Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the founder and CEO of Perform and Function and what he does, he’s an executive coach, he’s a leadership team, organization development consultant. He’s an author, a speaker. And what he’s doing is he’s helping people to increase their self-awareness, empathy, uh, emotional intelligence, interpersonal dynamics, and to discover their purpose and passion and achieve their business and life goals.

So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Karl Hebenstreit right. Hey, Karl, you ready to rock?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I am totally ready to rock. Tim. Let’s jam.

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So I think, uh, probably the success story for me is leaving corporate America as an internal employee and deciding to take the plunge and become a solopreneur, an entrepreneur in a solo entrepreneurship, and actually being able to live my life. With the purpose that I want to support the clients who want to [00:01:00] be supported and do the work and see the change that I’m trying to invoke in people that actually want to change.

So that’s the, that was the biggest, the plunge that I took four years ago, a little over four years ago, and it’s been a wonderful experience ever since. I can’t see myself going back.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Yes. Once you go this way, you’re not gonna go back. Right. There’s too many advantages and, uh, and a lot of the things that you were afraid about. I mean, hey, was there. Things that you were afraid, you know, that was kind of holding you back.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Of course, of course. So,

Tim Melanson: and how did they transpire?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: so I think one of the biggest things that was. Something that I was not looking forward to and, and actually COVID helped with this, was not having a support network. I’m a very social person and wanting to be around people and going into the office and being around people was always something very important to me, and having those relationships and connections, so going solo would prevent me from having that.

However, being. In shutdown for [00:02:00] during COVID showed me that I could still have those relationships and connections. They are virtual and then at times they can become phy in person, right? You can actually physically be in person with someone at some point, and that has to happen at some point as well.

But those virtual connections can be just as strong as some of the ones that you have to physically be in a a site or location for some other challenges that I was concerned about, were. How would I be? Make sure that I would continue to get some steady revenue stream that would be predictable, uh, and pay for during vacations.

How would I continue to be paid for? Well, you’re not, but that’s a different story. You have to change your mindset a little bit around that, and you just have to be. Ready for the unpredictability and the ebbs and flows and you get to predict them. Once you’ve been in business for a couple years, you can see like when are gonna be my busy times and are gonna be my slower times, when can I take a vacation and not worry about not being able to support my clients or missing out on business or anything [00:03:00] like that.

But again, it just takes a mindset shift and really the faith that the business will come. Especially when you’re solid in your career and you have worked in many different companies and you have wonderful connections and networking contacts from all these different companies in the past, and even currently, the business will come based on that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If you’ve been a good employee, then chances are you’ll be okay. At least right when you,

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, your reputation, right? When people know your reputation, they’ve worked with you, they’ve seen the results. They know how collaborative you can be. They know how. They know your skills and your expertise, and they know that you can be, you’re dependable. They will remember you and they will come back to you and they can say that, you know, I may not be in the same company that I was in with you.

I’m now in a different company. Can you come in and help us with this? Something similar to what you helped in the past, or we need to expand on something. Can you help with that? That’s what happens, and your [00:04:00] network is huge. Your network is really how things happen. It’s, and I know lots of people go out there and do cold calling and, and participate in all sorts of different vendors that help them with sending out emails or, or doing sales navigator stuff.

That’s not how you’re gonna get your business. You’re gonna get your business from the people that know you, that have worked with you, that can vouch for you, that can give you references, they can refer you to other people. That’s how your business is gonna come around and that’s going to continue growing.

Tim Melanson: That’s how it worked out for me too.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: You know, and, and it, it is true. ’cause I think that a lot of people will, uh, I don’t know, just be afraid to contact their, their local network, maybe thinking that they’re gonna be bugging them or whatever it is. But I mean, you know, if you do good work and you know, whatever it is that you do is something that other people are gonna need, well then why not let people know what you’re doing?

Right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: There are some personalities that are better at it than others. There are some [00:05:00] that are more assertive and more open and comfortable with reaching out to people and saying, this is what I’m doing. Do you need help? Or do you know anyone that needs help? And other people are more, let let my work speak for itself.

They’ll find me. Right. Who is more likely to get the business or. The, the reach out, right? So, and, and it could be a little bit of both, right? So you do have to step into your, out of comfort spot, your discomfort, and really go and, and market yourself and let people know that you are available, that you can help them.

And it would be great to work with them again. So that’s really the message. And you can show them the successes. You can have case studies, you can have all sorts of different things and how you can help them improve the situation that they’re in, and make a stronger business, make better interpersonal relationships with their teams, with their organizations, which again, always leads to, to better business outcomes and more [00:06:00] revenue.

So it’s, it’s great. It’s, it’s really, it’s really stepping outta that. That comfort zone, getting into the discomfort, letting people know, putting it on LinkedIn, putting it on Facebook. If they don’t wanna see it, they’ll scroll past, but they’ll still keep you in the back of their minds.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and uh, I know I’ve had a bit of a, a wake up when I will see like a peer that is nowhere near as good as I am going out there getting a bunch of success because they just have the ability to get out there and tell people what’s going on. Right. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s frustrating in a way ’cause you’re thinking, oh geez, you know, I’m, I’ve got so much more experience, I’ve been doing this for so much longer.

How are they getting so much success so quickly? But you know, on the, on the, on the flip side of that, I mean, you know, if you do really, really good job, even if it is just for a few people, eventually those referrals come back to you, don’t they?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly. Exactly. And the other thing I want to go back to just what you said is how are they getting this business? And I’m [00:07:00] not, how are they getting these successes? And I’m not, we all have that capability to sell ourselves to. Toot our horn to, you know, tout our accomplishments, whatever it is that you want to talk about.

That way, it’s just that it’s uncomfortable for some of us and more comfortable for others. However, we still have that ability and we can reach out into it and say, you know, I’m worth it. It’s, you know, the self-esteem needs to increase that self-esteem and put it out there because people can’t read your mind that you’re there and you’re available and you can do this for them.

They have to be told, right? They, there are creatures that need to hear the, the message and the communication be reminded of it. So that’s really what needs to happen.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and you know, it’s, it’s actually interesting because the, the customers themselves, you know, everybody kind of has these same personalities, right? Some people are very e easy, they can talk to people, very easy. And some people have a hard time talking to people even when they need something. So it’s actually possible that there could be somebody in your network that wants your services and [00:08:00] is afraid to ask you.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly, exactly. You have hit the right note there with that, uh,

Tim Melanson: Assessment.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Absolutely. Yes.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. So now along with the good notes, sometimes things don’t go as planned. There’s some mistakes that you can make along the way, and I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned and, and how you recovered from that?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I think early on in my career. Was the biggest mistake that I made that helped put me on a more positive trajectory to realize that this is the journey I need to be on. So, earlier on in my career, I thought I knew intuitively what other people needed. And I think it’s the same issue that most of us have.

It’s, it’s, we think that other people think that the way we do or have the same values or, or preferences as as we do because we can’t read their minds and know. What they want, what their values are, what their challenges are, what their needs are. So early on in my career, when I was in my twenties, I was [00:09:00] tasked with going and presenting at a conference, and I presented as if the people that were in the audience were gonna want my product.

They, they, they could see the value immediately and they, why wouldn’t they wanna buy that or buy into this, this program? And the reality was, I wasn’t speaking their language, I wasn’t. Talking about their pain points. I wasn’t asking them what they were looking for in the presentation, and I had people walk out on me, and this was very embarrassing and very hurtful, and it was a great lesson for me to learn that I don’t know what they want unless I ask them for it.

So luckily I had a, a second session right after that and I pivoted and I asked the people what they wanted, what they were looking for, told them what I was looking to do, how I could change the presentation or the message or the communication to fit their needs. And that’s my biggest realization that.

Yeah, we need to figure out what other people want, what they’re looking for, and what they need so that we can explain it in the terms that they want to hear, so that [00:10:00] they’re not gonna reject something or don’t see the value in it because it’s not being spoken in the language or in the way that they want to receive it.

So that was my biggest lesson of let go of the golden rule of treating others the way that I want to be treated, and instead find out how they want to be treated to go to the platinum rule and treat them, communicate with them, approach them in a way that they want to be treated. In the way that is gonna be most responsive for them and learn from that.

Then go into the platinum rule and say, okay, how can I integrate this new perspective with this new knowledge that they don’t, they’re not gonna look at it the way that I do. Let me take the value from their perspective, integrate it into mine, and now I have a much more expansive worldview and I can be even more inclusive in future interactions.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Right. Um, you know, I had a, a similar experience early on. I, uh, I was referred to a, to a business coach who needed some tech support and now was doing some tech support stuff. And I remember, I, I, I helped, helped her out with her problem, fixed it, everything [00:11:00] was great. And then because she’s a business coach, she’s like, okay, well.

Because I’m a business coach and you helped me out. I just can’t not ask you some questions. So, so she asks me about my website and she says, okay, just bring it up. So she looks at my website and it is technical jargon everywhere, right? Like, and she looks at that and she goes, oh. She’s like, Tim, if I had seen this website before I hired you, I wouldn’t have hired you.

And I was like, oh dang. She’s like, I don’t understand a word. This is, and I am your, your target client. So it’s, it’s very similar, right? People, people just don’t, you can be all super technical and write all this crazy stuff, but people don’t understand any of that stuff. They just want to know how you’re gonna fix a problem, right? Yep.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Reach them in the language in which they speak. Yeah. How they wanna receive the message.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. So, let’s talk a little bit about getting fans. ’cause you know, in today’s world, there’s lots of people out there, lots of [00:12:00] ways that you could reach out. What’s the way that you found, you know, especially in, I mean, you’ve been, it is the last four years, so it’s fairly recent here.

How are you getting success in, in creating that audience? Actually no, in converting that audience to fans.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, so I’m gonna go back to what you, the story that you just talked about, website. You have to have a website, and that website has to be easy to navigate and have all the information in the language that your target audience is gonna want to read it and receive it. So definitely have that, that clean website.

And I, mine was just totally revamped. I’d had a website that I, I created, so you, you can imagine how good that was. It was not, uh, back in. Started in 2001 and just kept adding to it. So I can’t even tell you how many different pages, landing pages there were. I think there it was probably at least a dozen little tabs to go all the way across.

It was, yeah, it was a little cumbersome and had all the information that you needed. Absolutely had great resources, great information, but probably. Uh, not as, [00:13:00] yeah, it was overwhelming and not as friendly to people to come to visit it. So definitely have a great branded representation of yourself in a way that your target audience can go and read it and access it and know that this is.

Like your, your client that was receiving your technical services would say, yes, this is the person I wanna hire. Right? Have all the information and just enough to say, yeah, I wanna reach out and ask more questions. So, and definitely have wonderful content there that is relevant to people, and people can definitely go to my website and get some wonderful downloads that are free.

That can definitely help ’em in all aspects of their lives. It’s www.perperformandfunction.com. It’s a play on word form and function per perform and function.com. And check out the different tabs and look at the downloads there. You can get some great, uh. Resources, like there’s the Explicit Expectations Alignment Guide, which can help you in your, your relationships and your communication with people and, and really understanding how to work better with people.[00:14:00]

But anyway, so Mark Market, that website that you have, get it out there. Definitely also take advantage of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for all those professional re relationships and resources and network contacts that you have. Keep building that LinkedIn network from all of your clients, your past coworkers and colleagues, your bosses, your customers.

Just add them all in there because it’s a great way for you to post and let them know what’s going on, what you’re doing, and it’ll be a great reminder for them. It’s not like you’re hitting them over the head with, here’s another email, here’s another newsletter, here’s another whatever. It’s they, they have to go to LinkedIn to see this, so when they’re, when it’s on their turn, their time to go and look at LinkedIn, you’ll, you’re.

Updates will pop up in, in your, if you’ve written an article, if you’re on a podcast, if you’re, whatever it is, it’ll pop up there and keep you top of mind to them to see what you’re doing, what you’re talking about. That’s on brand, [00:15:00] that’s referencing what could be important to them and their challenges and their needs, so you’re always gonna be in the back of their minds that way.

Mention podcast. Definitely look into podcasts that are gonna highlight your expertise to get it out into the world. So not only your, uh, network will see it when you post it on LinkedIn or Facebook or, or, or Twitter or X or Blue Sky or wherever it is or Instagram, but the world will see it too, and someone else may tap into that.

My very first podcast that I did, this was. Oh, many, many years ago, I’d probably say about 10, 15 years ago, that netted ultimately a client that I still have for the past. Four to five years I’ve been working with that company, and that was, that wasn’t even my intention. Someone asked me to be on their podcast.

I said, okay, sure. I’ve never been on a podcast before. And that has come out. That relationship has come out of that. [00:16:00] So you’d never know where a podcast will lead, who will hear the podcast and say, yes, this is exactly who I need, or, I need to talk to this person. This person needs to talk to my business partner, or whatever it is that can happen from those.

Write articles, write blogs, uh, get interviewed for different media that, that reach out and are looking for expertise people to talk about expertise in your area. There are wonderful resources, free resources out there that you can tap into for finding out what podcasts are looking for guests, what, what websites are looking for people to write blogs or people to interview for articles or series or whatever.

Check all those different things out and get your name out there. So that’s, uh, a great way to, to make sure that you’re keeping in touch with your network as well as reaching out even more broadly to tap into other people that may not even know you yet.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many options out there nowadays. That’s what’s [00:17:00] so good, but also so cumbersome too, right? Because where do you start? I mean, you only have so many hours in the day, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Mm-hmm. Well, your first stop should be Tim.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: out to Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Absolutely. So, let’s talk a little bit about practicing Now. Nobody really likes to practice, I don’t think, but it, it’s, it’s important. And I’m wondering what, what is it that you do for practice? Mm-hmm.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So practice. Luckily I get to integrate it into other aspects of the performance too. So my practice can be from reading books that are new on the subject matter, for example, the Enneagram of other colleagues or or other practitioners or writing books on the topic. And I. I need to stay on top of what’s going on with Enneagram or coaching or, so definitely reading books and attending conferences is, I think the, the one that combines multiple forms of practice as well as performance.

Because [00:18:00] when I go to a conference, I will usually be a speaker at the conference, but then I can also get to attend all of the other speakers and the events that are going on there too. So it’s a performance, but it’s also networking and it’s also practice. Because I’m practicing, I’m learning from other people at the same time.

So conferences are huge, especially if you’re fortunate enough to be a speaker at it, because then you get more exposure. Other people learn about what you’re doing. They can develop in the moment and take practices home to continue their development. But you’re also learning and developing yourself, like listening and attending and participating in other of the speakers events as well.

So I think those are huge.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a great idea. If you can figure out a way to make the performance and the practice kind of work together, then that’s like a win-win everywhere. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I know that, uh, for, for me, in, in with my music, I actually host jam nights, you know, once a week. And so it’s twice a week actually now.

So it’s, it’s it’s practice and it’s performance at the same [00:19:00] time. Right. And I mean, what a win you can get there, right. When you can create an environment where whatever you’re doing is, you know, less pressure than an actual performance, but also, but, but also you, you have some way to. Move the needle forward in your business through your practice, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Right. And conferences can also be, yes, they can be pressure filled, but they can also be, you’re among your peers, you’re among your, among your colleagues. They wanna see you succeed. They wanna learn from you, and you wanna learn from them so that the, that pressure is. I would say mitigated a little bit.

So I think conferences are

Tim Melanson: I love it. ’cause it’s it, like you say, it’s performance, it’s practice, and it’s team building and

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It’s all, everything together.

Tim Melanson: I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about the instruments and the tools that we use to get success in our businesses. And I mean, nowadays there’s lots of technology. Uh, what, what, what is, what is it that you use in your business to get success?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So. [00:20:00] We already spoke about LinkedIn and maybe you can include Facebook in there and social media platforms as well. Calendly has been wonderful, especially I’m a solopreneur in my business, so it’s a free calendar system that can help your clients schedule meetings with you. You don’t have to the back and forth and all the administrivia of going and communicating and say, are you available then no.

This is the wrong time zone or, or whatever it is. It does it all for you. So I, I’m a big fan of Calendly. It’s fantastic. You just have to make sure that you’re keeping it up to date. If you travel and you go somewhere, change your time zone. Because it’s still going to, it doesn’t know that you’re traveling, so make sure that you update your time zone so that they, you know, what times you’re really available for, on specific dates.

So that’s, uh, that’s a, a great lesson learned there. Also, I’m gonna throw in. Other tools being resources. So you have to have a really good accountant, a really good tax accountant to help you with what you need to do, [00:21:00] keep you on track with, okay, here’s deadlines that you need to submit for taxes for whatever it is.

Uh. Have a great accountant and at some points you may also need other resources, a great printing resource, a great print shop or anything like that. If you need to print a, do print, um, someone great to help you with your website if you don’t wanna do it yourself or if you don’t have time to do it yourself or you don’t wanna learn how to do it yourself.

I also use ai, so I partnered with an AI vendor to help create a clone of myself to do coaching and also delivering of e-learning. So there is an AI version of me, so it’s a IR Karl who’s a clone and delivers some of the workshops electronically virtually, and I don’t need to be there. And also the coaching.

Tim Melanson: That’s crazy. Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on. I actually took a, a, uh, a seminar with Tony Roberts, with Tony Robinson. That’s exactly what he was teaching is the AI clones. Uh, I mean, it’s crazy what they can do. [00:22:00] Um, it’s overwhelming in a lot of ways as well. Uh, but I can just imagine where things are gonna be in a few years, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes, absolutely. So, wait, am I am, am I speaking to your clone right now or is this the real Tim?

Tim Melanson: This is the real Tim, believe it or

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Okay, good. Good. Yeah, that’s just, just what a clone

Tim Melanson: though. Yeah. What about you? Are you the real Karl?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Who can say

Tim Melanson: Who can say, isn’t that

R. Karl Hebenstreit: what does real really mean?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think at this point we probably would be able to tell. Uh, but I don’t know if that’s gonna be the case in a few years.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I’m not glitching out yet.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, actually that’s the real you, the clone wouldn’t glitch like that.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: that’s right.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, it is time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So I am really excited This past end of November and through the beginning of December, I was actually on a cruise ship and I got to [00:23:00] speak five times on the cruise ship. So I’m really focusing more on doing more speaking, keynote speaking engagements, and this was a great launch into that. So I’m really focusing on that in my business.

Obviously I can’t do that from home, but all the pre-work and all of the marketing and all of the logistics and getting ready for it is all done at home. And so the majority of my time, of course, I am working from home. Um, especially I, I do my executive coaching from home. It’s all done virtually via Zoom and I can deliver workshops.

Virtually as well, which I do from home and on the occasions that I do need to physically travel, for example, the end this month, I am going to, if it’s good enough for Celine, it’s good enough for me. I’m going to Caesar’s Palace and I will be doing a gig, uh, not a singing gig like Celine did, but I will be doing a, a workshop for about 200 people there for a couple hours, and I’m really excited about doing.

Those types of speaking engagements where it’s a large number of people that are getting the message at the same time, and I can make the most impact with that large number of people. So that’s, uh, that’s what [00:24:00] I’m really excited about.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. So who would be the person that would get the most outta working with you?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Anyone could get the most outta working with me. I work from individual contributors all the way up to this, uh, teams and this C-suite. So. Anyone who wants to bring me into an organization to show them, I, I specifically work with the Enneagram, which is an amazing tool. You asked about other tools. I mean, we, we are talking about more actual tools of, of business tools, but this is the, the, the tool for the transformation that I would use with a coaching client or even in a workshop or in a speaking engagement.

In a keynote where I can help people get from that golden rule to the platinum and rhodium rules, and really start understanding what motivates themselves and what motivates others. So if that’s a need in your life to try to understand yourself and others better, and everyone has that need. Then I am happy to work with you and your organization.

I’ve actually written a children’s book called Nina and the really, really tough [00:25:00] decision, which translated into five languages to help children learn about this earlier on in their lives. So it’s not as difficult for them to have these, these learnings and experiences later on in life, and they have to change their mindsets.

Then they can start off with the right mindset and really see how to integrate everyone else’s perspectives along with their own to have a broader worldview and a better understanding of themselves than others. Grow that empathy and emotional intelligence. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. You mentioned your website earlier and I’m wondering like, what’s the process of someone you know, if they did wanna work with you? Like how, how do they go about doing that? Is there forms they have to fill out or what, what, what happens?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: not really. My contact information is right on the website. They can send me an email at Karl with A-K-K-A-R l@performancefunction.com. People have gotten in touch with me through LinkedIn and sent me, um, that they, they want something or they’re interested in getting more information or they have a, a conference coming up or a meeting coming up and they have a workshop or they need a keynote speaker.

So LinkedIn works great. There [00:26:00] is definitely through the website you can see all the different services that are being offered and there’s a way to get in touch with me on the website as well by filling out a form there. But there’s so many different ways and my phone number’s even on there. So it’s, yeah, there are so many different ways and you can obviously just schedule a meeting on Calendly too.

Tim Melanson: All right, Karl, this is probably the hardest question all day. So who is your favorite rock star?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: My favorite rock’s pink. I’m gonna go with pink. She’s the, you said rock, so I’m gonna go with pink because she’s kind of, I mean, she is rock.

Tim Melanson: she’s

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, she is awesome. What a performer. What a multifaceted and talented performer. Powerhouse, not only with vocals, but with meaningful. She has the right message.

She has the right values. She’s like flying through the air. She’s just incredible.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I saw the, uh, there was a documentary about her a

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes. I saw that too.

Tim Melanson: And yeah, I mean, she’s more like a, like an acrobat than a,

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes.

Tim Melanson: than a, uh, dancer for sure.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah. [00:27:00] We’ve seen her in concerts several times and I’m, I’m happy to see her anytime she’s, she’s around. She’s just an incredible human being.

Tim Melanson: I’m right on, right on. Love it. Favorite song.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Ooh, from pink or just overall?

Tim Melanson: From Pink.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Oh boy. Oh, oh my God. So many. Um, oh, perfect. Let’s go with perfect. I won’t use the, uh, I won’t, I won’t use the one that goes before it.

Tim Melanson: This is the G version of it.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: That’s the, that’s the, yes. The, the podcast appropriate and a prude version of that song.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So much fun rocking out with you today, Karl, this has been great.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: It was wonderful hanging out, rocking out, and jamming out with you two, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Thank you so much. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and to follow 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 the owner of j Levin Communications, and what she does is she’s a strategic communications consultant that helps businesses with their internal and external communications. She’ll find out a lot more about that.

Little bit later, uh, we’re talking to Jamie Levin. Hey, Jamie, you ready to rock?

Jamie Levin: I am so ready to rock.

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

Jamie Levin: I always wanted to be the head honcho, right? I just, whether it was on the sports field or in the classroom, I, it was just what I always had to be at the top. So I worked my way up to the top and I ran, um, communications, internal and external communications, corporal and corporate events, um, and travel for. A multi-billion dollar company and it was wonderful. And I did it with two children, which is even more wonderful and also speaks to my support [00:01:00] system, um, and the team of friends and family that I have around me. And so, yeah, that’s my good note. I made it to where I had always aspired to be.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, what next?

Jamie Levin: What next? Then I went the completely opposite realm and you know, was like, I don’t wanna do this team thing anymore. It was great while it lasted for about six and a half years, and I was truly blessed, had an awesome team, but I was just burnt out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Jamie Levin: I was burnt out.

Tim Melanson: Isn’t that funny? Hey, once you get to the top of the mountain, you’re like, uh, what do I do now?

Jamie Levin: Yeah, I see it. I feel it. I get it now and. It was great and it was amazing, and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Um, and it’s allowed me to get to where I am today, but I don’t think I ever have to go back there.

Tim Melanson: No. Okay. Well I’m wondering, so sometimes the good notes, uh, and the bad notes come together, there’s some things that don’t go as planned, and I like to talk about that because as we all know, I mean, there are gonna be things that aren’t gonna go as planned and. [00:02:00] That’s oftentimes what keeps people from starting in the first place.

And I wanna make sure that people understand that, hey, you know, you can have some success and have some failures and you’ll get through it. And maybe you can give us an example of something that,

Jamie Levin: For sure, and I think the, the failures are what make the successes that much more rewarding. Um, so I started my career in New York City at a very large, um, public relations agency, and then I relocated to Florida to be with my now husband. Um, and I started working for a smaller public relations agency in Miami.

Right. This is what I know. I’ll be fine. Okay, great. Um, worked there for a bit. Not long into my tenure there, I was given a promotion and I was like, oh, wow. It’s so nice that they recognized hard work. About two weeks later, I was fired. I was like, okay, this makes no sense to me. In [00:03:00] hindsight, it was a blessing.

I was not happy. I would eat lunch in my car. Um, there were no windows there and I was just, well, at least where I was sitting and I need sunlight and daylight. And then it just afforded me the opportunity to recalibrate and say, okay, now it’s time for me to make my life here. I can’t work for a really small organization.

I need to meet people. I’m a people person, and what am I gonna do next? And thankfully. It kind of, you know, it catapulted my career in the right direction from there. So, you know, blessing and a curse and a learning opportunity and all the things.

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Well, how did you handle it then? Was it like super depressing or did you just like roll to the next thing? Or,

Jamie Levin: I think I was relieved in a way ’cause I’m not one to quit. It’s just, I don’t have it in me. Like I will just, it is what it is. I’ll keep grinding until I, you know, find the next thing. [00:04:00] Um, but you know, it forced me to move on instead of just hang on to something that was never gonna be, which is fine.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. ’cause uh, oftentimes, you know, those pushes, uh, you know, the universe has given you a sign. I, I mean that’s what I believe anyway. I dunno if

Jamie Levin: Right, right. Right.

Tim Melanson: you know, it seems as though, ’cause like you said, you weren’t happy anyway, so you might not have actually, and, and that’s similar to a lot of people’s with our personality, is that we’re not quitters.

So we’ll stick around someplace where we shouldn’t be for a lot longer than we probably should. Right?

Jamie Levin: Right. Like we’re trying to prove something to ourselves, but I’m not sure what, um, so it was a blessing learning experience onto the next one.

Tim Melanson: So now when you’re working from home, uh, the, the home office is an important aspect of it. And hey, I mean, sometimes you don’t even have the opportunity to have a good home office. I know I started at a kitchen table, but, but I’m wondering, like, actually that’s a good [00:05:00] question. Where did you start?

Did you have a home office to start off or did you build one as time went on?

Jamie Levin: So I’m very lucky. I did have a home office, but the irony of it is, oops. I would say 85% of the time, including this time right now, I’m not in my office, which is also one of the amazing things about working from home, right? So my home office is excellent. It’s MySpace. No, nothing else is in there. But at the same time, sometimes I just need like a change of scenery or sometimes I feel too lonely in there.

And so it’s like I wanna be around my favorite coworker who’s my dog, um, because it’s just her and I. Sometimes I just think, and again, it’s, I’m very lucky with what I do also contributes to my ability to be flexible. Yeah. Do I have multiple screens in that office and the standup desk and the treadmill underneath?

I, I do. And so am I in there often? Yeah. But could I also be working for my kitchen table? Because at that given moment, [00:06:00] all I need is my laptop and my phone and my mouse. And a pen and paper. Yes. I still use a pen and paper 100%. So do I think it’s a, you know, nice thing to have? Of course. Do I think it’s absolutely necessary?

Absolutely not. I don’t,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you gotta start somewhere. It, it starts really with the desire, right?

Jamie Levin: yeah, you don’t wanna let it be an obstacle, right? Don’t let it stop you from, or prevent you from doing what you wanna do. That would just be an excuse. It’s okay if you pack up your backpack every day. I do it often. I mean, I admittedly. I work from my car, sometimes work from the coffee shop. Sometimes it just, sometimes in order to get things done in a timely fashion, it has to fit in other things,

Tim Melanson: and it probably does depend on what you do as you’re, as you work too. I mean, if you’re on the phone a lot, you know, it’s

Jamie Levin: right.

Tim Melanson: Um.

Jamie Levin: year complete. And look, there are days and times where [00:07:00] I’m like, Nope, I have to be right here in front of the computer. Right. And also, it’s what works for my clients. Some of my clients prefer the phone call over the video call, and I’m like, great, let’s do the phone call. I can do laps around the house if I want or walk the, and I’m completely honest with them, that’s what I’m doing.

And they’re taking a hike also. So it depends on the nature of the conversation. What do you need to speak about? What are you trying to accomplish? Um, if I’m writing a column, can I be out and about? No, I mean, I guess I could dictate, but no, I’m sitting at my desk, you know, laser focused and efficient.

Tim Melanson: So now is there other family members that are working from home too?

Jamie Levin: Thank goodness. No. I love my husband very much, um, but it would not work out well if we both left from here. So, no, I’m very fortunate. I, I, I know my personality and I know his and well, again, I love him very, very much. I need my space. [00:08:00] He doesn’t want to hear my voice all day and I don’t blame him ’cause I don’t even wanna hear my voice all day.

Just my dog.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, so you may be using that office a little bit more if he was home.

Jamie Levin: Exactly. Oh yeah. When he, in the rare instance that he is home, um, or takes a call from here or whatever the case is, and then is running back to his office, yes, I’m definitely in there. Or if it’s a day off from school for my kids, um, you know, there’s, there’s separation. It’s, it’s definitely very necessary.

So again, am I spoiled to have it as an option? 100%.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And when, when the kids are home or anything like that from school, is there, like how do you work it so that you’re not getting interrupted all the time?

Jamie Levin: We’re, I pray that I’m a good communicator being that that’s what I do for a living. So I’m very honest with them. And we go through the day, just like any other day, we would go through the day, like what they have after school, how they’re getting to their travel soccer practice. Like we talk about the things, [00:09:00] right?

So I’ll sit them down and, uh. My older son just turned 12 and my younger son is about to be nine next month. So that definitely helps, right? Like they can occupy themselves, they can play together, they can get on their, ride, their bikes. Um, but we talk about the day and I’m like, okay, I have calls at, I’m just throwing out share.

Right? 10 30, 11, 12 30 in one. I’m available to you. Other, you know, other than those times if we need to have a conversation. But mom needs this chunk of time to get stuff done, and then I’m all yours, because again, I do have to be flexible on the days that they’re off of school. And thankfully my clients understand that as well.

Tim Melanson: Um, so now one thing that kind of caught me by surprise, I think a little bit when I first. Started my business is how important or how much you have to be a salesperson. Right? And you have to get out there and, and, and generate those, those sales yourself. And I mean, there’s lots of ways to do it. And I mean, I think now [00:10:00] things are very different than they were 20 years ago.

Uh, but I, I, I feel like it’s still pretty complicated in a lot of ways, and a lot of people do struggle with that. So I’m wondering, like, first of all, you are a very out outgoing person, so I imagine this might come naturally for you or, or not,

Jamie Levin: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: but how would you, how would you explain it to somebody who might be a little bit more introverted?

How, how would they go out there and build their business?

Jamie Levin: Yeah, so I think there are a few things, right? One, consider your network. I am super blessed that the majority of the people who I work with today, I’ve worked with in the past life,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Jamie Levin: So, you know, I worked with them because we worked for the same company. Or they were a client of mine in a past life when I worked for another agency.

Um, or they heard about me from someone I’ve worked with in a past life. So I, I think word of mouth when it comes to service [00:11:00] based companies and people focused organizations still hold strong. Right. I understand there’s SEO, there’s SEM that. Yeah, and I do think there’s value. It also depends how large you want to get and what your geographic footprint can be and a number of other things to think about.

So one, I think word of mouth is still very strong. Um, I do have a website, right? I think that helps from a credibility perspective when you’re ready to go there. Um, could I be doing more SEO and SEM 1000%? But I also have to remember that I am one person and I want to, you know, do great work for all of my clients, and I only have the same 24 hours in a day that everybody else has.

So being mindful of growing too quickly or taking on too much and then stressing yourself out to the point where you’re not doing good work for anyone. Um, [00:12:00] you know, then there’s LinkedIn and networking platforms and writing a blog to reinforce your subject matter expertise. There’s networking organizations.

There’s nonprofit organizations in terms of like, oh, I’ll be on a board because this is something that I’m really passionate about. But it’s also okay if business opportunities come from there. It’s not, you know, like that’s not a dirty word. Like it’s okay. Um. So I think putting yourself out there, making sure you’re clear about who you are and what you do.

Um, having that strong elevator pitch, because even today, sometimes some people will ask my mom like, oh, what does Jamie do? And she’s like, well, and I’m like, come on mom. I’ve been doing this now for like 25 plus years. You should know, right? But I think. Being able to share with people how you can help them and, and what you do and, and being very aware of who you are, um, is also extremely important.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, [00:13:00] I agree. I think word of mouth is huge. I, I mean, referrals is how my business has been running, and I mean, I, I sort of have the same ideas as you. I’m like, should I be doing more about my SEO and. But the business still keeps coming in from the referrals. So, and, and they’re just so much easier when you’ve got this warm introduction than when you have to like talk to somebody cold and convince them that you’re the right person for them.

Right.

Jamie Levin: Right. And it’s a blessing to be able to say, be a little, you know, you can choose a little. I always say, and I’m not gonna say the word, but I get the same amount of money working for a nice person as I do for a, you know what? So why would I want, like, I wanna work with nice people, so. Because that makes my day, like, it makes my job that much more rewarding.

It makes my day that much more pleasant. So again, this idea of word of mouth, normally if you’re getting a referral from someone who either you already do work with and you like them and they like [00:14:00] you, and it’s a positive relationship, people normally surround themselves with other positive people. Um, you know, so you can trust that referral a little bit rather than just like.

Here’s someone who just came in through my website because they saw the services I offer, which don’t get me wrong, they can also be great. I’m not saying they can’t, but it’s like going on. You know, like if you were going on a date, if a person recommended someone because they’ve had interactions with her mentor versus like a total blind date, of course the interactions is gonna be a little easier, right?

Like, you know what you’re walking into.

Tim Melanson: Now, is there something that you do regularly to get your referrals? To give you referrals, like, or do they just come.

Jamie Levin: I probably should, so thank you for the idea. But no, I, I don’t, I am very, very, very blessed, but I should probably build that into my process. It would be a good idea.

Tim Melanson: Well, it’s a good problem to have when you don’t [00:15:00] have to actually ask. And, and I, I am same, similar. I don’t deal anything. I, I, I tried to like, play with these like, referral programs and like try to give referral bonuses and all that stuff and I, I found that that was like e even a step backwards. ’cause now it’s like.

Uh, they can’t just say, I’m referring you to this person. ’cause they’re good, not because I’m making money off of it. Right. You know, and I, I thought that that was just a little bit more authentic. Right?

Jamie Levin: I mean, look, a great testimonial is super helpful, right? So, um, but no, I haven’t, but I should, I should think about it,

Tim Melanson: Now what about the, the cashflow side of it? And this is something that. Uh, way too many businesses, I think don’t, don’t take seriously about whether they’re actually making money, you know, or whether they’re actually losing money. ’cause revenue and profit are very different things. Right. I’m wondering what are some of your either tips or some of the things that you do to make sure that you’re ahead of the game?

Jamie Levin: [00:16:00] Yeah. So I think one, again, it depends on the industry, right? Like what tools do you really need to be successful? Thankfully, I am super blessed and everyone’s like, what do you mean you need a computer, a phone, some headphones, a pen paper? And I’m like, mm-hmm. And there are some platforms that I use for, you know, tools and resources.

But like, I still do my invoices in Excel and I’ve been doing this for three years. You know, like the, could I, could I be doing it another way? Yeah. Might it be more efficient? Maybe, but like, it doesn’t take me that long. So I think you, one, you don’t, you know, crawl before you walk. Right. Do you need the necessary tools to get you off the ground?

Yes. It’s very important. need, are there some tools that could make you more efficient that you have to say, okay, sometimes it has to be, it has to be worth my time and my [00:17:00] time is worth my money. 1000%. Um, I think also I’m very, I’m lucky to have great clients, right? And so they appreciate what I do and one of the ways that they show me they appreciate me is.

If it’s a 30 or 45 day, you know, turnaround, then it’s there within 30 or 45 days. Um, I’m still one of those odd people who, um, I bill people hourly,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Jamie Levin: which I know is strange these days. I’ve always said I won’t put anybody on a retainer because I can’t prioritize one business over the other. They’re all important to me.

So if I put one person on a retainer. Other people, I don’t. Then are they expecting some other, you know, that wouldn’t be right in my, in my mind in how I do business. And I consider myself to be pretty efficient as a working mother of two. So it normally works out in other people’s favor. Um, [00:18:00] but I think, you know, it’s okay to follow up on invoices also.

Like, there’s no harm in that. I did it this morning and it’s just a friendly nudge and it wasn’t a big deal. They were like, oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Like it happens. Um, but I think just, you know, checking in every once in a while, making sure that, you know, you’re tracking everything very well and. Do you have to do that when you work for a large organization?

If you’re in communications, no. But that comes with the territory of being a business owner. So carve out that time. Don’t get behind on things is the other thing I would say, like when it comes to invoicing, like I, I won’t let it go five days into the month without invoicing a client, just because I want it off my plate and onto their.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well that’s, and, and that’s the thing is that when you do give those nudges and you send those invoices, I think some people have this like fear of, of like, okay, what are they gonna say? But I mean, in my experience is similar to yours, that it’s [00:19:00] just, oh, I forgot. Sorry, sorry about that. And, and off it comes.

Right? Or if there is an issue and they are struggling or something, you’ll get an email back saying that like, but either way you’ll get some clarity on what’s going on. Right.

Jamie Levin: 100%.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Uh, I’m wondering, so now in your business, do you do everything yourself? I think you mentioned earlier that you have a few people that you, uh, contract out to.

What, what are those, what are those people that, that help you in your business?

Jamie Levin: Yeah, so I, you know, I try to be mindful of what am I spending my time on and where could I even send, you know, save my clients a little bit of money. So if I’m able to have somebody else do some work that. In the PR world, an account executive, if you would, would be the level can handle then, like I’m not billing that out at the same rate that I’m billing my time out.

I’d like to save, I like to save money, so I like to save people money. Um, you know, so whether it’s. [00:20:00] Research that somebody can help me with. Or am I a graphic? Can I be dangerous? Yeah. But am I a graphic designer? Absolutely not. Right? So there are a reason that there are graphic designers in this world, and I have an amazing one, right?

And so he does some work and it’s a value add for the clients. So they’re thrilled, right? Because it can be more of a one-stop shop. Um, and I can be the middleman between people and I have the vision and it’s still saving them time. Um, I also have a great person that I work with on video, so, you know, I think it’s just, again, this idea of efficiency and being mindful of where you’re spending your time and at the end of the day where you’re, when you’re, where you’re spending your clients’ money, right?

Like, if you care about the people that you work with, you don’t wanna spend their money unnecessarily. It’s irresponsible and it’s just, it’s icky, for lack of a better word.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So for the most part, the people in your business are, uh, subcontractors that do the work for the client, [00:21:00] but you don’t necessarily have people that like, do your books for you or, or like any of that stuff. You do all your own stuff.

Jamie Levin: Yep. I do all my own back office, if you will, which is probably why I’m unable to print at the moment. But like, you know, it’s what, it’s, I can print from my phone just fine. So there you go. But it depends on the day where I’m. If I’m the IT person, the bookkeeper, the CFO,

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Jamie Levin: so yeah.

Tim Melanson: well you might need an IT person. Hint. Hint. That’s what I do. Yeah. So it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Jamie Levin: I think what’s exciting to me is that I get to dabble in so many different industries, right? So there are many times in my career, like at one point I was in automotive and it was, I loved it. There was one point when I was in automotive aftermarket and I loved it. There was one point when I was in [00:22:00] construction and I loved.

How cool is it that I can be in commercial cleaning energy, nonprofit sports? Um, I don’t wanna leave people out interior design. Like I just hard washes. Like I just get to apply my skillset in so many different places and I get to speak different languages and different things are exciting. And so when anybody’s like, what’s your, like, what’s your day like?

I’m like. I know that at six 30 or seven in the morning, I, it just, and so for me, that’s what drives me because I’m not like a going through the motions person. I don’t do well like that. Like it’s just not how my personality is, and it’s not what drives me or fuels me. So it’s not even. meant mo all my clients are ongoing, so it’s not like, Ooh, this is a fun project.

It’s a fun project with an ongoing client. Um, but then I’m juggling, right? And getting to talk to [00:23:00] different reporters in different industries so it doesn’t get stale. Um, and it also pro provides me with like some amazing business development opportunities with regards to reach, right? Because I don’t.

While I have niche areas that I’ve worked in before, and so yeah, I’m, I’m more of an expertise quote unquote, and have relationships as people love to say with reporters in those areas. My skillset can be applied to any industry, so like, wow, I’m blessed, especially in this world of AI and all this craziness that’s going on.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Well, and, and that’s, that’s really cool to talk about too because there’s different types of personalities and some personalities like to have that very structured. I know exactly what I’m doing every single day and some people like to have a little bit more changing. Right. And you know, it sounds to me like you’ve found something that’s really awesome that you’re able to kind of like just jump into all these different things and keep things exciting for yourself.

Right.

Jamie Levin: Yeah. Yeah. Plus you never know what the media is gonna say on [00:24:00] any given day. So, you know, like what’s timely at this moment. Like one of the things right now of course is the flu, right? Unfortunately everybody’s sick.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Jamie Levin: commercial cleaning company has like some pretty cool things they do when it comes to that and like how does that contribute to, you know. Productivity in the workforce and people being able to go and schools not being impacted. And so how do you make, so whatever’s going on in the world can also contribute to what you’re able to share and how a client of yours, you know, can support people in the world that day. Like that’s pretty cool.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. And that’s, uh, so yeah, I mean, I’d like to know more about, about that because the thing about that is that you have to really have a pulse on what’s going on in the world and for. The people that are running the businesses that you work for, do they really have time to do all that stuff?

Like they’re busy breathing their business, right?

Jamie Levin: Yeah, that’s what [00:25:00] I always say. PR is extra credit. Um, you know, it’s also a challenge ’cause it’s hard to. To say like, Hey, here’s your ROI on the article I

secured for you last week, but how amazing was it when my energy clients sent me through like, Hey, just so you know, this CPA lead came in through the column that we wrote for this publication.

I was like, oh my gosh, you’re amazing. You just made my day. Thank you for letting me know, right? Because all I can tell you is, hey, if you were gonna buy an ad in this publication, it would cost you X, Y, Z, and we got the same space and it just cost you my time.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Jamie Levin: like your brain power to bring it to life and your time to do an interview.

So, um, so yeah, that part’s fun also.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, you know, media and, and that kind of stuff is so much more accessible now than it was 20 years ago too, right. So just about any company can jump into it as long as they have someone that knows what they’re doing, right.

Jamie Levin: Right? Yeah. Yeah.

And there’s so many different channels too, [00:26:00] which is, you know, is a lot to keep up with. Um. But are people really reading the newspaper anymore?

Tim Melanson: No, no, they’re not.

Jamie Levin: I mean, they may be reading it online, right?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Jamie Levin: But I’m a little old school. I still like a book other rather than a Kindle. So I don’t know. Maybe there are still some, I’m not sure.

Tim Melanson: oh, sure. There’s a few here and there. Right.

Jamie Levin: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But definitely not the masses. So, so tell me, like, how would somebody, what’s the process of, of someone getting in touch with you? What, what do they do?

Jamie Levin: Yeah, I like to consider myself pretty accessible. Um, you know, they can go to my website, which is just j 11 communications.com, and there’s a way to get in touch with me there. Um, that’s easy because life shouldn’t be hard for certain things, um, or LinkedIn or. Send smoke signals, I don’t know. But, um, yeah, I, six degrees of separation.

Shoot me an email. Send me, [00:27:00] um, my clients love to text me and that’s cool too, right? Because it works. So, uh, any which way works for me?

Tim Melanson: So what’s the type of client that would get the most outta working out, working with you?

Jamie Levin: I would say someone who’s. You know, is interested in getting out there from a, again, this is, if we’re just talking like the external side, right? Because there’s internal also, but from an external perspective, it’s somebody who understands that they’re competing with every other person in their industry for news coverage.

So let’s be mindful, you know, on the first day you’re not gonna get the Today Show. Like it’s just, it’s not gonna happen. I will, I will level set with you right there. But I think it’s someone who’s willing to get a little creative. Wants to get some exposure and some, you know, recognize themselves as a subject matter expertise and knows what their target is.

Like, there is nothing more attractive to me than someone who’s [00:28:00] like, this is who I need to talk to. And I’m like, great, if that’s who you need to talk to, this is where we’re going. Um, because then I can be more effective rather than, you know, casting the wide net. And is that necessary? Sometimes a hundred percent.

Also side note, that helps with SEO and SEM, right? So. If you have a good marketing person or a good agency, then we work together, we partner, and then things get really exciting and sexy. But, um, I would say someone who’s just interested in getting themselves out there and is willing to give a little bit of time.

Right. Because if you’re not willing to give me a little bit of time, I’m not gonna be helpful to you. And I’ll tell you that from the very beginning. I’m very, very honest.

Tim Melanson: great. So probably the hardest question. Tell me who’s your favorite rockstar?

Jamie Levin: Oh gosh. My husband would want me to say my favorite band is Phish, and I think my nephew would do,

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Jamie Levin: um, jam band. Um, [00:29:00] that’s a tough one

for me. I, because you know why? Because just like, I like all different industries. I like all different kinds of music. I like can go country, I can go rap, I can go r and b, I can go rock.

Um, I just love music. I just love music, but I don’t have, like, I don’t know, I don’t have a favorite,

Tim Melanson: Have you been to a

Jamie Levin: so I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m a chameleon.

Tim Melanson: Yes. Oh me. Well, me too. I, I love all music. I do love

Jamie Levin: What’s your favorite, though? Like if, if I ask you the same question, what’s

Tim Melanson: I love The Beatles. The Beatles are my favorite band. Yeah. Um, but I mean, that’s just, it’s just the answer that I give. ’cause I do enjoy all types of music and, uh, so similar to you and Phish is awesome. I, I’ve been to a few of the phish uh, festivals back in the nineties and they were, they were crazy.

Jamie Levin: Still going strong.

Tim Melanson: Still going strong. That’s awesome. [00:30:00] Well, thank you so much for rocking on me today, Jamie. This has been a lot of fun.

Jamie Levin: Thank you. I appreciate it. Normally my clients are in front of it, so in front of the camera, so I, I took my turn today and I appreciate the opportunity.

Tim Melanson: Well, you did an excellent job.

Jamie Levin: Thank.

Tim Melanson: Thank you. And thank you to the listeners as well. 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. Today’s episode, we are talking to a speaker, an author, a podcaster, an insurance agent, and what he does is he helps people to navigate working from home. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Chris Castanes. Hey Chris, you ready to rock?

Chris Castanes: I am Tim. I am. All ready to go, man. You got me all juiced up here now. Ready and excited.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Well, we always start off in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Chris Castanes: Oh, great. Uh, one of, one of the, one of the stories of success is, um, honestly, I just, I wanna, I like bragging about my books. I, I’ve written a couple of books. Um, one of them, the first one I self-published, it was just a learning curve that was took forever and it, when I published it. I felt like I had really accomplished something.

It took me about six months to figure out how to do it, edit photos and all that stuff. And it was just fun [00:01:00] to do, you know, it was just like a good project and the book was, did exactly what I wanted it to do, which was just be a good marketing tool and get my, my name out there and let people know this is what I do.

And it, it was just, you know, it was like a little win for me. It was, it was a good one.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Yeah. Writing a book is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it was fun. I, it was really a lark at the time. I was wanting to just write a book on something that I wish somebody had told me before I got into the business of sales. So the book is called, you’re Gonna Be Great at This, and. And, um, and the reason I call it that was because anytime, I don’t know if you’ve ever been on any, uh, interviews for sales jobs, but especially a, a position that’s a hundred percent.

Uh, commission, you know, where they don’t, you don’t have a salary and they can’t find people. They, they’re always looking for people for these positions. So they, they just tell you [00:02:00] stuff, you know, oh, it’s the best product ever, and we’re the greatest company ever. And, and, you know, we’ve got the best products and you’re, and people are gonna love it, and you don’t even have to sell it.

They’re gonna come to you and ask for it, which is all, you know, not

true. And then of course they always throw in that, you know, we’ve, even though we’ve only known you for eight seconds and you’ve got a great personality, we know you’re gonna be great at this. And I always, I always tell people, when you hear that run, you know, that’s so people think when I say, yeah, it’s called, you’re gonna be great at this.

They think it’s like motivational, but I’m like, no, it’s not, not, that’s not what it’s.

Tim Melanson: It’s a bit sarcastic, I guess.

Chris Castanes: Yeah, it’s a little backhanded, you know? Here you go. So, but that’s what the, that’s the whole tone of that book is, is just, here’s stuff that’s out there, the landmines and what to look out for if you’re going into a sales position and it’s, and it’s all, or, or if you’re self-employed.

’cause if you’re self-employed, you’re in sales. And that’s the whole point of the book. But yeah, that was my, that’s [00:03:00] my, my win, I guess.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Right on. Well, along with the good notes, sometimes things don’t go as planned, and I do like to talk about the bad notes as well. So can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered?

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, that’s every day. You know, it’s, uh, being, being a business owner, you always have those, those down notes. And, um, I, I, a great one was just yesterday, as a matter of fact. It was just, you know, coming out of the new year, you’ve got your, you. New motivation, you know, I’m gonna go out there and knock it outta the park.

And my resolutions and what I’ve been doing recently is just sending people emails and notes on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, here’s my calendar. Book a time and I’ll come to you and we’ll meet. And um, sure enough, I got my first, uh, stood up for my first appointment of the year yesterday after driving 20, about 20 miles to this coffee shop and.

Nobody showed up and I’m calling ’em, and they didn’t even return the phone call. So that’s my [00:04:00] one, one of those little failures that it just, you know, there again. It’s, it’s, it’s just those things that happened, but it’s, you know, and it’s, it was a little extra punch in the gut because this person booked the appointment on, on to, on their time.

So it wasn’t, like I said, I’m gonna see you, you know, at this point and this time they did it, and it still didn’t, they still didn’t show up. So, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s par for the course when you’re in business though.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, I mean, nowadays, like thank goodness for Zoom, uh, like I moved everything pretty much to zoom now. I barely ever go and meet anybody in person anymore. And you know, so this sting is much less when they don’t show up to a Zoom call as opposed to driving across the city just for a meeting, uh, you

Chris Castanes: I know it is, it is painful and, and Zoom is, is great. I’ve actually done a few more Zoom calls, especially since COVID of course, but you know, [00:05:00] I’m still old school, you know, let’s go meet for some coffee, I’ll buy you some coffee, and I give ’em some brochures and you know, that kind of thing. And it’s hard to do that when you’re over a computer, but at the same time, you know, I’m not wasting, you know, a gallon of gasoline.

Whatever else, you know. Uh, hour of my time, hour and a half driving all over the place for nothing. So there’s good and bad, but yeah, I, I get it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it does happen, eh, uh, and, you know, ’cause, uh. Mean, you had mentioned that you’ve been self-employed for a long time now, 25 years, right? Isn’t it? Something like that or

Chris Castanes: yeah, I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been in sales since I got outta college back in 1985, but I went, I went. Back to the corporate world for a little bit, um, and gotten back in back, gotten back into sales in 2000

and, um, and I’ve been self-employed ever since. And it’s, you know, it’s got a lot of ups [00:06:00] and downs.

It’s fun. You know, you have to, you have to learn how to navigate ma, manage your time wisely, um, market yourself, all those things that are. You know, customer service, once you get the sale, you still have to service the customer and you know, it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there’s a lot of juggling. Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: yeah. You gotta wear a lot of hats and, you know, I, I ha luckily I haven’t had many HR complaints on myself, so, but, but if I don’t start behaving, I, I might turn myself in for something.

Tim Melanson: Jeez, you’re, you’re lucky. You’ve got a good boss.

Chris Castanes: I know.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, I, I do think so. I mean, talking about sales, I, you know, I, I did spend some time in, uh, in commission sales as well, mostly in the network marketing industry actually. And, uh, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it’s one of those things that, [00:07:00] um, when you start a business. You know, you think, oh, you know, I’m, I’m a great, you know, whatever it is, you know, a mechanic or hairdresser or web developer, whatever it happens to be, and you think I’m just gonna start my own business and cut out the middleman.

And you really realize really quickly that sales is like a lot of it, like a lot of it. And, uh, I don’t think, I don’t think a lot of people are really prepared for that. Uh, we don’t, we don’t learn sales in school, do we?

Chris Castanes: No, we don’t and, and I wish they. Hal it, uh, uh, honestly, I do, and, and I talk about that in my first book about how there you get people who get caught up in network, network, uh, sales and, and affiliate sales and things like that, and, and they’ve bought a franchise into some multi-level marketing. And, um, you know, okay, it’s just a side hustle.

You don’t have to, and they don’t realize it’s, it’s sales, you know, and, and you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta go out there and, and, and do the stuff. You gotta [00:08:00] network. You know, you can’t, what, what do we say? You can’t just put your lamp. I think it says it in the Bible somewhere. Like you can’t just put your lamp under the, the table, you gotta put it on top of the table for everybody to see it.

So you can’t just sit at home and, and hope that, you know, invite your 37 Facebook friends to your new business page and expect them to buy things. You gotta go out there and hustle and, and go to networking events and online things and LinkedIn and everything. It’s, it’s, you gotta, especially now with.

Social media, you’ve gotta really do a whole holistic approach to your, your marketing. And if you do the marketing. Efficiently and effectively that takes more of that sales workload off of your plate. The, the, the sales is a whole lot easier if the marketing is done right. So that’s always been the, you know, the thrust is like, let’s, let’s figure out how to market first, then we can set the [00:09:00] table for the sale.

Otherwise, you’re just going in and. To cold call people, and it’s brutal, you

know? So,

Tim Melanson: Yep. Oh yeah. And I’ve been there too. The cold calling and all that stuff. ’cause I, I, you know, I, I, it’s, it’s funny ’cause I mean, you know, a lot of people have a really negative opinion of, you know, multilevel marketing and all that stuff. And yeah, there’s a ton of scams and a ton of scammers, that’s for sure.

However. Uh, the, the, the other side of it is that if you were to get into it, not thinking that you’re gonna be a millionaire, ’cause come on, you’re, you’re probably not, uh, especially if you have no experience, uh, but you will learn, you will learn a lot about people, about, about communication and about sales.

And I think what the, the kind of like a bit of a distinguisher between what you just said there about the marketing and the sales, you know, part of it is you gotta figure out a way to get people to come to you in the first place. And then once they come to you, you gotta figure out a way to talk to them to try to connect you what you do to [00:10:00] what they do.

And that would be more like the sales side of it? Is that how, how you see it too?

Chris Castanes: Oh yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, I mean take, take for something for instance, like, um, you know, hamburgers, you know McDonald’s. Does all the marketing upfront. They don’t have a sales guy just walking around town going, Hey, who wants a double cheeseburger?

You know? And, and so you walk into their business and then they still upsell you, you know, Hey, did you want fries with that or do you wanna supersize that, or whatever.

So. Even though every industry’s not the same, you know, nobody, people enjoy hamburgers, people don’t enjoy buying life insurance. And so you really have to make the marketing even better or more effective on that, in that industry. Um, because people are going, gosh, you know, if I got a choice between, I’ve got 10 bucks in my hand and I’ve got a choice between having a happy meal or having, you know, covering my family if I die. [00:11:00] They’re gonna take the.

Tim Melanson: They are gonna take the hamburger. We know that. Yeah. Well, yeah. ’cause uh, I mean, now, you know, the, the world is so different, like, because there’s, I mean, there’s two types of businesses that you might be running. You might be running a business where nobody knows what you do and nobody understands what you do, and you have to spend some time educating them on why they even need you in the first place.

But then there’s the other side of it of. Everybody knows what you do. You know, it’s something that everybody needs. But now you gotta figure out how to, how to distinguish yourself against everybody else who’s selling the same thing, right? And both of those are very challenging,

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, especially if you’re, uh, you know, if you create your, uh, something totally new. If you’ve come up with some totally new product or new market that nobody even knew, knew was needed, the education part, like you said, that could, that could cost you. Thousands of of dollars just to, just to [00:12:00] get people to wrap their head around what you’re trying to explain to ’em.

Um, you know, compared to, you know, well, we sell screwdrivers. Everybody, everybody’s, everybody that’s ever had a toolbox has a screwdriver in there, but nobody’s gonna know about some new. App that measures houses or something, you know, whatever. So there’s always the education part that kind of ties in with the marketing, but it’s, it’s such a, a bear sometimes if you’re doing something that’s just people don’t understand, or, you know, what, what I tell people a lot of times is there’s, I, I’ll give them the fill in the blank, uh, scenario.

I’ll say, okay, I am saving up for blank. Just think in your head, what do people save up for? You know, they save up for a down payment on a car or a home. Uh, nobody saves up for. Long-term care insurance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so, so if, if your industry doesn’t fit in that, [00:13:00] that little blank very well, then you’re gonna have a much harder time selling that product.

And so, and that means you’re gonna have to figure out how to market it. And if you’re not good at marketing, you might want to spend the money to hire a marketing firm. You might want to go and learn how to be a marketer, but. If you’re that poor guy that went out and joined, you know, you’ve been working in the engineering field all your life and now you’ve decided that you wanna sell protein shakes on the side as part of a multi-level marketing, just as a side hustle, and you don’t know anything about sales or marketing or anything like that.

It, it can be a bear. And I, I go to networking events all the time and I see people and they’ve come from these, you know, well, by the way, I’ve also got this other product and they just look sad, you know, they just, they look like somebody just punched them in the gut. Like, nobody told me I was gonna have to come to do all this stuff.

You know, they told me people would just come to me and, and get it, you know, so it, it’s. It I, it’s one of those things where you just wish people would [00:14:00] be honest and upfront when they say, Hey, we’ve got some idea for you, a business idea or sales product. We want you to sell and tell you, here’s the batting average and here’s how many people have come through the door in the last week that didn’t do well at this.

And here’s, you know, they always wanna show you the leaderboard. You know, here’s all man. Look at these top producers. Well, those are three guys out of 10,000 that have come through in the last six months. Where are the other ones? You know, so it’s, that’s one of my big gripes has always been, just be honest with people.

If what you’re selling is difficult, let ’em know that because turnover costs money too. And when you’re hiring salespeople or you’re hiring people to come onto your on board and sell your products, that costs you a lot of money as well. Uh, time and effort and get materials and training, training and all that stuff can cost a lot of money.

So you could really nip that in the bud. By just telling people upfront, here’s the real deal. I’m not gonna give you the rose colored glasses. [00:15:00] I’m gonna let you, you know, do you think you’re up for this? That’s, that’s the way I, I position it because I also hire, I don’t wanna say hire, but I have a little downline of insurance agents and, um, and I don’t take ’em unless they’ve been in the industry at least two years.

I, I don’t want the rookies, I don’t have time for it. Um, let, there’s a whole other. 10,000 other insurance companies out there that will hire the rookies and they’ll weed ’em out. And then I’ll take those that are sticking around and I’ll say, okay, come and work with me for a little bit also. So it’s, we’ve kind of gone off topic here a little bit, but the marketing and the is just, is such a.

Big, you know, part of it and, and making sure that you know how to position your products and, and if you don’t know how to position your business, especially if it’s a, a service industry, you know, something like that, real estate or something, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta really learn that part of the business as well.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, yes, but also [00:16:00] there’s another thing that I noticed too, is that there. Uh, I, there are some people that tend to, it doesn’t matter what they’re selling, they’re good at it.

Chris Castanes: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: You know, like it’s just, you, you know, you have, you have some people that just, you know, especially in those, in those companies that will jump around from like protein shakes and now they’re selling insurance, and now they’re selling and they’re, they’re making boatloads of money and no matter what they sell.

So there is some sort of like, like com, like there is sort of some sort of base skill, right. Involved. Right.

Chris Castanes: There’s, there’s a mentality there, and you’re right. You know, you can get that person and they’ll say, dude, I’ve been selling cars and I’ve been really good at it, and I’m just tired of it. I want to go sell. Refrigerators

Tim Melanson: Right.

Chris Castanes: whatever. And there are, those people are always gonna be out there, but they’re the, they’re far and few between really.

Um, and, and usually when you see those veterans at some, whatever business it is, say, say it is a, a big life insurance company, that guy [00:17:00] that’s been there for. 25, 30 years, he’s that person. He or she’s that girl that can go out and go wherever she wants to go. And if you’re good at sales, that sales set, that skillset is transferrable,

Tim Melanson: Yes. Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, and, and, and they can sell Yellow Pages ads.

They can sell ice to the Eskimos. But the question is. There, you know, how much ice did that Eskimo really need? And are you really doing that? Uh, that person, the service that you, you say that you are, are you, you know, are your values, uh, being translated through that transaction? So it’s really a matter of making sure that you know.

You know what you’re doing, how to do it right, and, and you can learn it. You know, there’s always positive. We’ve gotta have a positive mindset and all this stuff. I know some people that have really bad mindsets and they still sell, you know,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so I, it, I’ve never, I’m not a psychologist. [00:18:00] I’m, I don’t even play one on tv, but I can tell you that I’ve worked with all sorts of people and, and the ones that usually are successful, the ones that are just.

Let me, let me talk to you like we’re just friends and have a good conversation, and I’ll tell you the, the ups and downs, I’ll give you the positives and the negatives of this product or service. And those people gain trust, they gain credibility, and they’re gonna get the referrals and they don’t have to do all that.

Stressed out. High pressure selling. You know, I, I always say don’t do high pressure selling. Do good pressure selling. Um, you know, don’t tell people you have to have this life insurance product. Just go, look, Tim, you know, you’re married, you’ve got a, a family, you’ve got a mortgage. This is something you need.

If you or my brother or sister right now, I would highly recommend this. And that’s, that’s just good pressure. You know, I’m not, I’m not gonna beat you up if you don’t buy it. We’re still friends, whatever.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: And just [00:19:00] take it down a notch.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah. So what about, uh, what about mentorship? Like, do you, do you have mentors in your life that have gotten you to this point?

Chris Castanes: I’ve had a few mentors and, um, you know, my, my big thing on that has always been just. You’re always gonna have like a manager or a sales manager or somebody, don’t regard that as a mentor. Regard them for what they are. A good mentor won’t have any kind of financial stake in your success. And if you can find that person who, like for me, I had a older gentleman years ago who took me under his wing and he was retired and he just said, you know, I’ll just check in with you every once in a while and if you’ve got a a problem.

Call me and he showed me the ropes and, and really taught me a lot. And when I was doing well, he. He was happy, but he wasn’t making any money off of me. You know, he wasn’t going, Hey, [00:20:00] yeah, I finally got that guy making me an override commission, whatever. So, you know, and then when I was doing bad, I could pick up the phone and, you know, cry my blues to him and he would say, you know, well, let’s, let’s figure out what you’re doing wrong.

You know, so that’s, that’s a great mentor there. But a sales manager. No, not really. They’re just, they’re just trying to get you to stay in line and make sure that you’re doing, you know, they’ll, I mean, they, sometimes their intentions are good, but you have to understand that their intentions are also to keep their job and your job is to help them, you know, so.

Tim Melanson: There’s a bit of a conflict of interest. So I mean, it, it can, it can go in your favor because I mean, the conflict of interest is on a positive side. They win by you winning, so that’s good. But on the negative side, they might talk, not give you those like tough to hear truths, right?

Chris Castanes: Well, and they will, but they’ll, but then they’ll say, you know, well you need to get out there. And

you know, when somebody says, well, if you [00:21:00] just change your attitude, well, you know. Or, or like my, like my old man used to say, you know, all you need to do is go out there and get 10 pounds of confidence, you know?

And I’m like, well, you get confidence from getting little successes. And that’s, that’s how you build that confidence up. You don’t just go like, alright, I’m confident now. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a progress. So, yeah. You know, it, it, it’s good and bad both. But I just always try to find somebody that’s a little bit more detached from the situation and it can be a little bit more objective and, um, you know, they’ll, they’ll help you out.

You can always find somebody.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that’s important too. Like, I think, I think that having a, you know, a rich circle of influence, you know, in and outta your business. I mean, because I mean, if. Is it, it’s blind spots, right? I mean, you know, if, if you’re talking to somebody who’s in the same business as you all the time, then they might not be able to see what somebody who has no idea.[00:22:00]

Like I, I remember when I, even when I was in university, um, when I was struggling with a tough. Problem. It was more helpful for me to talk to somebody who had no idea what I was doing than it was for some, for me to talk to one of my, to one of my, my classmates, because you have to explain it to them in a way that they would understand.

And then they go, oh, well I see your problem. Or they don’t even, sometimes they don’t even say anything. It’s just you work through your own problem by going, oh, that’s what I’m doing wrong, just by explaining it to somebody.

Chris Castanes: by explaining it and breaking it down into very basic pieces, you’re, you’re explaining it to yourself. You know, and, and that’s a great con. That’s a great idea. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I mean, hey, nowadays we can talk to chat, chat bots and stuff like that and probably flesh through some of these things without even taking someone’s time. But on the other hand, having a person is, is, is, is better, I think.

Chris Castanes: Yeah. [00:23:00] Or cat, you know, I just get my cat and talk to my cat.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, so now you mentioned like, uh, you know, confidence comes from getting little wins.

Like, do you have any practices that, you know help you to get that those little wins or

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, one of the things I do is I just keep my calendar, uh, booked. You know, I try not to have a whole lot of downtime, uh, between, we always used to say, uh, between 10 and four you should be either seeing clients or fighting to see clients and. So between 10 and four, it’s either seeing a client or I’m got it written in the calendar, you know, I’m going to do some marketing, or I’m gonna do some, make some phone calls, or I’m gonna be sending out emails or whatever I gotta do.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: And just keep that, keep that everything’s got plugged in on that calendar. Uh, otherwise I’m sitting around playing, you know, candy Crush or watching TV or [00:24:00] whatever, hearing, you know, being self-employed and working from home. You can’t see it, but right over there’s a TV and you know, and then right back of me below this futon is my, my base.

And so, you know, there’s always that, you know, I just wanna like get up and go, man, I really would like to learn that, that new baseline that I didn’t learn, you know, whatever. So it, it’s fun. To be self-employed, but you have to have that discipline to go, I’ve got to stay narrowly focused, just if nothing else, between 10 and four.

And then, you know, from nine to 10 I’m still waking up, brushing my teeth and getting my head together and doing those things. And from four to five, I’m wrapping up the end of the day and getting ready for the next day. So if you just plug in that calendar, make sure everything’s. Good and make sure that you’re not wasting time.

Like when I get done with this podcast, I’ve probably got about 20 minutes and then I’ve gotta drive half hour up the road to a networking event and, [00:25:00] um, where I will be, you know, handing out brochures and trying to talk to people and doing all those things that are fighting to see clients, as we say, and fighting for referrals as much as you can.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and, and that’s, that’s just it, right? I mean, when you’re self-employed, you don’t have a, a boss that’s telling you what to do. You don’t have that same sort of like pressure, but it’s like, um, if you don’t work, then you don’t eat. And it might take a few weeks for that to start to happen, right?

Chris Castanes: Right. I mean, you gotta get out there and just plant those seeds and, and, or it’s funny, a friend of mine, he always refers to planting seeds that will blossom down the road. And I go and, and my analogy is always I’m planting landmines and I’m waiting for somebody to step on ’em. You know? So you.

Either way, you know, you’re, when you’re in sales or self-employed or whatever you’re doing, you’ve gotta play the, play the long game as well. And you gotta really be understanding that if [00:26:00] you’re not gonna just, you know, turn on the computer today and money’s gonna come in, I’ve gotta go out there and do the work, set the set the landmines, and keep setting those landmines.

And sooner or later, the ones I, the 10 I drop today, one of ’em is gonna explode next week. And you know, that’s a violent kind of analogy, but it’s one I like.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well there’s, there’s so much faith involved too in business. ’cause you, you, you, um. You know, it’s just, it’s different when you have that two week paycheck coming every time and you’re like, okay, well I know it’s coming. Whereas this right here, it’s like you plant all these seeds or you drop all these landmines and, and are they gonna, are they gonna pay off?

I don’t, like, you don’t really have that, uh, that shore thing, right. But I mean, on the other hand, you know, I, I mean, you’ve been self-employed for how long? I’ve been self-employed for 20. It always comes back. It does, right?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it’s [00:27:00] it having a little faith in yourself. Goes a long way. And, and, and there again, it’s all about how, you know, those are, that’s marketing. That’s if, if it’s not working and your land minds are just duds and nobody’s stepping on ’em, then maybe you need to adjust your marketing a little bit and you have to be a little bit more self-aware of what’s working and, and just being honest and saying, and, and, and the, and the other trap is when you, when you set one landmine and somebody steps on it.

Then you think, oh, that’s always gonna work. And then you find out that that was just a fluke and that was, you know, not, it wasn’t the case. So sometimes we have that one little quick success that, and then we think, well, that’s a good pattern to get into and realize that it’s not. So it more of a trends kind of guy sometimes, and I say, let’s, let’s see what’s happening over the long term. And look at some numbers. Let’s see where the numbers are going. You just had that one one little pop, but you didn’t have another pop for a [00:28:00] month. Maybe there’s something wrong there and that’s why you’re eating mayonnaise, sandwiches for lunch instead of a, a real hamburger or something.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. So let’s get into your solo. Tell me what’s exciting your business right now.

Chris Castanes: Uh, the most exciting thing right now is, is probably my podcast. I’ve, um, as, as I was telling you earlier, I, I do insurance, but I’ve branched that over into this other field. ’cause my, what I’ve done with my insurance agency, mostly since COVID, is I’ve just put it online and it’s, a lot of it is self service.

People can go on there and get their own. You know, dental and vision insurance and things like that. But what we’ve done, uh, also is with the two books and I’ve done some speaking engagements and, um, things like that. And so we’re, we’ve opened up this podcast. Arm of the business about six months ago, and I’ve just had a blast.

It’s, it is just fun. I’ve enjoyed it. I, um, I’m [00:29:00] comfortable in front of the computer talking to the camera and talking to people about, you know, fun subjects like sales and marketing and things like that. And, and I have my own podcast. I’m marketing that and it’s just fun. I mean, it, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s just something I enjoy doing and talking to other podcasters and being on a guest on other people’s shows.

It is just been, it is just been a hoot and, um, you know, and people are, are most, haven’t had any bad experiences. Everybody’s been very nice and I’ve only cried twice and so, you know, I’m very sensitive.

Tim Melanson: So what is it that you guys talk about then?

Chris Castanes: We, well, it’s very similar to your podcast here. We talk about, uh, things that can help, um, small business owners, solopreneurs, uh, anybody that’s self-employed. You know, ten nine, what we call 10 99 salespeople here in, in the states. Um, you know, we don’t have benefits, so we have to get our own [00:30:00] ’cause everybody else has employee benefits and we don’t.

So we have to do our own, uh, thing when it comes to that. But we do our own marketing and so I’m very active in, in like the local Chamber of commerce.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Chris Castanes: you know, and I, and networking events and those, and what you find is that’s, that’s that world, more of those people, uh, and we’re all in the same boat.

And even though we’re not, I, a lot of times I’ll go to a networking event or, and there’ll be, uh. Competitors of mine there, and we network. And just because somebody’s your competitor doesn’t mean you can’t get along with ’em and talk to ’em. And, and I’ve actually gotten more business referrals from my competitors who don’t like doing some of the things I do.

And I don’t like doing some of the things that they’re doing. So we’re swapping referrals amongst ourselves and that’s the kind of thing we talk about on the podcast, uh, mindset, uh, skill sets. Just tips and tricks, uh, you know, [00:31:00] things that can help people. You know, one of my, one of my favorite little pieces of advice, you know, sometimes it’s like if you got a sign magnet on your car, where are you gonna park your car at the grocery store?

You know? And I always tell people are like, huh? I don’t, I’ve never even considered that. Park it next to where you, everybody pushes their shopping carts, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: Because that’s gonna be the highest visibility. And, and, and I’ve had people, I’ve never even thought that that would be a thing. But you know, I don’t know if that’s gonna help, but it’s not gonna do you any good to park your car in the back of the parking lot ’cause you’re afraid another car might hit you if you’ve got a sign magnet.

What was the point of getting the sign magnet? Nobody’s gonna put it, come out there and see it, you know? So you might as well make it in braille if you’re gonna do that. So I don’t know. So that’s the kind of thing we put on our show. It’s just, uh. You know, tips and tricks and helpful advice and marketing and networking and things like that.

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

Chris Castanes: Uh, well the show is called, um, you’re gonna be great at this. It’s on [00:32:00] Spotify, YouTube, apple, all those. And, um, it’s just there. You just tune in. I’d love to have. Some more listeners. Uh, we’re very, uh, as I say all the time, I have dozens of fans all over the world. So, so it’s a new podcast and I, and I’m learning it and I’m not, I’m not, you know, upset.

You know, people are like, how do I want to have 10,000 subscribers? And I’m like, dude, I’d be happy if I have like a half dozen at this point. I’m keep the bar low.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Awesome. So then, uh, this might be the hardest question. So who is your favorite rockstar?

Chris Castanes: Well, let’s see. Um, that’s a good question. I mean, I’ve always been a, a fan of, uh, Elvis just because he was just such a pioneer. But, um, my, my new favorite genre of music, let, let’s do it this way. My new favorite genre of music has been punk covers of old classic rock songs.

Tim Melanson: Wow.[00:33:00]

Chris Castanes: So, so there’s a, there’s a, uh, several bands out there that do, uh, you know, a lot of punk bands that will do covers of classic rock songs.

And then there’s some that, that’s all they exclusively do. And I really like that kind of stuff. So like, there’s a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of

Tim Melanson: heard them. Yeah, I’ve heard of them.

Chris Castanes: yeah. They’ve been around for years and years. I, I mean, I love listening to that. Uh, that’s what I like playing on musically and, um.

So, yeah, that’s a, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s just fun to hear it and listen to it and, and it’s, you know, fun to play. Uh, um, you know, when you’re, when you’re in a, you know how this is when you’re in a band and somebody’s like, well, let’s play this song and it okay. But it’s really slow and. People might want to hear it, but it’s not fun to play. You know, and then there’s things that you just want to play, and it’s loud and it’s, you know, keeping you busy and making your brain go a hundred miles an hour. That’s, that’s the kind of stuff I like. So, and, and I, especially when you’re a little a [00:34:00] DD like I am, and, you know, so.

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

Chris Castanes: Well, thank you Tim, and you’re doing a great service out there too. I, I appreciate your podcast, you, you share a lot of great guests and have lots of good information to share with people, so thank thanks to you as well. I.

Tim Melanson: Oh, thank you so much. Right on. 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: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Today I’m talking to the CEO of Catalyst Growth Advisors, and what he does is he helps leaders take the guesswork outta growth. Excited to hear more about that. So we are rocking out today with Bill Flynn. Hey, Bill, you ready to rock?

Bill Flynn: Ready to rock.

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

Bill Flynn: Yeah, well, um, we do good and, and actually your good and your bad note are in the same story. So can I, can I do that?

Tim Melanson: they often are.

Bill Flynn: Okay. So, um, the reason I do what I do today is because of this story. I, uh, so I did, uh, I’ve, I’ve done 10 startups here in the Boston area over about 25 years, all in high tech and, um. Between start of five and six, I was asked by my then wife and daughter, do I need to do another one right away? ’cause they, you know, they take a lot of time and energy and, and things and, and I had done pretty well. I was, I [00:01:00] was, uh, I think four for five at that time. Uh, and. Uh, so I said, no, I don’t. I, so I, I took time off.

I spent a lot more time with my daughter. She was, um, like seven or eight, something like that. And, um, one I, but I was still known in the area and people heard that I was now free. And so I would get calls and can you come help me and do this and do that? So one of the calls was from an old, um, um, CFO friend of mine, and he was doing a fractional gig with a, with an email hosting company.

And he said, you really gotta help this guy. You know, he’s really struggling and whatever. So I met with him. I said, uh, yeah, I’m happy to help. Uh Uh I’m expensive and I only work Monday through Thursday between 10 and two. I said,

can you do that while I’m sort of off off? Right.

Uh. Because, you know, I wanna drop my daughter off at school, then I go work out, then I go pick her up and we do stuff and whatever.

So, so, uh, that was great. I did that. Um, he [00:02:00] eventually, he said, look, I wanna sell the company. I’ve been doing this for a whole bunch of years. I’m tired. Uh, I just wanna, can you help me? Make me look as big as you possibly can so I can get as much money outta this as I possibly can. So I’m like, great. So we. You know, hired a bunch of people, put together some, some strategy and, and some frameworks and stuff. And about a year later he got bought for a good amount of money, enough for him to never have to work again. Uh, and then I was asked to take over, uh, so this was 2008 and, uh, my first official day as what would be general manager, uh, was, uh, January 4th, 2009. And I like to describe it as the best and the worst day of my professional life, which is sort of the good, the good and the bad note

together. Uh, we didn’t deliver email to anyone for about two and a half days because the entire technical infrastructure that he had built, and I had been working with him and collapsed on itself due to the volume that it wasn’t ready to handle. [00:03:00] So the company that bought us knew that the system needed to be upgraded, et cetera, but you know, they didn’t realize it needed to be done that quickly. And so they were sort of taking care of that. But I had 60 people working for me, thousands of customers. Uh, so I’m like, you know, what do I need to do? I need to fix this and sort of help all these people. And, um, I, I had a bunch of good CEOs that I had worked with in the previous years. I’ve been a big fan of business anyway, I’ve been reading. For years, decades. And so I had all sort of these ideas, so I’m like, all right, well let’s give ’em a go. And so I basically cobbled together a system. And for those of you, and you may know this, Tim, uh, there’s a system out there called EOS. And, um, I basically made my own EOS because I wasn’t smart enough to know that it was already out there. So I made my own and it worked fabulously, uh. You, you can look at, you can look at my LinkedIn and see all the wonderful stats that I have up there. You know, we doubled the size of the business in about two years and I didn’t lose any of those [00:04:00] 60 people. Um, we increased the average order size. You know, we had customer stats scores that, you know, were, started off lousy of course, and then really good. But the best part was this, I sort of, um. I had a team and then I inherited a bunch of people and you know, none of us had been through this sort of disaster before, and some of them hadn’t really been leaders of anything before. Uh, so I said to them, look, uh, we need to figure this out. We have all these people relying on us. I said, look, I don’t, I’m technically adept, but I don’t know how to run a network infrastructure. I’ve never run customer support before. I’m not a finance guy said, but. You know, so I, you know, I need you guys and I can’t really tell you what to do ’cause I don’t know what to do.

But I can tell you sort of what I would like it to look like when we’re done and would love to discuss debate and decide that with you. And then I need each of you to then say, okay, if that’s sort of our ultimate goal, what’s your piece of it? And I need you to sort of draw me the map from where we are. To where, what you need to get to, where you [00:05:00] want to be, and then we’re gonna work together to, to do that. Um, and you know, as I said, it worked fabulously well. Uh, and so about 18 months later, I left to go do the next startup, which would’ve been startup six, I guess. And two of the guys came up to me and they kind of said the same thing to me when I was always leaving was, I just want you to know, bill, that thing you made me do that roadmap, you made me create, hated it.

It was really, really hard, but I’m so glad you made me do it because now I know how to do this right? It’s sort of like sort of a teach ’em to fish kind of thing. Um, so that really sprung me into what I do now, which is I, I now do that with other leaders. I teach them. How the best businesses in the world work, because by the way, they all work kind of the same way at a certain level. And so that’s sort of what I do and I love what I do. It’s a calling. I wish I, I wish I had been doing it longer. I’ve been doing about 10 years. It’s just a blast. Um, time flies when I work with my clients, you know, I, [00:06:00] it’s, uh, it pays really well. So it’s, uh, so that’s my good note and my bad note.

Tim Melanson: So what did you learn from the bad note, I guess?

Bill Flynn: Uh, uh, what I learned is that most leaders, uh, don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not their fault. Uh, they’re being taught the wrong things.

There’s a huge gap between what science knows and what business does. Um, we make lots of mistakes. We don’t make big, huge mistakes very often, but we make. Little ones that just add

up and it makes our lives so much harder than they really need to be.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, the compound effect, right?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. If it was a big mistake, you’d notice it right away.

Bill Flynn: Yeah.

Yeah. You know, you, you hire that one person that, you know, they looked good and then all of a sudden, you know, nobody likes ’em and they don’t work and then, and then you don’t do anything about it. And then they start hiring people. It’s like, it just becomes an issue. That’s just one [00:07:00] of many things that we do. Uh, and because, you know, we were taught to, you know, to hire for skill and knowledge, and that’s not the way you should hire a loan, right? You said yes, that’s important, but to be honest with you, it’s less important than hiring them for belief and, and fit,

uh, values. Uh, you can teach ’em skills and knowledge, but you can’t teach ’em how to be, how out of integrity or honesty or whatever.

Tim Melanson: I can’t agree more than that. That’s, that’s actually something that has come up many times on the, on the show where people will make hires based on the, you know, picking the best of the best and it just ends up not being a very good fit. Um, but like, what about friends? Should you hire friends?

Bill Flynn: Uh, you can, but you know, it’s gonna test your friendship. Especially if they work for you. Um, so what happens is I hire people and then, then they become friends,

and then I hire ’em again. Right. But, but we know, like the dynamic, right? We know that, you know, I [00:08:00] have certain style, I do certain things and you know, my style is basically to, to set direction and then. To say, Hey, great. Do, do what you do and then tell me if you need me.

Right? I’m gonna check on you every now and again. I, you know, I’ve been calling it eyes on, hands off leadership, right? Is, is, you know, I’m gonna keep an eye on things, making sure things are going well, but I’m gonna keep my hands out of it unless something happens and I need to, but, you know, uh, so so that works. But if you don’t set that up ahead of time, you know, there’s gonna be, it could be difficult.

Tim Melanson: So then what are some of the, I guess, processes that you put in place to avoid some of those mistakes that you know led to your bad note?

Bill Flynn: Yeah. Well, how long is your show?

Tim Melanson: So that’s a

whole course then.

Bill Flynn: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So at, but at a high level, uh, the thing that I’ve learned over 30 years of, of, of research and business and really intensely in the last 10, you know, I, I might be the world expert in what I do. I don’t know, [00:09:00] uh, ’cause I’ve been studying business from multiple perspectives for about 10 years and. Uh, not only just, you know, business itself, but you know, neuroscience and behavioral and social psychology and all of these things that go along with running a great business because I found that there are three things that seem to be the, the biggest factors in whether you have not a business that survives, but a business that thrives. Uh, and there are few of them. There aren’t that many. Uh, there are outliers, but it’s doable. Uh, and it’s, and it’s been proven over and over again. So it’s, it’s not like we can’t do it, but as I said earlier, we just don’t. Um, and that is, uh, so, so there’s a, there’s a methodology called scaling Up. That I use as a foundation.

Some of your listeners may know what it is, and, and there are four decisions that they talk about, which are people, strategy, execution, and cash. And so people is the most important, but people is three different things. It’s the individual, it’s the team, and it’s the culture of those three [00:10:00] team is far more important than either of the other two

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Bill Flynn: because most people are on a team. And most people will stay in a horrible culture if they’re on a great team and actually will leave a great culture if they’re on a bad team. So the team is really the core of what you do and, and we never teach people how to be great team leaders. We put ’em in charge. But we don’t teach them how, you know, what it worked, how, how do you attract and, and dev and craft and then develop and exit people from a team. We don’t teach any of that. And that’s sort of what I do as well. So that’s one big factor is this team factor is huge. Then you have to have some sort of system, right. Um, running a business. Uh, so a business is a system, but it’s not just any kind of system. It’s what’s called a complex adaptive system like the human body or a city, uh, et cetera.

These are complex. There are so many factors that are involved that affect the system, and [00:11:00] there’s no way to just sort of say, this is it, and we’re done, because then something changes and then, you know, the system is affected. So you have to understand that, that this, you have to sort of run it like that, but you should have one. Right. You should run your business in a systematic way, which most people don’t. Um, they do the, they make the same decision over and over again. You know, they, they, they solve the problem and never say, well, what caused that problem? And we

should solve that so it

doesn’t happen. And go back to the root.

You know, there’s just so many things that we don’t do ’cause we’re busy and whatever. Um, so, so you have to have some sort of system. Uh, I, I teach a system. I call it the performance operating system. It’s to me, for me, the, I cobbled together the best parts of all the things that I’ve learned. Uh, and it seems relatively unique, but it’s really based on Drucker Deming, sche McGregor, Bennis, Porter Edmondson.

It’s, you know, all these management science people that have been around for a hundred years, really. Um, and then the last thing is, if you wanna measure how well you’re doing. [00:12:00] Revenue and profit are not your measurement. Cash is your measurement. If you wanna grow a business, cash is your primary financial metric. Why? Because it’s the only thing that won’t lie to you on your p and l or your balance sheet. You can, you know, certainly have revenue that is, you know, vanity, right? But it doesn’t mean you’re running a great business. Profit is great, but you can fool yourself on profit. You can move money around and seem profitable and whatever.

Or you can actually grow. In such a way that you grow broke, right? You’re growing and the profit’s there, but the profit, the cash is too far behind the growth. So you grow broke, uh, because you’ve grown so fast, you actually put yourself out of business, right? So those are the three things you need, team, some sort of system, and then cash.

If you focus on those three things and optimize those three things, you’re in the best possible position to have a thriving company.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s amazing. Wow. So much gold. So quickly. Well done. Uh, I have a question though about, ’cause you mentioned so many startups that you [00:13:00] started up and uh, you know, I know a lot of entrepreneurs kind of do a bunch of different things, but I think. Probably it’s more normal that they do a bunch of things because the fir, the, the first thing failed and then they go to something else and they go to something else.

Um, but I talk to more people more often that have that one business that they’ve been doing forever because now it works. Right. W when you go into those businesses, did you go into them initially with the intent that you were gonna be leaving at some point or. Did it just, you created these systems and then it was just easy to leave.

Like what? What was the mindset going into them?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so, um. You know, you hear, uh, these things like what’s your superpower or your zone of genius or whatever, right? And we have all these wonderful little phrases for stuff. Um, but to me it’s really the thing that lights you up or turns you on or whatever, you know, gets your juices, whatever that thing is.

Right? And for me it’s puzzles.

I just love [00:14:00] puzzles. Uh, I have a brain that just loves puzzles, right? And, and so I do puzzles all over. I mean, I, I have the New York Times. You know, crossword and, and app and I do all, all those things. You know, a startup is just a big puzzle. You know, I love Mensa questions and stuff like that really challenged me.

I love watching detective shows and trying to figure out, you know, as I go, like, what’s, what’s gonna happen? And I love it when I don’t, right? It’s even, uh, because it’s fun. It’s like, ah, I never, that’s a cool way to do it. Um, so, so that’s what got me into it. Um. And so what happens when you’re good at puzzles and you, and you’re good at startups, uh, the people who know that want you to do the another one.

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Bill Flynn: So like, so you like, you know, you get an

IPO or you get an acquisition and they’re like, you know, great. Now do this one, right? And, and can you make us some more money? And all that kind of stuff. So that’s sort of what happens is you get sort of into this thing. I don’t necessarily go into a thing, I’m gonna leave at any particular time, but. You know, when it becomes routine, it is, it’s, there’s less puzzle there, right? It’s

your, you know, there is some puzzle, there’s always a puzzle, you know, [00:15:00] people are puzzles. I mean, we’re crazy by default and, you know, and sort of all that. And I find that fascinating. Um, but I do like the figuring out parts.

So, um, now I get to do it. I’m not doing startups, but I’m, I’m sort of going into a company and I’m helping them figure it out,

right? So it’s a new thing every time with them. Uh, so that’s sort of. That’s sort of the, the, the, the way I’ve approached it so far.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I really like that. And you know, I think, oh, oh, well that’s the thing. Once you solve a puzzle, it’s solved. It’s not fun anymore. Right. Like quote unquote. And you know, I don’t know if this is too deep or not, but maybe what you said earlier about how most entrepreneurs or most business people don’t.

Look at why the problem happened. They just keep on solving the problem as they happen. Maybe that’s why maybe they don’t wanna solve the puzzle. Maybe they don’t wanna leave. Right? They want it. They want it to keep on living in that chaos,

Bill Flynn: Could be. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you

Tim Melanson: least subconsciously.

Bill Flynn: chaos. Yeah. Who knows? I mean, there are some, they love the drama, right. And, and whatever they feed off of that. Um, most [00:16:00] entrepreneurs I know don’t,

Tim Melanson: No. No.

Bill Flynn: they would, they would rather it be, you know, a, a little less hard

because, you know, it makes your life more difficult.

And, you know, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t want to have your, your work. Be your whole life, right? Is, is, you know, we talk about work-life balance and I don’t think that’s a thing at all. There’s no balance in work and life, right? It’s, it’s, you know, sometimes one pull thing pulls you in the other and you have to integrate them, right?

So the integration is important, um, but you’ll never have balance. Uh, and, but especially if you are, if you are sucked into what I call the, sort of the tyranny of the moment, right? This is a problem that most leaders have is they get sucked into the tyranny of the moment and there are lots of them, and they feed off of that, right?

Is is that actually they like being the solver and the decider and

whatever. But then they don’t create, you know, they don’t, I have this concept, uh, that, that’s in my next book, which is [00:17:00] sort of the, the, the hero trap, right? We have this trap that we like to be the hero. And, and by the way, you know, especially in western culture, individualism and all that is, it’s part of our thing, right?

Is the hero is, is all lauded. Um. But in a business it doesn’t work. ’cause, ’cause the hero doesn’t scale. At some point you run out of hours in a day or brain cells or whatever. Right? So, uh, this concept I’ve come up with is, you know, you have to sort of, sometimes it’s good to be a hero. You have to be the hero. You have a particular skill or there’s the house is on fire or whatever. You gotta go in and just do. Right? Um, but it, but if you just do and then go onto the next thing, then. The house will catch fire a different way, and then you’ll have to go do it again. So, you know, it’s like once you do that, you should then teach and say, okay, here are the people that need to know, here’s what I did, here’s how I fixed it, you know?

And so now they’re learning at least how you do it, right? So there’s this controller, which is the hero, then there’s builder, right? So the controller is [00:18:00] iol. The builder is I teach, and then the architect, which is really what you want to scale because that is infinite in scale, is, is I build systems that make me unnecessary for the running of the business. Uh, and that is what you drive towards. So this is Reed Hastings at Netflix. Um, uh, uh, this is um, Jeff Bezos at Amazon. You know, pick your. You know, company that has grown crazy in the last 10, 15, 20 years. These are architects. They’ve built systems that don’t need them for the day to day ’cause they’re looking out into the future.

And that’s what you should be doing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and that is a superpower and that is something that I think is missing. Misunderstood by the majority of the population. You know, thinking that these guys make way too much money or whatever it is, and maybe they do, right? Uh,

do they need that many billions? I don’t know. But on the other hand, that is a superpower.

I mean, [00:19:00] they have been able to do something that very few people are able to do. Otherwise, everybody be doing it right.

Bill Flynn: Yeah. Yeah. And so very few people are architects, right. And, and you’re not, so it’s, it’s not like you’re one or the other. Some you have to don the, the identity, depending on what you need. Right? Sometimes Jeff Bezos had to go in and. Do something right. But, but he never stopped at that. He said, okay, you know what happened here?

And, and eventually, ’cause those of you know, like there’s 14 principles in the Amazon system. And now Jassy, who’s the new CEO, he runs like six Fortune 500 companies

on his own. How can you do that? I mean, they’re all worth billions and billions of dollars each, but he runs them as he’s the, he’s the CEO of all of them,

uh, because Bezos and the team and et cetera put all that in place over, you know, years and decades.

So he can, I.

Tim Melanson: It’s fascinating to think about it that way. Really. I mean, you, you’d almost think that in a way, these people are lazy [00:20:00] because they’re trying to figure out ways to make their company work without them. If they get pulled into something, they’re like, I need to figure out a way to not be pulled into this again.

And, and, uh, it’s

just, it’s just, interesting how that works. ’cause I mean, that’s probably why he’s able to run so many different companies because he doesn’t need to be pulled in very often. He is figured out how to, how, how to replace himself, right?

Bill Flynn: Exactly. Yeah. There’s, there’s a, there’s a Prussian General, and I can’t remember his name, Vaughn something or other, and he said, you know, what kind of offices do you look for? He says, I want lazy and clever officers. Right? ’cause I want them to, to be smart enough to know, you know, that, that their job is to not. Do a lot of stuff. Right. Uh, and that’s what you’re kinda looking for, right? That’s what a, a lazy and clever leader is probably the best kind of leader you want. ’cause they’re constantly, I, I was, it’s funny I did that with, I, I said that to once to a VC person and she said, you know, tell me about, you know, what you do.

And I said, well, I’m basically lazy. And she like, she looked at me and it’s like, you know, that’s a bad thing. And it’s like, no, no. I said, here’s why I’m late. I said, I don’t, you know, my job is to create an environment where I’m not necessary.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:21:00]

Bill Flynn: Because if I’m a leader of the company, my job is not the running of the company.

It is at the beginning, but it’s to figure out, like whenever I started as a VP of sales, I would, I would be the sales guy, right? And I would do, but I’m learning, right? And I’m learning, you know, how does this work? And, and so what kind of salesperson do I need to hire to replace me? Uh, and then I can teach them like how I do sales and how I think, and all the, you know, ’cause I generally had an unusual way of doing sales, um, which really worked really well. Um, that’s why I would teach them when I do that, but then I’m like, you know, go, you know, let me know if you need me.

Tim Melanson: Love

Bill Flynn: Um, and, and they were all different. Like one was really relationship oriented. One was a, technically was a perfect technical salesperson, you know, I’m like, I don’t care how you do it. I have two rules.

Be honest and responsible. As long as you follow those rules, do it any way you want, you know? So

Tim Melanson: The world is changing really quickly right

now, and especially with something like AI coming in and, uh, that comes up quite often on the [00:22:00] show. Uh, I’m wondering, you know, how do you think that changes the role of the CEO or the business owner?

Bill Flynn: Yeah. So, uh, you bring this up. It’s interesting. So, um, there’s this term, uh, that we used to be in, which was called vuca, a VUCA environment. Are you familiar with this?

Tim Melanson: Nope.

Bill Flynn: Volatile, uncertain complex, and I forget what the A is. Um, and this was sort of like, hey, this was, came outta the war college here in the United States, you know, this is how leaders had to be thinking about this.

You know, the, the rules of war have changed.

You have to understand it, be adaptive and you know, et cetera. Um, and we’re no longer in that. And actually we’re moving from that to what’s called banney, which is a brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible.

And the, the poster child example of this is Silicon Valley Bank. I dunno if you’re familiar with what happened with Silicon Valley Bank, but, but $425 [00:23:00] billion was withdrawn in 24 hours

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: because the leader did what he always did. Like he, he shared with his, um, team and with the world, Hey, something’s happening. We’re fixing it. And he’d let everyone know. And then Peter Thiel didn’t like it. And so he said, I’m taking my money out and so should all of you. And because you could just get on your phone and just withdraw billions of dollars. They, you know, just, and he didn’t do anything differently than he hadn’t done for the previous 40 years. But all of a sudden, you know, people were anxious.

You know, he thought he had a system that worked, but it was brittle. And then the incomprehensible happened. You know, this one little thing, which could have been fixed in a basically two months, they would’ve fixed it sunk the bank.

Now they’re owned by some retail bank in North Carolina.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: crazy. And, and [00:24:00] actually, um, my partner works for Silicon Valley Bank and while we were in Mexico, all this was happening. So I got a first row seat to everything that was going on that first week. It was crazy.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, so this is probably a little alarming to to many people

that,

Bill Flynn: AI is just exacerbating it, right? AI is another factor in this. You know, like how, how can this, you know, all these things that it now can do, um, you know, how well or not is a whole other thing, but, you know, how do I incorporate it? You know, it’s just another factor. It’s just an accelerant. And so that’s why you have to build your systems and it’s not, you can’t really plan.

You can certainly plan. And have a plan, but know that your plan could change at any moment. So what you need to do is not rely on the plan, but rely on your ability to adapt quickly.

Those people will be the ones who survive, not the ones who are like, we got a plan, it’s five years, you know where we’re going and we’re just charging ahead and we’re just gonna put our blinders on, [00:25:00] and whatever. You know, that’s Blockbuster and Nokia and Kodak and you know, the dust, dust, spin of technology.

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and I, I see a lot of that right now because, I mean, as AI is making its way in, I, I don’t know what it’s gonna look like in a few years. I’m a tech guy and so I do follow this stuff, and who knows? I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of a alarming stuff. There’s a lot of exciting stuff, but whatever it is.

E Either way, it’s going to change how we do life in the next little while, just as drastically as how the internet has changed how we did life from then to, to when the internet came. Uh, however, the speed at which things change is going much, much quicker. And so I think that what I am seeing is I’m seeing this divide of people that are embracing.

And, you know, going full steam, maybe even too fast. [00:26:00] And then there is a group of people resisting. And I, I think probably the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. If, if you totally dug, dug your head in the sand, you might end up being a blockbuster. That just didn’t

see that things were changing. Right.

Uh, however, if you, if you go too quickly, you, you might end up failing for the opposite reason. Now you’re actually letting AI run your business for you, which may not do a very good job. Right. Is that how you see it too, or?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so I would say it is sort of like, like you’re crossing the street and you see that the signs is, is. Says go. And it’s like, oh, I trust that it’s always been right, et cetera. But you know what, sometimes someone doesn’t see the light and while you’re focused on the thing, you get run over.

Right. So, you know, I think putting your head in the sand is, is dumb.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: Right? It’s, you know, and, and you sort of catastrophize like it’s gonna take over and Terminator and all this kind of

stuff and, you know, is that a possibility? I guess so. [00:27:00] You know, but it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s something, it’s not the reason to not do it. Right, because we, we have been in fear of so many things in the past that yes, they caused problems, you know, but we’ve, we found ways around them and we figured it out as a human, as a human being, you know, will we exterminate ourselves?

I don’t know. Right? But we haven’t so far, and so we know it, it has so many more useful ways of, of making our lives better and easier. And, you know, I gotta tell you, uh, I don’t like writing and I’m an, I’m a writer. And now I can write much better. ’cause I, I love editing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me

Bill Flynn: So I say, you know, here’s all my writing that I’ve done for 10 years now I wanna write a book about this, this, and whatever.

So gimme some words and then I’ll change ’em, you know, make sure they look like me. And I’ve written six books in like six months. Uh, and I get the first one’s gonna get the, the next one is gonna get published in October. Right. And I, I, I never would’ve written a book ever again. If I didn’t have Claude or chat GPT or [00:28:00] whatever, you helping me. So it has so many wonderful things. It just makes, it just takes a lot of the, the, the the harder stuff that’s unnecessary, uh, and automates it. But it also augments, right? I mean, I have great debates with, and ai, you know, I’m talking about politics and religion and, you know, and I learned something about the brain.

I’m like, Hey, doesn’t this work? I just, today I’m on the way to a client. And I’m learning about how, uh, epigenetics causes our systems to, uh, for trauma to be, um, adopted by the next generation. And it’s physically a, a change in the genome of the genes, how they’re expressed in the next generation. So. You know, maybe that’s why they’re more anxious or have these other issues. And I’m like, well, how does that work with DNA and, and you know, and, and Darwinian Rev evolution and, you know, and, and you know, it’s, I get to like just ask a quick question and it’s like, and I learned all about, oh, it’s really not the same. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s similar but it generally dies out. You know, it’s certainly an issue, but [00:29:00] it’s, it doesn’t change your code. You know, I never would’ve been able to do that before. I did it in five minutes while I’m driving.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: I mean, that’s cool.

Tim Melanson: It is very cool. I, and I think that that part there, the voice activated stuff is the coolest of it all. ’cause I mean, I’m a, I’m a great researcher. I love using the internet. Uh, however. Can’t do that when you’re driving or when you’re taking on on a walk. You can’t bring your laptop with you everywhere you go.

But I mean, just to have a headset in or have it on your, on your car and just be driving around and having these conversations as though you have access to all the information ever is mind blowing to me. And

it definitely allows us to grow much, much quicker. Right.

Bill Flynn: It does, it does, you know,

but you gotta be careful, right? As I just say, I say, so I’ve got four tools that I use. I use Grok Chat, PT, uh, Claude, and, um, Gemini. And I actually use ’em against each other, right? I’m like, I heard this over here. I’m like, you know, tell me why this is wrong and uh, et cetera, you know?

Uh, but I describe it, it’s, you remember, it’s a [00:30:00] 14-year-old precocious boy who’s on drugs and hallucinates and lies on a regular basis.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: You have to know that, and don’t just accept its first answer,

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bill Flynn: but if you do challenge it, et cetera, it’s, you know, it, it, it has no, it has no emotion. Right? So you’re just like, you know, that’s not right.

You know? Or where did you come up with that? I’ve told that all I, I, I, I joke right regularly with it. I’m like, I, I’m, I say I’m writing a nonfiction series of books. Stop making things up, right? Because I’ll say, where’d you get that stat from? What do you mean? Like, can you, can you gimme the source? Oh, there’s no source.

I made it up. Like, no, that’s not how it works. But,

you know, this is honest. Right? It’s like I made it up. Like I said, stop doing that. Gimme, gimme some content that is not a lie. And we’ll, we’ll throw that in.

Tim Melanson: and we can’t hurt

his feelings, even though we’d like to sometimes

Bill Flynn: Oh, I’ve

sworn at it a couple times. Oh. One time I remember a clot, I was just getting totally frustrated ’cause it was coming up with the same thing.

I’m like, and it would say, I, [00:31:00] I would ask it, tell me what I need to tell you so I can get what I need and then I’ll tell it and it doesn’t do it anyway.

And then I had sworn enough times into it, it came up with a thing. Uh, it maybe we should take a break this box. I’m like, oh, hilarious. It’s like, there must be some code in there that says, okay, if they swear you three times in a row. Tell him to go get a sip cup of water and hang out for a minute.

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. Oh, I love it. So let’s talk a little bit about, uh, about getting fans. ’cause I mean, another part of the world has changed. I mean, social media’s taken over everything. I mean, everything is different now, and I’m, I’m actually wondering even just from your experience, how is it different getting fans now as opposed to maybe 10, 20 years ago?

Bill Flynn: So mechanically it’s different, but fundamentally it is not.

Tim Melanson: Perfect.

Bill Flynn: It’s exactly the same. So, um, [00:32:00] there’s a, uh, theory called Jobs to Be Done. Are you familiar with this?

Tim Melanson: Uh, no.

Bill Flynn: Okay. So it’s been around about 30, 35 years. You are familiar with it because you’ve seen it in action. Uh, have you seen the Snickers commercials?

Tim Melanson: I have.

Bill Flynn: That is a jobs to be done model. So, uh, one of the gentlemen who was the progenitor of jobs to be done was hired by the company who, who makes Snickers. And they said, look, you know, we’re, we’re just trying to grow the business, et cetera. And he said, okay, great, I’ll do some research. And he said, look, the, your, the people who buy Snickers the most don’t see Snickers the same as they see Milky Way. Milky Way is an indulgence to them. It’s like cups, cookies, and cupcakes and whatever. Snickers is a food substitute. That is why they buy it, for whatever reason. Right? Some irrational reason of all this. Sugar and candy, whatever is a food substitute,

but that’s how they see it. So that’s why they changed it [00:33:00] to satisfaction. Right. And they have tripled the sales of Snickers. Because they understand why someone buys the thing. Right? Um, and there’s another, there’s, uh, even more famous, uh, example. Uh, Clayton Christensen, who was a Harvard Business professor and is one of the, he’s the, the, the creator of the theory. He took the work and made it a theory.

So a theory is something that you can apply to anything

and it works, right? The Pareto principle is a theory, right? 80 20 rule, right? And you apply it to your closet, to your friends, to your food. It’s pretty much true, right? 80%. If you have a hundred friends, you see 20 of them, way more than you see the other 80.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bill Flynn: All the things you eat, the clothes you wear in your closet, you wear the same clothes most often,

right? So, uh, so this theory, uh, was applied to McDonald’s, right? So McDonald’s was, hi hired Clayton Christensen’s, um, consulting firm and said, look, we wanna sell more milkshakes, [00:34:00] you know, can you help us? We here, you might be able to help us.

He said, sure. What? Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna observe for a day. And so they, they, they observed the whole whatever, 20 hours that this thing was open, and they said, here’s what we found out, that 80% of your milkshakes are purchased before 8:00 AM and between three and 5:00 PM. And they’re like, really?

Like, yeah. So they went the next morning and, and asked a bunch of people, what did you hire this milkshake to do for you? Right? Because that’s what we do. We hire products. And services to fulfill a job for us. And when they fulfill a job, we keep hiring them. And when they don’t, we fire ’em and hire something else.

So they found out that the ones in the morning said, I have a really long commute. It’s super boring and I’m not hungry when I wake up, but I know I’m gonna be hungry before I get to work. So I stop off, I get a milkshake and it, it’s super thick. It takes me like 20 minutes to [00:35:00] drink the whole thing. And I, by the time I get to work, I, you know, I can make it through to lunch.

Tim Melanson: Huh.

Bill Flynn: and they said, well, what else have you hired in the past to do this? They’re like, oh, you know, I hired a banana, but you know, the peel gets all over my hands and it gets, sticks on the wheel and tired. A bagel with cream cheese, but you know, it’s dangerous. And you know, the thing, crumbs go everywhere and I’m getting cream cheese in my pants, you know, and, and you know, some say like, hired a Snickers bar, you know, but I felt guilty. Because I was eating candy, you know, and I’m, and I’m thinking, you know, well, you’re eating milkshake. It’s the same thing.

Tim Melanson: Milkshake is candy too.

Bill Flynn: But, you know, again, we’re, we’re irrational as

human beings. So they said, great. Um, so they went back to this, this franchise owner and said, look, you know, when, when, when they first, they said, when you first tried to increase your sales, what did you do?

And they said, well, we talked to our clients and we asked ’em what they want. And they said they wanted a chunkier, you know, more chocolatey, you know, whatever. Um. Thicker, you know, whatever. And, and they, they made all the changes and the sales didn’t change at [00:36:00] all. So they didn’t really want that, and they didn’t value that.

What they valued was this thing. So they said, okay, so here’s what we’re gonna do. And this was a long time ago. Before, you know, um, apple Pay and all this kind of stuff. So what they did is they made a whole bunch of milkshakes in the morning and they put them out on the counter. ’cause one of the other complaints they had was they go through the drive-through, but it’s, everyone’s getting a milkshake and it’s long.

The line is really long. They said, look, you don’t have to sit in the line. We’re gonna put ’em on the counter. You don’t even have to talk to us. Just come grab your milkshake, swipe your credit card and go. And sales went up. Yeah. Now same product, three to five in the afternoon. This is now dad with his progeny, right?

And he wants to be the cool dad. And the kid says, can I get a milkshake and whatever? And they say, well, all right, what do we do? But don’t tell mom, you know? But you know, the milkshakes were in these horrible cups that, you know, kids who didn’t have motor skills yet with crushing this milkshake would go everywhere. You [00:37:00] know, it was, you know, there were all these other issues. The straw was too small, their muscles in their mouth weren’t good, so they changed how they delivered it. They made it smaller, so dad felt less guilty. They put it in a sippy cup basically with a big fat straw, and sales went up. Again.

They didn’t change the product at all.

They changed how they delivered it and how they packaged it. So that’s how people buy. We’ve been buying that way forever. But we don’t do it as, we don’t, we, we think we know what’s best, but we don’t ever really figure out what they want or what they value, really more than they want. So that’s the fundamental thing.

Now how we do it is, you know, we have social media, we have, we have, you know, events. All the things that we do have changed, but the fundamental reason why people buy is still the same.

Tim Melanson: Oh, I love that. Bill. It’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so for me it’s, you know, it’s this stuff, you know, so [00:38:00] I, I, I love, so I, I’ve been studying this for, for so many years, and I just think it’s a shame that really good ideas, really good people, and really good businesses fail or struggle for completely preventable reasons. And now that I, I can sort of write about it and, and doesn’t. You know, just to stress me that I, it would take me forever to write a

book. Now I can write them really fast. I can now put them down and, and share them because I think, you know what, uh, we’re gonna see in the next five or 10 years if I’m, if I’m right. But I think even the, the management science that we have today is still not correct for the banning environment that we’re in. Right. So, like Michael Porter is seen as the father of strategy. Um, and he’s an HB HBS professor and he’s, you got the five forces and he said that operations shouldn’t be part of your strategy. And I think he’s wrong, and we’ve proven it because when you, you can, you can operate in a unique way that actually augments your strategy.

So I’m extending his thinking [00:39:00] there,

you know, so I’m, I’m, I think I’m extending thinking in a bunch of different areas and hopefully what I’m writing will help people. So that’s what excites me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well then how do we find out more then?

Bill Flynn: My website is catalyst growth advisors.com. Um, my current book, I dunno if this, this is video, but my current book is on there. You can actually download it for free if you want, if you wanna read a PDF or you can go to Amazon or, or um, audible or whatever to buy it. And

then my next book will be out, uh, hopefully in October. I’m actually, that was self-published. My other one, I actually have a real publisher now and I don’t know how it works. And so it’ll be, I’ll be in like airports and bookstores and whatever. Um, but mostly, uh, you can, you can find me there at Catalyst Growth Advisors, I write an article twice a month. I have a 50% plus open rate on my articles, so people seem to really like it. Um, all my stuff is there

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Well, right on. We’re gonna have to check that out. That book was called Further Faster, right?

Is that what

Bill Flynn: further, faster.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. [00:40:00] So maybe the hardest question of the whole day, but who’s your favorite rockstar?

Bill Flynn: So it’s interesting, um, it used to be James Taylor,

but I, I’ve, and I still am because we talked about music. I play, I played acoustic guitar. I kind of sound a little like him as well. Uh, when I sing. Um, and I just love his, his fingering. I love his lyrics. I love his approach to things, but I’ve really gotten into Billy Joel these days ’cause

I watched his biopic and I just so much more appreciate his music and, and where he know, just like James Taylor.

James Taylor doesn’t read music and he, he actually, you know, learned incorrect how to. Play a guitar, but the way he plays it obviously works for him. And Billy Joel’s the same way. He’s a little tiny guy. He’s got tiny little hands, but man, he, he, he knows how to write a song. He knows how to, everything comes together.

His melody’s great. So he’s probably, right now, he’s currently my favorite. I, I listen to him, I listen to him on the way here from my, from my client thing [00:41:00] ’cause, and I’m just like screaming in the car because he’s got some great, great lyrics and

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah. He’s such a great songwriter. I’ve got quite a few of his songs in my repertoire. Uh, but I, I did read once about him. He said he didn’t. He didn’t really wanna be a singer. He was trying to write these songs for other people, and he just kind of got thrust into it, and I find that amazing. Really.

Bill Flynn: Yeah. So yeah, if you, so have you seen the documentary?

Tim Melanson: I saw parts of it. I don’t think I saw the

Bill Flynn: Oh, I would see the whole, it, it is fascinating.

It, it. is really good. It’s, it’s like five or six hours long, but it’s so good and it goes through his whole life and. You can see how he transformed from what he was doing. So he really learned how to be a great songwriter.

You know, he, some of his early songs were okay, but he really got into it and, and he has synesthesia, so he is got an advantage over most creatives, you know, so he is, you know, my daughter is synesthesia, so that has helped him. But still, I mean, he, and he’s like, he just has a great work ethic and he, you know, he just went at it.

[00:42:00] And so, um, I would highly recommend, it’s just fascinating how he. He should have been so much better. But you know, he drank way too much and ruined all

these lives in his life. And my guess is he would still be married to Kristi Brinkley if he didn’t drink.

And who wouldn’t wanna be married to Kristi, Frank and Brinkley, even if she’s 60 years old or 70 years old, she’s still gorgeous.

Right. Um, anyway, so it’s, it’s, it’s just a fascinating human story as well, so.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, I’m gonna check that out for sure then. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today, bill. This has been a lot of fun.

Bill Flynn: Good. Yeah, me too.

Tim Melanson: Right on to the listeners. Make sure you, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time with 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 the founder of Community Growth Academy, and what she does is she helps coaches, experts, and passionate hobbyists launch and grow paid communities. So I’m excited to be talking to Carol Tice.

Hey, Carol, you ready to rock?

Carol Tice: I am ready.

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

Carol Tice: Well, I am teaching the paid community model now because I built a previous paid community, two 1500 paying members, and, uh, it generated about 6 million in revenue over the decade. I ran it and then I sold it for Life-Changing Money in 2021. Now I’m teaching how I did all that to, uh.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. So this was, when did you start building that community?

Carol Tice: 2011, the Stone Age of [00:01:00] Paid community. Yeah. I say I’m a community dinosaur.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. ’cause uh, that’s pretty common now. Paid communities. I, I see them all the time.

Carol Tice: Well, there are, because there are platforms like skool, which I’m on, um, that make it easy. Back when I did it, it was not easy. It was a hand coding. You know, I paid thousands to webmasters every month to keep it all going, and it was much more technically complex. Now, super easy and cheap. The, the barrier to entry is way down.

Tim Melanson: totally, totally. Well, I mean, I would love to know about the bad note then, because I’m sure there were some things that didn’t go as planned along the way. You share one.

Carol Tice: Um, uh, in that business. Uh, well, the thing I was gonna say is over time my webmaster made more and more and more and people kept telling me she was overcharging me and stuff, and eventually she made a demand that I. That was completely unreasonable and I had to [00:02:00] fire her. And, uh, we had been together a long, long time.

I loved her like a daughter. And yeah, I paid like half as much when I got another webmaster who was better than, than they were so. It was, it was really a heartbreak. It was like losing a child or something. It was, it was like traumatic. I’d had no, I had no turnover on my team. But yeah, it was a, it was like way I, I, there wasn’t enough profit left at the end of the day, you know, at, as we went along.

The demands got higher and higher and because there was so much to do hand building WordPress things and making plugins talk to each other and updating them all the time and, you know, running campaigns, it was all so much. And I think that gave her cover to just kind of keep escalating what she was charging me.

So it was pretty, it was pretty painful,

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Carol Tice: probably to the tune of a hundred grand or so over the life of the [00:03:00] relationship.

Tim Melanson: a hundred grand, like more than what you should have been paying.

Carol Tice: Yeah. In terms of what I could have put in my pocket if I hired better help. So yeah,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: did that thing where you become friends with your, with your staff, and they say not to do that.

And there’s a reason they say not to do that is that it does blind you to things. And you start to have less and less of a business head about who’s in what role and what, what their income and what you’re paying them. So yeah, I was pain. It was a lot of pain.

Tim Melanson: So I, I’m, I’m, I’m just curious because I’m sure that this probably does happen quite often, and I’m wondering like, what, how did that look like when, when you started to get word that this person was overcharging, did that conversation come up with that person? And, and then how did that person react to that?[00:04:00]

Carol Tice: Um, I felt like what she was doing was essential to the business and it was. Worth it. And I trusted her. I liked what she produced visually. She really was a designer. Um, was her strength as I learned once I got a real webmaster and, uh, they were like, Hey, all this stuff’s about to break, you know, like apparently a lot was not happening actually, even though I was paying a lot.

So, you know, I’m not a technical person. And that leaves you a little open to be exploited because you don’t really know what you don’t know. So now I pay $97 and everything on skool just works all the time and it’s amazing. I’m very happy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s, uh, I, I think you hit something really good with, so the whole thing about, and by the way, I, I am a webmaster, so I guess that’s my main business is, uh, my wife and I work together. She does, [00:05:00] uh, a lot of the graphic design stuff and I do all of the, like, tech stuff, the programming stuff, and I, I’ve, I’ve had this conversation so many times before.

It’s very, very, very, very difficult to find somebody who can do both, right? Like you’re

Carol Tice: It’s like she was, yeah, she was good at the design and kind of, so she brought in someone on her team to do a lot of the tech and stuff, but

Tim Melanson: That makes

Carol Tice: I don’t know. Um. Thankfully it’s five years, six years in the past now. And, um, life has continued and I was able to say I wouldn’t have been able to successfully sell that business if I had not gotten the new webmaster who cleaned up the backend

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Carol Tice: it was,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Carol Tice: a lot of cost on, on my end in the sale process, otherwise.

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and I think that, uh, I think for anybody listening, ’cause there’s two sides to this. There’s the side of her and there’s the side of you. [00:06:00] Right? So the side of her I am, I, I’m just gonna guess is, is that because I, I, I, I’ve seen stuff, stuff like this before. As soon as things get out of your realm of expertise, all of a sudden you think it’s worth more, right.

Carol Tice: Right. It’s worth a lot to me because it would take me all week to do one tiny thing. So yeah, that’s very how that high value to me.

Tim Melanson: But it’s also high value to her because let’s, let’s look at it from her perspective. So if she’s a, uh, a designer and not a, a coder, and all of a sudden she has to do all this code, imagine how much longer it would take her to figure all that stuff out versus someone who actually is a coder. So all that would be charged out to you.

So it’s possible, and I’m not saying that it is. The fact, but it’s possible that she was not purposefully overcharging. She just didn’t know what she was doing, and it was taking her twice or

Carol Tice: That’s [00:07:00] entirely possible. I don’t really know. Uh, we don’t really talk anymore, so I don’t, I don’t know. I just feel like over time I came to be seen as a real cash cow opportunity. Um, I. To, uh, work with someone in a small business setting and not have to do big corporate, but to earn really well and ’cause I paid everyone on my team really well.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Carol Tice: ’cause that was sort of part of my philosophy.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Raw. Wow. So, so I think, uh, like, uh, what people might be able to learn from that is two things on the business side, on your side, you know, if you are starting to jump out into areas that you don’t know, that doesn’t mean you charge more for it, it actually means you charge less for it, right?

Because I’m, I’m sure if

Carol Tice: That’d be

Tim Melanson: charging you pennies for it right then, you wouldn’t have never gotten rid rid of her. She would’ve, she would’ve managed to keep that position for quite a

Carol Tice: Well, and at one point I offered her equity in the business in exchange for a [00:08:00] project I wanted done, and she turned it down for the cash, which I think, uh, played out very badly for her. ’cause I did have a successful exit that, and I paid out everyone on my team. I didn’t have a, um, written. Profit sharing, you know, agreement with them or anything.

But I, I just based on time of service and what they were earning, I handed people money

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: when I quit

20 grand out the, to my team, just I. No obligation, but I was like, yeah, this wasn’t possible without you and, and you need to find another job now, most of them, and you know, I wanna give you some money to cover that, you know, time of hunting around.

So.

Tim Melanson: Good, good. So what did you, what did you end up learning from that experience then? I.

Carol Tice: Um, well, I feel like that experience rolled into the experience of selling it and really seeing how a [00:09:00] buyer of a digital business looks at your business versus how you look at it. So, and there’s a big difference. Um, for me, I feel like we’ve jumped to the end of my story of the, of the story, but, um, you know, this is something that.

Not many online business owners achieve, especially coaches. Coaches tend to be the business. They’re selling hours. Or small groups and they can’t, if they go on vacation, that’s a week, they don’t get paid. There is no exit, there is no retirement plan. Uh, where they get an exit with a lump of money that sets them up for not having to work.

And that kind of breaks my heart and is, was a big motivator in me starting Community Growth Academy. So what happened in the e, in the exit was that of course. The buyer’s first questions is like, why are all of these people getting paid? All of what is, what do they do? [00:10:00] You know, and who can I cut? What can I cut out?

And this business began it. It served freelance writers, which I was one of, and still am. In my free time, I ghost write books. And I came out of, you know, journalism and writing, and had ramped my freelancing business to six figures. During the 8 0 8 0 9 downturn and, ’cause I was at like 50, 60 and I was like, well I wanna go to a hundred.

And the fact that the economy is crashing and burning doesn’t is a macroeconomic thing that doesn’t matter to me. I’m just one tiny me. You know that I, these things, it’s like when your body surfing, I can just let that wave kind of go over me and Z enter and keep, keep swimming and, um. I gradually became aware that many other writers did not have the, the same attitude I did, that they were starving.

They were writing [00:11:00] for content mills for $5 an article, and I was very upset by that. And I basically wanted writers to stop getting ripped off and avoid scams, which there are a lot of scams to target writers. And I started a blog originally to kind of. Get out, share what I, I knew I wanted to write a book about freelancing and I thought, uh, that would sell a million copies and I’d be rich.

’cause I didn’t know anything about online business or book sales. Um, but eventually I joined a community for bloggers. To learn how to be a better blogger. ’cause I was running a blog and trying to monetize my blog and that’s where I discovered paid community. And I went, this is amazing. I love it. I’m learning so much.

This is a fantastic format and there’s nothing like this for freelance writers. And there should be. And that was sort of the beginning of the journey to starting that community. And so it was really. [00:12:00] Half business, half Hobby, gone mad, I wanna say, um, half Passion Project to, you know, I thought of myself as like a crusader against writer scams and for Fair Writer pay.

And I really wanted to elevate the whole industry. I had these lefty calls, I wanted to influence a lot of people. And that format of, it’s 25 bucks a month, no obligation leave any time allows you to do that. As opposed to selling high ticket coaching and coaching 12 people a year, that’s making no impact on the industry.

So that’s, you know, so I had a lot of that. It’s kind of a, a crusade and also a business. And when a business buyer comes along, it’s only a business, you know, they’re just like, what’s the dollars and cents here? So yeah, they were like, all of these people are too expensive. Some of them are not needed. Um, one of them actually ended up continuing on and the first thing they did was of course raise the membership rate to 40, [00:13:00] which I was always hesitant to do because to me it was against mission, which my mission was to impact as many people as possible.

So you raise the price, fewer people can afford it, and I just never wanted to do So. There were decisions I was making that were not strictly business decisions, that were more about. You know, I was ma to me, I was making enough money. You know, I had a five bedroom house on like Washington and Seattle and, you know, we went on vacations and uh, I felt like I.

I was making enough and I wanted to pay my team well and have a great lifestyle. And, you know, business people are just like, how many dollars can this throw off for me? Um, so they look at it differently. We had a job board. They got rid of it. It needed a manager to get the listings together, so they just killed it.

I thought it was really important. You know, they, they look at it differently than you do.

Tim Melanson: They do. They do.

Carol Tice: And I had some coaching [00:14:00] programs going on in there and I actually hired a business consultant, did 10 grand of business consulting ’cause we were stuck at a thousand members and I wanted to grow to 1500. I’d figured out that was where the math was gonna make sense to sell it, that I needed to grow another 50%.

And she was like, get rid of the, stop selling the coaching program. Stop selling all these other side projects. You have all roads lead to den membership because that’s the cash cow they’re buying. You know, and she was totally right. That’s, I just shut down all my other offers and all roads were join the Dent and you know, that is what worked to get us to 1500.

Tim Melanson: I like to think that, um. There’s sort of somewhere in between those two things, right? Because I mean, would the community have grown to where it was, had you, you know, not paid your team as much or had you not had this crusade, right? I mean, all these things all [00:15:00] led to the point where, you know, you probably worked tireless hours because you had a a big why.

Right, and you paid your people really well, so there was less turnover, so you were worried less about that stuff and they were probably harder working for you. But then once you get that community to a certain point, then I think you had probably, I mean, you obviously had the right idea that you started to transition into, okay, what do I need to do differently to sell it?

Right.

Carol Tice: Yeah, that’s why I built a course called Built to Sell that I have in Community Growth Academy. ’cause you could just, you could set it up better from the start than I did. And also it’s about you not being the branding or the name of it or you know, I did have kind of myself a cartoon. Me was like all around the branding and yeah, it all had to be kind of changed over and cleaned up.

So it was the kind of thing anybody could operate and wasn’t about me. But yeah, that was one of the reasons I wanted to sell. Um, I got the advice from a friend of [00:16:00] mine who also sold. A similar business and she was like, well, just take yourself outta the business, replace yourself in all the roles, and just collect whatever the net is, you know, from that.

And I kind of tried it and I couldn’t, I could not stop caring about my 1500 needy children. You know, I, I wanted them all to succeed and I’m, I’m hopefully at a little bit more of a reserve of a business-like attitude with Community Growth Academy.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Wow. Well,

Carol Tice: but I’ve, but I’m going a totally different direction with it because I don’t wanna scale it big.

I’ve decided it’s going to 97 a month and limit a hundred members,

and that’s it.

Tim Melanson: so you’ve raised a price on purpose to make sure that you’re picking the right people. Right.

Carol Tice: Well, and, and because it’s gonna be an ex, a small, exclusive community, it’s sort of a whole different vibe. And I’ve just learned that, you know. Prepping and launching and [00:17:00] running a community is complex. There is a lot to it, and I’d like to just really support my people. I don’t really need another big exit.

I did that. I’m good. Um, I, I could sell this thing, I guess, but I am not thinking along those lines. This is sort of my semi-retirement, uh, project

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Carol Tice: that, uh, it’s in a way, it’s my give back. Um. To just try and create the kind of great life that paid community gives you for other, for other people,

Tim Melanson: well.

Carol Tice: it’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And if we circle back to, you know, your original bad note, which was, you know, getting a little, maybe too close to some of the people in your team, uh, having that attitude of like, okay, I’m just gonna build this to sell even though I may never sell it. It. It probably would mitigate that quite a bit.

Now all of a sudden, you’re making choices. If you are gonna make choices to get close to your team or to pay them more, then these are all very conscious choices rather than just, [00:18:00] you know, oh, well they deserve that, so I’m just gonna give it to them, type thing. Right.

Carol Tice: Yeah, I’d say it’s all, it’s all easier to do the second time, you know, around, you know, I, I always, um, I always felt a little bit like, I, I used to feel it was tight walking, tight rope, walking across the Grand Canyon, you know? Um. I was, I’m not a marketer. I had not sold anything online before I started this, and I just kept.

Pushing myself out completely out of my comfort zone. I would do live one hour events that sold a class that would have, you know, I need to make 50 K off of this riding on it, and it would be so intense. And I had, you know. Three young kids at home, two of whom have special deeds and might just start wailing or anything at any time.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: Um, one of them used to come in and, and put [00:19:00] post-it notes in front of me. I was doing these things and I’d be like, I can’t talk to you now. You know, just, um, I don’t know. It was always just a crazy ride, but literally we never, I think we never lost money on anything we launched. Except for one thing that was towards the end, and that was what queued me in the, I we needed to look at this webmaster.

It’s like she made money and I didn’t.

Tim Melanson: yeah,

Carol Tice: That was a, a moment of insight. Yeah. On that.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Wow. Okay. Well let’s talk a little bit about your jam room. ’cause I see a nice view back there. What’s going on with this?

Carol Tice: So I live in a van. Yeah. Um, we sold our house. We bought the van in 2021. In, in 2021 when I sold the business and we did a tryout trip in it. Thought we really liked it. Um. And we were thinking about downsizing the big house when our kids graduated and the last one graduated. And then we looked at each other and said, [00:20:00] where do we wanna recharge to?

And we were like, I don’t know. Hmm. And so then we started to drive around to try and fi figure out a place that checked all our various boxes and we kind of didn’t. And eventually we came to feel that the RV is, this is the downsizing that I want. And then in 24, we kids kept coming back in, they were bouncing back, and then we hit a point where no one was there.

And literally the next morning, like after when moved out, my husband looked at me and was like, we should sell the house now, should we? And I was like, yeah, probably should. And so we did like a year ago. Summer, like a year and a half now or so. And um, yeah, so we’ve been full-time in the RV ever since.

We’re currently at the epicenter of RV existence, quart Site, Arizona, which you can see a little of back there, just, uh, here on Bureau of Land Management, cheapo land, hanging out, doing whatever [00:21:00] we want. We can bike into town and play bingo or go line dancing or.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s awesome, Carol. You know that that’s.

Carol Tice: but we’re, we’re basically, you know, out, uh, we’re, you have to be totally like self-contained here.

You’re not on electricity or anything. We have solar and uh, have starlink. We travel. That’s my motto,

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. That’s my, my goal. I actually, uh, it’s, it’s been in my long-term plan, like, uh, our kids are now, uh, uh, almost, almost out, I’d say in the next four or five years. Like, uh, they’re, they’re outta out of high school, but still not quite out yet. But I think it’s probably gonna be a similar situation to you.

As soon as they’re out, it’d be like, let’s sell now. Like.

Carol Tice: Well, um, I mean, I’m glad we were still there for the few years that we were, that was probably good. Um. We do have special needs ’cause and they’re sort of slower launchers maybe than, you know, they didn’t sail off to Columbia or something. Um, they continue to need our support, but I have [00:22:00] now solved their problems from the RV many times.

And, you know, we did this last winter as well. Uh, we tend to be in Seattle six months of the year and down warmer places. Uh, the other half.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing.

Carol Tice: So we, you know, and it’s like we could always drive to Phoenix and get on a plane and go be there if we need to. Um, so yeah.

Tim Melanson: So now, you mentioned earlier that, I mean, a lot of this stuff that you’ve been doing has been fairly new. Like you’re, you’re just sort of figuring out as you go, but like you also mentioned that you hired a coach at one point too. Is this something that you’ve always done? Like have you always been hiring help to, to help you with this then?

Carol Tice: Well, I had mentors from pretty early on on the blogging side.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Carol Tice: I got into blogging in like 2008. Blogging was really kind of just taking off and becoming a major way to create an audience and, you know, then monetize that. And [00:23:00] I always say I was like discovered on a, you know, virtual bar stool, a drafts by uh, one mentor who, uh.

Is still really a big part of my life. Um, John Morrow, he was then the editor, an editor at Copy Blogger, which was one of the biggest copywriting sites and. He then had me write some things for them and just, it sent a ton of traffic to my blog. Uh, he just, he shared a post of mine to his audience and, uh, he’s a super inspiring person who can only move his face due to spinal muscular atrophy and was supposed to die when he was three.

So, what’s your excuse for not having a successful online business, folks? Um, but what it gives him is time to think.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Carol Tice: All he does is think about how to do this better. And um, so he’s always just this foun of, of [00:24:00] information. He knows everything about his metrics. I was never a KPIs person. And you know, he’s like, you have signed up a hundred people on your affiliate link, and that means 20 of them will buy and one will get a refund.

And I’m like, how do you know that? You know, he’s one of those people who just have his system so dialed. Uh, he’s always like, been like that. And that’s how I ended up with Community Growth Academy is really, he called me up because he was doing this new program called the Hands-Off Creator and where they do the marketing and put up your course for you and you know, do things.

And I was like, well, I can’t do anything else because I have a non-compete. You know, I sold my business and all I know is freelance writing. And he was like, and what did you learn in. A decade of running a paid community. And I was like, oh, paid community. I community. I could talk community day. I love it.

Um, you know. You [00:25:00] need mentors because you just, like, you don’t know what’s in front of your face. You don’t know what, you don’t understand. Your gifts, really, we’re all just head down, grinding it out, you know, and, and the years are going by and you’re not realizing what. Knowledge or accumulating. And as soon as he said it, it was like, I, I just was sucked back into the world of community.

Um, because I did miss it. You know, I, I was gainfully employed, I was ghost writing books and doing well with it. Um, but that’s. Only influencing one person’s business. You’re back to the sort of limited impact, um, and the power of being able to influence that. Literally like 14,000 people came through Freelance writers den in the time I owned it, you know?

That’s really so, so gratifying. This past spring we went to Europe and I got to meet like [00:26:00] four of those members in person who live in Paris and Amsterdam and in Portugal. And, and I mean, one of them was literally like, it’s just not a joke that you saved my, you’ve, you’ve changed my life. You know, it’s very, very, you, you become friends with these people and they become your raving fans on social.

They’re constantly sharing yourself, talking about your ex. Expertise to people. Um, I love this model, so I’m excited to be back, uh, in it and, and teaching it.

Tim Melanson: Well, okay. Well let’s just roll right into that then. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Carol Tice: Well seeing people launch, we actually had an early member who was a longtime financial advisor. He’s like 80 now, literally, and had never sold anything online. It was very word of mouth investment manager, and he was in a couple of free Facebook groups talking about investing. Had a book of past clients and he just told them he got in the community.

At first I [00:27:00] told him, you should, you should set up a community. I met him ’cause I ghost wrote his book. So he had a great calling card for setting up a community and I was like, you should totally do this. I think it would be a great way for you to operate. ’cause he sells various things and he could just stick them all in the community and just say, join the community.

Um. He was, at first he was like, uh, no, I don’t really learn anything new. And he ended up hiring a marketer to do his whole launch. He ended up seeing that he was having to spend a lot of time on the Facebook group saying, buy my investment universes of the months, you know, buy my consulting, blah, blah, blah.

And now he doesn’t have to. Now he, he has a 150 KA year income, 600 paying members. It, it really ramped in like just a few months. So that’s what I’m here for is if you are, if you’re a coach or an expert, you have an audience from what you’ve been doing and [00:28:00] you’re tired of one-on-one consulting, selling hours, or you can’t find clients and you’re wondering how to market, your marketing isn’t working.

Um, I actually just did a strategy that I said I’d never do. Um, I opened up a free level. So you can now join Community Growth Academy for free and get started. You can talk in the forums and you can do the first two modules of finding your best opportunity and doing the competitive research to kind of see how to position yourself to be something different in the marketplace.

And, um. It’s just, it, it’s like 25 people joined in the few days that I’ve added at a free level and some of them have already upgraded. So just I, I thought I’d never go there. But there are very high earning people on school with free community pools and they just upsell them. And I [00:29:00] was always a hater of free.

I was taught don’t make your book free. Don’t make your bait piece free. Don’t you know. Don’t sell for free on a, a free book on Amazon, because those people are looky losing and they’re never gonna buy from you. You haven’t made them open their wallet. You know, this is a, a conventional wisdom that’s been around for a long time and in the den.

In my first community, we sold one day, free passes, one week free passes, one month free passes, one year free passes, and tracked them all and they all converted zero. But something has changed in the world of community where this is really working and it’s particularly working as a way to get an audience when you don’t have one.

So it quickly. Because it’s free. There’s no barrier to entry. You know, they get in and they get a chance to meet you and get to know you very intimately. You’re in there every day talking and. They come to trust [00:30:00] you. So I think the reason free is, is on the rise as a viable thing, is because of the trust crisis that you may know we are currently in.

We all know that like half of what’s online is lies. It’s an ai, it’s not even a real person. They’re secretly in the Philippines. You know, you don’t know what’s going on. And it’s a big problem that a lot of us are struggling to overcome. You know, so I think the, the free, you’re in the club, uh, and you get some love and you just get a chance to see what’s going on.

You see the successes firsthand. I already had a couple of people upgrade to paid. So that’s, I guess that’s what I’m excited about is I, I just thought this might be a complete waste of my time and a lot of, you know, people asking questions that aren’t ever gonna buy from me, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it’s working.

So, know, you have to keep [00:31:00] an open mind because things evolve.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I, I’ve seen that change even just in my interviews with, with, uh, with people because, uh, it, it’s, it has been over the last, I’d say probably year and a half to two years. Ironically, since chat PT was launched that, uh, coincidentally maybe, I guess, uh, that a lot of people, uh, will talk about how number one, that’s how they’re getting clients is by some sort of free community that allows people to get to know them a little bit because that know, like, and trust is very important.

And then on the other end of the spectrum as well, when I ask people about, well, how do you find good talent? And it’s very similarly the same thing. They’ll say, well, I’ll, I’ll look them up, I’ll go join their free community, find out a little bit more about them, and then end up hiring them. So it’s, it’s going on both sides now.

And I, I think that makes sense because people really, like you, say, there [00:32:00] is a trust issue. There’s just so much fake stuff out there that you have to see if this is real. And I mean, so anybody can now, I mean, uh, imagine even now with ai, uh, you know, videos and all this stuff that you could. Literally create a fake video of you flying around the world, right?

And with all these riches and whatever, and, and make it seem like you’re rich.

Carol Tice: in a free community I’m in that I’m kind of spying on, it’s a very large free community that they just upsell into it. Um. They just had a joint venture, you know, training that was like, make an AI of yourself, make it, make a bunch of ads and you don’t have to do anything. And they played some of them and I was just like so revolted.

And I’m, and I’m like, is no one in this 800,000 woman audience thinking, um, AI. Engages [00:33:00] in theft of inter of intellectual property are thinking that, um, because it does and thinking about the incredible energy use, uh, it is consuming and what that’s doing to the planet. Am I the only one disturbed by this?

And because everyone else would seem to be like, what? And, and I thought it, I don’t know. It’s, it’s not for me. Let me say that I’m gonna not be creating an AI video, me to go make videos and oh my God, I don’t know. I, I guess, I think that there are niches maybe where that will work for physical products where you’re showing the physical product and you just put it in an AI wrapper, maybe who cares?

But when you’re selling your knowledge, your expertise. To someone. I, I don’t think so. You know, I don’t think that’s [00:34:00] a way to go, but, you know, I’m a person who paid all Americans and I, I am just not the Tim Ferriss outsource it all to people who work for $5 and then you’re rich.

Tim Melanson: Well.

Carol Tice: you can be rich and still create living wage jobs.

I’m here, I’m living proof and you should do it.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. I,

Carol Tice: don’t think in, yeah, don’t think in terms of, oh, how can I rip everyone else off in my work ecosystem? Think what do I need to charge to run this like an ethical business? And that was really important to me. You know, I had been a business reporter, I talked to a lot of CEOs, seeing a lot of businesses run well and badly.

And I, how I operated was important to me and still is.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and I, I think, uh, so there, there are a lot of people that have been on the show that hire people from, you know, Philippines and all that stuff as well. And now the, the [00:35:00] benefit there is that you can pay them much less and it’s still a very comfortable living wage for them. Right? So you’re still paying a, a living wage by doing that.

Carol Tice: I get it,

But

Tim Melanson: like, uh, I, I think it’s one of those, yeah, it’s one of those values things. I mean, if you want to, you know, give back to your community, then why not hire somebody in your community for that living wage? You know, really what it comes down to is, is whether you can set your business up.

To give that money internally or, or externally. I, I know that I’ve been in kind of in a situation where I wanted to hire, but I don’t really want to hire anybody in the Philippines or in India or anything like that. And so what?

Carol Tice: when they don’t do the gig and you’ve sent them a check, you, there’s no recourse

on that. You know? Um, you’re out the bunny and there’s so much, so many stories of flaky situations like that all over the world of Upwork, you know, [00:36:00] uh, heard this guy. I mean, like, never did it or what they turned.

Ghastly bad. You know, you have to go through, kiss a lot of frogs if you wanna pay little to get to someone who’s maybe good and pays little. I didn’t wanna go through that. Yeah. I wanted to hire my people. I had like zero turn turnover

Tim Melanson: yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, and I, I think that that’s, uh, like I’m.

Carol Tice: and I could, I could rely on them to do things, you know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think that when you’re starting to deal with out of the, out of the country, then I, I think probably gets a little bit more com well, probably a lot more complicated. Did any do any type of lawsuit? If anything? If something happens, right. And you know.

Carol Tice: Forget it. Yeah. You have no, it’s not happening.

Tim Melanson: Also, depending on your AR area of work, I mean, now actually there’s potentially some privacy issues as well with things going over overseas.

I mean, there’s, there’s lots of, but now on the AI front though, uh, the AI front is one of those things where if. If that’s what you’re looking for. If you need to hire [00:37:00] somebody that’s gonna be less than, you know, you just, your business just isn’t a place where you can actually hire another, uh, local person, then there are a lot of things that AI can help with that it will speed up your workflow quite a bit.

Um, but like you say, I, I, I don’t because I, I actually did, uh, I’m a tech person, so I, I embrace AI big time and I’ve been using chat g PT quite a while for quite a while now. And I just started looking into some of those, uh, AI clones and all that stuff and the video stuff, and I, I don’t think it’s quite there yet.

It, it’s

Carol Tice: For sure not.

Tim Melanson: Still too noticeable. Um, but I can see where it’s going and I, I, I do think that unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how we wanna look at it, that is where the world’s going. We’re not gonna be able to stop that now.

Carol Tice: as a, as a creator of a lot of ip, more than a dozen books of my own, more than a dozen ghostwritten books, um, thousands and thousands of articles. Um. [00:38:00] You know, we need to get out of the Napster phase where I AI’s just ripping everybody off and into the phase where creators are compensated for this before.

I’m going to get real excited about doing something like that. Um, but yeah, I guess. This is, these are all decisions about how you run your business and how you wanna show up. You know, if you wanna use chat GPT to help outline your article or your book you’re writing, you know, that’s behind the scenes and doesn’t hit your credibility, I think.

I think you need to really watch out when it’s things that hit your credibility and your authenticity and showing up in the world, you know? That to me is, uh, you should probably think pretty hard on that.

Tim Melanson: I also have a feeling, well, I mean, I, I, I can typically tell what is written by AI versus what is written by a person. And, uh, I [00:39:00] think that, um, and, and like you say there, there are plenty of things that AI is. Better for you probably should use it for, you know, creating, you know, maybe some summaries things based on an original work.

I mean, it’s gonna just do it so much faster than you’re gonna be, be able to do it, but

Carol Tice: Well, I mean, we’re, we’re all, we’re all interacting with it. Chat bots are asking you questions and we’re, and answering questions for you. It’s like there’s probably no. No person with the internet who is not interacting with it, whether they like it or not,

but I think you have to think about it as it gets closer to your brand identity.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I think the more people that use it responsibly and also, uh, because I, I. What I fear is that people are going to sort of reject and then if the more people that reject it that have good morals, right, then the less likely it’s going to actually change. It’ll probably just go down that [00:40:00] direction.

But if a lot of good people start using it and start noticing, I mean, one of the things that we’ve noticed is that when chat PD was launched originally it was like this beta thing. It was just, let’s just throw it on the public and see what happens and like they’ll give us feedback. And so the more good people that are using it, the more good feedback they’ll get the, probably the better direction that it’ll go in.

That’s my fingers crossed, so we’ll, we’ll see how that goes, but uh,

Carol Tice: know. We shall see. But yeah, for now, I mean community is sort of the antithesis of using AI though though I gather you can train, you can train an AI to leave your comments in the community and I was just like, that is the last thing I’m doing. You know, just this is, to me, community is about authentic human connection across.

Geography. Uh, bringing people together have a common interest, a common desire need a common [00:41:00] transformation in their lives. And the magic of bringing them together and letting them become friends with each other and help each other from all over the world, and having a robot inserting a robot of answers into that or something, just, I don’t know,

it’s not for me.

Tim Melanson: sit well.

Carol Tice: Let’s just say

Tim Melanson: So, Carol,

Carol Tice: for other people who don’t care as much about the experience they’re giving people in their community, but it’s not for me.

Tim Melanson: yeah. So how do we find out more about you and your community?

Carol Tice: I’m at Community Growth Academy on school, and I usually give, it’s like school. I have to look up to, like the best link for this is to go to, uh. school.com, and that’s spelled S-K-O-O-L. For anyone who doesn’t know school.com/community growth dash academy slash about. That is where the page where you will see testimonials and see [00:42:00] my, me and my video about what’s going on in the community and test and all kinds of things.

Um. See me on other podcasts and talking about community and why it matters. And um, there’s a free case study you can grab on there. There’s a link in the community box that says free case study. And that is the end way too much depth story of, um, exactly how I built and sold freelance writer stand. So if you’d like the full blood blood blow on that, you can grab that.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Right on. Well that’s excellent. So this is gonna be probably, might be the hardest question of the day. Carol, who’s your favorite rock star?

Carol Tice: Ooh,

Tim Melanson: I.

Carol Tice: only one.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, no. You can mention a couple.

Carol Tice: I don’t know, um, bono, um.

I’m listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin lately. They’ve aged really well. You know, [00:43:00] I don’t feel, remember that I was that into them when I was back on my Diandra lawn with my yellow tuta loop radio getting suntan growing up in the San Fernando Valley of LA listening to 93 KHJ. Uh, but, but like over time they, uh.

I don’t know. They’ve worn really well, they’ve worn really well. Uh, the, you know, Roger Alt tree, uh, I’d say

Tim Melanson: right on.

Carol Tice: just to name a couple

Tim Melanson: You are into the classic rock. Of course they don’t make music like they used to.

Carol Tice: They do not, but they make it the way they make it now. And just think 20 years from now, those people who, who are listening to that will be listening to that on the oldie station.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s

Carol Tice: And that’ll be the old rock. And we’ll be dinosaurs.

Tim Melanson: Well, do you know what’s interesting? So I, I, um, I know I don’t have a whole lot of time, but I host, uh, jam Nights regularly and I’ve been bringing in younger bands to, to come play [00:44:00] and it is great. They are playing the classic rock. They’re playing the Led Zeppelin, and it’s so cool to see, you know, the 20 somethings and even the, even the, the high school kids playing Led Zeppelin.

That’s so

Carol Tice: They all, they all know the classic rock from Guitar Hero and cartoon, uh, at the end of animated cartoons. know, like the Shrek cartoons use a lot of classic rock. Um, so it’s like it all gets rediscovered that that’s how my kids know a lot of it, or from us inflicting it on them.

Tim Melanson: It’s probably us.

Carol Tice: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Carol, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun. Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you, 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 another work at Home Rockstar that’s been working from home for more than 20 years. That is super cool. He’s got me beat. Uh, so he is the founder of Uplift 360, and what he does is he helps you turn your online presence into a growth engine using AI powered trust driven marketing systems.

Super excited to be rocking out today with Wes Towers. Hey, Wes, you ready to rock?

Wes Towers: Absolutely, Tim, that’s good to be with you.

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

Wes Towers: Sure. Well, I suppose success has changed. What I’ve, uh, thought success was, has changed over the years as I, I guess I’ve matured, but. The, the biggest success story, uh, right now, this year, uh, is, uh, bringing my son on board as part of the team. So, um,

as you, as your children grow up, you, you feel as though you might lose them and not see them ever again.

You know, being, being 20 and with a girlfriend and everything, and, uh, living with his [00:01:00] girlfriend and so on. Uh, there’s always the, the, the risk that you won’t see them again and that you’ll lose, you’ll lose them. But, um, to have him on board one day a week, um, and he’s helping with wealth, with, uh, social media and, and so on, and, um, create, creating some graphics and, and, and, and that type of thing.

He’s really creative, so to have him under my wing as well to help mentor him a little bit as well because he is got our visions of having his own business, uh, in the, in the future as well.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is so awesome. Family business. I love it. That’s so cool. Yeah, I, I, I hope at some point my son ends up working with me as well. He’s off, off to university now. Take. In a me mechanical engineering degree, but, uh, but, uh, so it’s unlikely, but you never know. Right?

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so they, and yeah, my other kids are not in similar paths to what I did as a career, but certainly I hope to be able to support them in, in their journeys. They’re a little, little younger, so, yeah.

Tim Melanson: My other kids [00:02:00] are, are, uh, one, one of them’s a server. I doubt she’ll ever work for me, but I have a feeling that she’ll be an entrepreneur at some point. She’ll start her own business and I’m, I’m actually hoping all three of them do.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Well, I think that, I think ’cause you are modeling to them what life might look like and so many people are just not aware of what an entrepreneurial business could look like in a home-based business. And a, a business built around your lifestyle effectively is what you ideally want to want to create.

It can take some time to get there because it’s just so, it’s, it can be difficult, particularly at the start, but once you build something around your life, it’s, it’s powerful and, and a wonderful life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I totally, I totally agree. It’s, and it’s, uh. It, it’s, uh, it’s not normal. Like, I mean, it’s starting to get a lot more normal now, but, uh, but I mean, I, I, I think that they would kind of look around at their other friends and go like, oh my goodness, like this is weird. You know? ’cause I, I know like my wife and I [00:03:00] actually work together in our business and we’re both working from home and we both got this massive flexibility.

But on the other hand. It also kind of seems like we’re working all the time too, in a way. So it’s like this weird kind of like, are you free? Are you not free? Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Yeah, I’ve heard it said that works. Being self-employed, you’re free to work any 80 hours a week you want to, so.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Now, on the other hand, I mean the flexibility. I mean, that was the reason why, I don’t know what your reason was, but that was my reason for, for doing this. I wanted to have that flexibility of being able to work later or, uh, you know, be able to go to those parent-teacher things during the day.

Like there was a lot of. Things that I was able to do that would’ve been a lot more challenging had I had to ask someone’s permission to do those things, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent that, that was the beauty of and for me too. So I was able to do just same. Many more dad things, um, as the kids were growing up and you know, kids, [00:04:00] you know, have the activities, the sports, and even just school drop off and pick up and all that kind of stuff. You can do, you can fit that into your day so

much more easily than having to ask a boss, Hey, I need to run out for, for an hour to do whatever it is.

Um, so it was, it was magnificent. Um, over the, over the years.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Now, on the other hand, I mean, there’s some things that don’t go super well, you know, on the path as well. I’m not sure if yours was, but I know mine, I, I, I didn’t make all the right decisions. And I’m wondering, uh, I like to normalize that a bit because as people are potentially thinking about starting a, a business or doing something like this.

Uh, a lot of people are a little bit worried about, oh, well what if I, what if I fail? Or what if I make a mistake or what’s gonna happen? And I like to make sure that people understand that, Hey, you know what, that’s part of the process and, you know, you can get, get through it. And so I’m wondering, can you share, you know, a big one that we can, we can learn

Wes Towers: Oh man, I’ve got, I’ve got so many stories that fit into that, uh, line of thinking and it feels as [00:05:00] though I’ve just stumbled and bumbled my way forward. Uh, through, through the business journey. I started completely naively so I had a skillset and similar to yours. Um, I was a graphic designer, web designer.

Um, always had a vision of starting my own business. And I suppose like most of us, we see what our, uh, employers charge us out at. And, uh, you see, oh wow, that’s a pretty enticing, they’re only paying me a, a small fraction of what that is. And so it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, uh, seducing, uh, I suppose just to see what the income might be.

But, so to start out in business. I had the skillset to, to do the work, but I’d never been. I’d been to a couple of client meetings but said nothing. Um, just attended with the salespeople, uh, didn’t know how to do, you know, the bookkeeping and the proposals and any of that stuff,

and all the, all the legal stuff you gotta get, uh, sorted out to, and the tax and.

Just so much. I had no idea, no concept. Um, I was pretty shy to, to show up at, [00:06:00] you know, I remember sweating, sweating so much, just going to the first couple of potential client meetings

and, and so on. And, but bumbled and stumbled my way through and, um, you know, just learned the hard way. That’s just the, that’s just the start.

It just feels as though. There’s always a lesson to be learned. Um, there’s always a challenge. There’s always an obstacle, but that’s human, human growth. Um, I enjoy it. I enjoy the, uh, the challenges that it presents.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, you learn really quickly why there’s a discrepancy from what they pay you and what they get paid for your per hour. They bill when they bill you out. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent. It’s, uh, you know, as a young guy, you could, you could, you know, I was pretty low income as a, as a, uh, as a junior. Um, and you see they’re charging a phenomenal fee for the hours you put in. But you, you, you not quite aware that how much it takes just to run the business side of things. Not [00:07:00] doing the, the, the billable work, but just the other stuff. It’s, it’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well that, and that’s just it, right? I mean, you, you, uh, like, I I keep saying that you, when you start your business, you, you usually, like, you say, you had this skill. And oftentimes it is very similar to what you just said. I, I, I think it’s like you, you re, you recognize or you see how much they’re billing you out at, and you’re like, come on, they’re taking so much money from me, you know, and, uh, whatever it is.

And then you start your business and you realize that you’re doing like. 80% of what you do has nothing to do with that billable thing that you’re doing. It’s all this other stuff. So it’s like, oh, okay, now I get it. Why? Why I have to charge out so high? Right? And, and I mean, and then like. Even, uh, I found another, another interesting challenge to get around was even when you’re sort of like telling your clients what you charge out at, you know, sometimes it gets a little bit awkward ’cause [00:08:00] you know, you, you see the look on their face going like, really?

You charge that per hour? Like, that seems like a rip off. Right? And, and it’s like. It’s, it’s awkward, right? Like, ’cause you feel like, oh, well maybe I’ll give them a little bit of a break. But that, you know, that other time has to be spent. Some like, you do have to do those things, right? Or you have to hire somebody to do it.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And that’s, that’s why it can be incredibly difficult if your target market, I, I, I, it’s great to work with solo. Uh, it, it’s great to be a solo business or work from home and to have a small team and run a small, uh, small business, but it can be difficult to work with solo. Um, businesses, solo operator businesses as a, as a client, just because of those sort of mindset things they’re not kind of used to spending, spending money to, to get things done, or they can’t because they’re really starting out lean and mean.

We all start like that. So, um, I can, I can appreciate and understand where they’re coming from when they haven’t got a budget to do something properly, but you’ve just gotta start [00:09:00] where you’re at and, and grow.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Uh, I, that’s an interesting topic too, because I mean, when you’re speaking to like, uh, when you’re running your business and your, your clients are solopreneurs, like you say, or, or people that are just starting their business, they’ve got a job, they’re working on the side, they don’t really understand that.

The same way that you didn’t when you first got started, right? However, when you start to work with bigger size businesses, it seems like they don’t even blink an eye at, at some of the prices, but it’s because they, they get it right. They, they understand why the, why the hourly rate is so high. It’s not because.

The, you know, that that particular, like they, they could get a junior for sure. They could hire a junior to do that and hire them on as an employee, but now they have to pay their taxes. There’s a whole bunch of other things that come into play that a big business will understand, but the small businesses don’t necessarily understand that.

Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And the bigger guys, they just want a, a, a specialist who does the work really well and they, they want to be hands off and, and know that it’s just done. You know, they don’t wanna have to handhold a, a junior in the office. [00:10:00] Um, and I think that’s kind of the way work is going to have. Specialized freelancers in niched fields, I think is the way of the future, especially the, with the technology these days.

I mean, things have transformed

phenomenally over the years, but over the last few years it’s been crazy, uh, crazy exciting and and terrifying sometimes. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I remember, uh, when I was still working in the cubicle over 20 years ago, uh, the company that I was working for was a high tech company. It was during the, the, the burst of the bubble. And, uh, that company was already. Sort of transitioning out of hiring employees and trying to hire contractors instead.

And I remember that sort of trend that was happening and nowadays as being, it’s, it’s, it’s even easier to hire, to hire, uh, like a contractor instead of employee. Like, and I’m wondering, like for you, you know, either in your business or in some of your client’s businesses, do you see a benefit to hiring an employee versus a, a contractor?

[00:11:00] What, what do you do?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so I have, um, a team in India and Philippines, so they’re obviously remote to me.

And so, and it’s ’cause I’m a home-based business. I can’t have people here all the time. I mean, my son comes in to work here and that’s. That’s just so I can spend time with him. He could do it at home,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Wes Towers: but I, I, uh, trick him into coming to the office and we have lunch once a week and all that kind of fun stuff.

So, um, yeah, but the, uh, everything’s digitalized. And, and I suppose that was the for, for what? For what I do. I mean, we’re making websites. We are doing SEO search engine optimization.

We call it Search Everywhere optimization. But that’s another story. Everything we do is behind a computer, so it makes practical sense that that people can work from anywhere really.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, uh, and so I, I mean, how do you, how do you run that? Like, I mean, there’s no water cooler anymore. Like, do, do you have regular meetings? Are they over zoom? Uh, how, how do, how do you keep everybody, you know, in line? I guess I.[00:12:00]

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, absolutely. It’s, it’s worthwhile in my view to have a, a weekly face-to-face zoom meeting that’s just booked in. Um. Even if you’ve got not much to talk about, it’s just business as usual because everything we, we, um, run all our projects in Clickup. There’s lots of different project management systems and so on, but find a little system that works for your entity and, and that everyone can collaborate on.

’cause it’s all about collaboration. Um, but I think it’s really worthwhile just to have that once a week call, even if. It’s just to see the person and, and just to remember they’re a real human, that it’s just not a, um, digitalization of everything. So, um, I mean, those meetings are very rarely anything much that we need to talk about at all because everything’s in, in the platforms that we’re using, so day to day.

So, um, but it, it is good to stay connected because people have issues as well. You know, you, you wanna know if someone’s got a ma massive. [00:13:00] Um, life circumstance that really might be affecting everything. You know, you, they should become your friends. You, you want people, you know, you wanna build that relationship.

So the downside of being remote to everybody is the relationships can be lost. So you’ve just gotta work a little harder, um, to maintain that.

Tim Melanson: You know, there was a guest a few episodes back that was talking about that, uh, that, you know, comment that people say, you know, you shouldn’t go into business with your friends and how maybe that might not be necessarily. Right. Or, or there. There, there could be a way around that. I’m wondering, ’cause you, you just mentioned you want them to be your friends.

Isn’t that sort of a contradiction, I guess?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s an interesting, I I did hire a friend in the early days and that went horribly wrong. So,

um, I.

I, hired a graphic designer and yeah, so that. That. Yeah. So, um, a long story. [00:14:00] Um, but when I had my fir we had our first child and I was taking some time off and she was the only worker with me. Um, and at that time she chose to leave and take a suite of clients with her

Tim Melanson: Oh dear.

Wes Towers: was trying to have a couple of weeks off. So that was, uh, a lesson, another lesson learned the hard way and, and lose a friend over it as well, so that there’s. Yeah.

Think li life is, life is complicated and messy at times.

Um, but you just do the best to get through.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean in, in that particular instance, was that really a friend? I mean,

Wes Towers: Yeah, I know, I know.

Tim Melanson: really treat each other that way? Right. I, I, I think.

Wes Towers: true, true.

Tim Melanson: think because I’d been thinking about that since that episode and, uh, ’cause some of the comments that, that, that the, the guest made, and I can’t remember, I can’t remember which one it was.

Uh, but it was sort of like, you know, around the lines of like, you, if, if you, you subscribe to the adage of like, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, like your, your [00:15:00] friends should be. High integrity, you know, high functioning sort of people. And I, I, I do get that.

However, on the other hand, I don’t know if that’s where everybody starts, especially long-term friends. I mean, you, your friends tend to be the people that are around you, like, and, and chosen by somebody else. And you know, it’s just a matter of like, you’ve spent a lot of time with them, not necessarily that they align completely with your values.

And I think that’s probably a different scenario. Than maybe the later in life friends that you choose, uh, because they have the same values, you know?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. So if I think about my, I’m really fortunate to have a close friendship group, you know, well, there’s, I’ve got lots of friends. On the, like most of us do, but the at close core set of friends who are all, we’re all kind of similar

in that we run businesses and, um, we have the same [00:16:00] challenges.

So it’s kind of, it’s, it’s a, it’s a different. Path, the, the way we work and, you know, running businesses and small businesses and working from home and all that sort of stuff. And it presents different challenges and, uh, we’ve, we’ve all got our little quirks. Um, and it’s good to have a, a friendship group that can support you, um, through those, those journeys.

And even I feel as though my friends are smarter than me in, in, in their fields. Uh, you know, they’re running. Great businesses, so it’s always good to have them as almost like mentors as well as friends.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, totally. Oh, totally. Absolutely. And I, you know, I have definitely done a lot of business with my friends over the years. Uh, and, and you know, I, I think maybe the, I, I think probably the. The one thing that I would say that does happen is that I think sometimes your friends or you might take advantage of your friends or of the relationship, and you might actually make choices that are [00:17:00] low integrity because you’re thinking, well, my friend knows that I’m going through this right now and I need it type thing, which.

In my opinion, it’s still not a good excuse, but, but I, I could see how that might end up being something that would come, would come by. They’d, they’d be like, ah, they’ll bounce back type

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But, uh, I, I think, I think that that, you know, kind of swings back to what you just said a few minutes ago, that if you are, you know, catching up with them quite often and you know what’s going on in their lives, well, then maybe you might be able to have that conversation instead of being blindsided by something that happens because they didn’t really tell you and you didn’t, you weren’t aware of what was going on in their personal life, right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. And particularly with remote teams that I have, so I have people in the Philippines and India, Philippines. Um, they, they, they have the typhoon season and so it seems like nearly every year someone will be impacted to some [00:18:00] degree with that, you know, whether it be their extended family or whatnot.

But there’ll be, there’ll. Challenges that I, I’m just sort of aware that whe when that season comes and what that might mean for various team members and just, uh, to be aware of that. And that’s partially why I’ve got two te, like two locations of teams so that, um, because there can be some downtime obviously in those, in those seasons, uh, in the Philippines as well.

So some team members won’t, won’t be available.

Um. But the, the Indian, um, people will be able to take o over some of that workload as well. So building, building around, um, those sorts of challenges to, to make sure that, uh, things are stable, um, that you can continue to deliver what you need to do.

Tim Melanson: That’s smart. So let’s talk a little bit about, uh, getting fans. Hey, you’ve been doing this for 20 plus years. The world has changed drastically. Like,

Wes Towers: Yeah, man.

Tim Melanson: wondering actually if you can tell me [00:19:00] how have things. How are things different? Like how did you go out there and get your first few, uh, fans we’ll say, uh, in the very beginning versus what do you do now?

Wes Towers: Well, yes. As I said, starting the business, I was completely naive and I started way earlier than I thought I would, simply because an opportunity came up. There was another guy who, who I knew, I didn’t know him very well, but I knew him enough that he was running a, he was trying to run a a, a business similar, similar service.

To what I now do.

He said, he, he, he was just saying, I’ve had enough. I’m not making enough income. I’m throwing, throwing this in. I’m going to go get a real job. So just go work for somebody again. And I said, well, what are you gonna do with a few clients? You’ve still got left? And he said, we can have them. I thought, okay, well I will have them. And uh, so he handed them over to me. There wasn’t much. There was a little bit. And so it was a, a way to start with something. And so I didn’t start full-time in my own business. I just did his few clients in the [00:20:00] evenings, um, for a little while until I could drop my day job back, um, to a couple of days a week, and then eventually drop it completely and then go full-time and then. Get team, get team to support me as well. So, um, that’s the, that’s the, uh, transition, um, of how, how it all kind of transpired. So it’s probably different to some people. I had a little opportunity, but I think that’s true in a, in a, a way. For every business you’ll see an opportunity. But there’ll be reluctance to start because you’ll never feel quite ready.

Um, but I, I, I feel as though the things that we fear the most are the things we need to do the most. So whilst it might be fear, there might be some level of fear to step out and start your own business. I think figuring out ways where you can dip your toes into the water and just get started with some basic practical step first steps. I think that really worked for me, and I think that’s, uh, true of every, every business. [00:21:00] If you can start, start as small as you can, as, uh, as quickly as you can and build some form of momentum, um, to take you forward to the next level, I think that’s the way to do it. So, growing the business in the early days, I mean, a, to answer your question more clearly, like. So that was kind of the starting point, just taking on whatever I could get. Um, but as you grow, I sort of niched into the business, um, with, without the clients we wanted to target a bit better. So trades and construction businesses were, um, clearly our best clients for the most part. So there was other clients outside of that field, but started to niche in because I realized they were the ones that were the happiest, getting the best outcomes for.

So you kind of learn as you go and you evolve. I, I think that’s the way of, of doing it. Um, but yeah, business has changed. People expectations have changed as well. Obviously COVID disrupted everything, but the

beauty of it in the end was. People know about [00:22:00] Zoom, you know,

I mean, man, the amount of hours I used to spend driving around, all over the place, um, for a client meeting.

And so you, you factor that into your day. You, you just lose a whole heap of your day. Um, but now you just jump on a call and you’re in and out and you, um, can deal with things really quickly and it, uh, that’s the expectation. Everyone knows how to do that now, so it’s pretty cool.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree with that. The, the, I remember when I started my podcast, I started this podcast in, uh, what was it, 2015, so about 10. Years ago. And, uh, and, uh, the reason why I started in the first place actually, was because I wanted to, uh, have a, a, a basically teach people the things that I didn’t know when I first got started.

I wanted to be the resource that I would’ve been looking for. Right. And a lot of it kind of like stemmed around that 80% thing of like, man, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know. Right. And, uh. But I just remember, uh, the, the, to me it seemed [00:23:00] logical that people would work from home. And I thought that it would grow over time.

I was like, you know what I mean? Give it a few years. I bet you, I bet you most people will be working from home if they can. And I did not expect something like lockdowns to start happening, and then all of a sudden people are forced to do it right. Uh. So it happened a lot more sudden than I had expected.

I thought it’d be a lot more gradual. But, but I mean, like you say, the, the, the silver lining of that is that. It has now afforded a lot of people that didn’t have that opportunity to, to do this. Right. And even in, in companies, I, I know that it, it just baffled me that so many companies were just anti working from home.

Like, they would not let their workforce work from home. It was just this, this, this, this very, very bizarre, uh, idea that they weren’t gonna be productive at all. And. I do kind of see that there are personalities that [00:24:00] some personalities work better in an office and some personalities work better at home.

I know for me, I work better at home. I don’t know about you, but I mean, you put me in any company, I will be far more productive at home than I will be sitting at in the office and getting interrupted by everybody every few minutes, right? So I think that there are some personality differences, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, for me there’s a bit of a balance. I mean, I, I love to work at home because I, when I’m working, I’m really working and

focused and don’t talk to me, don’t, like, don’t disrupt my

thinking at the time because, you know, I’m dial in. Um, so that’s the beauty of being at home and just focusing. Um, but I also. Chose to live in a, a spot, which is, we’re right in, in town, um, in kind of the business district. So if I go downstairs, we’re in an apartment, um. If I go downstairs, it’s the business world and community. So I still feel connected to people as well. Um, so for me that’s a great balance. I know not [00:25:00] everyone can just move, but it, uh, it’s about creating a balance that works for you.

And so, and there’s other ways to connect if you, if you have that craving for people and connection, I mean, there’s networking groups you can go to and there’s a whole bunch of other things you can do to have people. If you’re a people person and you, I am a people person, I like to connect, but I’m, when I’m focused, I work.

When I’m talking to people, I do that. I, uh, um, so yeah, just getting that balance right for the individual I think is important.

Tim Melanson: Um, I like to talk about practicing because I, I, I, I, I say this sometimes, you know, especially in music. Every great guitar player was once a very bad guitar player. Right. You know, it, it’s just there. You have to get to that point. And in every industry and every business, you know, you’re going to improve over time, uh, as long as you have some sort of practice.

And I’m wondering, do you have any practices or what practices do you have?

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, the, uh, it feels as though there’s always something new to learn, and so I, I feel like. It’s, it’s [00:26:00] kind of an industry as, you know, it’s kind of an industry where you never feel like you’ve arrived because something is new on the

horizon. And that’s, you know, increased with AI and transformation of how we, how we do things and, and get work done and, and all that.

So it’s just a matter of. Staying, uh, educated. And I, I watch a lot of YouTube. I listen to a lot of podcasts about the new, new and the latest tools. So I’m being educated, um, and even sort of dive a little bit divergent type of scenarios. I, I guess if you were to liken it to music, I don’t stick to just listening to my own.

Um. Style of music. I’m listening to other broader influences to keep me sharp and keep me. Unique in thinking about the world and what people might need, because we’re, at the end of the day, we’re producing marketing outcomes, so we need to understand the world in which we’re working and, and what, uh, might be influencing people, so [00:27:00] to stay connected.

Um, and, uh, to, that’s the beauty of things like, uh, YouTube and, and not the, I mean, just the mainstream media we used to live upon, uh, years ago, but now we can. Listen to really niched and specific, uh, things that we need to learn about. It might be software, um, different opportunities, you know, podcasting. I was, I plan to start my own podcast, uh, next year.

I’m just guesting on a lot at the moment. Um, and so just to be able to, uh, watch a whole bunch of different YouTubers on different podcasting platforms and the pros and cons and the um, and then just to try them, um, that’s kind of how I do life and do business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s, uh, the, the information is a lot more on demand rather than just kind like broadcast it out to us nowadays. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, you

can find what you want when you want it right away. Uh, you can talk to your chat JBT and uh, use it as almost like a personal psychologist half the time,[00:28:00]

Tim Melanson: You,

Wes Towers: um, but a brainstorming tool. Yeah,

it’s, it’s it’s so powerful. Like, I’m driving around in a car oftentimes, um, when I have my ideas and so I don’t wanna lose those ideas.

So I, um, get the, get the chat GBT on, obviously hands free and have the conversation so I can at least brain dump some of the thoughts, um, that I have right then and, uh, have a conversation with, with the, um, with the ai. And by the time I get to wherever I’ve got, I’ve distilled down my thoughts into something.

It’s helped me distill my thoughts down into something that’s tangible that I can action. It might be a blog post, for example, or it might be, um, it’s something new that I need to integrate into the business to adjust things.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think the, the voice activated part of chatt PT is a, one of the biggest game changers of the whole thing. Because I don’t know about you. I’m a, I’m more of a, of an extrovert. Uh, which as I understand it, means that I, I think out loud, I, I need to speak it. Right. [00:29:00] Whereas, you know, a lot of introverts are the opposite.

They think it and then they say it. Right. So for me, uh, talking things out is how I get to a point. And. If I’m alone, it’s weird just, you know, speaking to myself. And so here I am, I’m speaking to my wife and she doesn’t quite understand what I’m trying to say. And so it’s confusing and then, and, but, but with this whole, you know, this machine that I could speak to and it speaks back to me and like you can get quite a bit of work done.

You can flesh those ideas out. I mean, sometimes they’re just terrible and, and it comes out pretty quickly. And you didn’t have to take anybody’s time in order to do that, right? It was, it was an actual machine that did it for you, right.

Wes Towers: It’s so powerful. It’s just, I think for those that are reluctant to start with AI and just not, not even started, it’s just overwhelming. I think just. Download chat, chip D on your phone, pay, pay the $20, whatever it is to get the better version. Um, and just [00:30:00] having start having a conversation with it, you’ll soon realize it’s pretty easy to use.

And the, the, the power of it is really, um, it could be a huge advantage to your business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think so too. And I, you know, I’m, I’m starting to, uh. So I, I think chat GPT came out what, in 2023? Uh, you know, I adopted it pretty quickly, uh, as soon as it was available in Canada. And so I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit and it’s, it’s evolved quite a bit over time. It’s quite good right now.

It’s not where I, I think it will be, I mean, it’s gonna evolve a lot more. However, for the people that are afraid of. Of chat, uh, um, or of AI in general. I think the issue here is that it’s going to go no matter what we do. Like, it, it, it just, it is so, there are people that are pushing this forward and I think it’s actually more dangerous to not get informed on what it is because now, you know, [00:31:00] we’re basically just gonna be doing whatever the.

Six people and who are, you know, running the show are gonna be pushing us towards. And we won’t really have a whole lot of input because we won’t really have a whole lot of knowledge of what’s going on. But the more people that are. Understanding AI and understanding what it can do, what it can’t do, where it’s dangerous, where it’s super helpful.

I think that we’ll have more of an interesting conversation on where we want this to go, right? Because, uh, I think a lot of people look at the Terminator movies and think, oh my God. And, and you know what? That is totally possible. If, if we’re not careful, uh, however. You know, the Jetsons is also possible too, you know,

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: so it’s

Wes Towers: Yeah. We still want our flying cars. When we getting those flying cars, we to have.

Tim Melanson: I know we’re supposed to have flying cars and we’re supposed to have robot butler and all those things, but, and, and I, I [00:32:00] do think that that stuff is also possible. However, we, I think we do need to get into this conversation. We need to understand what it’s doing, what it’s not doing. I mean, it, it doesn’t take you very long of using chat GBT to realize that it is.

Cool. But it’s also very dumb in a lot of ways too. I mean, it, it’ll, it’ll tell you the weirdest things like you, you really do have to direct it. It, it’s, it’s, it’s not just magic, right? So

Wes Towers: A hundred percent. You still need expertise in whatever it is you’re doing, but it can just help get you there faster. I mean, there’s trouble, it’s probably similar for what you are doing sometimes you, you get a, you’re building a website and, and the um, there’s some sort of bug in there and it

used to be like a needle in the haystack.

So we do WordPress websites. I’m not sure what your software

you use, but Yeah, So you use a, a set of plugins, so effectively different, um, pieces of software that do different things in the website and sometimes they don’t necessarily play [00:33:00] nicely together or something’s not supported or something breaks.

And so it can be like a needle in the haystack to figure out what. What’s causing this issue. But now you can troubleshoot and find that needle in a haystack super fast

just because you can run the, run the code through, um, AI and it’ll find it, uh, it’s just phenomenal. But you still need the skillset in which you need to understand what, you know, the plugins and the WordPress and, and all that kind of stuff.

Um,

it’s just that you find the, find the issue quicker because it’s helping you, um, do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I found the same thing. I found that I could find issues really quickly, but then I try to get the AI to fix it and it will not. I get into so such big arguments with it. ’cause it keeps on, like keeps on reverting back and doing stupid things and I’m like, ah, I thought you were just gonna do this for me.

And the it does

Wes Towers: yeah,

Tim Melanson: it for you.

Wes Towers: yeah. It’s, it’s true. Sometimes it, and it will tell you lies if it doesn’t know. It just makes something up, which is really annoying.

Tim Melanson: I know. And you, you have to go find that needle in a haystack too, of the, [00:34:00] the, the thing that it just made up, it just fills in blanks. Oh, well you didn’t tell me, so I just filled it in. I’m like, oh,

Wes Towers: just made it up. But it’s, yeah, so, so you still need to be an expert in the field that you work in, but the, um, when you can use it to an advantage and, and even with the systems and processes, we’ve adapted a fair bit too, uh, and some great ones for when you’re working at home. Particularly, particularly if you’re working by yourself. I mean, we’re, we’ve got, uh, AI receptionist now answering the phone, which is really cool. Um, there was, I had a little bit of a mixed feeling about it, so I just thought, we’ll, we’ll try it and quickly turn it off if it doesn’t work for us. But it’s, it’s been magic in that it just deals with the, the phone calls.

We were getting a lot of telemarketing calls, so it just filters out all that rubbish. Um, but it gets meetings booked into our calendar right away if that’s what people are. It’ll just have a really basic conversation with the person ringing, um, and figure out if they wanna book a meeting and it’ll [00:35:00] do that.

Um, or if they need to speak to someone, it’ll, it’ll, um, put them through directly to me as quickly

as, as, as I can. So if I, if I’m available, um, I’ll answer that right away and deal with it just like I ordinarily would.

So it’s just, yeah,

Tim Melanson: platform do you use for that then?

Wes Towers: that’s in go high level.

Um. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s, there’s, there’s more sophisticated ones out there.

I just went with the one because we’re already using go high level as a CRM and a whole bunch of other things in there. So do, do you have, do you have go high level or something similar?

Tim Melanson: Uh, I use, uh, HubSpot for the most part, for, for my CRM. Um,

Wes Towers: yeah.

Tim Melanson: I’ve used go high level several times with different clients and I, you know, so far I. Uh, I haven’t really liked it a whole lot, however, I think it’s improving quite drastically, especially with the white label type stuff, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.[00:36:00]

Wes Towers: The problem with it is it’s just overwhelming and sometimes I feel as though they’re just adding more, more capabilities, but not really refining and polishing it as best as it could.

So I think that would be better served if they stopped adding new stuff and just got the stuff that they have

got working a bit better.

It’s a little bit clunky at times.

Tim Melanson: that frustrates me.

Wes Towers: yeah. Yeah. So. But yeah, it’s working, it’s working well for us. And

because we’re a bit techie as well, you know, we can, we can figure it out,

you know, we can figure out what the clunks are and work around them. So, but it might not be a great fit for, uh, other businesses who are, who are less tech savvy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So tell me, uh, it is time for your guest solo. What’s exciting in your business right now?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so the, um, well launching a podcast next year that’s super exciting

for us. But, um, just the changes that of the industry are really exciting. So, as I said, we’re, we’re calling it, we’re doing Search Everywhere optimization. We’ve done SEO Do you do SEO [00:37:00] as well as part of your service

Tim Melanson: I, I, I do some basic stuff, but I’m not an SEO expert.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so we’ve done that for many, many years. Um, and uh, so it’s kind of been a challenge in some ways recently because obviously SEO for people listening who might not know, understand search engine optimization,

it’s attempt to show up as highly as it can for as many keywords as you can. So keywords being something that people might search in Google and historically it might be service and location, so plumber, Melbourne, um, and people would search that hopefully. Show up number one or close to that, get traffic to the website, get a, get some business as a result of that. That was nice and simple and easy, and we would work on a number of keywords for clients and grow their traffic. And, um, get them more business. And it was super, super easy to demonstrate the value of it.

But then ai, uh, AI overviews comes on board and, and less traffic was coming to websites. And so all of a sudden clients were saying, Hey, you’ve worked with us so long [00:38:00] and you’ve always increased our traffic. Why is it going the opposite? Why are we getting less traffic now? So that was a difficult challenge to discuss with them, but to. To show them they were still getting the same return, same quality of leads coming through. It was just that less research based, um, traffic was getting to their website. So to adapt our service offering to facilitate the new, um. Search everywhere. Optimization’s not just about Google anymore, it’s about showing up in large language models.

So helping our clients show up in chat, GPT when people are searching for a service or a, a product that they offer. And, and particularly in the local region. I mean, we had a great story of a client just gave me a call and said, Hey, thanks so much for the work you’ve done. Um, we’ve just won $140,000 client as a, as a result of showing up on chat GBT.

So,

um. Yeah, that’s, that’s the beauty of what, that’s exciting. It keeps me on my toes because it’s obviously changing super fast. But the benefits of being [00:39:00] able to get those really solid successes for clients, uh, it keeps me, keeps me excited, um, uh, you know, day to day. So that’s what it is.

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

Wes Towers: Well, uh, yeah. Uplift three sixty.com au is is the business website, and you can book, book a strategy call with me there. And, uh, happy to, happy to discuss, um, how it might work for any individual.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Love that. So, hardest question of the day here. Who is your favorite rockstar?

Wes Towers: Oh, favorite rockstar. Wow. Yeah, that’s, uh, pretty cool. Um. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go on a slightly different, um, I’m gonna choose a local, uh, I, I think a rock star. He, he sings at the, um, at the bar just near here. Um, so, uh, yeah, Luke Biskin is his name,

and so you will find he’s on Spotify and so on.

Um, but he’s my favorite, so I, I know him reasonably [00:40:00] well now. Um, just a local, local, um, muso.

Tim Melanson: Nice. It’s nice when you walk into a place and they know your name. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

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

Wes Towers: Yeah. Great. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks, Tim.

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