I outsource that stuff ahead, knowing that it will never. Be the thing that energizes me and there are people way better at at it than I am now. We go to the day to day, there can be a day that I’m sick. This is a hard thing, like I had the flu before holiday season and I still had stuff I was trying to finish before everyone went out, but like I had a flu and it was only stuff that I could do that was really hard because some of it I had to finish before the holidays to [00:34:00] be able to fulfill the contractual agreements.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: I was able to push, but I’ll say whether it’s the textbook best thing to do or not, when it was a contractual, uh, requirement and I truly didn’t have someone else that could do it and it was make or break, I did it and I was sick and I felt like crappy and I was lying on the couch, but I still got the stuff done.

But anything I could push, I pushed. And I have a prioritization. Scheme with my ea. This is something that is separate from the meetings or client work, but it’s actually around when I get inbound leads or when I have opportunities to connect with people, or people ask me for mentoring. We do a prioritization around what this call will be or what it means to the business.

So priority one is existing client. That means that they are actively engaged, paying money for services or [00:35:00] that they recently did and could renew, but it’s, it’s very much tied to active. Client two is like, or priority two is prospect. That means that there is a real potential that they could become clients, but they’re not clients today.

And so that could be an inbound lead where they are very clear on a scope of work that they want with a legitimate organization that could afford my fees. And I need to speak with them to be able to understand the offering versus the need and broker a deal. So that’s priority two. You see that comes after existing clients once some, once someone engages me, they are my world. And then priority two is future prospects. Three is very active. I get a billion threes. This could be friends wanting to reconnect. It could be mentoring requests. It could be people looking for a job. It could [00:36:00] be conferences where they might want me to speak pro bono at a women’s event. It’s not going to be a client.

It’s not going to make money, but there’s a social good associated with it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: It could be people randomly reaching out saying, Hey, I wanna learn about this part of your business, and you don’t really know where it’s gonna go. But all of those are three. So those come after the core that are gonna keep my business moving forward and keep my family and my core safe and secure financially.

So those are threes. I limit threes. I do threes, but I’ll say there’s one day every two weeks that I’ll take on some threes and I’ll stack them in calls. All day, or sometimes there are threes that I do in person and it’ll be a day. And from morning till night, I’m doing straight out coffees and meals the entire day. And I also do threes ad hoc where I actually prefer if I have quiet time on a day to just pick up the phone and call a three and check it off the list rather than booking [00:37:00] and protecting time in the calendar that I might want in the moment to use for different energy.

Tim Melanson: I love that.

Suzanne Knight: four. Priority four is I don’t wanna meet with this person for whatever reason.

It could be that there is. There have been meetings that haven’t gone anywhere. It could be that that meetings suck my energy. It could be that there’s some level of conflict with a person who’s not necessary for me to have in my life. It, it really depends. But fours are the, the do not book list. And so fours my EA knows just they will never get a spot in my calendar.

I’m telling my secrets now, but I, it’s important to have boundaries

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to say. No, if there’s something that feels uncomfortable or that you know is gonna drain you and the rest of the day, you’re gonna be that little bit worse. Having spent the time having that meeting or with the person. that’s, that’s my prioritization, four point [00:38:00] prioritization, and it works very, very well for me.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So many things to talk about. We’re running outta time. I just wanna make two, two points. The, the first one is you had mentioned that you stack things that are like together, and I think that’s a great idea because I think that. You sort of build momentum and you know how, like, you know, sports players will have like a routine before they go do their event and all that stuff.

It like gets them in the mood, right? And, and like flipping between tasks, task, task and all that stuff, you have to start over again. So I think that that. Is a great idea for actually making yourself in the mood. Because if you have a couple of especially good ones that work out really, really well and like some successes, you check them off the list, now you’re feeling good and like you’ve just created a good feeling.

Right? So I think that that’s a, a really good, uh, thing too. And then the, the second part about your ea about your, the band, the people that you have around you, like I think one of the hard parts. About, [00:39:00] I, I don’t know if everybody’s like it. I think probably a lot of people are feel bad about saying no and about right.

Like someone you know says, Hey, can I pick your brain for a few minutes? And you’re just like, uh, but you do anyway, right? And it takes your time. But having that person or even a system that like. Is in between you and that person now, like, it’s so funny how like you could have a rule say, Hey, I’ll only like you say I, I’m not, the fours are not getting any time.

I would bet you if you were in charge of that instead of your ea, a few of those fours would sneak through, right?

Suzanne Knight: they used to. And so that’s the thing, like I had to make firm boundaries with my EA

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: which she manages consistently and manages it better than me. But then I also realized that every, yes. a no to something

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: And so every time I said yes to a four, I was saying no to being able to actually do a proposal or [00:40:00] to fix my website or

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: go to the gym or make dinner for my kids, and it just wasn’t worth it.

I actually did a TED Talk on this, a TEDx, and it’s called The Myth of Doing It All. What to do instead. And I talk about very specific tactics that I use in my own work and life to maximize productivity and efficiency. So highly recommend for anyone, Suzanne Knight, the myth of doing it all. See TEDx on YouTube.

But that’s where I talk about yes is a no. You need to center yourself, your wellness, your engagement in your own life. ’cause nobody else is gonna do it for you if you don’t put up those boundaries. People will take what they can get. It’s just human nature and, and no one will protect you. Although your EA is a good substitute, but you still have to hold firm to the boundaries.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean a yes. I, I, I think yeah, A yes is like a no to everything else. Like [00:41:00] you’ve made a choice to do this one thing and you can really only do one thing at a time. I mean, hey, some people say that you can do multitask, but it’s really switch tasking. You can only do one thing at a time, right?

Uh, unless you create an AI double and then well, who knows what happens, right?

Suzanne Knight: Why stop at a double?

Tim Melanson: We could create a whole army of mees that would do stuff, but, uh, but, uh, who knows? That’s, that’s down the line. But yeah, like, I, I think that that is really important. And I, I guess maybe the, the finding out the, the wording around it, like, I bet you there’s some really good wording that you use to make sure that those fours don’t get into your schedule.

Right.

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent, and so I’ll put this offer out to you, Tim, and any listeners here. Send me a note. You can have my contact actually on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, and reach out. I will send you my wording. I actually created a document that has the descriptions of each priority and that has a stock [00:42:00] response, email, and protocol for each level that my EA follows. Take it. Like if you message me, I will send it to you, adapt it, make it yours, or just straight copy paste it. But yeah, it’s been working for me for the past, let’s say 18 months, and I’ve gotten progressively more productive as we’ve improved our operating processes.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Okay, well this is a good time to get into your guest solo then. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Suzanne Knight: So my business right now is pretty hectic in annual planning. I love connecting with leadership teams, and it could be either like the C-suite of an organization or it could be like one vice president in a domain. Looking to figure out how they’re going to deliver over the rest of the year or the quarter and mobilize their team. So those sessions could be a mix of focus on the work. So what are we trying to deliver? How does it align to the strategy? How are we measuring success? Who’s [00:43:00] doing what and where do those dependencies fall and where are the risks that could keep us from being successful? other side of it is often around high performing teams.

So how do we show up as one? How do we keep from having duplication of work or silos, like let’s actually make work fun, interesting, engaging, support each other’s success, and let’s actually contract on that in the room. Focused on the work. So those are things that I’ve loved doing lately, and I would say from November until end of February, those are quite busy.

But then we get to midyear planning around that June point, and you can rotate or move all of this depending on the company’s fiscal year. So that’s a great way to engage me or to just chat if you wanna bounce some ideas about what it could look like. The other is keynotes. I am so enjoying going in front of [00:44:00] whether it’s a manager offsite, whether it’s an enterprise town hall, a leadership meeting, and talking about a couple things. Never waste a good crisis, has been my most popular keynote for a number of years, and it’s about in this context of constant, relentless change, how do we build. path forward when we don’t exactly know where we’re gonna go. for leaders and managers, how do you guide a team and keep them engaged and feeling good and well and productive when you don’t exactly have that path ahead of you? To guide them too. You’re figuring it out along the way. So there’s a certain bit of resilience that I talk about there in growth Mindset. And then over the past six months, a very popular topic I’ve been discussing is a lot of Tim, what we’ve been talking about here. Creating more time, finding ways to be more efficient.

I talk about this in my TEDx, [00:45:00] the myth of doing it all, but I’ve translated it for a corporate or government or conference audience to be able to say, using the best of Lean Agile and the lessons that I learned driving corporate transformations. With 80 clients in 14 countries, here are the specific tactics that you could employ, whether you are a solopreneur, whether you’re trying to live your best life with your family, whether you’re a corporate leader, these are the specific things that anyone can employ for zero cost,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Suzanne Knight: just a little bit of willingness to test and learn.

Tim Melanson: Wow, okay. Wow, you got a lot of stuff on the go and you’re a great speaker, so I bet you those tech TEDxs are awesome.

Suzanne Knight: Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: I’m wondering, like, so who would be the person that would get the most out of working with you?

Suzanne Knight: So the person who would get the most out of working with me on the event side, typically I would be booked by a chief people officer, a head of events, [00:46:00] someone in corporate affairs, or even an executive looking to. Buyer and motivate their team. And then on the consulting side, it’s typically corporate.

It’s typically anyone in a large organization looking to live and work better. But if you are a based. Really anywhere and you’re looking to participate in one of the workshops or masterclasses that I host, I do them about four times a year. It’s not something I offer all the time, but I’ll do them some in person in Toronto, some of them virtual, and anyone around the world can participate and uh, that actually gets a lot of entrepreneurs.

So I would love to have any of you there connect with me on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, or my website, suzanne knight.com and you can sign up for my email list. hand write all my emails. I do typically one or two a week, and they’re a mix of tips. I’ll do templates. Let’s say I create something for a conference or a keynote, and it’s [00:47:00] something that I think will be useful.

I typically give it out for free on the list, and then sometimes it’s just storytelling, like I might tell. Story of that annoying keyboard lock situation and, you know, I, I just love the community part of it and building a network and connection whether or not we ever work together. I’m so happy for us just to be connected.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Awesome. That’s so cool. I, I was gonna ask you how to get connected, but you’ve already mentioned it. So

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: now hardest question, who’s your favorite rockstar?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, I, rockstar is a broad.

Tim Melanson: Musician.

Suzanne Knight: musician. I would say Tracy Chapman.

Tim Melanson: Ooh.

Suzanne Knight: a sweet spot. I love Nora Jones. There’s that certain powerful emotive ballad, singer songwriter that just gets me. And I find that like if I’m feeling down, I wanna listen. If I’m feeling up, I wanna listen. But those are the ones that [00:48:00] I go back to over and over.

Tim Melanson: Do you sing along?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh. Oh, so I do, but nobody would wanna hear. Unfortunately. I’m good at some things. That is one that would really feel like a punishment to any of you to have to listen in on. But

Tim Melanson: So,

Suzanne Knight: sing along with it.

Tim Melanson: have you ever gone to karaoke?

Suzanne Knight: I have, and it was so embarrassing. I went to karaoke in Florida with my dad about a decade ago, and I’m not kidding, like we were in some dive bar.

Nobody was there. Maybe like five or six locals. I was the only ones. Singing B 50 two’s Love Shack in the dive bar with my dad. I don’t know. Must have been more than 10 years ago. ’cause that’s horrifying. But yeah, that’s the last karaoke and probably the last one I will ever go to.

Tim Melanson: Well, you know what? It makes a good story, doesn’t it?

Suzanne Knight: Yeah, and I never told it before, so kudos to you, Tim. Forgetting that

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Suzanne Knight: of me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. [00:49:00] Maybe it’ll make it into, into one of your tech talk. Uh, your TED Talks at one point.

Suzanne Knight: Let’s, let’s hope not. But yeah, this was enough. I disclosed it once. That’s enough.

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

Suzanne Knight: Well, it was wonderful, Tim. Thank you so much for having me. It was a joy I.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. 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’m very excited for today’s episode. We’ve got founder Mark Aylward, what he does is he helps successful men rebuild confidence after hardship. Actually, better yet, he helps capable men rebuild confidence after hardship.

I’m very excited to be rocking out today with Mark. Hey, mark, are you ready to rock?

Mark Aylward: I am Tim. Thank you for having me.

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

Mark Aylward: Yeah, so I built and sold two, uh, successful IT staffing companies. The first one was with my mentor. He basically invested in me and taught me everything about starting a contract recruiting firm. And then I went off and did it on my own with a buddy of mine years later. So I think the, you know, all of the topics that you, uh, talk about are very interesting to me because I spent my entire life.

Helping people progress professionally, [00:01:00] mostly in the forms of getting them better jobs or promotions and negotiate on, on their behalf. But the, I remember my first placement was a single father with three young boys who was about to lose his house. And uh, that’s the first time I ever heard, mark, you saved my life.

And, uh. I’ll never forget that. I remember thinking that day, this is what God wants me to do, so I should start, I should start to figure this out. And there’s all kinds of other stories around that one. But that, when you said what you said, that’s the one that popped into my head.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, and now unfortunately, sometimes the good notes have to come along with bad notes too. So the things that don’t go as planned. And I do like to talk about both of those things. ’cause yes, I mean, we all have great success stories, but also a lot of things that keep people out of, of making changes in their lives is the fear of failure.

And I wanna make sure that people understand that we all, we all have the bad notes from time to time, and you can recover from those. [00:02:00] So can you share one that we can, uh, learn from?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I think even though I have a, a litany of interesting stories around a very contentious divorce and my children and I are all happy and healthy now, and, and very loving relationships. So we came out of that storm. The one that strikes me as most relevant perhaps to your audience is, you know, when I sold my second company, um, it was under duress.

Uh, and that’s related to the divorce. One of the things that we did not do, and I would advise this of anybody contemplating building a company or selling a company, is we did a great job on the due diligence with regard to the financials. Uh, we were great with the numbers. What we didn’t do is investigate the culture and the culture of where you’re going to work.

Because I went to work for these people for a two year contract post sale. What we discovered about the culture is we weren’t a good fit for the culture at all. And, [00:03:00] um, I regret not investigating that. It did impact my earnout, it impacted my satisfaction, my happiness. It was a rough couple of years. And, uh, but, but who knew?

You know, I mean, when you don’t, when you’ve never done something before, you’re usually going to miss something. And, uh, investigating the financials is great, but you also do need to investigate the culture because. Companies buy other companies for reasons they might want geographic locations, they might wanna expand in a particular direction.

From an industry standpoint, there’s a purpose behind the purchase. And without understanding the purpose behind the purpose, the purpose behind the purchase, if you will, um, you’re probably gonna get it wrong. And we did. So that was, uh, that’s a big one. There are many others, so if you wanna talk mistakes, we could stay here for a while, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, the, the idea of culture does keep coming up quite often and more and more now than it did 10 years ago when I started the [00:04:00] podcast. And, you know, it, it is interesting because people do think about the numbers. I mean, not everybody, but, but, but you, you tend to think about, about the numbers. Okay, is this a profitable company?

Is this something that I’m gonna buy? And even when it comes to hiring, when it comes to. Finding top talent, people will focus on the talent instead of the culture. Like there’s so many, like areas of your business that, you know, you think of the obvious thing, but you don’t think of the culture as much.

And now that’s becoming more and more important because I think a lot of people are, um, gravitating towards culture and there’s so many different types of companies that you can be interested in. I’m wondering, like, is is that something that comes up in other areas of the business too? Is culture.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I, you know, I spend a vast amount of my time on LinkedIn. It’s my source of marketing and leads, and I create a lot of content. I build my authority there. I build my credibility there. And there’s a lot of talk on LinkedIn about work. I mean, that’s what the platform started for. [00:05:00] It’s become other things as well, but.

The big thing about culture is I’ve gone into hundreds of companies over the course of about 30 years, maybe thousands, from small companies to Fortune 100 companies, and when you look at a company through the lens of how they hire people, what I’ve con my contention is that how companies hire people is how they do everything.

And the, it’s hiring, it’s onboarding, it’s training and development, and I see. An almost absence of consistent culture because I don’t think, to your point, I don’t think people pay attention to it. I think people kind of expect it to occur or it’s gonna trickle down from the top because whoever the CEO is, or the founder or the owner, who he or she might be is what the culture’s gonna look like.

I think that’s a false assumption. I think culture needs attention. And what I see on LinkedIn is one of two [00:06:00] things. People complaining about their culture and not doing anything about it, or people not talking about it for fear that they’ll be punished for talking about

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: And I never understood that probably ’cause I’m an entrepreneur, I say whatever I want and that.

That’s usually helpful for everyone, but not always. Um, and I remember having a conversation with my first boss when he was yelling at me in front of people and I pulled him into his office and I said, look. I love this work. I love this job. I, I appreciate you signing my paycheck. I’m very grateful. But if you ever yell at me in front of other people, particularly people that you want me to supervise, I’m walking out that door and you’ll never see me again.

It can, it completely changed our relationship for the better. And I told, I’ve told him recently, ’cause we still talk. I don’t, were you doing that on purpose or you just being a dick? And he doesn’t even remember the incident. It was probably 25 years ago, but that was my first taste of. [00:07:00] Am I gonna do anything about this or am I gonna let myself be treated poorly?

And that’s a cultural thing for me. It’s, it comes up as toxicity on the LinkedIn platform, and I just think I, I don’t think anyone pays enough attention to it. I don’t think most companies do it well. I think it’s often just a sign on the wall that you walk by every once in a while and you’re reminded of this vision or this mission, but it doesn’t translate into the day-to-day environment.

And I think it’s a really missed opportunity for most companies.

Tim Melanson: So do you have any suggestions on how, you know, if you were just starting a new business or if you were trying to overhaul your current business? Just some, some tips on how they can create that culture. Like intentionally.

Mark Aylward: Well, I think it comes down to values. Think this is when I coach people individually, I talk a lot about alignment and then what I mean by alignment is are you doing and saying things that are in alignment with what you [00:08:00] truly believe in? And Tim, I find most people never have that discussion with themselves.

We just make assumptions about what our values are like. Everybody wants to be known as honest. Everyone wants to be known as kind. Everyone wants to be known. But I think about things like clarity. And being concise and being consistent and being personally accountable. And those are all admirable traits, but left unsaid, left, you know, alone.

They don’t just happen. Right. So I think that if I were to advise someone, which I do advise people when they’re contemplating starting companies, ’cause that’s kind of in my. Wheelhouse. Um, I would, that’s the first thing I do with everybody, whether they’re starting a company or just looking to improve their personal circumstances, is let’s talk about what’s important to you and let’s, let’s get that on the table.

And I’m not here to agree or disagree with what your values are. That’s not my judgment to make, but I do [00:09:00] think it’s helpful and it’s critical that we, if you start writing content, if you start speaking out loud, if you start visiting clients and making phone calls. What comes outta your mouth should start with, this is what we believe in, this is who we are.

And I think it’s that simple. I think it’s just give it attention, make it an exercise, and then understand like any exercise, like sit-ups, you gotta do ’em every day. You can’t just do a hundred of ’em one day and expect you’re gonna have six packs. Abs. That’s not the way stuff works. So I hope I answered your question.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you did it. I mean, really it’s, I mean, when we choose our friends, when we choose our relationships, I mean, all those are hopefully considering values first. Right? And, and picking people that will fit that. So why not your companies? Right. I think people just, I. Assume that they gotta fill a spot with the, the best, you know, technical talent of that AR area, but they don’t necessarily think of, [00:10:00] you know, how is that person aligning with what I believe?

And if you believe the, the same things, you don’t have to convince anybody of that, right? Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s, it really is a, a, a heavy ball, um, the, this, not this idea of hiring people, which is my, you know, if I have an area of expertise, that’s certainly one of them, just from the, the amount of years I’ve done it is, is the. This idea that I never hired anybody because of their experience. Not once. And uh, ’cause I didn’t care what their experience was.

I wanted them to be honest. I wanted them to be hardworking. I wanted them to be personally accountable. And my favorite question in the interview process, Tim, and sometimes it was the only question I asked was, tell me about the hardest thing that’s ever happened to you in your life and how you came out the other side.

Um, and, and I get storytelling. I get creativity. I get imagination. I get personal accountability. I get everything I need. Or I don’t with that answer. And, and I think, [00:11:00] and you’re a software guy or an IT guy. I don’t know if you’re, I, I assume programming is part of that skillset. So, you know, the garbage in, garbage out thing is, is something you’re aware of.

But I, I think the other thing about hiring is people hate to do it. It’s the process itself is so cumbersome. It’s so burdensome. It takes so much time. And, uh, I’ve never met. A CIO that liked hiring? Not once. So I think what people do is they get into the hiring process and then they settle because they get sick of it.

And I think that’s way more common than most people understand.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And then what’s even more fun is firing.

Mark Aylward: Oh man, it’s the worst. Uh, it’s I’ve, I’ve never done it without allowing people to keep their dignity. I was always very sensitive to that. But also Tim, even though it’s the hardest thing to do as a business owner, in my estimation, [00:12:00] it was also always the best thing to do for both parties. And I used to tell people, look, this the way that I do this recruiting thing.

Is my way. You don’t, you don’t fit into my way. And it took us a few months to figure that out and that’s okay. So you’ll be better. Better off going, finding a way that suits you. ’cause my way is not the only way and will be better off because we will have one less frustrated person, you know, working here every day.

So let’s just agree to, to part ways, respectfully and um, that always went pretty well. It just looking, getting ready for it was always the hardest part. You know, the actual doing it was, was, wasn’t always that hard. Couple times it was.

Tim Melanson: Agreed. So I’ve got a lot of analogies in this, uh, podcast, and one of them we talk about is practice. So, I mean, in music it’s, it’s, it’s obvious, you know, you do need to practice before you go do your big show in business, I’m not sure if it’s as obvious. Do, do, do you have practices that [00:13:00] you do to make sure that you’re up on, you know, the latest in your business?

Mark Aylward: I do, I, I, and it’s a great topic. I really, I was resistant to goal setting. Um, I always have been, I always felt pressure from goal setting. And, um, I was, I worked for people that set goals for me, set goals with me. And, but when I started working for myself and even more recently, I’m, I’m a huge. Proponent of process and, and if, if the process works, if it’s something you can do relatively quickly, something you can look forward to doing consistently every day, something that it has a simplicity to it that doesn’t make it burdensome and it supports.

Whatever your goal is, and for most of us that run our own companies, that one of those goals is revenue, right? And you could take revenue, you could take profit, you know, six of one half dozen of the other profit’s [00:14:00] more accurate, but they’re both aspirational goals, right? One comes with the other usually. I get first thing in the morning. I get up and I do, uh, I have a prayer ceremony. I’m, I’m a Catholic and I went to Notre Dame and they send me an email every morning about whatever gospel’s being read at mass that day. And I read that with my girlfriend in person or on, on FaceTime. That starts me off.

That’s really cool and it’s simple. Um, then we do some breath work, Wim h breathing, if you know who Wim Hof is, and if you don’t, you should look ’em up when we’re done. Um, and that’s a 15 minute exercise that is vibrates. I get my face in the sun, I drink some water, and I, I open up my journal and my journaling is, uh, is, is the point of your question.

And that is, that’s where all of my processes and systems sit. And I could go into detail on that. At another point in time because it’s fairly detailed, but it’s very simple. The exercise of [00:15:00] filling out that page in my journal takes me about 10 minutes. And so by the time the sun rises, I’m ready to go.

You know? And, and I think all of that sits well into your concept of. The musician that, you know, you gotta play those chords over and over and over and over again. So, um, my, my repetitive tasks are pretty obvious. They’d be creating content, commenting on posts, writing posts, doing videos, guesting on podcasts, anything to get the word out there to people about who I am and what I do.

And then what comes back is people with whom that resonates, usually engage me in some capacity. That’s an oversimplification, but that’s the way that works.

Tim Melanson: Well, okay. So for me, uh, with journaling, uh, we’ll take that as a, as an example, I’ve been an off and on journaler for 20 years. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be very, very good at it for a while and then just sort of forget about it. I don’t even understand how that [00:16:00] happens. And then I’ll be on a podcast or something like that and someone will mention journaling.

Oh yeah, geez, I haven’t done that in a while. And they’ll get back to it. I’m wondering, how do you, how do you stay consistent? How are your, or are you also off and on?

Mark Aylward: I was for a long time. Uh, and then I bumped into a guy that had a structure that resonated with me. It had a spiritual bent to it, which resonated with me. Um, it was funny, I was wrestling with myself a couple years ago, the difference between prayer and meditation, and I had this little kind of. Pagan versus Catholic argument with myself, like, if you’re meditating is, are you doing a disservice to God?

Or like, it was really interesting. I was really struggling with the conversation, so I just got rid of the meditation and stayed with the prayer. That was part of it. And so, uh, that makes me feel an obligation. ’cause God’s involved. I gotta, I gotta show up for God this morning, you know? So. That might be a large part of it, but you know, sometimes we’re just ready [00:17:00] for things that we weren’t ready for two years ago or five years ago.

Sometimes things resonate because someone says them to you differently, and one of my favorite phrases is we need to be reminded far more often than we need to be educated. You know? So most of the stuff that you tell me, I will have heard already, and most of the stuff I tell you, you will have heard already.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. I agree. So a structure is, is, is useful and, and I agree. I, I find, I think that the times that I’ve. Been very good at my journaling has been when maybe I’ll get like a book that has a journal component to it and you’ve got this structure that you can follow. ’cause I mean journaling, what do you write?

What, like, unless there’s something, some sort of steps that you can follow, it’s just, I, I don’t even know what to do. Right.

Mark Aylward: Well, there’s a, there’s a school of thought that says just brain dump, just free flow, right? I mean, I think getting things out of your system is cathartic no matter what it looks like. [00:18:00] So I would say to people that are contemplating this or are struggling with it, as you’ve suggested, as ’cause I did too, structure for sure is one of the solutions.

If you’re, if you’re a God person, you know, being obligated for to God for something is pretty powerful. If you’re not, of course it doesn’t make any difference, but, um, the structure of mine is there are things that I write. And then there are boxes that I check like, did you pray today? Boom. Check. You know, did you, what’s your flow anchor today?

Gratitude. Okay. Check. You know, and then I was, I don’t know if you know Andrew Huberman. The, the psychologist therapist, celebrity, um, he talks about psychological things all the time. He’s a very bright guy. Uh, interesting fellow. I heard him long, not long ago. Say, people do, I am statements. I am, you know, I’m, I’m struggling with self-doubt.

I’m struggling with imposter syndrome. If you flip that, instead of saying [00:19:00] I am, say you are. You then become a third party advocate of you. It’s not you telling yourself anything anymore. This expert is telling you this and it’s incredibly interesting. I see you nodding your head when I, I said that to my doctor the first time months ago.

She goes, dad, that makes perfect sense. I go, yeah, it’s pretty crazy, you know, so something to consider trying, you know, if you, if you want to get back into some journaling and some structure. So I make a list of things and instead of being self-doubt, I am confident. Right. Instead of being, you know, prideful, I’m humble.

You know, it, it, they’re, they’re easy to flip, right? But the, the notion of saying, and so that’s a list. There’s two or three lists. And then another thing is I pick five areas of my life that I just throw a little love and gratitude at. And could just be a five second thought. It could be a prayer, it could be a phone call.

These five things require my love and [00:20:00] attention every day. And before I did that, like my children, God, my girlfriend, my business, my health, before I did that, I would, like most people probably, I would go all in on one of them and neglect the other three or four. And that’s just human nature. So this, this reminder to give all five of these areas.

A little bit of love. It’s pretty powerful. So that, again, back to the structure of my journal.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Now another thing that I found is good for accountability is being accountable to another person, right? Like either finding like a mastermind or a coach or some sort of accountability partner because like, like you say, I mean trying to be accountable to yourself. I mean, you let yourself down all the time,

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But as soon as you put something else, like either God or, or maybe another person in into the mix, now it’s like, oh, I’m gonna go meet with so and so. I better do what I said I was gonna do before I go meet with him.

Mark Aylward: yeah, it’s very powerful point. It’s really, I, I, um. [00:21:00] I just wrote something about accountability and, and human nature being, uh, we don’t like to be held accountable. Um, none of us do. And but even the ones of us that don’t like to be held accountable know that we need to be held accountable. And, uh, I I, I don’t practice the accountability buddy.

Uh, I just, that phrase just turns me off. Maybe I should just call it something else, but I do have a few guys. Um, and my children and my girlfriend and my dad and my, my older brother in particular who don’t let me get away with things. And I, I don’t think, I try to get away with things. I’ve, I learned a long time ago that the light shines on all of us eventually.

You know, you can hide whatever you try, whatever you want to try and hide, but they’re gonna, people are gonna figure it out eventually. But I think you’re right. I think. You know, if you’re going to the gym in the morning, not to meet anybody, you’re gonna miss some days. But if you gotta meet somebody there at [00:22:00] seven o’clock, you’re gonna probably be a lot more likely to get there because you don’t wanna let them down.

So, I agree.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And what about o other types of coaches? Like are you a type of person that hires coaches in in the past or even in the current.

Mark Aylward: I just terminated a relationship with a coach and it wasn’t for anything bad. It was just, I felt like I’ve reached. At the end of what this person can offer me. And I started to hear some redundancy in the messaging and I’m like, this is just a decision I need to make. And, um, yeah, I think that hiring, ’cause I’m a coach, right?

I, and I think that, you know, the, the classic example everyone wants to talk about is just Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, or, you know, they all have coaches. They all have multiple coaches for exactly what we’re talking about. To be held accountable to help, to help you get outta your own way. You know, we often cannot see what’s wrong with us.

Um, there’s biblical verses about [00:23:00] that all over the place. Um, you know, the, the, we can see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but we can’t see the log in our own eye. You know, that’s. That’s a parable. I think coaches are great. I think the most important part of a coach is that he or she has to resonate with you.

I don’t think the messaging is, is as nearly as important as the resonance, which would involve integrity and values and consistency and accountability and, um. I have this phrase that keeps coming up that I started using that I’m gonna keep using ’cause I like it. It’s called kind candor and, and kindness to me is telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Mark Aylward: That’s being nice. And I think being nice is basically kissing someone’s ass. I don’t think it’s productive at all. Uh, and candor is required because I’m not gonna gloss over something because I’m concerned about how it might make you feel. But if I’m trying to be kind while I’m being candid, then it probably will be.[00:24:00]

Accepted. It probably will be heard, it probably will resonate, but candor without kindness is ineffective. It’s old school. And kindness without candor is a waste of time. So, um, that’s, those are my thoughts about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, I agree. And I mean, if, if the person on the other end of it doesn’t take your kind candor, well then they’re not, they’re not in a place where they’re ready to grow anyway, and there’s really nothing you could have done to, to help them at that particular

Mark Aylward: know? Yeah. It’s, it’s so true. And I think, you know, I’ve had family and friends experience with things like addiction and, and alcoholism, and it’s almost unlikely that, that any of us don’t have some connection to that. And if you have, you’ll, you’ll know. And I’m, I’m in it right now with one of my brothers to be transparent and, um, he’s not ready for help.

And it doesn’t matter what I do, [00:25:00] it doesn’t matter how logical I am, it doesn’t matter the damage that’s being done. It doesn’t matter, uh, until someone is ready to be helped. It’s very difficult to help ’em. So I don’t push myself on people for exactly that reason. I, I want people to come to me. I want people to say, I, I read your thing over here, and it was interesting to me.

Can we talk a little further so I don’t chase people down for exactly that reason?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and uh, to flip that around too, like I, I, I have noticed that if I react poorly to something that someone else says, like, to, to that, you know, kind candor, I, I find that that’s like a. It’s like a, like a, a marker for me. I, I kind of go, okay, why am I getting upset right now? Because, you know, there’s something in our, probably in our psyche that’s just blocking us just like it is with the people in our lives that we’re trying to help, that they don’t necessarily know that they’re getting triggered for, for whatever it is.

But I do find that those triggers are, are illuminating.[00:26:00]

Mark Aylward: I agree. I think that’s a great level of self-awareness and which is a great quality to have. I, I pride myself in being self-aware. I don’t think you can be too self-aware, but maybe you can. I, I think that, you know, like yesterday I, something happened that made me angry and I don’t like to be angry. I very rarely am angry, and to your point, I, I stopped myself and I thought I was about to say something to someone else I was talking to, and it was.

It was layered in this anger that had nothing to do with them, and I paused, which is another thing that I teach people to do. When emotion comes, you don’t re, you don’t respond. You pause and regain object activity to the extent that you can. My, my dad taught me that as a fighter pilot. What’s the first thing you do when an engine catches on fire?

He says nothing. Absolutely nothing because if you react out of fear, chances are people will die. And if you don’t, if you stop yourself and regain your objectivity, all that training that’s in your head will come back to you and you’ll know what to do. [00:27:00] And I just, I, um, that’s a powerful lesson that, that I share with everybody.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. So, okay. I’m excited to talk about your business. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Mark Aylward: So as I, as we kind of alluded to in our pre-game discussion, I, I really had, I had to make a choice because on one hand what I do, helping people improve professionally. As well as personally, ’cause I can’t do one without the other. Um, and I think they’re closely tied. I can’t help everybody. I’ve had so many conversations with people who would not want to have a discussion with someone who is an expert in getting better work.

Right? Almost everyone is open to that discussion. Well, you can’t market to everyone. You can’t message everyone or you’ll help no one. Right. And that’s a classic marketing, uh, mistake that people make. I’m, I’m, this thing’s good for [00:28:00] everybody. Well, that, that doesn’t matter. So I had to pick, and over the last couple years I thought, I, I’m investigating this notion of how confused we are about what a man is today.

And that’s not a political statement, that’s just an observation. And there’s all kinds of historical data to support this. If you’re familiar with the Harvard study of men that goes back to the 1930s, they got 85, 90 years of data. They just interviewed men about happiness, and over the course of 80 to a hundred years, they went from just white men to all kinds of different colored men to their children, to their wives, to some of them are grandparents, some of them have passed away.

So it’s a really robust set of data and it, it. It really intrigued me that men were struggling so much and then I thought, well, I have some of this experience. I have had some hardship, I’ve had some adversity. I lost everything, and I’ve been able to recover from that. What a wonderful thing to be able to help someone else do.[00:29:00]

And to your point about how many female coaches there are out there and how few male coaches there are out there. I remember walking around in the courthouse ’cause I was in that courthouse for. 10 years off and on, like all the time. And people are wandering around and they’re scared and they’re anxious and they’re depressed and they’re frightened and they’re unclear about what to what?

Like where is this room 3 0 5 where I have to go in and lose my house and you know, my children. And I just thought to myself, there’s a lot of people that need help, so I’m just gonna grab this. The sliver of middle aged men, because that’s when life, you know, you’re running in your twenties, you’re running in your thirties, you’re starting a family.

Maybe you’re having kids every, you’re just running, right? And then at some point, probably around 40, but there’s not a number. It’s just a guess. All of a sudden, life slows down a little and you get to look around and. [00:30:00] Not all of us, like what we see when we look around and, and we recognize I haven’t had time to even breathe until now and I don’t like the way that looks.

So what do I do about that? Well talk to Mark. You know, so again, an oversimplification, but that’s it. It’s so serving other people like that and having people say things to you like. You saved me. You know, you, I’m, I feel completely different now. I’m optimistic again. I’m hopeful again, I have a plan of action that you’ve helped me define, and I’m gonna start taking these steps and I’m gonna come back to you to get refreshed periodically.

And that’s, that’s really worked out well. That’s really become my messaging is there. My coaching is there, my content is there. Everything is kinda lined up nicely and I, I feel again, like this is kind of what God wants me to do.

Tim Melanson: Why do you think it is that there are so many female coaches, but not as many male coaches?[00:31:00]

Mark Aylward: It’s a great question. I, these are just opinions.

Um, so, so not facts, but I’ve got two daughters. Both of them are entrepreneurs. Both of them are successful, they’re beautiful, they’re intelligent, they’re hardworking, they’re feminine and they’re tough. And, um, women are more open. To being coached. Women are more open to talking about things that are bothering them.

That’s gotta be one of the reasons. Um, guys, on the other hand, in my experience, you know, if I had conversations with some of my friends that I grew up with, that in a really intimate fashion, they would start to tease me. They would start to make fun of me. They would, they would say, they would call me names that I can’t repeat here on your podcast.

And that’s all fun and good. Um, I think it’s those two reasons. I think that men are not willing, at least by perception, to be coached about intimate [00:32:00] things. And that’s the only way to get past hardship is to talk about tough things and, and women are more open to it. But I also think that the culture that we live in is yelling at the world You need to help the women more.

The men are fine. And the men are not fine. That’s a misinterpretation. But I, I think it’s something that’s kind of lasted even after it stopped being fine and we just haven’t adjusted yet. I’m writing a, a book right now, Tim, and it’s, I’m in the middle of this historical transition from my, my dad knew exactly who he was.

He was a fighter pilot. He was an airline pilot. He was a father, he was a provider, he was a protector. There was never any question about that. Right when I started to grow up, that’s when things started. Feminism arrived in the seventies, maybe even arguably the sixties, and a lot of that was good. We needed a lot of those things.

Women deserved a lot of the stuff that came with that. But what we didn’t do is we didn’t [00:33:00] replace the old masculinity definition with a new one. We just said, don’t do that. We didn’t say, do this instead. So that just leaves men confused. And I, I see examples of that everywhere. So that’s, that’s a long-winded answer to why I think there are more female coaches than there are male coaches.

And then when I went to study my competition there, there isn’t any, you know. it’s crazy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, because, because I mean, the other side of it is that there are probably less men willing to even take on that role in the first place, let alone the men that wanna take it.

Mark Aylward: I, I certainly didn’t see that path coming. It, it came for me. It didn’t come because I was trying to, to attract, I mean, who wants to attract hardship, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, I, I think, I think you’re right. I think men are sort of like supposed to be strong and have it all together, and they’re supposed to be the [00:34:00] leaders of the households and all that stuff from what we’ve been taught. But like you say, things have changed. And now a lot of those things were like, you know, I remember just being even confused if I’m supposed to hold a door open for a woman or not.

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, just like, just the basics of it of going like, I, I think I, I should, isn’t that nice? Like, aren’t I being a good person by holding a door open? Why am I getting yelled at right now? Right.

Mark Aylward: yeah. No, it’s, it’s so funny that I’ve used that analogy many times. ’cause I, I opened the door for everybody

Tim Melanson: so do I.

Mark Aylward: and, and I say hi to everybody. Matter of fact, I was pulling into the grocery last night and I, I was coming around. From this angle and there was a open parking spot there and there was someone in front of me.

That was coming this way and she was there before me, but I had the, I had the space to just slide into that spot and essentially flip her the bird. And I just, I just chuckled and I, I went straight past her and pulled into [00:35:00] the left and gave her that position. And we both got out of the cars at the same time and she just said, thank you so much for doing that.

You’re a good person. And I said, that would’ve been a dick move. And we both got a laugh out of it. It was really funny. I think, I think strong women are really comfortable with masculine men. I think it’s insecure women that aren’t, and I don’t, I don’t suffer. Insecurity. Uh, I’m not judgemental about it, but I’m like, if what I say or do in kindness and good intention is offensive to you, that’s not my problem.

That’s your problem. And I’m not taking that on as my problem, whether you want me to or not. I’m sorry, not doing that. So that’s a very interesting place to be. ’cause as you seem to understand, it’s, uh, why are we confused about these things? Right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it seems, but I mean, hey, who, who knows? Uh, however, I think I, I hope that now men are gonna be [00:36:00] more open to accepting that help. And I, I think maybe can kind of like even flipping back to what we talked about earlier about the, the, the kind candor, right. You know, if. If you’re feeling like triggered regularly by, by things and angry and, and upset and sad and all that stuff, well then maybe that’s the time to kind of look inside and go, okay, maybe I need a little bit of help with this ’cause I don’t know how to fix it right now.

Right.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, well, there’s a humility to that that’s, that’s challenging for people to call upon. I, I think it certainly was for me, I mean, a couple things that happened to me after my contentious divorce and being a single dad was I just became a much better listener. And that’s a good thing. I told you a little bit about the fact that my daughter’s, you know, I, I went through everything that a mother’s supposed to go through as a father.

I’ve had a couple people tell me, I think your experience as a single father of two girls has shaped you in a fashion that makes you somewhat unique. And I keep getting reminded of that. And I think the other interesting and kind of funny [00:37:00] part is, you can’t tell this on, on the podcast, but I’m 6 4 225 pounds.

I’m not a small man and I can be very loud and, uh, so people assume I’m masculine and I believe that I am. But when I come at them with the soft side. I see a lot of surprises. Like I’ve had people tell me before, I didn’t expect that at all, and I’m like, good. That’s good.

Tim Melanson: Good. Alright, so then how do we find out more then?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I mean mark a word.com and it’s mark with a k and a word is A-Y-L-W-A-R-D. And everything that I do can be accessed from there. I would also suggest looking me up on LinkedIn and my name, a word mark is, is my, my, I think if you type in mark a word, I show up, my LinkedIn profile shows up as the number one choice.

’cause it’s a, it’s an obscure English name that doesn’t really. Have much, um, presence here in the States. It’s a Newfoundland, [00:38:00] Ireland, England Trail, you know, Nova Scotia and um. So, yeah, there’s a, and I think the first step for anybody that is intrigued by anything I’ve said would be just click the button that’s on that front page.

There’s like three or four of them. As you scroll down, it just says, schedule a conversation and it’s a 30 minute call. We, I do it for free and I basically just get to where I can tell you at the end of that how I can help you. If I can help you. And I’ll also, if you choose not to. Access my help at that.

I’ll give you a couple things that you can take action on that will move you forward, uh, free of charge. So it’s a, it’s a kindness gesture, but it’s also, you know, there’s a sales component to it. I just don’t get salesy on the call. ’cause as I told you earlier, I’m not interested in convincing anybody about anything.

I’m interested in people saying, that resonates with me. I want to hear more.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t help anybody who’s not ready anyway. Right. So

Mark Aylward: No, no,

Tim Melanson: right on.

Mark Aylward: no. You can’t.

Tim Melanson: One more question might be the hardest one. Who’s [00:39:00] your favorite rockstar?

Mark Aylward: Ha,

Tim Melanson: I.

Mark Aylward: that’s easy for me. He passed a couple years ago, but Tom Petty, um, I went to a Tom Petty concert when I was 15 years old at the Cape Cod Coliseum, which doesn’t exist anymore. And he was the backup band for a band called the Jay Isles Band, which is a, if you’re not from the northeast, you might not know them, but they were.

They were, they had their fame for a while and uh, they were a big deal. And then this band that the blue stage lit up and all of a sudden this song called, I Need to Know, started getting played. And I’m like, man, and I saw him three or four times and it’s, he’s always the best cons, best live show I’ve ever been to.

And, um, my daughters are fans of his now we’ve got all kinds of literature around the house, books about him. And yeah, that was an easy question for me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Don’t get many that know it. Exactly. That’s awesome. Oh, Tom Petty is amazing. I’ve got so many, uh, I [00:40:00] know so many of his songs that I do in my cover work and it. Always gets a, a great reaction from everybody. Like men, women, everybody, everybody loves Tom Petty.

Mark Aylward: have you, have you seen, I think it’s called Wildflower, the

documentary.

Tim Melanson: I have, yeah. Very good.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s a fantastic, it’s a fantastic film. Rick Rubin’s in it. I, as I recall, really interesting. I just found him to be a really interesting guy the whole time. He was a great musician. I mean, he did, he’s the one who said, these tickets are too expensive.

Don’t raise your prices. I want my fans to be able to see me. He was, uh, he had a very challenging life as well, personally. But, um, yeah, that was an, that was a, that was an easy question for me,

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

Mark Aylward: Yeah, me too. I’ve had a great time and uh, maybe we can do it again sometime.

Tim Melanson: Great. Yes. Awesome. 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. Excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to a communications specialist and consultant, and what she does is she helps people find their voice and use it with purpose. I love that. So we are talking today with Corine La Font.

Hey Corine. You ready to rock?

Corine La Font: Of course I’m ready to rock and roll. Where’s the band? Where’s the band?

Tim Melanson: Brilliant. We’re gonna rock out. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Corine La Font: Oh, a story of success that I’m living, the life that I’ve always been dreaming of. You know, it has reached that point. I mean, I’ve, I’ve been doing it, but it has evolved, and when I say doing it, I mean I’m able to be at peace. The kids are grown. They’re not living with me. Yay me. You know? And that’s important, you know, as a mother, you know, you do your part as a mother.

And, um, I don’t think when, when you’re growing kids, you’re [00:01:00] thinking, when will this end? You’re trying to hold on to the kids as long as possible. But I was like, oh my God. You know, when will listen, you know? And, um. It’s good that my life is in a place now that I feel, um, thankful for the kids are grown and they’re doing their own thing, working, accomplished.

I don’t have to worry about them. So I’m at a good place and I’m not there like other people may have been when they retire. You know, people will see at 65 or 60 when they retire, they could do their own thing. I don’t believe in that first to begin. I don’t believe in anything called retirement. I don’t know.

Who came up with that hood, that rumor. Um, because I dunno what you’re retiring from. You have life in your, you know, life in your body, and you’re still a sane individual. They could do a lot of things. So I want to spread the joy of being in a good place, um, feeling good about myself. I’m [00:02:00] healthy, I’m happy, I’m contented.

Um, I could make choices. But there was a time where, you know, you couldn’t say no to certain things, especially as a solopreneur, you probably have to try and take on as many things as possible to try and make ends meet. But you know, saying no. And that’s one of the things I want to bring out in your podcast too, being able to.

Say no and having the choice. You know, people talk about freedom, you know, when it comes to working from home, you know, remote, that type of thing, and they think, you know, I don’t know what they think and what freedom is, but for me, freedom is being able to have the choice to say no. That you don’t have to say yes to everything and stress yourself out just because you’re in a situation and not, and not being in a desperate position.

Or feeling that you’re desperate, that you have to say yes, you know, um, even if you are in a desperate [00:03:00] position, you should not even say yes because you are betraying yourself. And you see that part, Tim, is it kills me more than if I were to drink poison. It, it. Self betrayal has been a significant thing for me, especially lately I’ve been coming to terms with it and, um, what just popped into my mind as I said this, when you work from home, you have a lot of time to think, to self-reflect that the environment is right for it.

Once you don’t have kids or anything distracting you, your thoughts tend to slow down and you have the time to be able to slow down so that you’re able to think about what you really want. What you really don’t want, and to be able to set those boundaries. So that’s the joy I’m spreading today.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a great story. And I, I agree. I mean, the freedom, I mean, when it comes down to it, we all have to do something. We all have to work. Um, but like, I think that, [00:04:00] uh, your story is very similar to what I want to inspire people to do. I, I, I want people to be able to choose, like when you’re working in a, in a job and someone’s telling you what you need to do or you get fired, right?

I mean, that, that’s a different scenario then perhaps a client. That telling you what they want you to do and you being able to say, uh, I I, I don’t want to do it. And dropping them as a client potentially and going to find another client. You, you have that, that ability to do something like that when you’re self-employed.

But when you’re stuck, you know, and, and, and you don’t have any other choice, then that, you know. ’cause I, I agree with you. I mean, what are you retiring from? I I Is your job that bad? Is your work that bad you need to stop? Right?

Corine La Font: Yeah, and even if it’s, you have the choice to choose something else that you enjoy. You see the mistake I think people are making is that they’re living for other people. They’re too concerned about what other people think. You know what your family would think, what your husband would think, what your sister, it doesn’t matter.

[00:05:00] It’s your life. They have lived their life. You know, or they are living it and nobody should have any authority on the decisions that you make. You know, you’re an adult and what if you mess up? What if the world is not going to come to an end? You’ll still be breeding hopefully the next day. You know, uh, you know, just let it go.

I think we are taking things too personally and we are allowing, we are giving permission to too many people in our lives.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and then that kind of leads us to the bad note because like, like you say, I mean, you are gonna make some mistakes. Things are not gonna go as planned. And I think that a lot of people, you know, put off. You know, doing what they really wanna do because they’re worried about those mistakes.

I’m wondering, can you share with me like something that didn’t go as planned and share it with the audience and then maybe help us like see how you recovered.

Corine La Font: Um, I can’t think of any major thing, but one of the things that I have [00:06:00] been, I wouldn’t say it’s a mistake. But I, I can, let me share the story. Okay. So like, I, I’m also a podcaster and I’ve been doing it, like I said to you off air from since about 2010. I’ve taken little breaks in between, but then when I assess it recently, ’cause I was still even pushing, I revamped it.

I, my, my whole imagery, my brand, everything. I had done all of that recently only to realize I’m just not as gungho about it anymore. I’m not just giving it. You know what it deserves. I’m not that, I’m not feeling it anymore, and I had to sit down, take a step back and say, why? Why is this happening? What is, what is going on?

And it just wasn’t in alignment with who I am and who I want to be going forward in my life. But I felt. This kind of a chaotic situation, but Corine, you have done it, you know, and everybody’s expecting it. And then you have had so many [00:07:00] hundreds of guests who love to come back to your show and there’s so much great reviews and, and again, it is coming from other voices that was coming at me and I felt like I had to.

So there are times that you’re going to feel like you have to do something, but where really is that have to voice. Coming from where really? And is it really in alignment with you, the now you, the now Tim, the now Corrine, you know, and the Corrine going forward. And the Tim going forward, is it matching?

And I’ll tell you this, Tim. When I let it go, I just let it go. And I was like so relieved. I felt such a. I don’t know, like I was carrying this weight that I didn’t realize I was carrying and even talking to you about it. No, I just feel such a joy of letting go of my podcast, which [00:08:00] seems so crazy, but it’s just not going forward with me.

It’s like a friend. You know, you have been friends with somebody for so many years and you’ve been doing everything together, but you are, but you wanna do something that’s different and you can’t take that friend with you. As much as you wanna take that friend, you just can’t. He can’t go with you where you’re going.

She can’t go with you where you’re going. The love is still there for my podcast. The love is still there for your friend, but the journey that you’re on now, you have to shed a lot of things. So I wouldn’t really call it a mistake, but the mistake or a failure is more of understanding where you are, the journey that you’re on.

To be able to know it’s okay. There are things in your business that I, or in my business, many years ago when I started working virtually, I had taken on a lot of stuff and then I had to shed it. It just [00:09:00] wasn’t me. I didn’t want to do it. It was, could you imagine you’re doing something, you start a business because you want to do a particular thing.

You want to have the flexibility, the freedom, but then you are quarreling with yourself every day. You are mad going to bed every day that those two things just don’t go together,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Corine La Font: you know? So we, you know, it wasn’t really a mistake. I think the mistake was trying to hold onto it. You know, if you wanna look at it like that, trying to hold on with a tight grip and not letting go.

So when you decide to start your own business, you have to make those kind of decisions and it’s okay. And I may resume the podcast probably a little later on who, who’s to tell my life may evolve into that and it may attract that type of thing. Well, right now mm-hmm. I’m good. I did it from 2010. I can’t even do the mats on how long that has been.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny. So I think I, I, I think that’s probably. A really relatable message to a lot of [00:10:00] people. And just that once you do something or you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re with somebody or anything like that for a long, it’s like the longer you’re with them, the more connected you feel to it or, or, or loyal, I guess you feel to it attached and.

Like, uh, we’re allowed to change our minds, right? I mean, just because it was the right business to start, it doesn’t mean that you can’t just change and do something different, but I think that a lot of people just don’t. They, they don’t. And now I think that another big lesson about that right now especially is that the world is changing pretty drastically.

And I think where this could really cause people problems, like. Yes. There’s problems, like you say, of just not being aligned and just not liking it anymore. And that’s, that’s a problem, right? Because it’ll, it’ll hurt your, your mental ability, but you, you could still be. Productive and paying the bills and everything could still be going good, but what about if you get stuck doing [00:11:00] something that maybe that that job market is disappearing.

Maybe the world is changing, and now you’re still doing something that is going away, but you feel so connected to it and attached to it,

Corine La Font: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s something that we have to deal with that that term called attachment is what gets us in a lot of trouble.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Corine La Font: Because we are not seeing it objectively without bias. If someone was to come to you and tell you that same story of what they’re going through with attachment, you would say, boy, why are you still holding onto that girl?

Let that X, Y, Z go. It’s easy to give advice to somebody, but when it comes to you, you are not, you know that same situation is happening to you. You are not, it’s hard for you to, to take that advice. Why? Because you are attached to it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Corine La Font: If you remove that attachment to anything, whether it is a parent, a spouse, a friend, and you say, if this wasn’t my friend, [00:12:00] if he wasn’t my spouse, if she wasn’t my wife, if he wasn’t my child, if that wasn’t my boss, you are going to see it very, very clear.

The attachment is on the title that person holds, husband, wife, son, daughter, best friend job. If you remove that. It makes it extremely clear what you are dealing with. You have to remove the attachment in order for you to get clarity, and that’s what I do as a communication specialist too, because I help people to gain clarity in, in situations and what they’re dealing with because you’re mixing it up with the emotional attachment.

You have and the title that person has to you, my mother, my father, my husband, my daughter, my son. I can’t, no. Yes you can. Yes, you can remove that attachment and it becomes clear your child is doing something. If [00:13:00] somebody came to you and they said their son was doing that, you would not, you would say, but why are you tolerating that?

You are the mother. We have to be able to remove attachment, and that’s the only way to do it. Remove that title, remove that emotional tie that you have to that role that that person has in your life.

Tim Melanson: Agree. Agree. So let’s talk a little bit about the jam room now. You’ve been working from home for a long time, and so tell me about how your home office operates. Like how, how is that built for you?

Corine La Font: My home office is on my bed. I love working for my bed.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

Corine La Font: That’s the beauty. I am in my pajamas or whatever you wanna call it went for as long as I want. You know, I, I mean, we know how this whole remote thing started. You could be wearing all sort of stuff here, but you might not be wearing, but don’t worry, I’m wearing something.

So, no, but it gives you that sort of real freedom. [00:14:00] You know, real comfort and the mistake people make is because they think you are comfortable and they think you are free, that you’re not working. But it actually does a lot for the mind. It does a lot for the mind because you are comfortable and because you have freedom to think space.

You know, no clutter, no distractions, no noise. You are able to perform. Some people are best in the day. Some people are best in the night, like I was mentioning to you off air, you know, when I was a a, a young child, you know, I used to be studying two, three o’clock in the morning. I love that. And especially when the rain starts to fall and you, you get that sort of, you know, background simulation and, and I just used to soak in everything.

Now that I’m old, if I have to read something, it’s so difficult. You know, if I read something it takes me hours and I’m like, no, this is not making sense. Put on the book, you know? But then, you know, I used to be studying like that and when I have to work now, I [00:15:00] could work any time. And it works, like I say, with global time zones.

Because when you’re working two, three o’clock in the morning, it works pretty well with anywhere else. So it’s, it works for me. It works for me. I have been doing it for so many years, like you said. But in between those years, I did have to go into in office work, uh, at times, but I guess you would call it probably a hybrid.

There are times I was home. There are times I go in, sometimes I was in office every day, but. I was able to still have that flexibility, but now, oh my God, I, I love it. I have been doing it for a while. As a matter of fact, now I demand that I work remotely. I really don’t wish to be mixing with human beings.

I love them very dearly, but I like them through the screen. You know, I like them through the screen. I don’t have a need for, and, and this is what traditional workplaces push. Oh, you need to socialize. Um. I don’t know what they call it, the Friday [00:16:00] evening things and, and team and it’s for the team. No, no, no, no.

That, that’s not true. We, we could do that online as well. And there are some people who really don’t need to mix. I am quite happy being by myself. I want to choose who I want to spend my time with. When you’re in the office, you can’t get to choose, so they take away that freedom. I’m mixing with Tim, the guy who talks a lot, you know, when I come out and in the social gatherings and he wants to drink all the time, I don’t wanna, you know, so it, it, it takes away that from you, you know, and I, and we know the studies have been done, you know, about.

Work productivity increases. You know, people are so much better. That whole mental health capacity, we don’t have that, but they just, it, it’s coming from a place team of control. You see, they have been so ingrained and programmed, and when I say they, I mean the organizations, the agencies, the [00:17:00] people who are hiring you, whoever they are, they want control without seeing you sitting at a cubicle desk and office.

They don’t. They don’t know what to do. They’re like a fish out of water, you know? But that’s a damn problem, not a me problem. You know? That’s a damn problem. They need to get therapy for that. That’s insecurity. And they probably are having the mental health issues. We don’t, you know, and that’s something they need to reverse the, the projection because they’re projecting on us that we are not working when that is clearly not the case.

You know, the, the society and the environment has turned into more performance as opposed to sitting at a desk. ’cause I could sit at my desk all day, you know, I mean, people are very good at that. I could sit at my desk Oh, and do nothing. And do nothing. And at the end of the day, at the end of the month or two weeks, I, I am coming for my pay.

You said you wanted me. Here I am here. You know, I don’t necessarily have to do [00:18:00] anything, just pay me my money. But you find that people are more productive when they’re at home. They’re getting things done because they’re managing their self, managing their time. Making the necessary adaptions, you know, to get the stuff done.

And it’s more on deliverables, more on what you need to deliver at a particular time, more than being in a particular space, sitting down and you telling me, why are you doing so and so, who are you talking to? Why are you on the phone so long? Why you didn’t coming to to office at this particular time?

What, why did you take lunch so long? Control. Control. But they have the issue. It’s not us. They are the ones who. And like I said, our, our fish out of water. When they’re not able to see you and tell you when to come, when to go and shout at you or embarrass you or manipulate you in front of other people, you know, they can’t get to do that.

You know, so they need therapy team. They need therapy,

Tim Melanson: Probably they do. Yeah. I, I agree. And, and you know what I mean, there are probably different [00:19:00] personalities. I know that there are some people that probably do work better in an office environment, and maybe they do need. I, I mean, those control mechanisms are probably there because people do take advantage of it.

I mean, like what you said earlier, I mean, if someone just sits there and doesn’t do any work all day, they still get paid. And there are people that game the system like that. However, I would argue that that’s not good for the soul. I think that we are meant to create, we’re meant to be productive, and we’re just happier when we’re productive.

Right.

Corine La Font: Of course.

Tim Melanson: So I, you know, for me, I just think that we’re better off to, you know, get into a type of work or a type of job where we feel the most productive and we feel like we’re contributing the most. I, I know that in my previous job was a very, very large company and I never really saw the end of any project.

I was just like a small cog in of this huge machine, and it just, it, it didn’t feel like I was doing anything, like I was

Corine La Font: Contributing your life. Yes.

Tim Melanson: [00:20:00] Yeah. And, and so when I started my own business and started working for myself, I see the start, the middle, the end of every project, right? Like you feel like you’re con, like you’re doing

Corine La Font: Your, your life means something. Yes. Your life means something or contributing to something. And that is something even true. It, it is called like a legacy. When I leave this earth, you know, what do I leave? What’s my footprint? That matters to people. You know, there’s some people who might matter too, and that’s fine.

That is also their digital footprint. They’re leaving. Just go with the flow kind of energy and that’s fine too. And yet you are right. There are some people who need that structure because I know some people who prefer to go in, they need it, and that’s okay, but that’s just not everybody. And I think coming from an HR perspective, we need to re-look and evolve human resources and look at the way people.

People think people operate how best they want to work. [00:21:00] And, and, and like I mentioned to you even off air, uh, Tim, you know, um, as a woman, we are childbearing creatures. We produce children, we go through a lot of hormones. Like I said, I can’t speak for men, but we go through a lot of up and down in our lives, and like for me, I’m going through perimenopause.

I don’t know when that will end. I mean, I just discovered this whole thing. As a matter of fact, let me take that back. It discovered me and, and I just had to go with it. And it is not something I met before to say, well, hey, perimenopause, good to meet you. What do you do? You know, and have a conversation. I didn’t have that.

It just came to me and decided I’m taking over and, and, and there was no get to know you kind of thing. So it’s, as we go along on this journey, I am learning about perimenopause every day. Yesterday is not the same as today, and it will not be tomorrow, you know, and so. Workplaces to me, and I hope this gets out [00:22:00] in a, in a magnificent way, because this is important.

Workplace is supposed to consider the phases. We go train in life. If you think back when you were a teenager, of course you had a lot of energy. You, you, you could, you could take over the world, you know, you have so much things that you wanna do and whatever, and you had time, nothing is gonna happen to you.

Time is, I mean, you control time and then as you’re getting in your twenties, you know, you probably might have a girlfriend or somebody serious that you might be thinking of. And you know, you’re going through a different phase every decade of your life. And as you hit the forties, it’s a different thing.

You know some people, they say, I, you should have had children, or you may have, or you’re thinking about a house or investment savings, all these things that matter to you. You know, and physically things are happening in your body. How you used to move as a teenager, you’re not moving like that in your forties, worse yet, in your fifties and sixties.

So it’s, you know, it’s, they have to [00:23:00] really create work and the environment, particularly to consider. All those different phases that you’re going through in your life that some may not want to work until their forties or fifties. Some may wish to work until they’re in the seventies. Some may not wish to work at all.

Some may wish to work, you know, from home all the time. Some may want longer vacations. That that’s another thing that I find ridiculous. I am on vacation every day. You are not to tell me when I am to go on vacation, how much sick days I have, when to get sick, how to get sick for how long casual leave I have to beg, you know?

I mean, this is crazy. I am on vacation every day. Every day I am on vacation

Tim Melanson: You’re on vacation and you’re working.

Corine La Font: and I’m working. Well, it’s a working vacation, so

Tim Melanson: yeah, yeah. I love that. I.

Corine La Font: I, I’m on a working [00:24:00] vacation, okay? I could step outside on my veranda and take in the natural birds and the breeze and, and the trees and the sew that people buy on YouTube and download. I have this naturally right here. I’m in the Caribbean. Come on.

I take advantage of that. Why should I be sitting down in a concrete office?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And it’s just so awesome that we, and, and hey, I mean some companies probably will develop, develop that like as I think that as you know, companies evolve. They’re starting to see that they need to, you know, be a little bit more mindful of this ’cause people just aren’t gonna go to the jobs anymore.

However, uh, you know, in the meantime we could start something on our own and we can control these, these variables ourselves. Right?

Corine La Font: Of course it’s all up to you. You see the choice is yours as I, I come back to it. Nobody should dictate or have that authority. You are not to give anybody permission to do that, you know? Um, take a chance on you. [00:25:00] I, when I see people say, oh, they post on LinkedIn or whatever, that they were fired or let, whatever it is, I’m like, celebrate, this is the opening.

Celebrate, this is the opening that you, you needed. This is the the time where the doors are open for you to do whatever you wanted to do or do nothing if you didn’t want to do that. This is your moment. Celebrate, say thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you.

Tim Melanson: I agree. I agree. It’s, it’s, it’s an opening, right? And door is closing. A new, uh, new one is opening and it’s your choice and what you wanna do

Corine La Font: course, it’s your choice. It’s your choice and nobody should be guilting you and nobody will guilt you because you’re fired, so you, you know, you have that freedom to do whatever you want, you know?

Tim Melanson: So tell me about, you mentioned that you like to work with people over the Zoom, right? So, so tell me about that. Do you, uh, do you hire people? Do you have employees? Do you have

Corine La Font: I [00:26:00] do. That’s a beautiful thing. When you work from home and you have your own business, you can subcontract. So I do consultancies and so these are for major regional organizations or intergovernmental organizations. That I may have to pull in people as needs be, um, to help me in terms of what I need to do.

Some things I do solo, but I manage it. I lead it, you know, at a higher level, make sure everything is on point and they’re delivering and on time. I’m very particular with that because it’s my name and my business, LA Foreign Associates. That’s, you know, the reputation. Yeah. So. I do hire people, I do connect with people, even on LinkedIn.

You know, I would see people, um, with certain skills. I would reach out. I would say, Hey, send me your portfolio. I’m not looking for anybody right at this minute. But it’s good to connect so that, you know, should I need somebody on the fly? Because sometimes these proposals that I send out, they’re like.

Within a day or two, I have to submit, you know? And so I need to have people’s information, you know, at my [00:27:00] fingertips. So I will connect with people on LinkedIn, so anybody hearing this, you know, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. You just never know where it’ll end up. And, um, yeah, so I do hire people, um, on occasions, you know, but I prefer to work people globally.

I, I like the difference of thinking, and that’s a me thing. Again, I, I am not into, um. Uh, same thinking. You know, I, I love diversity challenge, what I say. Um, of course respectfully challenge what the approach to things. I love that. And I don’t have to lead everything. Um, I would overall, because it’s under my name.

Make sure that everything goes fine. But if you are very good at something, or I definitely don’t wanna do it, I am certainly going to make you lead. I am gonna say, Hey, you take the lead on that, you know, we just update me. I I have no need to control or to, um. [00:28:00] To, to be in the spotlight. I would sit back and support.

I love doing that. I, I, that’s how I raised my children. I believe that people, once you work with someone, the, the, the, the ones that come after you’re supposed to be better than you, I’m supposed to be sitting back and saying, yes. You know, I, I had something to do with that. That makes me feel real good. We talked about legacy before.

That is what I love, my legacy, that I touch somebody’s lives and. And they are better off than me. They’re able to make that bolder step and, and do the things, you know, that, that they could do and stretch themselves. That makes me smile, that, that brings a joy to my heart. So I make people lead and I will support you.

I make you go up to the podium and present in front of a large audience, and I’ll be the, the person clapping the loudest and screaming the hardest, you know? Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: So let’s get into your solo then. What’s exciting in your business right now?

Corine La Font: Uh, [00:29:00] right now I am building out an ecosystem that I don’t wanna give too much details about, but I’m building out an ecosystem with my business that creates a sort of infrastructure that allows me to go even more global. That is exciting for me.

Tim Melanson: is exciting. Yeah.

Corine La Font: That is exciting for me. Uh, an infrastructure that is there for everybody, you know, but they’re just not doing it.

And I’m taking the time now as I have a little downtime to be able to just put in that solid infrastructure that allows me to go even more global. And, and that I find it very exciting because I’m learning new things. I’m testing myself, I’m stretching myself, I’m doing things in other. Areas, the skills that I’m performing is not even mine.

I, I didn’t learn it, but I’m learning and making mistakes as I go along. So I love that. And so, um, I, it is like tinkering. [00:30:00] You know, when you come across something and you tinker with it and you’re like, oh, I didn’t know I could do that. Oh yeah. Oh, let’s try this. So I’m, I’m tinkering and building an infrastructure at the same time.

So I love that.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, how are people gonna be able to find out about this then?

Corine La Font: Oh, people can contact me if they have to contact me through the screen, through the screen.

Tim Melanson: Through this screen, they can book you on Zoom.

Corine La Font: Through the screen. Um, the main place to, to catch me are two main places. Actually. If you reach out to me on LinkedIn while you see my name on the screen cor phone, you just do a search for me and you see this cute face. Of course you can’t miss it. So you check me on LinkedIn. And another major place I would love for people to go is beyond the lines learning.com.

That should be pretty simple beyond B-E-Y-O-N-D-T-H-E-L-I-N-E-S learning.com. Beyond the lines.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. That sounds awesome. Okay, so now I’m wondering, are you a fan of music? Who’s your favorite rock [00:31:00] star?

Corine La Font: Listen, you are my favorite rock star. Tim, I, you are my favorite rock star because I have to come and see you playing a band. I get excited and just to, just to say I know that guy. I want to be a better show as I know the guy who’s played a fan. I wanna do that. But my favorite artist has always been Michael Jackson, and it’ll always be.

I love Michael. I go crazy for Michael. I still don’t believe he is dead. I don’t care what you think, but I still don’t believe he’s dead.

Tim Melanson: I hope not.

Corine La Font: I don’t believe

Tim Melanson: back and he and he releases another album.

Corine La Font: I don’t think he would. That’s why I think he’s, he’s gone under just quiet. His life has been one that never allowed him to be the child. That he was meant to be because he grew up as a, he grew bodily physically as a man, but he was still a child, you know? And imagine, and I could relate to that because I behave very childlike everywhere I go.

You know, people are like, Corrin grew up. And I’m like, why? [00:32:00] Why? You know, his birthday is I think the 29th of August and I’m the 27th. Yeah. So we are just two days apart. So I love Michael. I could understand his vision. If you notice. He was extremely visionary. He always tried things, you know, he tinkered with things.

Even his movement and dancing is totally nobody. I mean, people always, even to this day, can you imagine, Tim, there are children being born today. They would hear of Michael and you’re going to see them in a video. Not too long practicing. Michael’s

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Corine La Font: doing Michael’s steps because the man is just immortal.

Don’t matter what time. He’s just immortal. So even if he comes back with her, he wouldn’t, he wants quiet, he wants peace. He wants, he wants to just enjoy himself. That’s why I feel he is not dead. He’s not there. The man is a mastermind. He’s a mastermind.

Tim Melanson: he is. He is. And his, I mean, his music [00:33:00] is so good. It’s just so much of it and it’s so, uh, I, I love it too.

Corine La Font: When I’m, when I’m in a mood or somebody gets me, you know, I like. Pop on my Michael’s music and start to dance. I’m like, yes, this is it. And by the time I’m done, what was I thinking? Who? Who was bothering me again?

Tim Melanson: Yep. You can always fill the dance floor.

Corine La Font: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The dance floor. That’s my thing. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Corine, this has been an awesome interview. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today.

Corine La Font: Oh, it’s been a pleasure. It’s been a pleasure. I need to come and here you play a tip. Why don’t you pick up something now and show me. Do it live. Do it live.

Tim Melanson: Oh, no, no, no. We’re almost out of time. But

Corine La Font: Oh my God,

Tim Melanson: you, you can definitely see me. I’ve got, uh, lots of stuff on online. Actually. I’ve got, uh, my band’s online. You can go to randomzband.com

Corine La Font: see you through the screen. I wanna see the other colleagues and on the [00:34:00] screen. I don’t want to see you through the screen. I wanna see you live.

Tim Melanson: So that’s the exception. You like the screen for work?

Corine La Font: Yes, live.

Tim Melanson: Well, maybe at some point you can come to Canada. I’m in Canada. You’re in the, you’re in the Caribbean. I, I think I’d probably rather go to you. Yeah,

Corine La Font: built for the cold.

Tim Melanson: well next time I’m in the Caribbean I’ll look you up.

Corine La Font: I, that’s a very good, that’s a very good statement. Come to the,

Tim Melanson: Yes. Awesome. And this has been so much fun to the listeners, making sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Corine La Font: bye. Thank you.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the co-founder and CEO of Viral Ideas or a marketing company. What they do is they provide video editing services, uh, for people who wanna boost their video presence to different social media channels. So I’m , super excited to be rocking out today with David Feinman. Hey, David, you ready to rock?

David Feinman: Tim, I’m ready to rock. Always ready to rock.

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

David Feinman: Yeah, so I actually started my business around 11 years ago with $200 and a single client. Um, and me and my co-founder, like, like came from like very humble beginnings at the start of the business. Um, you know, we, we started right after college. And built it up to where it is today with 45 employees and, you know, hundreds of clients.

Um, so I, so I, I think, I think, you know, I, I know a lot of your audience is just starting their business or looking to start something or maybe just a little bit into it. And I think one of the most important things to do is, is [00:01:00] if you have an idea, you use to just start it right and, you know, not, not delay on it, right?

Like there’s, there’s so much success to be had out there and you know, you really can start with just a seed.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s funny that, uh, you know, a lot of people will spend a lot of time trying to iron out the perfect idea before they get started, right? And then what ends up happening is that it all changes once you get started, right?

David Feinman: Yeah. And, and the thing you’re doing starts to shift, shift the shape and, and get better over time, or at least it should. Right. You know, and I think. If you’re looking at, hey, you know, you wanna at, at the very basic, the basic, you want to make something and ship it. One, one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Sarah Blakely, talks about this all the time.

She’s like, in the beginning of her business, what she found at Spanx, like, all she did was make something, ship something, make something, ship something. And, and I think at the end of the day, that’s, that’s how you should start, right? Because you, you could start getting money in the door. Start getting customers, you start learning really [00:02:00] fast.

Like the rate of learning happens a lot faster when you’re actually working with real customers as opposed to just like thinking about something. So yeah, I think I, I think there’s a lot to that.

Tim Melanson: I wonder if, um, I, I mean this topic has come up before and I wonder if the reason why people kind of delay and try to like, get everything perfect before they get out the door. I wonder if it’s more because we were programmed that that’s what a business does, or do you think it’s more of a procrastination routine of just not getting out there?

What, what do you think it is?

David Feinman: I think it’s, I think it obviously depends on the person, but I, I think it’s all those things, right? I think one, one of the. One of the number one things I see with business owners and like I talk to a lot of ’em every single week,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

David Feinman: I think that they don’t know what to actually work on that’s going to move the needle forward.

And at the end of the day, the thing to work on that will move the needle forward typically is, is the largest bottleneck in the business, right? So if you’re just starting, the largest [00:03:00] bottleneck in the business is not having a customer. Right. Like, like without that customer, you cannot, you cannot sell something.

You cannot make the product, you cannot ship the product, you cannot deliver the product. You cannot give customer service. So, you know, when you’re first starting, like you’re looking to solve for the bottlenecks in your, in your process. And I, what, one of my favorite books, I, I, I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, it’s called The Goal, um, it’s actually a required read for Jeff Bezos, uh, Jeff Bezos’s, uh, direct reports.

I think I have it. It’s called the Theory of Constraints, and it talks about this concept of, um, it talks about this concept of, of improving bottlenecks and, and working on where the business is most constrained. And I think, yes, it is a delay tactic, but I think a lot of times it’s like people don’t know what to work on because when you’re first starting, there’s a vast sea of things to work on.

You could work on a logo, you could build a website, you can make business cards. And when, when I first started my business, I, I did none of those [00:04:00] things. Found a customer and pitched off a PDF, um, like a Google Doc. So, yeah. I’m, I’m curious, what do you think? Like, ’cause ’cause that’s, you know, I, I see that a lot too with, with new founders is like, they’re always, they always seem to be working on the thing that is not going to actually move the needle forward.

Tim Melanson: Well, and I, I agree with you and, and I think that like my start in entrepreneurship was. I, I won’t call it accidental, but I’ve heard that word before and it’s closer to that than anything else. It was more or less just, oh, you know what? I, you know, ’cause I, I was working in high tech. I ended up, uh, getting laid off from that.

I, I had a little bit of a severance package. I was dabbling in business. I didn’t want to go get a job, so I just wanted to do something on the side just to make a few extra bucks. And that’s the beginning of my business was. Just going out there and doing something right, though it was getting a customer and, and then that sort of progressed into something else.

And I think that, you know, when I’m interviewing people on the show, a lot of people, that’s how they started [00:05:00] by just getting customers while they were, while they were doing a job. Right. And it wasn’t that they, you know, sat down and they wrote a big old business plan and, you know, went and get investors and all that stuff, which does happen sometimes, but it it, a lot of people that have.

You know, that have made it happen, have done it through just getting the customers first and then, you know, maybe when they were trying to expand or maybe when they’re trying to grow, then they started to get serious about it. But, but I think that that, um, that that is pretty normal. And, and I think that it’s more accidental.

Like you, like it was more or less I just got customers ’cause that’s what I needed to do. I wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to build a business, but I bet you if I was trying to build a business right from the start. I probably would’ve done that. I probably would’ve gone and done a business plan and made business cards and done all that stuff.

Right, because that’s what I, I, I think you’re supposed to do. Right.

David Feinman: At, at, at the end of the day, like you are the business plan, right? Like, like when you’re starting the business and you’re out there on your own, you don’t have a staff yet. [00:06:00] Like you are the business plan. And, um, I I, I recently watched this interview with, um, the founder of Nvidia and he was talking about that he, he.

Early on in the business, he had this contract with Sega and it was like a make or break contract for the business. And they, they were doing the whole thing. They were, they were like creating something, they were making something, they were ship something and they were, they were building the chips and the, and the, and the foundation for the gaming industry and, and Sega.

And there was this, there was this like pivotal moment for him where he, uh, called the founder of Sega and told them that they weren’t going to be able to deliver on their contract and. By not delivering on the contract. This was gonna put Nvidia out, basically it was gonna put Nvidia out of business, right?

They, they, this was like their only, this was like their only pitch that they had to, to swing at. So he called the founder of, of, of Sega and he said, Hey, listen, I, I have two, I have three things to tell you. They’re all bad news. The first thing is we’re not gonna be able to deliver on your contract. The [00:07:00] second thing is, is I, I need you to let me outta the contract.

And the third thing is I need you to take the remainder of the money, the $5 million that. You were going to invest into that, that you were gonna invest into this contract. And I, I need to, instead of you having the, having that contract, um, I, I need you to invest it in Nvidia. ’cause otherwise we’re gonna go out of business.

And, and the the fourth thing is, by the way, even if you invest this money, like I don’t think NVIDIA’s actually gonna survive, but this will at least give us a shot to build what we wanna build. And the, the interesting part of this story is the, the founder of, uh, the co, the CEO of Sega. Called back, the founder of Nvidia the next day and said, um, I’ll tell you what, we’re gonna invest the $5 million and put that into Nvidia stock.

Puts it in the Nvidia stock, and um, you know. Obviously flash forward a couple years. Like there, there’s a bunch of stories about how that, like how he stretched that money and created the new methodology to create chips [00:08:00] with that, with that, uh, with that five, with that $5 million, with that resource constraint.

But what ended up happening is that that 500, that $5 million was ended up being worth like 300, $300 million when the iPod, it was like one of the greatest, greatest investments of all time. Um, and had they kept it to today, um, it would’ve been worth probably close to a trillion dollars, which is insane.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I’d never heard that story story before. That’s amazing. Wow.

David Feinman: All, all to say like, to connect this back to like their, the original topic is like, uh. I heard this and I thought like, I kind of like, obviously I’m not like building chips or doing anything like as complicated, but like, wow. Like even the entrepreneurs that you like think have it all together are simply just making something and shipping something.

Right? And, and they’re just kind of figuring out too, right? Like they’re, they’re on the precipice of, of moving at the speed of what they understand and what they know.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Okay. Wow, that’s amazing. Alright, well let’s talk, talk a little bit about the bad note. ’cause I mean, there was a few [00:09:00] of them sprinkled into that story, I imagine too, because you know, like you say, I mean, things just don’t always go as planned and sometimes you have, you have some bad news. I’m wondering, was there something like a big, you know.

Failure, quote unquote, that you had on your journey that you can share with us and how you recovered.

David Feinman: I mean, there’s been so many, so many over the years, there’s been failed hires, there’s been failed moments. But the largest failure I think I’ve ever had, uh, was back around 2020. And, uh, we had, we had, we had the first blow in 2020 where we almost lost. We lost 80% of our revenue overnight. Uh, and then we had a second blow with a partnership that we entered into that ended up going wrong.

And we, we, we almost lost everything in our business, all our staff, all our, all our contracts and our, our business almost, almost went to zero. And I, I’d spent, at that time, I, I’d spent five, five years building the business and you know, I, I was sitting on a park bench with my business partner and, um, him and I looked at each other and I’m [00:10:00] like, like, what do we, what do we do?

Right? Like, like everything, every, like we, we, we, you know, we, we had this amazing business and now we don’t anymore. And, you know, we were doing, uh, like an amazing amount of revenue. And, and now we have none. We have six months of runway, right? Like we have six months of runway left. Um, like how do we figure this out and.

He’s like, he’s like, you know, we were looking at each other like, what would we do? And I, I, I said back to him, I was like, well, there’s two options here. We can quit that, that that’s an option. Or we could dig our heels in and, and keep going. And, um, I’m glad we chose the second path. ’cause you know, now that six employees, we have that and it turned into 45 and the, you know, four customers we had then have turned into 300.

And, you know, it’s, it’s, um. I, I think, I think those moments of failure are like the largest teaching moments that we’ll ever have. Um, you know, and I think I am, I, I can look, I can look you dead in the eye [00:11:00] now and tell you that like the, the, the partnership that led to that, I am so grateful for like, like from the bottom of my heart.

I’m so grateful that person did what they did to me because it has taught me so many lessons. Um, and it’s put me where I am right now. So.

Tim Melanson: Wow, amazing. And I think that that’s kind of the thing that a lot of people need to hear is that those really, really, really bad things. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s how you react to it, really what it comes down to, because I mean, stuff like that, when it happens to you, you can either. Be done. Right, and, and, and start complaining and maybe even litigating.

I mean, some people end up in these long battles with somebody that they think did something wrong to them when, I mean, you could go down that route or you could just let it go and move on and grow from it, right?

David Feinman: the, the thing with litigating right, and. I, I’m, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t think this is legal advice, is there’s a finite cap on the amount that you can earn from litigating and [00:12:00] you might not even collect on the amount that you litigated for. And there’s, there’s an infinite amount that the lawyers can charge you to, to, to solve the problem for you.

So at the end of the day. If there’s an infinite amount of money you can make by just digging your hands in and building versus, versus like, versus fighting. Like, like you could fight yourself to the death, like, like if, if you want to, or you can build yourself and like bring yourself back to life. So like, you know, I always thought I was talking to a buddy actually yesterday.

He was like, man, I have this client, I did all this work for them and they stiffed me outta $12,000. And like I, I’m sure, like, I’m sure like. Every entrepreneur listening to this, if they’ve been in business a long enough time, has been stiffed by a customer. Like, like, I’m, I’m sure you have stories to him, like, you know, and I said to him, I was like, listen, you just gotta let it go.

Like, like do one last Hail Mary send, send him a, I sent him like a template of what to say to the guy and I was like, I was like, just, just let it. If the day you let it go, it’s better for you. Like it, it’s better. It’s better for you. It’s better for, it’s, [00:13:00] it’s, it’s better for that other person, you know?

And at the end of the day, like you are going to learn more from just letting that 12 grand go and, you know, moving on and, and going and making $50,000.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think, I think my. My thought behind it too is that I, I, I think some people think that they’re getting stiffed because this person is this rich person who has all this money and they just don’t wanna give you any of it. But I think the more likely scenario is that they actually don’t have any money and they’re stiffing you because they’re actually struggling.

And I, I think that that’s like what you just said. If you go litigate that, sure you might win the case, but if they have no money. Then you’re, you’re not gonna get it right. It is just, you can’t squeeze wet juice out of a rock. Right.

David Feinman: Yeah. For, for the most part, what I’ve, what I’ve found, right, like with, you know, with stuff like this is, you know, the, the, the people that e even if someone, even if, even if the good business person is dissatisfied with something, which, [00:14:00] which over the years, like I’ve been dissatisfied with vendors in general, I’ll just pay the bill because it’s not, it’s not worth, it’s not worth my time.

To like, to squabble over, over something small. And you know, I, I found that most e even if most good business people are, don’t like something, they’ll just pay the bill because it’s, it’s just easier. And so like the, the person that you’d be fighting with to try to collect on something that, that you were, you know, wronged by, or like, like you’re trying, you’re, you’re bucking up the wrong tree.

Like, you know, you’re buck, you’re bucking up a bankrupt bank, you know, like there’s no money there.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the band now. So, uh, you know, for you, I mean, you mentioned that you’ve got a, a, a pretty decent sized team. That’s, that’s awesome. So, uh, I’m wondering actually one thing. First, did you consider being a solopreneur ever, or did you all go into it saying, I’m gonna build a business with a team and I’m gonna, I’m gonna have employees or contractors?

David Feinman: We started out with. Contractors and interns and stuff like that. So like we, we started out, [00:15:00] you know, it was me and my business partner and like the first couple, the first couple months, the first year, we just kinda like, I would sell something, he would deliver it so that we use contract help and, and labor like that.

And then eventually, like it said, okay, like, like we, we have this one specific thing we’re selling over and over again. We keep using contractors. It’s inconsistent for us. It’s inconsistent for clients. So like, let’s, let’s start bringing on people full time to, to work in the business. So yeah, like when, when we started out, we, we.

We consciously decided to that, that it was gonna be more than, than me and my business partner.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Okay. And now what did you, what, who were the first hires, I guess, that you had, that you were bringing in? Were they, uh, like junior type people, or did you bring in experts right off the bat?

David Feinman: Yeah. The, the first hire I ever made was, was an intern. Um, and, and, and to be honest, I think, I think like everyone hires the wrong person first. Like, like if, if I was to go back in time and like. Look at myself and, and say, Dave, like the next person you should hire is like someone to optimize your time.

Right? Because like [00:16:00] at the end of the day, I think it’s harder to hire like the further up the food chain you go. Um, and, and Dan Martel actually talks about this a lot. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of his stuff, like the, the, the first hire you. Should do is like someone that handles the administrative work, not like someone to leave the work, or not someone to deliver the work, but like someone to take the administrative burden off of you.

And then you could take that time and you can, you could spend more time like selling or you could spend more time like delivering quality work and like, I, I, so, so I think you should almost optimize the business around your time versus, versus trying to like put the people in place to do the work. And like as you, the further, the further up the, the value chain you go, the further up.

The, for the higher dollar value it costs to like replace that amount of work. Like, um, so, so I, I think that’s the first hire that you should make. But it was not the first hire that I made.

Tim Melanson: And so the first hire you made was an intern to do the work like at the bottom then, right? Yeah.[00:17:00]

David Feinman: Correct,

Tim Melanson: And, and how did that, like, did you, uh, realize at some point that that was the wrong hire to make, or you just

David Feinman: No, no, because at the end of the day, the intern we hired, like, was good at doing the work. So like, like, like, like it did help us like the, like the, we were able to deliver with the intern. Um, but w was it the sequentially right. Order to hire people? Like No, like, it, it, it, like, we didn’t have processes in place for, for that person to follow.

And, and, you know, that person didn’t get like an, like an opportunity to like really thrive in the organization because they, they. We’re a little too early for me to hire that, that specific person, and there was, there was nowhere for them to grow into either.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that that’s a, that was a realization that I had made too. I, I had made it higher a few years ago and realized really quickly that I didn’t have any process to give them the work. It was like I ended up having to work triple to figure out what to tell them what to do. Right. It was [00:18:00] just, it was just totally backwards.

Right.

David Feinman: Yeah, I think eventually like, like, like as, as our business scaled up, like everything becomes a process and the things you don’t think could become a process. Like, you know, even like two years ago I was like, oh, if there’s ever like a client that doesn’t like something or they’re angry, like I have to deal with it.

Like it’s, I’m the only one. I’m the only one that can handle your clients. And then like, we made a process for handling angry clients. That would be the same way that I would. And like, you know, we have a ton, just to be clear. We have tons of happy clients, but like, if you run a business for a long enough period of time, like you’re

Tim Melanson: Oh, someone’s gonna,

David Feinman: unhappy with, someone’s not gonna be happy with something.

So, so we just codified the way to handle it. Like we just created a, like a process and an escalations process that goes through like. Two or three layers before it hits me. And then like, you know, I only see the really bad stuff that’s like that, that, that needs it. And like, you know, we make, you know, 600 videos a week.

Like there’s gonna be one or two that people are like dissatisfied with, right? Like so, [00:19:00] um, so that you need to have a process for dealing with it and a process for your employees to follow. Otherwise, they’re. They’re just gonna throw their hands up in the air and go, I don’t know what to do with this.

You know? And you assume that people, you assume that people can do it, and a lot of times they can figure it out on their own and they are smart enough to figure it on their own. But if they have a guide to follow it, it makes it so much easier. Like, like it’s, it’s, it makes you move with so much speed and, and, and intensity in, in the process.

Tim Melanson: Agree. So what do you think it is that you can do or that you should be doing as a CEO, right? That nobody else in the organization could be doing? Like what? What’s your special role?

David Feinman: That’s a great question, and it’s, as the business has grown, it’s something I’ve wrestled with, right? Like, like I, I think depending on the stage of the business, like, and I’m, I’m curious your thoughts on this too. Like when I, when I was, when I was first starting the business. I had a title on my business card that said CEO, but, but it didn’t mean anything.

I, I just, I was just like an, [00:20:00] I was more of like a business owner. I would, I was doing everything right, like, um, and as the business has grown, like I have like, like my key responsibilities are like, you know, focusing on the, on the vision, like setting a roadmap for my team to follow of where we’re going next, right?

So it’s like looking into the future. Right. Seeing where I want to be in, in a month, in, in two weeks in, in a year, and giving my team the roadmap to execute that vision. Um, and then I, and then I also look at it as, uh, the, I, I am, I am, you know, I, I always view, I always like leading from, from, um, you know, the concept of servant leadership, right?

Like serving, serving the employees that, that work, work with me every single day. And, um, you know, I, I have my direct reports who then like. Everyone else in the company reports into. So, you know, my job is to empower them to do their best work and to coach them and to, and to help them do the best work they possibly can.

Um, so I, I, I really think, like, at the end of the day, like a, a [00:21:00] CEO’s role is to still lead the people, um, that lead the business. Um, and I think that a CEO’s role is to focus on growth. A CEO’s role is to, is to. Be a strong leader. And it’s also to make sure that they are not the blocker in the business.

Right. That they are not what’s holding the business back. ’cause a lot of times I think the, the ceiling of the business owner is the, is the growth. Blocker in the business. Like, like right, right now, like I’m trying to unlearn and relearn, unlearn, and relearn some new things because in order to get to the next level, like, uh, I don’t have enough of an ego to think that I am like almighty CEO, that can like, that can like, that knows how to do the next level to things.

Like I’m humble enough to know that like there’s someone better at me that could teach me how to do it and you know, I don’t need to like. Pay down ignorance tax at the level that I’m at, and I can, I can have, I can reach out to someone else to help me figure out how to get to that next level.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s, uh, I think that’s, that’s [00:22:00] exactly it. And, and I, I think you’re right that many people will take on that CEO role and it either means they do everything and they’re, and they’re just, you know, taking it on for whatever reason because they think that that’s. You know, they’re, they’re running the company, so they’re doing all the work.

But I think you’re right. If you look at some of the big, big companies and you sort of model after them that CEO is not flipping the burgers anymore, right? At, at some point maybe they did and, and maybe that’s how they got to that point, but. Uh, but the CEO, like you said, I think is the visionary. They’re the one with the, the bird’s eye view sitting on top of it all.

And they’re, they’re, they’re directing the ship. Um, and I think also the CEO is a culture setter too. They’re, they’re the one that’s sort of like setting the, the, the, the rules, I guess or the, or the, the roles of people in the organization. But I think you’re right in saying that. If the CEO is a bottleneck at any point in [00:23:00] the organization, well then you’re, you’re stuck, and, and that’s what you gotta get outta that role, right?

David Feinman: Yeah. And, and, uh, I, I remember last year I sat down and I, I was, I was talking to a, to a coach and I was like. I was like, I feel, I feel like I’m, I’m creating some friction in the business. And they’re like, well, like why, why are you creating friction? Well, you know, I feel like I’m getting involved in everything.

And they’re like, and, and, and, you know, I feel like my, my, I feel like it’s, it’s my staff. Like they’re not, they’re not getting involved in everything. They’re like, don’t ever say that again. I was like, what? Don’t ever say it’s your staff’s fault. I was like, it’s your fault. Right? Like, it, it’s, it’s your fault that.

That they’re not empowered in the right way and they don’t have the guardrails and they don’t have the processes and they don’t have the systems to execute what you want them to execute. So you gotta go spend the next three months and go build that next month to go build that. And I think a lot of leaders are hamstring by their own anxiety, their own, their own shortcomings.[00:24:00]

And I think I always like to just. Tell my employees like, Hey, this is what I’m stuck with. This is like why I am having trouble moving past this thing. And I think you’d be shocked at how your employees, like your employees believe in you more than you think. Otherwise they wouldn’t work there. Like there’s million places to work.

So I think you’d be shocked at how your employees are like, we will just like put their arm around you too as a leader and be like, Hey, like I got this part of the business. Like what do you, what do you need for me to. For what do you, what do you, what do you need to be comfortable with, with me doing this task so that you don’t have to butt your head in every five seconds, and I think your employees will, like, your employees will help you get there.

Right? Like, you know, I think it’s about changing your vernacular to like having someone work for you and having someone work with you, right? Like you’re working with them, you’re not, they’re not working for you, right? Like you’re, you guys are walking alongside like, you know, all pointing in the same direction.

That’s your job as the leader and you know, you’re, you’re trying to get somewhere.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. [00:25:00] Yeah. And I think, I think looking at, uh, organizations from the outside too, I think that there’s a lot of that, that’s where a lot of the negativity comes from in looking at CEOs and going, well, that CEO looks like they’re doing nothing. And you’re like, you’re like, that’s not fair. You know, they’re making all the money and they’re doing nothing.

They’re not doing nothing. Actually, if they look like they’re doing nothing, it means they’re probably really good at what they do. They’re, they’re being a good visionary. They’re being good at actually empowering their people, and that’s not, that’s not easy to do as, as you mentioned, right.

David Feinman: No, it, it, it requires, um. It requires an aggressive amount of personal self-development to be able to get to the point where you are a good leader. And I think it’s easy to look at some of the leaders of, of the largest business in the world try to tear them down because like they make too big of salary or they like, you know, and, or they, uh, you know, or, or they just had to go through like a round of layoffs.

Like all that stuff. I think you can like [00:26:00] look at. You can look at leaders and be like, oh, they’re, they’re, they’re a failure. But I think it’s, I think it’s hard because, you know, you’re sort of under a mic every move, every move as a leader, you know, especially as the larger the organization gets. Like every move is sort of like, is sort of clocked by everyone.

Like everyone’s sort of got their own little speedometer and they’re all watching you and they’re all like, you know, checking out. I think it requires you to be super, super, like in my opinion, I think it requires you to be, come from a mindset of ser servitude, right? Like serving the people that are.

That are working for you, and I think it also requires you to be super humble, like super, super honest about where you are.

Tim Melanson: I agreed. Tell me, where did you learn all this? Like are you, do you hire coaches? Like are you reader, like where does it all come from?

David Feinman: Yeah, I I, in the beginning, I paid down my ignorance with time.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

David Feinman: I’ve always been a reader, right? So like I’ve, I’ve, I’m always reading something like some book. [00:27:00] Um, and you know, like on a bookshelf beyond here, I have like dozens on a bookshelf in front of me. I have hundreds of books that I’ve read over the years.

So that’s, that’s like one way. And then I, I also have, I have coaches, right? Like I have, um, I have coaches and I have mentors, right? So I have, uh, people that I’ll call for, for different things and like coaching calls that I’ll have, you know. I, I have two separate coaches that I’m working with now. One that’s more specific for my business, one that’s a general business coach.

And I think working with people like that and actually listening to what they say, right? Like a lot of times, you know, if you find a good mentor. The goal is to like, follow the roadmap. Like listen to what they say and execute it and like, just, just follow them, right? Like, you know, and, and follow what they have to say to help you get to that next level and you’ll see the results.

So, so I think that that is, that has been a huge unlock for me. It’s like, you know, any problem, I, I’m comfort in that, comforted in that any problem that I would have, my, either one of my mentors or one of my [00:28:00] coaches has already had that problem. And so there’s no problem that I can’t solve, and because I have coaches and mentors, there’s no problem that I can’t solve, uh, virtually within a week because, you know, or within a day or within a phone call, um, because the, the mentors and coaches can, can help me get to that next level.

Tim Melanson: Right on. No, and and I think that. I think that probably a lot of the, uh, struggle with people in, in the entrepreneurial role is that they’re used to being leaders, and when you say you hire this mentor and you have to follow them, it means that you technically have to be a good leader and a good follower in order to really have some good success.

Right.

David Feinman: I, I agree. I think, I think when I was, when I was early in my business, I, I had more of an ego that like I knew everything. And then I think the more you start to know, the less you realize people you do know. And I got to the point, um, where I’m like, okay, I just need to like get help and like listen to that help and, and be humble enough to know that like.

[00:29:00] Someone else can just get me there faster and like, you know, now it’s like, it’s amazing how fast you can move when you have the right help.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And that makes perfect sense. And all the, you know, all the greats all have coaches and they all have, you know, mentors, right? I mean, that’s just the way it works in the, you know, business world, the sports world, the music world.

David Feinman: my gosh. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Right. And, and it just is what it is. But then for some reason in the, you know, the regular employee world, it’s like we, we think we know, you know, it’s, it’s weird,

David Feinman: Yeah, I, I agree. And I think, I think, um, there, there, there’s this one great book called Trillion Dollar Coach. It’s about this coach, uh, bill Campbell. And he coached every single, like Silicon Valley. Great. Like he was, he was Eric Schmitz. Um, uh, one of the founder of Google’s, um, he was, he was Eric Schmidt’s executive coach.

Um, oh, I, a, sorry, Eric. Eric Schmidt’s like the, the C-E-O-C-E-O of, I don’t think Eric was the founder of Google. I could be wrong. Fact, check me

Tim Melanson: We’ll fact check that. Yep.

David Feinman: Um, [00:30:00] uh, he’s either the founder or the CEOI can, I can’t quite remember which one, um, but belong to that the, the founding team of Google had this, had this coach was really the glue for them, um, named, named Bill Campbell.

Um, and there’s a whole book about on how he sort of like, called people in, in the right way to, to help them, to help them get past things. And, um, it’s, it’s fascinating to see how. A lot of these hard moments were pushed through because of a neutral third party in the room and a and a party that, a party that kind of like, they’re not the visionary, they’re not the executor.

They are simply the person that’s guiding, guiding the person down the, down the right path. And I think that’s a really important and overlooked role in a business. Um, and no matter where you are, I think you should have like, like even someone who’s early on in business, like. You know, let’s say you’re starting and you have $0, remember five.

Find someone that has $10,000 in revenue and pay them a hundred dollars a session to [00:31:00] coach you like, like, you know, find someone that’s like a little bit ahead on the journey. Like you might not be able to afford the coach that’s $20,000 a year or $40,000 a year you can afford the coach. That’s, that’s.

Like, like $1,200 for the year. Like, like, and, and take that person’s advice and listen to their road back to get you the 10,000. And once you’ve gotten grown past that coach, find a coach that got to $50,000 a month and you know, listen to that coach and then, you know, follow teaching. And so on that line.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome advice. It really is. And you’re finding somebody that’s just slightly ahead of you. ’cause I think, I think that’s the thing is some people will spend way too much money on a coach that probably is way too far ahead of them, you know, and, and sometimes that actually can be.

An issue because this coach is not used to working with people that are just getting started. They’re used to working with people trying to break that, you know, 10 million barrier. Right? And that’s just not you right now. So the things that they’re gonna tell you might not be something that’s even applicable to you at [00:32:00] this point.

So you’re better off to find somebody who’s just slightly ahead of you, right?

David Feinman: Absolutely. And, and it’s also so important that like once you’ve hit some, some marginal level of success to turn around and send the elevator back down, right? Like it’s, it’s so important to, to help entrepreneurs help other people in the industry that are getting. Started started and help show them the roadmap that it took you to get to where you are.

Um, and I think when you do that, you’ll also find that you will learn and codify your, like the, the way you, you got to where you are. And I think it helps lock in the what, what you learn. So you know, just as much as you are sending the elevator down, helping someone else by doing that and being by, by being a good like steward of the world, like you are also.

Uh, teaching yourself, um, in a way and like reflecting on what you’ve learned?

Tim Melanson: Right on. All right, David, I’m excited to hear your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

David Feinman: Yeah, we we’re, we’re in like crazy growth mode right now. Um, so, um, you know, business is [00:33:00] viral ideas. We do video editing for companies and, you know, we’ve, we’ve been around for 11 years. We’ve edited over over 50,000 videos and edit another couple hundred per week. Um, and. I think what, what I want to, I want to give to your audience is, is we’ve hired so many video editors, um, throughout the course of the course of time, right?

Like, and, you know, we have a, we have an insane hiring process and we have a, we have a process for doing that, that we’ve, we’ve locked into this. It’s into this document that we use internally called How to Hire Video Editors that Don’t Suck. And I would love to give your audience that, that, that gift. Um, and if you want, if you want it, the best way to get it is to just reach out to me on Instagram, my, my Instagram handle’s at David Feinman.

Um, and just shoot me, follow me, shoot me over dm, um, with Tim Podcast guide or something like that. And, you know, we’ll, we’ll reply back, right back and get you that, get you that guide on how to hire video editors. It won’t suck.

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. Right on. So what would be the, the type of business that would get the most outta working with you?

David Feinman: Uh, [00:34:00] we work with three main markets, so marketing agencies. So we, we work with other marketing agencies and partner with them to, uh, do editing. Um, uh, and the second one is healthcare companies. So we work with, uh, companies like McKesson, Johnson and Johnson, all the way down to like health tech startups.

Uh, and then we also work with, uh, lawyers in law firms, um, is another category of clients that we work with.

Tim Melanson: Very diverse group.

David Feinman: Yeah, the three main customer categories and you know, through our marketing agencies, we’ve actually worked with like a number of different, like, like clients over the years, but those are the main, main three, three customer segments.

We, we go after

Tim Melanson: And what’s the process that, that you go through with them to, to help them get started in, in, in building this

David Feinman: Yeah, so we ha we, we go through a couple different things, uh, when, when we start with a client and like, I think the hardest thing is figuring out, uh, what, what taste the client has. Like what, what do they like to see? Um, so we, we get aligned on taste and that’s, that’s part of the [00:35:00] first step of the process.

We have a really, um. Really amazing onboarding process where we bring clients in and, you know, and, and learn a bit about them so we can customize our, our productized experience to them. So like our, our experience is like, like, you know, I, I, I compare it a little bit to, um, you know. Sort of like going to, going to Starbucks, right?

Like there, there’s a menu of services that you can go and look at online and it’s, it’s productized. You can like click one and buy it, but when you go, you can, you can customize it to whatever you want, right? Like, like, we’re not gonna make the same video for everyone. And what’s interesting about our model is, is when, when.

If someone orders the videos from us, we have processes that do like hundreds of different video types. So like when you order from us, like you don’t know it like on the, on the front end, but like you’ll fill out a form for a video and on the back end we’ll say like, okay, you’re ordering a number 10. A number 10 should be built like this.

Um, and you know, yes, it’s, yes, the video is custom, [00:36:00] but it’s also we’re able to move with speed because we know, like we know what we’re making on the backend.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s important when you, like you said, you’ve got these three different markets that you work with. You get really good at working with that market and you know what they want. Right?

David Feinman: exactly, exactly.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Well, that’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

David Feinman: Uh, you can find out more. Our website is viral ideas marketing.com. Um, or reach out on my, uh, Instagram. I’m super active on there, always posting content at David Fineman.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Right on. So now I’ve got one more question for you. Might be the hardest one. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

David Feinman: Who’s my favorite rockstar? It was, it’s funny, I just, I just got my Spotify wrapped, uh, this year and I listened to a lot. Ed Sheeran, I think he’s like. I dunno if he’s underrated. ’cause I feel like I, like I haven’t met too many, too many fans in, in a while, but I, I feel like he’s just like a dude in a guitar and like, there’s nothing fancy about him.

He just like gets up there and sings. Um, what, what did I, I’m curious. Like, you, like, [00:37:00] I’m curious like, what’s yours?

Tim Melanson: Uh, well, so it, my overall favorite band is The Beatles. It’s

David Feinman: course. Yeah. Paul McCarty’s amazing live,

Tim Melanson: and everything.

David Feinman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Uh, that’s how I really learned music is just through them. They were pioneers in just about everything. Um, but yeah, I, I, I, I actually also like, uh, ed Sheeran. He is, he is very good. He was, um, yeah, he’s kind of fallen off the radar for a little while, hasn’t he?

But he is still, he’s still excellent. Excellent

David Feinman: He is amazing. He’s amazing. Um, he, he, he’s incredible. Uh, have you seen Paul McCartney live, ever

Tim Melanson: I have seen Paul McCartney live. Yeah.

David Feinman: amazing experience, amazing experience.

Tim Melanson: the top show I’ve been to. It’s, it was so good. But I mean, a lot of it has to do with the, just the nostalgia of like, you know, everything that he’s accomplished and it’s of such a Beatles fan that it was so, such a great show. He’s so good. Yeah.

David Feinman: I agree.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for [00:38:00] rocking out with me today, Dave. David, this has been a lot of fun.

David Feinman: Tim, thanks for having me This.

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