Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast. Very excited for this episode. We’re talking to a marketing strategist from Bolt From The Blue Copywriting, and what she does is she helps, she helps to create marketing strategies and write copy and content that helps people build relationships with their clients and audience so they can share ideas that matter and make more money.

That sounds pretty cool to me. So we are rocking out today with Rachel Allen. Hey, Rachel, you ready to rock?

Rachel Allen: I am ready

at literally at all times

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, let’s rock out then. We always start off here on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we

can be inspired by

Rachel Allen: Hmm. You know, I, uh, I had a couple, but I think the one I’m gonna go with is actually how I started my business and how I became a work-from-home rockstar. I’ve never actually had another job, uh, as an adult. So I graduated from college with a journalism degree, and, uh, but the problem was I graduated into the ’08 recession, and of course, nobody was hiring anybody, and especially not people from rural Tennessee.

So, um, in my 22-year-old brain, I was like, "Well, what’s the furthest away I can get [00:01:00] from Tennessee?" And turns out it’s Hong Kong. So I bought a plane ticket, and I left. But I didn’t get a work visa or, like, do anything to prepare for it, and so I landed in Hong Kong with, like, 200 bucks in my bank account, and I had to make rent.

So I’m googling, like, how to make money online, which is only marginally less ridiculous then than it is now. And I found this, uh, job called copywriting, and I was like, "Well, I don’t know what that is, but I can do writing." Um, and I took it, and they paid me, and I was absolutely hooked, and that’s what I built my business off of.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Uh, it’s awesome in retrospect, mostly terrifying during

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I bet. Uh, I’m, and I imagine

there’s probably a language barrier and all that stuff. Do you speak the language or anything, or? You probably

Rachel Allen: minor, I mean, my minor was in Mandarin, but they speak Cantonese there primarily, and so I, I know just enough to get in trouble. You know, I can order at a restaurant, go to the bathroom, that kind of thing

Tim Melanson: Okay. So wow, that, that sounds amazing. Now, along with the good note though, sometimes things [00:02:00] don’t go as planned. And so I’m wondering, uh, we do like to talk about that on this show because it, it is what keeps people out of the game in the first place, is just afraid to fail. And, uh, I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered and how we can recover?

Rachel Allen: Yeah. Well, uh, my bad note’s kind of tied to my good note, actually. So I spent a couple years in Hong Kong and then ended up living nomadically for the next 10 years, and I moved about every six months. I didn’t really know what I was doing with the business, though, so, um, I got into this situation where I hadn’t paid taxes in three years in two separate countries, and I just kind of ignored it and, like, really hoped it would go away.

And I think as we all know, that doesn’t happen. So I eventually came to this point where I had to, like, work up my courage and call an accountant and be like, "I’ve done something very, very bad." And they had to assemble this international team of accountants to get me filed appropriately in each country.

But that led to me having to hand categorize every expense I’d had for the past three years. And if you ever wanna really [00:03:00] rethink your decision-making paradigm, that is a good way to do it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Well, something similar happened to me too. I got, I got in trouble with taxes. Only one country though, so it was much easier. But the, the really good thing that came out of that is the same thing as you just said, I got into a really good accounting procedures of, like, accounting for everything, ’cause they need to know all that stuff, right?

And, and, uh, especially for, like, uh, business categories and making sure that everything’s in the right spot, but it worked for my personal as well. So the good silver lining, right?

Rachel Allen: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I still do this every single week now. I hand categorize my expenses just kind of out of habit. I have a bookkeeper and an accountant, but I’m like, I just wanna keep my finger kind of on the pulse of what I’m doing, and I think that that’s really saved me from a lot of the, like, little bad decisions you can get into in business.

Like, you know, the subscriptions you don’t realize you’re still paying for, or like, oh, I haven’t used that email service in a year. Why is that still there, you know?

Tim Melanson: Well, and the, I mean, this lends really [00:04:00] well to the hat, to keeping the hat full, uh, which we talk, talk about all the time about the cashflow. ‘Cause I, I mean, there’s a lot of people that just really do avoid the, you know, the day to day, and they don’t check these things. And I mean, you kind of fell into that category as well.

So I’m wondering, uh, actually, just to take a step back, why do you think people avoid it so much?

Rachel Allen: Hmm. You know, I think in my case it was shame. It was a lot of shame. Um, I had never thought that I was ever gonna run a business because, um, I’m actually dyscalculic, which is ma- math dyslexia. I don’t… I’m not good with numbers. They, like, switch on me. And so I had this idea that because I’m bad at math, I can’t be good with money, which, you know, it’s silly, but we make those weird connections in our brains.

And so I was like, "Oh, well, I can’t. I’m afraid I’m gonna break it if I touch it, so I’m just gonna kind of like hope that everything works out." And I eventually had to go through this mindset shift of like, well, this is a part of my business. I need to treat it just like any other element of it, and realize that, like, I’m not gonna, I don’t [00:05:00] know, accidentally burn my house down if I do the spreadsheet wrong.

So I had to get over that shame, and I think that’s where a lot of people come from too. They just, they don’t know what you don’t know, and I think it can be intimidating to approach an expert, um, in that area

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think there’s, I think there’s shame. I think there’s also that programming even, right? That math is hard, right? Uh, uh, ’cause you do see that quite a bit, right? Where it’s, it’s sort of like normalized and it’s like cool to be, you know, not good at math. I don’t know. You know, the cool people are not good at math and the nerds or the geeks are good at math.

And it’s just like, so you sort of have this programming in there as well that might be playing a part. I don’t know if it does or not, right?

Rachel Allen: Oh, definitely. And as you say that, I think another part of it that trips a lot of people up, or it certainly did me, was I tried to follow other people’s systems for keeping on top of my finances, and I was like, "Oh, no, I need to break this down, like, to a really basic checklist for me," because my nervous system is already so weird about it.

I need to figure out a way that works for me so I’m not trying to go in and, like, use a software that doesn’t [00:06:00] make sense to me or do a whole bunch of calculations by hand because, you know, that’s never gonna work out well. So I had to find my own way to do it

Tim Melanson: And I think that, um, I, I mean, I, I would say probably the worst thing, of course, is to do nothing like, but

Rachel Allen: Yeah, don’t do that.

Tim Melanson: but then the next worst thing, which is also could be better, could be good, is to find someone to help you with it or to find someone to do it for you.

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: that, I mean, there’s a lot of horror stories of people taking a- being taken advantage of by people that are handling the money for them type thing, right?

And I mean, sure, i- if, you know, if it’s someone that you can trust or if it’s your spouse, hopefully you can trust your spouse. Yeah, I know. But I mean, it, it’s not that bad when you really, like, sit down with it. I, I think, like you say, most of the issues that we have with that are programming issues, shame issues.

They’re, they’re things that are kind of like making us [00:07:00] avoid it. But when you really do look at it, I mean, it, it, it’s, it’s really just kind of… It’s as simple as you try to make it be, I think, right?

Rachel Allen: Yeah, totally. And I mean, one thing that was a big change for me was I actually ended up working with a financial behaviorist as well as an accountant, and her whole deal is like, yeah, money is, of course it’s emotional because our decision-making is emotional. And so it’s going in and, like, kind of unpicking that programming and seeing whether you still wanna make decisions from that basis or not

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. A- and, and I think, you know what? There might be a portion of it that is sort of like self-sabotaging as well, thinking that, "Well, if I don’t look at how little money I have,

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm

Tim Melanson: maybe then it will justify me making this terrible purchase idea that I’m about to make." Right?

Rachel Allen: Exactly. Totally.

Tim Melanson: Because I mean, if you really knew what the numbers were, you probably wouldn’t be buying that right now, right?

Rachel Allen: Oh, absolutely. And I think with entrepreneurs, we’re all, I think, prone to [00:08:00] shiny, shiny object syndrome, and it’s like, "Well, but if I buy that one more thing, then it’s gonna make me money, so really I’m saving money." And I’m like, "Maybe, or you’re just fooling yourself."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Oh yeah, well, and we get that in the consumer world too. "Well, it’s on sale, it means

Rachel Allen: Right, right.

Tim Melanson: you know, I’m making money by buying this"

Rachel Allen: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Tim Melanson: Right? So I, I, I do th- I mean, I, I think this is a, a massive topic that I think… I think what you just said about getting a, what is, was it a financial behavior specialist?

Rachel Allen: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: th- that’s probably a good place to start rather than going directly towards an accountant, because maybe there’s some blocks there that would just… Uh, I mean, ac- accountants and b- and bookkeepers, I mean, I don’t think they’re super expensive, but they’re, they’re also not free. So, you know, maybe putting a little bit of money into why it is that you’re avoiding the numbers, because I’m not saying that every entrepreneur needs to be on top of the numbers as much as you and I are, of course.

But I think it, [00:09:00] I, I think every entrepreneur has to have at least a basic understanding of where their money is going. Uh, like, y- you know, if you think it, about it, uh, even a CEO in a massive company, I mean, they get reports on this kind of stuff. Like, it, it, of course it’s not their job. They’ve got a s- you know, a technical officer that’s handling…

Or sorry, a financial officer that’s handling that ty- type of stuff, but they get the reports. They have a basic understanding of where their money’s going. So you should too, right?

Rachel Allen: Like anything else in your business, and I mean anything I do, whether it’s, uh, what- whatever I’m outsourcing, I wanna know that I can at least do it kinda sorta a little bit myself, even though I’m not going to do it forever ’cause someone else is better at it. I need to know, though, um, enough to where I can know if they’re screwing it up

Tim Melanson: Yes, there you go. And that’s probably a, a- that, well, that’s a really good, uh, example of every part of your business. And I think that that’s why, like, like when you get started as a, as a solopreneur, like you are wearing all those hats, and I think that’s a good place to start for most people is you, you, you start small, you know, y- [00:10:00] you know, your business is small, so your problems are small, right?

And, and so you can get a basic handle of how all your pl- your things work. And then the things that aren’t your gift zone, sure, you can start to delegate those things. But at least you know, like you say, I, I know if I’m hiring somebody who knows what they’re doing or not, because I know enough to know that part, right?

Rachel Allen: Yeah, absolutely. And then that way, I mean, something I’ve done before was I would really second-guess myself of like, "Well, they’re the expert. I mean, it doesn’t seem right, but it must be, uh-uh." And like that doesn’t work out either. So much like with, I think, finding therapists or any other service provider, you might go through a couple of accountants before you find the one who really gets you and who’s right for you.

And knowing enough to know what’s going on helps shore up that intuition where you’re like, "I don’t know, seems like a bad fit

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I mean, if they can’t explain it to you like what you just said, uh, they c- i- it’s, it’s likely that they don’t know what they’re doing either ’cause anybody who really knows their topic should be able [00:11:00] to explain something to somebody else like they’re an eighth

Rachel Allen: Yeah, yeah,

Tim Melanson: or whatever it is, right?

So I mean, just because you might not be as much of an expert as they are, they should be able to explain to you, "Oh, no, no, I do it this way because of this." And then, like you say, follow your gut. Y- y- you could probably get a good gut feeling of whether they’re doing it that way because they’re, they’re skimming stuff off or because it actually is a really good i- uh, idea and strategy, right?

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. And a lot of times even just the willingness. Like, I- that’s something I ask when I’m interviewing any service provider. I’m like, "How okay are you with answering my questions?" Like, I wanna be able to come to you and just say like, "Look, I, I’m not questioning you, but I need to understand why."

And if they’re like, "Oh, well, you need to trust my process," I’m like, "Okay, that’s fine. I do, and also, like, could we chat about it?"

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. So now when it comes to, like you mentioned that you were kind of moving around a lot,

Rachel Allen: Yeah

Tim Melanson: does that work for setting up your home office?

Rachel Allen: Ugh. I had to learn, uh, really quickly how to make that work for me, because I was in this… [00:12:00] You know, I was moving every six months. I was in different countries, different Airbnbs. This was, like, mid-aughts-ish, and so the internet wasn’t as common, and, as it is now, you know? Um, so what I learned really quickly was what works for me is I need a place with a flat surface and a comfortable chair that is very quiet or that I can make quiet.

I wasn’t doing as many calls back then, so it didn’t really matter if it was, like, you know, elevated the way I have this set up now. But, um, I did so much working on my laptop on my actual lap. Or, like, um, I was living in Greece for a while, and people are like, "Work on the beach." It’s a horrible idea. Don’t buy it.

Don’t ever do it. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever do. So I’ve experimented with all these things, and I had to find that. And then the one thing, um, that I would recommend everybody do, especially if they’re moving around to a bunch of places, you need something that tells your brain, "Hey, this is the work spot."

And so I actually have, um, a little cat figurine. It’s right

up there behind me if anybody’s watching this on video.

And that tiny little [00:13:00] cat, I call it my home cat, ’cause I bought it when I was in Hong Kong, and I was like, "Well, I’m moving, but ev- wherever the home cat is, that’s where home is." And so when I set that up, I’m like, "Okay, this is, this is home.

This is office space. This is where I do stuff." So if you can find little talismans that just tell your brain, "This is where we do the thing," then it helps so much, I think, with procrastination and brain fog, ’cause your brain’s like, "Well, this is where we do the thing

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. I remember when I was, uh, uh, when I was starting to work from home, my, uh, my son was very young at the time, and I ge- had this idea of putting on a work hat of like,

Rachel Allen: Yeah. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: that they don’t bug you when you’re wearing your work hat. Like, and it kind of like a similar thing, ’cause it probably did work as some sort of like, like you say, talisman or some sort of like cue to your brain that, okay, well I’m working right now.

So it probably helped with productivity

Rachel Allen: Yeah, absolutely. And another thing that people, uh, don’t think about is smells. So I have, um, like a scented candle that I light every morning when I go to work, and smells are such a powerful cue to your brain. So anything that you like, whether it’s like, hey, this is the c- [00:14:00] the coffee I only have at my desk, or this is the tea I drink here, this is the perfume I wear here, or whatever, that can be a super powerful cue

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. So smells and things that you’re looking at. Now, what, what about, like, inspiration in your… Do you have any of that?

Rachel Allen: Yeah, so actually as I look behind you right here, um, my house is literally like built up into the side of a mountain, so all it is is just green all the way up. Um, and there’s little like squirrels and chipmunks and stuff run around, but I can watch the leaves move, and I found that I just need a space where I can let my eyes like go into the middle distance.

Um, otherwise I get really distracted and I find myself like opening the same tabs over and over and over again even though like nothing is happening on LinkedIn, I don’t need to be there, but I’m like, "Hmm, let me just check." And I just need to have something to where I can kind of like gaze as I’m thinking

Tim Melanson: That’s a really good idea, and I think that that probably aligns with a lot of people as well. You- if you don’t have anything to look at that distracts you, like on purpose, then you’re gonna get distracted by something not on purpose, right?

Rachel Allen: Totally. [00:15:00] And for me, I think nature is such an important part of that. I’ve worked in cities as well, and I’ve had like, um, places where I would overlook like city si- skylines, and that works too. But something about having a tree moving outside my office just really helps my brain work

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, it’s nature. I mean, that’s what our, that’s what we are, right?

Rachel Allen: Right

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So now, how did you learn all this stuff? Like, where do you get all this? Is it, uh, do you hire coaches? Like, how does this all work for you?

Rachel Allen: So, uh, in the beginning I was in this, like, really strong state of denial that I was actually running a business, so I was like, "Don’t teach me anything about business. I’m not doing such a thing." But after I finally made that decision to really commit to it, uh, I did start working with coaches. So I’ve worked with several coaches over the years.

Um, I’ve also found masterminds to be a really integral part of my growth because I read, I don’t even remember where, but I read something early on of, like, make friends with people and then 20 years down the road, you know, that’s how you know all the cool people in the, like, ridiculous positions that no one ever knows how to connect with.

And so that’s been a huge part of my business, is just I like making friends [00:16:00] with people. It’s why I do podcast guesting. It’s why I love being in small groups and masterminds and, like, going to retreats and stuff. Because that’s how now, 18 years down the road, I’m like, "Oh, of course I know the CEO of blah, blah, blah.

I was there with her when she started the business," you know? And so it’s just, like, not reverse engineering or, like, having these transactional relationships, but just finding people that you think are cool and putting yourself in a room where you are not the smartest human and just being like, "Okay, just talk at me.

Like, just say stuff."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. Uh, I, I agree with that because I, like, I have hi- hired coaches as well. However, I think I’ve gotten the most out of… Like, and for me, I don’t, um, I have been parts of, part of masterminds, but this podcast really is my mastermind. I get to meet people that are way ahead of me on their journey, and I get to people, to meet people that are just getting started on their journey, and I like that.

I like being able to talk to both, right? I like to be able to kinda, like, aspire to something, and I also like to be able to help somebody. And I think that the [00:17:00] masterminds are, are kind of, like, built for that, right? Like, other than running your own podcast or getting on podcast guests, if you’re part of a mastermind, you just get that.

And having peers that you are on the same level as with as well that don’t have anything to gain from, like, they’re not competing with you. You know what I mean?

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: And they’re not making money from you, right?

Rachel Allen: Exactly, like with that spirit of generosity. Like I had, um, a period, oh gosh, several years ago now, where I was really struggling with something, and I came to the mastermind, and I actually started crying, which I don’t normally do. But I was so touched because everyone in it just went like, zhoop, like this like pit crew around me, and they’re like, "All right.

Here’s what I’m gonna fix for you. Here’s who I’m gonna introduce you to. Here’s what happens next. Here’s how we’re gonna build your confidence." And just having that network of people to be like, "Hey, I don’t care how you show up. I really like you, and I believe in you even when you don’t believe in yourself," it’s so powerful

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and I, I do think that this community, like the self-employed community, is a, is a community. We all kind of have… I mean, I, I don’t know how many- I’ve done [00:18:00] so many episodes of this, and everybody is helpful for each other, right?

Rachel Allen: totally. That’s what I love about it because, like, people will ask me a lot of times, like, "What’s it like being an entrepreneur?" And I’m like, "Well, it’s, it’s problem-solving, right?" That’s the entire job. Entrepreneurship is where basically nothing is your fault, but almost everything is your problem. And so I think that’s why everyone is so helpful, ’cause we’re like, I, you know, I know I would not be able to solve all the problems by myself, but maybe I can solve yours, and then maybe later you’ll solve mine, or you know somebody who solves mine or whatever.

And there’s a real generosity of spirit that I’ve found

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I know one thing is that w- probably the most common mistake or, or, or, or issue that people have is undercharging. Like, so come on, right?

Rachel Allen: I’ve got a magnet somewhere up there, oh, in the corner, yeah, over right there, that says, "Charge more," and it’s actually from the person who leads the mastermind that I’m in. And so that’s why it’s not always the right answer, but it’s often the right answer, you know?

Tim Melanson: It is often the right answer, yeah. And, uh, but I think that’s because of [00:19:00] what you just said. We like solving problems, right? It’s, you know, if we, if we take the, the music as the example, I know that most musicians would play for free, right? And, and that’s the reason why so many people, uh, w- that’s why the, the prices have not gone up.

Like, you know, musicians today in my city make actually less than they did in the ’80s. Like, it, it’s insane. But it’s just because we love it. So, you know, we’re just like, "You know what? I just wanted to… Like, any opportunity to play and I’m, I’m there." And I think the same thing happens in a lot of businesses.

It’s your baby. It’s what you love to do. So someone says, "Well, can you do it for this?" And you’re just like, "Oh, sure." Of course, that doesn’t work long-term

Rachel Allen: It really doesn’t. I get it though. I mean, like, I was absolutely boggled that anybody would pay me to do something that I do compulsively. Like, I cannot go a day without writing. It’s going to happen whether I want to or not. And so I had to really have a lot of shifts around that [00:20:00] and think like, "Okay, well what’s the value I’m actually providing here versus, I don’t know, like just give me five bucks or whatever," you know?

Tim Melanson: Well, let’s, let’s hear a little bit more about that. It’s time for your guest solo. So what is e- exciting in your business then?

Rachel Allen: Oh, so, I mean, there’s so many things. But what I’m really excited about is, um, I know that words make worlds. Words are the technology through which ideas and influence spread, and that’s what marketing’s all about. It’s just using words in a way that makes it easy for somebody to say yes to something.

So, um, I do that in a whole bunch of ways, but the thing I’m really excited about right now is I’m actually been doing some book outlining. And, um, it might sound a little off the beaten path, but it’s all the same thing, right? Like a book is still the, the process of making it easy for someone to buy your idea, to buy something in your business, whatever.

And, um, kind of harking back to our mastermind thing, the reason I got started on it was I kinda like … I’ve been doing it for a while, I’ve been helping clients out, being the editor on 19 books now, and I … It’s just fun. I didn’t even think about like really making it into a part of my business until my mastermind was like, "Hey, yo, people [00:21:00] don’t do it like you do it.

No one helps people like you help people. You need to make this an offer." So that’s what I’ve been doing.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, that’s awesome. So then how does it work then?

Rachel Allen: Yeah, so, um, I meet with people for four calls, and they just show up. They have, like, the idea for their book, and, like, maybe some notes, but they’ve just never been able to kind of get it out of their brains, and so they just sort of talk at me, and then I pull all the puzzle pieces together and put it into an outline that breaks it down, like, almost kind of like a paint by numbers of your own book.

So it’s in, like, 500-word chunks, and so I’ll be like, "Okay, in chapter one you need to start out by telling me this story. Re- remember you said points A, B, and C. Now I want you to transition and tell me about this. Spend 100 words saying this, then 200 blah, blah, blah." And so I really walk you through, like, step by step by step, and it makes it very easy to drop into the outline wherever you want so you don’t have to do it, like, linearly, and you can still know that everybody’s, everything is gonna be in the right order and, like, you’re not gonna, like, drop something out

Tim Melanson: Hmm. So I, and I would guess that this kind of outline, this, this is probably the [00:22:00] block of most people, right? Why, why they’re not writing the book that they think they want to write, right?

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. ‘Cause you, like, you go down, like, the endless, like, research hole, or you get stuck on, like, well, does this story belong in chapter five or chapter 25? So, like, it’s all the thinking work that goes into doing a book, and if you front-load it, I mean, everybody I’ve done this with has finished their book in three months after the outline’s done, ’cause, like, all you gotta do is write.

You don’t have to think

Tim Melanson: Well, yeah, thinking’s bad, right? Just kidding. No, well, and, and I mean, a lot of the

Rachel Allen: It’s hard. Takes time.

Tim Melanson: times, yeah, you’re just unblocking yourself and allowing that, that to come out, right? ‘Cause I- that’s the thing is that you know your story. It’s just, it’s kinda difficult to put it together sometimes or to separate it, actually make it into smaller chunks,

Rachel Allen: And it’s hard to get perspective. Like, you need somebody on the outside. I, I do as well, right? When I write my own books. You have to have somebody on the outside who’s like, "Okay, here’s the through line. Here’s where that goes." Because when you’re so close to it, you can’t see it

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. And how do, so how do people find out about this then?

Rachel Allen: Uh, they can find it out on my website at [00:23:00] boltfromthebluecopywriting.com or, um, just connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram. I’m happy to chat about it

Tim Melanson: Awesome. One more question now before we get into the, uh, the … And I’m not sure if you’re gonna be, what you’re gonna say about this, but what do you think about AI now with writing?

Rachel Allen: People ask me about this a lot. Um, I don’t have any, like, moral objection to it. Um, I know a lot of people get very upset at the idea of people using it, and I’m like, "Look, it’s your life. You do what you want with it." What I will say is I don’t use it in my own marketing, um, and I don’t use it for my clients because I have yet to find something that can do it, you know, as, as well or as fast as me, and there’s intellectual property risks because that…

You know, it’s changing, but right now the way the rulings are is if you create something using AI, you cannot own the intellectual property to it. So, like, I’m never gonna, like, give somebody a course that they can’t own. So that’s why I recommend that you avoid it in your creative endeavors

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that’s, uh… And, and that actually does make sense ’cause you didn’t actually create it. You ha- [00:24:00] used AI. Now, I imagine that there might be some probably gray area. I mean, if you’ve mostly given the AI the information, and it just sort of, like, fine-tuned it for you, well then maybe that’s an editor?

I don’t know. But,

Rachel Allen: Yeah. It’s still like, I don’t know, there’s stuff working their way through the courts, but the way that I recommend people to use it is, like, I think it’s a great thought partner. I think it can be good for getting you over that, like, blank page thing. Um, it’s good for starting you off on research, though of course you need to check it.

So it’s basically, it’s like having an intern. And what I mean by that, like, it’s an intern on their first day where they’re like, "Here’s this thing. It’s the most amazing thing ever." And you’re like, "Absolutely not. Remove this from my site. Do it again."

Tim Melanson: Yes, that’s a really good analogy. And, uh, it’s like having a whole lot of those interns that w- can work really fast, and that’s, that is great because, um, I know I’ve, I use it quite a bit, and it is fantastic at helping you to talk through [00:25:00] ideas and all these other things that you’d be just wasting someone’s time with.

But you can talk to the AI and kind of like flesh out your own stuff. But as for getting it to do stuff for you and, and write your, your book for you, or even your, uh… I mean, you really have to train it pretty fine tunely, and you might as well just do it yourself,

Rachel Allen: Exactly. And like, I don’t know, the thing I tell people, or I guess the, the pitfall I see people falling into with it is they lose their confidence and they think that it knows better than them, and I’m like, "Absolutely not. It’s just a tool." Like, your instinct is right. Whatever it is, you do know better.

And like run it by a person, you know?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Now, uh, the, I, I think the good news, like, so right now I think we’re in a bit of a tr- transitionary period where it’s kinda like coming out like full strength right now and everybody’s using it for everything, and that’s great. But, um, it kind of gives you everybody the same stuff. So everybody’s content is starting to look kinda the same.

And so if you’re the [00:26:00] one who’s actually writing it yourself or you’re hiring someone like Rachel Dawson to write it, then your content is gonna start to stick out a little bit more, because now it’s gonna feel more real. I, I, I don’t know if that’s the right word.

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Tim Melanson: So, so I do think that there’s a, like some silver lining.

I know that people are a little bit worried about it. Um, but I think that we’re kind of like just in that transitionary period where people are using it, and maybe it’s taking some jobs away from certain people at this particular moment, but that’s gonna flip right back, ’cause people do want that real person to work with, and they, and they know that it’s gonna sound better.

Rachel Allen: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, there’s a quote from Brian Eno, bringing it back to music, and he was talking about how as soon as we learned how to make, um, like non-lossy sound on CDs and like other higher, um, type, uh, music, everybody wanted the pops and crackles from the records, right?

And so as soon as you learn how to get rid of it, it becomes a premium. It becomes something that people will pay extra for, and that’s [00:27:00] what we’re seeing right now. Anything that’s like a higher ticket offer that’s selling, it’s got a human on it. It has someone being visibly inconvenienced to sell it to you, and it’s that exact same thing.

It’s the pops on the records that people want

Tim Melanson: Ah, that’s an excellent analogy. I am stealing that one. That’s a good one.

Rachel Allen: I’ll send you the quote.

Tim Melanson: Perfect. Awesome. So then let’s go back to how we find, how we find you and, and what that process is on, on how to get started with work with… And not even just for the book. Like, you’ve g- got another business, right? Or other

Rachel Allen: I do, yeah. I, I got a couple buckets actually. Um, I mean, I write books on my own, I help people write books. I do a sort of, uh, super group offer with a bra- a branding specialist, um, where we build legacy businesses for people and we do the branding there. Um, and then I write everything at Bolt. So basically, if it’s words that make money, I do it.

Um, the easiest way is just to check me out at boltfromthebluecopywriting.com, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram, or you can just email me like it’s the ancient times, and I will email you back with my very own fingers.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: Can actually contact you [00:28:00] personally, that’s amazing. Awesome. So now before we go, one more question. This might be the hardest one. Let’s get into music a little bit. Who is your favorite rock star or band?

Rachel Allen: Ooh. Okay. Gosh, there’s so many. Um, what I’m gonna go with is the Drive-By Truckers. Um, so they’re Southern rock, a little outlaw, um, and I’ve listened to them since forever when they were coming through the Orange Peel in Asheville where I grew up. And I, what I love about them is that they talk about really hard, kind of awful things in a way that makes you feel good about yourself and, like, about your role and your, your power to be with them.

So I love them. I think they’re great

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow, that’s awesome. Okay. Have you s- you’ve seen them in concert then?

Rachel Allen: I have. Yeah, I’ve seen them a couple times.

Tim Melanson: And how was their show?

Rachel Allen: Amazing. It was incredible. I saw one of them, um, they were o- they, it was a psychobilly concert, so they had the Reverend Horton Heat open for them, and the dude’s like, the man’s bloodstream is 90% cocaine and, you know, [00:29:00] 10% caffeine. And so he’s, like, going to town on an electric guitar.

He’s standing up on the cello or standup bass while they’re playing it, and I was just like, "This is rad." And then the Drive-By Truckers came out, and it was even better. It was so good.

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

Rachel Allen: Yeah, it’s been awesome. Thanks for having me

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

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to the owner of Level Up Influence, and what he does is he helps his clients to make more money from the clients they already have, which is really cool. I like, I like that. That’s really cool.

So we’re rocking out today with Bradley Rausch. Hey, Bradley, you ready to rock?

Bradley Rausch: I am ready, Tim. Let’s do it. I appreciate you having me on

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

Bradley Rausch: Really fortunate to say, you know, I’ve had a lot of mentors and, and people giving opportunities that they absolutely did not, uh, did not need to give me. And part of my, kind of my origin story or reason why I do what I do now, um, is very early on in my career, I was 19 when I first started, uh, in the, like, online high ticket, you know, coaching, consulting, SaaS, all of this stuff, uh, world.

And I worked my way up to what was at the time the top train- sales training and coaching organization, um, [00:01:00] uh, doing, doing about nine figures a year as a, as a closer. And that opportunity, uh, which we can get into it if you’d like, that opportunity, while not aligned with who I am, really sparked, um, my passion for now what I do, um, in terms of client success and showing up for clients and helping businesses be more, more profitable, uh, as you say.

And, um, uh, but that, that opportunity really, really at such a, such a young age, uh, to be around those people and just get in those rooms, that was, that was insane. Uh, it was huge for, for, for my, for my… Kind of set me on a kind of trajectory, so to say. So

Tim Melanson: Yeah, isn’t that amazing, right? And when you’re 19, when you’re younger, like it’s, it’s, it’s funny ’cause you, you get around these really successful people and you can just absorb so much from them at that time. And, and they tend to be very, very like excited about sharing their knowledge with someone who’s so young as well, so it’s really lucky for y- that you were able to do that.

Um, I do find that, you know, as, as you get older, you know, people tend to not necessarily [00:02:00] take as good advice, like good advice from people around them. You know, you’re not as, uh, I, I guess, I guess open to taking advice. So, you know, with you being so young, like do you… Like are all your clients young as well, or do you coach people who are older than you are?

Like how does that work?

Bradley Rausch: Uh, all of my clients are actually older than me, yes. So, um, so yeah, so I, I work with coaching, consulting, and SaaS, uh, founder-led brands, founder-led companies on, just, just as you said, on, um, uh, making every client worth more for… That they are making every client that they already have worth more. And, um, I got into that after, uh, that opportunity that I just mentioned that I had.

I, I actually ended up walking away from it, which at the time was very controversial ’cause that company was the company you got fired from, uh, that you walked away from. And I went, I, I went back to some of the companies I had, I had been with before and I said, "Hey, let me try my hand at your client success."

Just long story short, the large company was not a good fit for me morally, ethically, [00:03:00] ’cause clients were treated really poorly, and that’s what sparked really my passion for, for client success, um, and for, for this work. And so, um, from there then, uh, I, I built up, you know, just repertoire of clients, et cetera.

I was, um, for about four years period of time, I was director of co- director of client success for a B2B, um, eight-figure brand, working from home and then building my… All of it working from home, and then building my consulting company on the side. And then for the last year I have solely worked on doing the consulting company, so

Tim Melanson: Amazing. That’s a great story. So now, not everything goes as planned though, right? There are some mistakes that you make along the way, and I do like to talk about those unfortunately because,

Bradley Rausch: No, I love it. I love

Tim Melanson: most part, that’s what pe- holds people back is, is being worried about making a mistake. So y- have you got any big ones?

Any ones that people would kind of think, "Oh, I’m not doing that. I don’t, I don’t want… I’m scared to make that mistake"?

Bradley Rausch: Definitely. Uh, more, more than I would probably consciously remember, ’cause I [00:04:00] probably blotted them out of my memory now. Um, the, the one that always, the, the one that, the one that stands out, biggest one, um, is I actually was offered, and again, this was a very young age. I’m 27 now, I was maybe 23 or 22. Um, I was offered a very, very prestigious position as a director of client success for another company, um, that was more money than I had ever made.

It all f- you know, working from home, working remote, all of that. It was d- an incredible opportunity. It was before I knew I really wanted to be on my own doing my own thing, and I was like, "Hey, I wanna work within somebody else’s company." And there’s nothing wrong either way, but it’s just not for me. Uh, but I saw this opportunity, applied for it, went for it.

The founder and I got on really, really, really well. Worked together for about a week, and then I was fired after about a week. And when I s- the reason I bring this up, as far as a quote unquote "mistake," is because the caliber of what they needed, uh, was not the caliber of the skill that I had at that time.

Um, have it now, I would say yes, [00:05:00] but at that time, no. And, uh, me going into it, I knew it was something that was well over m- I, I, I had an awareness that it was something that was well over my head. Um, but it just seemed like such a good fit that I was just like, "You know what? Yes." And it was, it was something that I…

Th- the- the mis- the quote unquote "mistake" in it for me was, um, not looking at how it would play out long term. Looking at, looking at a very short-term decision about something that could financially be great, but long term, how I would be able to not only level up my skills, but then, you know, contribute and m-make reciprocity, make sure that I could contribute to them, et cetera.

And so it just wasn’t a necessarily… It was, it was one of those things, one of those, uh, you know, lines that people say all the time. It was like, "Oh, if you see a really big opportunity, take it, and then figure out how to do it later." I, because of that and because of many other things, of course, now in my life that I do around client success, my take on that is not necessarily the [00:06:00] opposite, but it, it’s just that make sure you’re well prepared for opportunities that come your way.

So that would be my, that would be my, my remote work, work from home, uh,

Tim Melanson: Big mistake, yeah. Well, and, and it is interesting that you say that because that does come up quite often, is that people will say, "Say yes, and then figure it out afterwards." And I, I guess, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where, uh, for the most part, that probably is good advice, I would say. And I think it’s probably because most people underestimate what they can do, right?

And so saying yes, you know, and, and then figuring it out probably is something that they’ll be able to figure out. But then on the other hand, you know, if you’re the type of person that overestimates what you can do, then you might end up in a tough situation, right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it’s that, a little bit of that entrepreneur delusion there coming in.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, so I’m [00:07:00] just got curio- uh,

curious though, like how, like how did the fallout go? Like how did you recover? Like what, what, what happened after that?

Bradley Rausch: Uh, it was a… I mean, it, it’s, it’s dumb. It was a, it was a hit to my, my self-esteem, my confidence, my confidence in, in what I was doing and how I did it, like professionally, personally, everything. Uh, I was really fortunate that, you know, I had a couple of… Had, still had a couple of clients on the side. My, my through line with everything I’ve done over the last six, seven years is I’ve always had my own thing.

It’s just for the last year or so, this has been the first time where the, my own thing is the only thing I’ve had. Um, so fortunately I had that, and I was able to find then another full-time role that was a much better fit for me. It was actually still director of customer success. It was for, uh, an eight-figure B2B consulting company, much more suited to both my skill set and then also what I could…

My skill set and what I could provide to what the company needed, and also what the company could teach me in terms of, you know, [00:08:00] my own growth. Um, and I found that about two months later or so, which is a considerably, for the job market, a very quick turnaround time. Uh, so, so yeah, so I was fortunately able to pivot pretty quickly, but I mean, I, I won’t lie, it, it was probably one of, if not the biggest, uh, professional blunder of my, of my career thus far, so.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’d, it’d be so tough on the, on the ego, right? ‘Cause you think you could do anything, and then all of a sudden you realize you can’t, right?

Bradley Rausch: But, you know, it’s, it’s a good, it, it’s a good, it’s a good humbling thing though, I will say, because when you think you can do it, when you, when you think you can do anything, you think you’re invincible, something will eventually come along and knock you down a peg or two. It’s just a question of how far down it knocks you.

And I feel fortunate that I had that experience early, and I had that experience while I, I would say really needed it, ’cause I did feel quite invincible at the time. Um, and so it, it, it also, again, really indoctrinated in me that thing of make sure that you’re prepared for [00:09:00] the opportunities that, that come your way, and this is, this is something which I, I think we’ll probably get into.

But in terms of like advice, early-stage entrepreneurs, people wanting to start something from home, wanting the inspiration to work from home, uh, you know, start their own… Usually that takes the form of starting your own business, things like that. I’ve spent a lot of my career working with companies that helped early-stage entrepreneurs, so super, super common conversation I have.

Um, but one of the biggest things I, I will often tell people is folks will often worry about, "Oh, how can I be confident doing my own thing? How can I be, um, um, how, how can I know that some- that, that I will, you know, find the income to then work from home? How can I… Essentially, how can I be sure that this is the right thing that I’m doing?"

And my answer is usually always something along the lines of, "Instead of worrying about the confidence in doing it, instead of worrying about what’s going to happen, work on building the skills to have the competence that it will happen. Work on building the skills that will prepare, that you will be prepared for something whenever something does end up happening, and then lay the bricks that you need to then eventually build the [00:10:00] house for, to ha- to have it happen."

Instead of, instead of trying to, you know, connect those dots so quickly, there’s that middle one that says you need to be… You need to build, you need to build the capacity to have the thing versus ins- instead of just trying to have the thing right away. Um, and I just, I think looking at it that way gives you, um, it gives you more freedom and more permission to kind of mess up along the way, uh, and to have just a less linear path to it, ’cause it’s, it’s never linear.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and isn’t that funny that the best advice really is to make the mistakes quicker, right?

Bradley Rausch: Yeah, abso- no, absolutely. Absolutely. No,

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Bradley Rausch: no, no. I love asking people, it’s like, "How can you fa- how can you- how many ways can you fail at that?" And then just get them over with, and then, and then you go from there

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and you’re just more, uh, resilient. The younger you are, the more resilient. So right now is the best time, do- no matter how old you are, right? ‘Cause later it’s gonna be harder, right?

Bradley Rausch: Exactly. I love, I love GaryV- do you know anything

Tim Melanson: Gary Vee, yeah

Bradley Rausch: yeah, yeah. [00:11:00] One of his, I mean, I love one of his things. He’s like, talks to people and they’re like, they’re like, "I’m 50, I’m 60, I’m 70." Grant it a grain of salt, I’m 27, I don’t know what it’s like to be 50, 60, 70 yet. But, uh, this, you know, 60-year-old woman comes up to him and he’s, and she’s like, "Oh, I feel like my career’s behind me."

He’s like, "How old are you?" She’s like, "I’m 60." He’s like, "Well, you d- you got 20 years left to crank this out. What are you talking about? Da, da, da, da, da. You know how much I could do in 20 years? Please." Like, I love him. He’s great

Tim Melanson: Yeah, he is great. And it’s true. I mean, any time is a good time, right, for all that. Now, uh, that does lead pretty good into the next, uh, into the practice side though. So like what are some of those skills that you’re gonna need?

Bradley Rausch: I mean, how long have we got? No. Um, m- most important try, I’ll try and narrow it down to I think most important three for me that have helped me the most. Um, number one is something that actually I’ve really only just kind of wrapped my head around, quite honestly, in the last maybe six to 12 months, [00:12:00] um, which is the ability to know what to say no to.

Um, there’s this thing that, uh, Alex Hormozi talks about a lot, which is the, the idea from The Matrix, which, you know, the red pill, blue pill, but, like, the red pill, you know, the woman in the red dress essentially gets hotter for the bigger the thing you have to say no to, which is kind of the premise. So the bigger an opportunity You have or, or the more important an opportunity is to you, the prettier that the woman in the red dress, AKA these other things that will shy away your attention, the prettier that thing will get, the more attractive that thing will get.

Um, and it’s actually really, really interesting how this has played out for… I mean, I’ll just give you really s- quick snippet is, like, um, this year, as I was kinda telling you before we hit record, my goal with my business has really been to, quote-unquote, "step out of my comfort zone" or just my, my regular routine, uh, and do a lot of podcasting, do, um…

I’ve actually also started ads, things like that. Um, have ads literally launching this week. Found an amazing ads guy, so I’m [00:13:00] really excited about all that. But literally over the last month, as all of this stuff is coming together, I’m finally doing my own thing. I’m fin- Like, it’s successful, et cetera.

Over the last month, okay, I’ve had thr- from clients, I’ve had three… two offers and one conversation, um, around me coming to work in their business on other parts of their business, more in a, you know, part-time/full-time capacity. Like, it’s, it’s crazy how, again, the bigger the opportunity, the more you invest in it.

The more you invest in a thing, you have to know how to say no. You have to learn how to let the woman in the red dress go, and y- it just keeps getting sexier and sexier. So I would say a skill that I’ve really worked on lately, um, that’s come in, come in much handy is you have to, you have to know what to say no to.

And I think that applies to opportunities, but it also applies to just simple things like your attention span, your focus, um, knowing yourself enough. This would be the second thing, knowing yourself enough to know how to structure your day so that it’s most, uh, m- it’s most useful to you, that you get the most [00:14:00] done.

There’s nobody else out there like you, so you need to figure out what kind of thing works for you. For me personally, I am a, I am a total, uh, call it good or bad, it is what it is. It’s a double-edged sword, but I’m slightly extremist when it comes to, like, my calendar. I am either working and I am on or, like, I am off and if you contact me, I will bite your head off.

Like, I… It is, it is like I… my calendar blocked, and when it is not blocked for work, I’m out. Um, so know yourself enough to know when your time is best used and how it’s best used. Um, and the third thing, let’s see. I tell you what, the third thing I would say that I think is really, uh, probably, probably more common advice than not, but I’ll g- give it a nuanced way, is do not underestimate the use cases of AI.

But very specifically or nuanced is don’t underestimate the use case as to use it as a thinking partner. A lot of people will use it as just essentially an executioner. "Do this, do that. Don’t do this. What do you think about this?" Blah, blah, blah, whatever. [00:15:00] I, what I find is that if you actually encourage and train your AI Platforms that you use, this works for any of them, Claude, GPT, Perplexity, whatever.

Uh, you train it and you ask it consistently to think with you instead of doing all the thinking in the background. You create a really good, I call it like a sparring partner. Everything that I put into… I use Claude. Everything that I put into Claude, I’m always, I’m always telling it, it does it most of the time now ’cause I’ve reminded it so much, but I tell it, "No, I want you to think out loud.

Don’t, don’t keep your thinking in the background." Like, all the things that it goes through is like, "Okay, what about this? No, I don’t wanna do this because of this," da, da, da, da, da. And then it spits out an answer. I wanna see all of that. Um, and I think that that really o- has helped me to open up, um, very…

It’s, it’s, it’s helped me to operationalize my own decision-making a lot more ef- a lot, a lot quicker. It’s helped me to be a lot more efficient with how I make decisions. Um, so yeah, so those would be my top three.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, reminds me of my math teacher. Show your work.

Bradley Rausch: Yes. Yes, there it is. Exactly, yes.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. [00:16:00] That’s awesome. Well, and, and, uh, yeah, I, I agree. I, I love using it as a, a thinking partner, and I mean, there’s so many people that are, like, that are upset about AI and, you know, worried about it and all that stuff, and, and, uh, and thinking that it’s gonna take creativity away or take thinking away.

But I, I, I think that that’s a good point. It depends on how you’re using it. If you’re using it to help you think and to help you be creative, well then, how can it really take it away? It’s gonna make it a little bit more, uh, efficient, I think. It’s gonna make us m- us more efficient in, in doing the things we need to do, right?

Bradley Rausch: 100%. I look at it like the, uh… So my, my mom’s a high school, uh, high school teacher, and, um, every, I, I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure you were like this. I know I was like this. We always used to ask when we were younger, we always used to ask, "What’s the point of learning algebra? What’s the point of learning these really random things, crap about science and all this stuff," whatever, blah, blah, blah.

The larger scale point of all of that is not, you know, to know those facts. It’s not to know [00:17:00] what, you know, the 4x squared plus or minus AB, whatever, blah, blah, blah. It’s not to know all of that. It’s to train our brains to be able to comprehend at that level when, when it’s needed, um, in tho- in those different ways, those different modalities.

And so I think of kind of interacting with AI in the same way, which is that you, you can use it not to think for you, but to think with you and to empower you to think at a higher level. Um, and it just, it just, it, it, it just, it just expands, I think, how much you can, you can achieve conceptually, and then of course you can then take it and act on it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And teachers used to say, "You’re not gonna have a calculator in your pocket."

Bradley Rausch: Right. Right

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we do. Well, i- it’s interesting that you s- when we talk about the, the skills that you need, and you know, the, the things that you mentioned are, like, all really, like, around personal stuff, like around personal thinking and all, which is, which is awesome.

I mean, that, that really is interesting that, you know, you’re not talking about, oh, well, you should go take a course [00:18:00] in this, or you should go take a course in that. You know, th- those are the things that, you know, you can learn anytime, I guess. It, it’s really around protecting your own personal, you know, space, I guess, uh, brain space.

And I think that’s kinda what does separate the people that get success from the people who don’t. They, I mean, everybody thinks that I need to go and, you know, e- even get business cards before they start their business. They’re thinking about the wrong things. They, you’re thinking about, you know, those things that are holding you back.

Well, I need to do that and then I’ll be able to get started on my business. But really, starting on your business is much different than that, right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. Uh, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t even have business cards, and I’ve been doing this a while, so now, so, um, but, but no, 100, 100%. Um, the… I, I, I find that it’s like two levels. One, the first kind of level to it is, is like, yes, order operations, procrastination, et cetera, and, and thinking you need to have all this technical stuff done before you get [00:19:00] to, to actually interact with people.

But the second layer to it is, m- I find folks will often use it as a reason not to. So for instance, it’s like, "Oh, I can’t do this thing. I don’t know how to do this thing. Well, I guess that means I shouldn’t do this other thing over here," or, "I shouldn’t start this because I haven’t done this first thing yet," or, or whatever.

They’ll use it as kind of a, as kind of a crux and then make a story around that. Um, and I spent a lot of my life in a very victim mentality ’cause insanely, long story short, uh, which I’m super open about, is grew up having panic attacks left, right, and sideways every 10 seconds and, uh, separated myself from my family and all of this stuff, and like was definitely not…

I, I was very, very book smart, very, very school smart, uh, excelled in school. At the beginning, I sucked at being an entrepreneur. I was not consistent. I gave up after two seconds. I thought the world was my oyster. I th- I just, just had an ego the size of Guam. Like, it was just, it was n- that was not in the cards for me to be an entrepreneur.

Um, so I very much so had to tr- kind of [00:20:00] reverse engineer that. Um, and so all that’s, all of that to be said, um, is the consistency with which you can show up, I think, just changes everything, so

Tim Melanson: yeah. And luckily you had some good mentors along the

Bradley Rausch: I did. I did. I, I always, I always say people gave me, people opened doors for me, gave me opportunities when they, when they did not have to. There’s, if I ever get up on a stage and speak or get an award or something, there’s about six people who will be getting a shout-out, so

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, okay, so let’s talk a little bit about, about getting the fans. Like, I, I mean, the world is so different now. It’s, and I mean, I guess you’ve been in it the whole time, but, but for someone, uh, you know, a little older, like, things have changed. You, you, you can’t necessarily just throw money at problems anymore to get, to get the fans, but the audience is everywhere.

Like, how do I, you know, cut through the noise, I guess, and, and get someone to pay attention to me?

Bradley Rausch: Yes. [00:21:00] So like I said, I spent a lot of time working with very early stage, very beginner entrepreneurs who wanna start like an initial thing online, um, wanna transition out of their job and start, et cetera, da, da, da, da, da. So several, several different, different things here. Um, boiling them down to, I would say the top…

We’ll go top three again. Um, things to think about, perspectives, things to do, et cetera. Uh, number one is the speed at which you can make mistakes, as we were kind of saying earlier, is, is paramount, and also being okay with making those mistakes. Um, the best learning I’ve ever come across is when my own money’s been on the table, when I’ve put in the time, the effort, and something didn’t work.

Uh, the, the phrase, "Oh, you learn as much from your mistakes," like that’s, that’s not BS. That’s genuine, really. We’ll learn more from that than a course, than anything like that. Kind of on the same point, as a subpoint to that, uh, again, do not underestimate the use of AI. You do not need a course. You do not need a degree.

You do not need a whatever. You need a pro subscription to ChatGPT for 20 bucks a month, a good cup of coffee, and a [00:22:00] Wi-Fi connection, and you are good to go for 99.9% of things that you wanna do. Um, I, I genuinely believe that. Um- So don’t underestimate the, the… All, all that to be said is the repetition that you put in and the reps at, especially at the beginning, is way more important than the quality of the reps that you put in.

Once you start getting traction, then the quality becomes, becomes an issue, uh, and something to focus on. But at the beginning it is very much so throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, and being okay with 99% of things not sticking. Um, the second thing I would say, and again, I’m taking this from…

I’m a very big Hormozi fan. I’m taking this from Hormozi, uh, kinda sorta same as the first point, uh, which is, or along the same lines. Um, he has this thing called this rule of 100, which I just love, and it, I think it really just dials, dials this in. Uh, which is he says, trying to remember now, uh, he says for people trying to get their first customer, for people trying to build out their first thing, they have an offer, they have an idea, they have a whatever, and they’re ready, essentially they’re ready to sell [00:23:00] whatever it is.

Uh, he says there’s this rule of 100. So for 100 days you either spend $100 a day in ad spend if you’ve got 10 grand. So if you’ve got 10 grand, spend $100 a day in ad spend. Reach out to 100 people a day using free social media. Um, or, uh, right. Oh, uh, um, spend 100 minutes a day creating content on social media, and obviously if you can do more than one of those things at a time, then great.

Um, but he says it’s this rule of 100 where if you do any one of those three for 100 days, he guarantees that you will get a client. And he says, "I’ve never found anybody who did that and didn’t get a client or didn’t sell a thing or whatever." So again, it just really goes to, to nail in the repetition is way more important.

The qu- the quantity is way more important than the quality. Um, the third thing that I would say is don’t take yourself too seriously, and I, I say that lightheartedly and I s- I say that, I, I say that as somebody who used to take myself very seriously in the wrong ways. I take myself [00:24:00] very seriously now. I feel, what I would feel like are, quote unquote, "the more right ways" in terms of, you know, my personal development.

Like I journal every day. Like I, I invest a lot into myself, but in terms of, in terms of, you know, the interactions with others in kind of a business sense or, or selling sense, things like that, um, this kinda goes back to what you were, you were saying, your point of like the order of operations and figuring out what’s first and, and all that stuff.

Um, you don’t need a website. You don’t need a big, robust Instagram account. You don’t need, um, your, your perfect, m- uh, v- uh, vision and like marketing and all this, you know, the brand and all of this stuff, whatever, da, da, da. Like the amount of people that I have talked to that are like, "Well, my website isn’t up yet, so I can’t start like talking to people."

I’m like, "You don’t have a three-sentence explanation for what you do and the value you provide?" And they’re like, "Well, yeah, I do." And I’m like, "Okay, great, you can start talking to people about it." And what you’re gonna learn is that through talking to people you will actually learn more because you will, you will interact with them and they’ll echo things back, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, so at, [00:25:00] at the end of the day, again, y- you need- It sound, it sounds, it sounds very much overly simplistic, but I think there’s, if you’re anything like me, like I was, there’s a lot of people who need to hear it. Um, good Wi-Fi connection, a cup of coffee, and ChatGPT, and you would be amazed at how far you can get

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny, I, I… Well, a big part of my business is building websites, and one of the first questions I ask people is, "Why do you need a website?" Right? Because really, what people tend to do is they tend to, uh, not really have the business figured out yet. And, and how do they not have it figured out yet?

They haven’t gone out there and done it yet. Like, you’re better off to get some clients, figure out what you do, figure out who you serve. All those things are gonna be important to build your website, ’cause if you’re just guessing and then you’re thinking, "Oh, this is definitely gonna work," you’re gonna spend a bunch of money on something that might not even work and will be off-brand from what you’re trying to accomplish.

So you’re better off, like you said, to just get out [00:26:00] there and do it. Pick up a couple clients, figure out what they want, and now you can, you know, if you wanna up-level things, you can start to build, you know, some of those tools around it, right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’m sure you’ve also had your share of people who come to you and they’re like, "Well, I don’t know what I wanna do, but I’m hoping you can help me build… I’m hoping you can build me a website and it’ll help me figure it out." And I’m like, "Oh." We’re like, "Okay, well, hmm, I don’t know about that."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and even just, you know, my m- website’s gonna sell things for me. Well, will it though? I, I

Bradley Rausch: Will it though? Yeah, I know, exactly. Exactly.

Tim Melanson: websites is a supporting tool, right?

Bradley Rausch: Yes.

Tim Melanson: you use to help you do the work, right? You know? And, and I mean, uh, yeah, that, that’s the thing, right? I mean, it’s, it’s just one of those things that people will s- use as the, the block to get out there and do things in the first place, and

Bradley Rausch: And if it’s not the website, it’s something else. So 100%.

Tim Melanson: Uh, but I like what you said about what Hormoni- Hormozi said, which is, I mean, yes, you can throw money at something, for sure. But, you know, the other [00:27:00] two things I think you mentioned are more focused on your time, on actually get out, getting out there and doing the work. And I think that that’s what’s most, um, exciting about this time that we’re in right now is that never has there been a time when really just hard work is what you need to do.

Like y- the tools are fairly inexpensive. I mean, social media’s free. I mean, come on, like

Bradley Rausch: Well, the, the thing with AI and the, you know, social media as it is and stuff like that, I feel like over the last, um… I, I’m 27, but I consider myself an old soul, so we’ll go with that. Um, but I feel like over the last 20 years, and I know I certainly fell into this when I first started, um, building a business, is the tools and the accessibility and the social media and the f- you know, the free ChatGPT subscription and the AI and everything, it gives the illusion that it’s easy and quick.

It gives the illusion… Like, I think, I think 40 years ago it was still hard, but [00:28:00] everybody was okay with it being hard because there was no other way. But now it’s the illusion of it being easy that gets people into this mindset trap of thinking, "Oh, well, it’s… This is all so accessible," and, "Oh, I see people, this, this person makes one post on Instagram and gets 10,000 likes and makes $1,000 in sales for this thing.

You know, it, it’s just that easy for me, too. Okay, let’s do it." And, and I, I, I don’t, and I don’t mean to belittle, I don’t mean to make fun, but that’s really the conversation going on in a lot of people’s heads. Again, for me it certainly was. And, um, it, I think it just feeds this delusion that it, it, it is that accessible and it’s that easy.

And I think it, to your point, um, the hard work hasn’t, the, the requirement of hard work has not gone away, it’s not changed, but I think the, the level at which you have to play it has changed

Tim Melanson: Yep. Uh, and there’s als- there’s a lot of fake stuff out there too. There’s a lot of scams. There’s a lot of people saying that, "Oh, you know, I, I can help you do this and it’s gonna take no [00:29:00] time at all." Oh, come on. Like, like you say, it, there’s, the hard work aspect of it has always been there. I just think that the accessibility of it is, has changed now.

It’s not necessarily that you need to be part of the, you know, proper country club in order to get the proper connections to get the big banners and billboards in order to build your business. Now it’s a matter of you, you have the tools right there, but you still gotta do the hard work, right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. Absolutely. Being part of the country club does not hurt though, I will say. No, I’m just kidding.

Tim Melanson: Oh, yes, the country club can still help, absolutely. And, and you do hear that quite often from, you know, some of the guests on the show is, is that’s a great way to get the word out there too, is to be part of the clubs where your clients are, right?

Bradley Rausch: my g- oh my God, absolutely. One of my clients is a, uh, she’s a, actually she’s an oil and gas investor. Uh, it’s a very long story short, but the, the, the, the easiest way to explain it is her father [00:30:00] owned an oil and gas company that consulted with a lot of these big guys, ExxonMobil, et cetera, and she inherited the company when he died.

She transitioned it into a, uh, investment company where private investment, so like you and I, could go and invest with her into these large oil and gas deals, which is something that is n- honest- never been done before, and it’s just insane what she has been able to accomplish. Uh, she literally just started an email list, like, last year.

She’s raised, I mean, over the course of her career, 20 years, I mean, she’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars off of attending networking events, uh, going and having in-person coffees, in-person meetings, uh, flying here, there, the other place for stuff. I mean, it just w- didn’t go digital literally until we started working together, and I was like, "Do you have an email list?"

She’s like, you know, raising… You know, coming off of raising, like, $300 million. "Do you have an email list?" "No." "Do you have any social media?" "No." "Do you have an, do you have, do you have a website?" [00:31:00] "Barely." I’m like, "Okay, let’s do this." But it just, it’s incredible, honestly, and I think you’ve heard everybody say this, so I’m not gonna be, I’m, I’m not gonna toot this horn anymore, but, um, after COVID, everybody wants in-person stuff again

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yep, they do. Uh, now mind you, COVID has definitely helped to improve the tools of remote work and all that stuff too, which is fantastic. But I, I, I think, I, I think there’s gonna be… It’s, it’s, it’s interesting how, you know, the world sort of works, is that things kind of go around in circles. It’s like, you know, you, you have all these people going into email and texting and all that stuff, and now, uh, y- with chat ch- with chat stuff and bots and all that, I think that we’re gonna get back to the point where people are gonna really put a premium on, "I actually get to talk to a real person now?"

Right?

Bradley Rausch: Yes

Tim Melanson: "And I get to talk to them in person? Wow, that’s, that’s next level now," right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. Absolutely

Tim Melanson: you know? And, uh, and that’s, I think that’s just exciting, you know? And, and, and we keep [00:32:00] coming back to it. If you’re the type of person that’s a, a go-getter, that has a lot of motivation, I mean, the corporate environment is probably not the best place for you.

I mean, you could start your own business, and you’ll probably get, uh, further if you are doing it on your own, because it really is your baby now, right?

Bradley Rausch: Absolutely. You, you, you put, uh, more of your, I, you put more of your discretionary effort into it. Um, I think a lot about, and, and actually I’ll add this to the list we were talking about a minute ago of, uh, most important things to kinda start your, your business or, uh, get that going. Um, think about your discretionary effort.

I love to think about this topic both personally and professionally. Uh, where does your discretionary effort naturally go? And what discretionary effort means is the time, the energy, the brain space, the thought, et cetera, that you put into something, um, once all of the things in your life that need taking care of are taken care of.

So obviously your food, your shelter, your, your main source of income maybe, whatever. [00:33:00] Um, once those things are done and handled for the day, you’ve got, you know, your evening left or you’ve got a weekend, where does your extra time go? Or, you know, kids are taken care of, da, da, da, da, da. I don’t have kids, so that’s not something that comes to mind, but your kids, your family’s taken care of.

Um, where does your extra time go? Where does that naturally gravitate toward? And can you find a way to monetize that? And I think if you can, the chances that you will be able to stick with it long enough to actually start seeing real returns on it is much higher than going and watching a random video on what are the 20 best side hustle ideas in 2026, and then picking one at random from that list.

Please don’t do that. Take, take the afternoon of contemplation that it will take to reflect and look at where does your discretionary effort naturally go, and see if you can find something within that realm to focus on.

Tim Melanson: And you probably will find something too. And, and, and I mean, it’s one of those things where you, uh, I think people discount a lot of the, i- in their gift zone, I think, a little bit, thinking that, oh, well, I’m so good at it, and it comes so natural to me that who would wanna pay me for it? But I mean, the [00:34:00] reality is that we’re all d- very, very different, and there is somebody who really hates what you love to do, right?

You know? And that’s, that’s your gold mine right there, right? It’s, it’s something that you love to do, and people are gonna pay you for it? Come on. Like, I think we’re just brainwashed into thinking that work is hard and work sucks. And so we think that it’s supposed to be like that. But it could be fun.

It, I mean, it- it’s still work, still hustling, but it could be something that actually makes you feel good about yourself, right?

Bradley Rausch: 100%. 100%. And the thing is with social media right now, and obviously the, the entertainment value in it, even if the path to, quote-unquote, "selling" whatever you’re passionate about, you know, a course, a service, a product, a, a subscription, whatever, uh, even if that path isn’t super clear yet or you’re like, "I don’t know, I’m, like, super interested in this really random, very specific thing," like I don’t know, like I’m, I- I’m interested in I, I draw penguins.

Like, I’d sit there [00:35:00] all day and I could just draw penguins all day. Okay, great. I would bet your ass that there is a world in which you could go and make a, so- an Instagram account completely dedicated to, "Here’s how I draw a penguin. Here’s what I think about when I’m drawing a penguin. Here’s make, how I make sure that the penguin actually looks symmetrical," and this and that, and da da da da da.

And, "Oh, by the way, here’s my 99, my 9.99 course on how to draw a penguin," and, "Oh, here’s my time lapse video of me beginning to end drawing a penguin, and, and, and here’s the color palettes that I use for these different kinds of penguin," blah blah blah blah. Even if nobody gives a damn about you draw- you drawing penguins, the entertainment value and your ability to present it as something that’s entertaining and, and, you know, comical and things will get you so much further, will mon- monetize you so much further than trying to sit there and being like, "How can I sell the ability to draw a penguin?

I don’t understand that." Like, just start entertaining people around whatever it is, and the rest will come

Tim Melanson: Yeah. At, at the very least, I mean, it could even serve as leads for your other business where you actually do make m- Like, it, it’s, it’s funny how that works. I mean, you might [00:36:00] not even necessarily primarily make money from drawing the penguins, right? But people are following you and they’re thinking, "Ah, this person’s kinda cool.

What do they do?"

Bradley Rausch: exactly. No, I love how they make content, or I love how, you know… There’s tons of people, tons of people, I’m sure B- I’m sure you too. There’s tons of people that I follow that I’m like, I don’t even remember why I follow them or what, what, like, what they do, or I’m not even following them for the thing that they’re talking about.

I just like how they communicate, or I like that they, I don’t know, they had a funny video that made me laugh or something. Like, it doesn’t, it, it’s all these auxiliary things that are gonna add up

Tim Melanson: Totally agree. So let’s talk about your solo. What’s exciting in your business right now, Bradley?

Bradley Rausch: In my business right now, um, as I said, I, I think we, we- before we started recording, um, I got out of my… Pushing myself to get out of my, uh, get out of my own way a bit. Um, my business very fortunately is, is very referral-driven, uh, for the last, last couple of years. I’m super thankful for, you know, clients and engagement and time I get to [00:37:00] spend with them and everything.

Uh, but I’ve done a lot of podcasts this year, pushing myself to do that. Um, also I literally have ads launching this week, um, which is really exciting. And most exciting, exciting thing I would say in, in my business is this is something that I’m, uh, the, the consulting, um… Let me, let me put it this way The industry of online sales and coaching, and I’m sure everybody’s seen, regardless of whether you’re familiar with this industry or not, you’ve seen people talking about online.

It’s like, "Oh, you can, you know, lose 20 pounds in, in two months if you follow my X, Y, Z plan, and here it, here it is for $3,000 with a group coaching program." Or, you know, if you’re in any sort of a, a business capacity or you wanna find a career or whatever, it’s always, you know, "Here’s a, here’s a, here’s a coaching program.

Here’s a, here’s a consulting thing. Here’s a, um, here’s a software that’s gonna help you land these jobs, things, whatever, for $99 a month," whatever. So these three, these three kind of areas that are really all I feel like blend into one, so coaching, consulting, [00:38:00] and SaaS, software as a service. This industry as a whole, this online business industry, um, I feel, and this is a very bold claim, um, but I feel it is really in need of a, of a refresh in terms of how they, how we deliver to clients and how we, um, how we curate the client experience to make sure the clients are staying with us longer and, uh, that the lifetime value of a client is more than just what they’re paying you up front, but is also comprised of the referrals they send you, the testimonials they give you, how they ascend into a back-end offer, and how they upsell to whatever else.

Um, uh, for the last… My, my kind of main line of, of everything I do is for the last 10, for the last decade, we’ve perfected how to sell. I mean, everybody’s seen on social media the sales, the closers, you know, the Shelby Saps of the world. We’ve perfected within an inch of its life how to sell any of these things.

But no one’s taken the time to perfect or try to, how to deliver these things at scale, how to deliver on the promises we [00:39:00] made to our customers. And that is, that’s what my brand is around. It’s what my IP is focused on, is really creating nuance and clarity and frameworks and structure to delivering or rather over-delivering to the promises we make our clients, um, as we, as we scale a business, whether there’s just a handful of clients or a- a customer.

Really, really, really thankful and, again, super honored to say, not a throwaway thing, I’ve, I’ve got a client who’s doing, raising, um, $100 million right now. So it’s like i- regardless if you’re doing, you’re selling one thing, an e-commerce product for 29 bucks, or you’re, you’re raising money to go invest in a oil well that Exxon’s drilling, whatever it is, uh, the importance of, um, working with your customers to make sure that they can become an asset for you instead of a liability is really, really, really key,

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Well, so it sounds like your customer base is pretty, pretty, pretty broad, but I’m wondering is there, like, somebody that would get the most out of working with you? Like, is there a specific [00:40:00] type of person that would w- that would benefit?

Bradley Rausch: Um, the company that I would say this is kind of mostly geared toward, um, as far as just the IP in its kinda natural state, of course, you know, we’ll, we’ll blend it and make changes on the fly and everything, um, I usually say is coaching consulting SaaS company doing between 500K to three million. And the reason I say that range, uh, is because whenever you get to running a, running a business that’s kind of going from that 500,000 a year mark to the million, two million mark, depending on the business, depending on the scale, depending on…

There’s a lot of factors. But somewhere in there, maybe closer to the five, closer to the three million, who knows? Somewhere in there, everyone has, and bleep this out, everyone has what I could just call an oh shit moment, where they’re like, "I can’t do this by myself." Like, you’ve gotten to the point where you were at without team, without, you know, a really strong layer of resources or [00:41:00] infrastructure, um, and it’s this, it’s this moment where they’re like, they hit the wall, they hit the fan.

It, it’s like, "I can’t do this by myself." And they have that really humbling moment where it’s like, "Okay, I either need to, I either need to start to build this like a scalable business, or I need to stay the level I’m at and optimize for that and not seek to grow any further, because I can’t do both." Um, and that is kind of the, the sort of humbling moment that I would really prefer people that I work with to have before we start doing some of the, before we start implementing a lot of what we implement together.

Um, because there’s a lot of, a lot of, um, change and optimization and effort that goes into the, that goes into the customer journey. But done right at scale, um, y- it stops people from needing to… The whole, the whole goal of it is to generate your revenue from the client relationships and from making your clients worth more, not from always finding new clients and needing to spend money on ads and running all this [00:42:00] front-end stuff and just churning and burning.

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

Bradley Rausch: So my LinkedIn, uh, is where I do everything. LinkedIn’s my jam. Uh, I post daily content and I’m super active on there, so LinkedIn would- LinkedIn’s perfect spot. And then, um, my website is just my name, bradleyrausch.com

Tim Melanson: Awesome. All right, before we go, let’s talk music a little bit. So who is your favorite rock star or band?

Bradley Rausch: Oh, I got… So you just opened up a, you opened up a can of worms here. I don’t know if you, I don’t know if you know that. Um, and I didn’t even, I didn’t s- I meant to tell you this before we started recording, but I just slipped my mind. Um, I, my very first business, I taught piano lessons actually.

Um, yeah, classically trained pianist. Uh, I taught piano lessons from 13 up until COVID, um, so for seven years. I put myself through school, um, or well, the two years of school that I went to. Um, and I, yeah, I, I so just loved that period of time. It was just so amazing, so much fun. [00:43:00] Um, loved all the kiddos. I had up to, like, 46 students at one time.

It was insane. Um, so anyway, sorry, all that to be said, um, do have a musical background there. Uh, to answer your question, I have to be completely honest. Um, she’s not rock. She kinda does a little bit of everything, but my answer is Taylor Swift. I’m

Tim Melanson: Oh, wow

Bradley Rausch: very, very big Swiftie and, and I’m, I’m, I’m one of those people that if you get me in a car with, with, like, Taylor Swift on the thing, I will blast it and I will, I will sing it.

My best friend, I got my, as a gag gift for my best friend, but she, she uses it, um, ’cause I talk about Taylor Swift so much and with her personally. Uh, I got her this, this, like, candle thing, whatever, that says, "When this is lit…" Or, uh, or, or no, no, no. It’s something like… Oh, it’s um, "This smells like a Taylor-free conversation."

That’s what it is. And, um, whenever I come over, the damn candle’s lit and I have to abide by it, so so Taylor Swift, I would say

Tim Melanson: That is awesome. And my band, uh, [00:44:00] we, we, uh, I’ve got a girl in our, in our band that sings as well, and, and we’ve just added a couple of Taylor Swift songs. We added, uh, the Fate Ophelia and Opal Light, and they’re, uh, they’re such great songs. Yeah, those are cool

Bradley Rausch: know what you should… You know what I, I would encourage you is, um, are you, are you familiar with, like, her, her albums, discography at all, or not really?

Tim Melanson: I’m not, I’m, I wouldn’t say I’m a Swiftie, but I do know quite a bit of her, of her stuff, yeah

Bradley Rausch: okay. So what I love, just, and this is just a personal thing, so grain of salt, take it for what you will. What I, what I personally, some of my favorite, like, cover things from, uh, from Taylor’s work to see is when people really take a song and then, um, mold it, not, not just from a, um, not just from like a, a, a…

Good Lord, what is the word I’m trying… Not just from a melody, but from a harmony perspective with as far as the genre. So for instance, um, her albums Folklore and Evermore, those came out during COVID. Those are very somber. They’re very kind of poetic. They’re very artsy. They’re very lyrical. Um, I [00:45:00] love when people take those and they turn them into…

It doesn’t, it, it’s not even necessarily like a full 180 and does like a full pop thing or full rock

Tim Melanson: like a different genre.

Bradley Rausch: it’s just a different genre. It’s got a different, it’s got a different style. It’s got a different beat to it, and it has a totally different texture. Um, I, I, I love that. So I’m, I’m by no means I’m like, "Oh my God, don’t touch the original."

I’m, I’m not like that at all. Um, but no, I would encourage you, like look at like Folklore and Evermore, the two albums that came out during COVID, and see. It’s like if you have a certain style as like a band, see, see about like adapting those, which I think are the more, the most kind of siloed of her, of her discography.

Look at those and say, "Okay, how can I take this and really mold it into our own?" And I think doing that versus doing it with any of her other music, I think is the most kind of challenge and the most just kind of differentiating thing. So anyways, food

Tim Melanson: Cool. I’ll check out those albums. That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Bradley, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Bradley Rausch: I appreciate you, Tim. Thank

Tim Melanson: Oh, awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home [00:46:00] 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. I got someone who’s been working from home for over 30 years. That’s so cool. He got me beaten big time. He’s the founder and CEO of Sea Rescue Corporation, and what he does is he invents and produces survival gear for the military and civilians.

Super excited to be rocking out today with Dr. Rob Yonover. Hey, Rob, you ready to rock?

Dr Rob Yonover: Absolutely, Tim. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me

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

Dr Rob Yonover: All right, well, I was screwing around with a piece of plastic on my patio. It’s now approved by the military, used worldwide, saved lives. It’s o- under the ass of every astronaut on SpaceX. So that’s like rags to riches in the work-at-home story.

Tim Melanson: Wow

Dr Rob Yonover: yeah, that’s the home run story. I have a lot of singles and strikeouts too.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, hey, a home run is a big one, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Absolutely. It, it absolutely is, and then the best part about it is it saved someone’s lives, and they thanked me. So I [00:01:00] guess the, the analogy for bands, it’s like a triple encore and people all saying they love you, and they’re gonna live by you the rest of their lives, like you’re Bob Dylan or something

Tim Melanson: Yeah, when you make something that’s super valuable like that too, I mean, a- and, uh, you know, all of us in our business, we’re trying to solve problems and help people, right? Uh, but saving lives is a big one, isn’t it?

Dr Rob Yonover: Absolutely. I mean, I, I’m a PhD scientist. I worked on volcanoes, but I s- always felt that need to do something that mattered really, ’cause it’s easier to bust your ass for something that matters. And make no mistake, working at home is not easy. Everyone thinks it’s easy ’cause you wear your favorite T-shirt and your underwear, but shit, you gotta k- kick ass and outwork everyone, and you’re, you’re looking at the king of outworking everyone

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well, I mean, that’s just it. Uh, you’ve gotta be self-motivated too. I mean, it’s… No one’s looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re getting work done, right? You gotta, you gotta get it done

Dr Rob Yonover: especially, especially in, in Hawaii, the discipline is, is key, and I- living here in Hawaii, you want- it’s so easy to wanna [00:02:00] screw off. The weather’s beautiful, the waves are great. So that self-discipline is a character. That’s the first question. If you don’t have that, you can’t work at home.

If you need someone to crack the whip on you, you can’t do this. So just be honest with yourself. If you’re not disciplined and motivated and, and really almost rigid in your, in your work ethic, then this is not for you. But for everyone else, it’s the only way. This is, this is the only way to work and have a real life

Tim Melanson: Well, yeah. Well, I, I know for me, I remember when I was working in an office, like, I was just frustrated all the time that everybody else seemed to be slacking off, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Ex- exactly

Tim Melanson: I think that’s probably a good sign that you should be working from home. If you’re, if you’re the type of person that just wants to be producing all the time, and you’re just like, "I, I, I feel weird just sitting around and, like, hanging out at the water cooler," ’cause that’s what everybody’s doing, well, you know, working from home might be the right thing for you then, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, it’s motivation. You’re creating your own things, just like a band creating their own song. You, you wanna cover [00:03:00] stuff or you wanna create your own? If you can create, you wanna be a creator, and if you’re working for someone else working on their stuff, it’s very frustrating ’cause you know you have all these great things in you and you don’t wanna lose them, and you don’t, you don’t wanna go to your death bed without trying.

I mean, I’m all about trying. Failing is fine, but trying. If you don’t try, that’s really a sad thing and, and, and on many level, and that’s why when I talk to people about starting their own business and working from home, I, I do a simple math equation. 128 hours a week, 40 hours a week to work, ’cause you need da- you need, you need to qu- keep your day job for, from the beginning so you can quit your day job.

So if you have 40 away from 128, that still leaves 88 hours. 48 to sleep, 40 to sleep, still leaves 48. So you can work nights and weekends on your passion, on your thing that, that inspires you to enable you to make it through the 9:00 to 5:00 in the early days till, till you [00:04:00] can’t, till you, can you succeed on your passion, then you can quit your day job.

So that’s really critical, I think

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and, and I think that you make a good point because I think some people, like, worry about maybe burning themselves out, you know, the burning the candle at both ends. But in, in my experience, I find that it’s, it, it fills you more when you’ve got that little passion going on at nighttime, right?

Okay, fine, you might be losing sleep, but you’re getting excited, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly. And, and I, I, for, for the inventing world, I like to keep switching gears from project to project, ’cause then you come back with fresh eyes, and each gear you switch, maybe it’s sleeping, maybe it’s enjoying nature, maybe it’s working your day job, maybe it’s working, working on invention A or invention B or invention C.

But I find that when I come back to things, it’s like I’m rested. That sector of my brain is rested and I’m ready to attack the new sector. So I think it’s really healthy. I’m not saying working a day job is healthy, but paying the bills and not having to worry, I mean, you have to take [00:05:00] worry out of the equation.

If you can’t cover your ass and your bills, you’re, you’re not gonna be creative enough and, and successful enough to do it. You, you can’t… You don’t have the right attitude. So you, you have to get rid of that pressure

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah, the, the pressure. A- and people can smell that

desperation on you too when you’re not paying your bills.

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly. You gotta be able to walk away from deals and offers. If they know you’re desperate, they’re gonna take advantage of you, and, and that’s not where you wanna be

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and, uh, yeah, I, I totally agree with that. That’s, that’s amazing. So now let’s talk a little bit about the, that failure, that, that bad note, right? Because I mean, hey, you’ve been doing this for a long time, and people will, like, be scared to fail. And I mean, the bottom line is that we’re all gonna make some mistakes here and there.

So I’m wondering, can you share with me something that, uh, we can learn from? Like, something that people will just go, "Wow, I can’t believe he’s still doing this now."

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, I mean, you go back 30, 40 years ago when I thought about this, this rescue streamer idea that my wife was like, "You know, get a real [00:06:00] job. Stop playing with that piece of plastic." You know, I had to, I had to confront her and her family first about, you know, "You’re a smart guy with a PhD. You should be making millions of dollars.

You should be providing. We have little babies," and all, all this stuff, and I’m failing because no one’s em- embracing it. So I, I couldn’t… Especially something new. When you start a new category, in the signaling world they had smoke flares and sea dye, all of a sudden this guy from Hawaii comes with a piece of plastic because once you unfurl that, they can see you forever.

It’s clearly the right idea, and it’s been adopted now. But to, to get something new takes a long time and a lot of nos and a lot of get out of here. And something simple like this, this is on half a billion dollar aircraft, like SpaceX or F-16s. I mean, they don’t want a piece of simple plastic. It’s not that simple, but the premise and the material is.

So I, I think that you can’t… You have to internally have your own meter that [00:07:00] says, "I’m proud of this. I believe in this. I don’t give a shit what you say. I believe in this, and you, you’re gonna be in that category of I told you so. Okay. Okay, asshole, you don’t think this is worth a shit? You’re going in the back of the line.

Thank you." But I’m a polite pain in the ass. I will bug you forever if you have something I want. So, and I’m very polite. You, you blow me off and say, "This is worthless," I’m not gonna get mad at you. I’m gonna say, "Thank you. I don’t think you really understand, but thank you for your time. Bye." And then come back again on them.

You know, don’t, don’t burn any bridge, ’cause these guys that say no first may come back and you may need a yes from them later. So I’ve had so many nos that I don’t even care, and the, the truth is the more nos you field, the easier they are to deal with. You let them brush them off, brush off your back.

"Okay, you don’t want it? I don’t care." You know, and I even got it on Shark Tank, and they all, they, they all loved it, but I got five nos from them. I’m like, "Okay, well, whatever. You guys don’t like it, you’re gonna, [00:08:00] you’re the ones who are gonna be sorry about this." And it, it’s an attitude I’ve had my whole life, and it’s a tough attitude to have, ’cause it’s like overconfidence.

But you gotta pick, pick the winners. Go, go for the ones you really believe in

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, a- and, and that is something that a l- I think a lot of people … Look, I mean, the programming is just, "Oh, go get a big job. Go get a good job, you know, work the nine to five," all kind of that, all that stuff. So when you start to, you know, play around with this little you know, piece of plastic like you say, that, that’s real for a lot of people, going like, "I got an idea," you know?

Dr Rob Yonover: It’s best not to even tell people, truthfully. You, you work on your idea until it’s at a point when you’re ready to tell people, and, and in, in the invention world, i- i- ideally have your patents in a row, your trademarks in a row, what you need, your barriers to entry so you can go to battle publicly and release it to the media, and release it to your customers so no one will steal it from you.

So you have to build that up, and sometimes it’s best to do that privately. [00:09:00] And I, I kind of get a rush out of that, going, "Okay, I’m not showing anyone this for a while, till it’s really ready." And, and I think that… You can tell people that are close to you that you trust, but the public and regular general people, don’t tell them

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, ’cause there, there are certain people in your life that are just gonna drag down whatever, right? But, but there are other people that are inspirational too, and they, they will kind of… Like, was there somebody in your path that, like, did actually think it was a good idea and helped you?

Dr Rob Yonover: the, uh, yes. First of all, the, the idea… First, my family is supportive ’cause I come from three generations of work-at-home rock stars. My grandmother was an early doctor in this country, and she ran a practice out of her home in Chicago, believe it or not. My father started a mail order business in the ’60s, and we all worked for him.

So when I tell my parents, who were creative, artistic, and business entrepreneurial, that I’m starting something, they are supportive. I tell my in-laws, they’re like, "You’re an [00:10:00] idiot. You should be some, you know, you should be making a lot of money and work for someone on Wall Street." That’s what they think.

So it’s like you, there’s this difference there. You have to, you have to combat that. And then I had people all along say no, and then there was one Coast Guard guy, I used to send max faxes out. I don’t know if your a- audience knows what a fax machine is, but that’s how I… I used to go fishing with a fax machine for media and to the just contacts in general.

Just keep sending out hundreds of notes and trying to get media play or someone in the military or a company to look at this. And one Coast Guard guy said, and he worked for, um, I think, uh, a- An admiral or someone, he goes, "Yeah, this, this could work. This is good." He gave me the chance to look at it, and said, "Here, send me a sample."

And then they tested it, and that’s how it started to get… Ultimately went to Navy approval, and then all the m- branches of the military. So you need one yes. You need one person that’s a third-party endorsement to stand up for you. And my brother, who’s an [00:11:00] advertising guy, taught me that all these editors are sitting on their butts thinking about what to write, back in the old days when there were magazines, and it’s your job to contact them and, and that’s what I’ve been doing forever.

I am the ultimate media whore, and I, I keep working the media because when you get an article written about your technology, that is an, an de facto a third-party endorsement. I didn’t pay them for the ad, yet they’re talking about it. That’s way better than me paying for an ad, ’cause when you read an advertisement, you’re like, "Oh, this idiot says this ’cause they’re paying for it."

So it’s the same reason why in newspapers they say it’s a paid advertisement, ’cause they have to tell their readers someone’s p- someone’s writing this on their own behalf. So I’ve had the, all those noes stand out, but the, the ones that… The, the noes I forget. You gotta have a short memory, just, you know, I gu- I guess like in, in the music world, you have a bad show.

You, you can’t live on that your next show, right? You had a bad night. You gotta move on. You gotta keep, [00:12:00] keep moving forward, and keep writing your, your music. And, and it’s i- ironic, in this rockstar world, we were pool boys in Miami Beach growing up, and I’ve sold shoes, I made lounge chairs, I fixed pools. I had all these weird jobs, but the one we loved was pool boy, and one of my buddies from high school became a rockstar, Jane’s Addiction.

I don’t know if you know who Jane’s Addiction… Yeah. Yeah, Perry, Perri, Perry Farrell’s like my little brother. I taught him how to surf and go crazy in high school, so we’re still, we’re still tight. And so he started Lollapalooza, and he’s very, he was very entrepreneurial. And then my other buddy’s the mayor of Golden Beach, and he’s, like, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and we used to sell shoes together at the shoe store in the mall.

So w- we, you know, we were never, you know, too proud to get our hands dirty. And the other irony is our little neighborhood, there was rich neighborhood, middle class, and lower, lower middle class, and we were more in the middle class. And we kinda [00:13:00] had a chip on our shoulder because the rich kids were all, they, they had cars, they had girlfriends, they had mustaches.

You know, they’d smoke cigarettes. All the shit we didn’t have, and it just kinda gave, gives you drive, man. We, we had the drive and, and it’s, it’s insatiable. I mean, you talk, those two guys I just cited, the rockstar and the mayor, they’re driving hard as d- as I am. We’re both, we’re all in our mid to late 60s, and we’re just not even, not letting up on the gas, and all three of us don’t need…

They, they especially don’t need the money, but, uh, we all have made our mark. We don’t need to be- Pushing and charging so hard, but we, we, we’re addicted to it. It’s part of our mindset

Tim Melanson: Right on. So w- when you were getting out there and, and, you know, trying to gather the fans, right? Uh, sending out all these fax machi-

Dr Rob Yonover: Yeah

Tim Melanson: there, was there like a, like an evolving strategy that you were using or was it just plain old numbers for you?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, the, the thing was there was this thing before the [00:14:00] internet called Bacon’s Publicity Checker. It was a big fat book, and it had the editor, name of editors of every magazine and TV station in the, in the world, and it had fax numbers. So the, the strategy was to make a one-page press release and just at, at 11:01 at night in Hawaii, it was cheaper to make a long-distance phone call or fax.

So at 11:01 I would be, you know, hand typing one fax at a time, hand calling with the number. And it was like… And I’m a fisherman too. I fish and I surf, and the thing about fishing is if you have zero lines in the water, you have zero chance of catching a fish. If you have five lines in the water, which is how I troll for fish, you have five chances.

I had 100 chances. Maybe not 100. I, I would send 30 to 50 out a night. So there… A- and then what I did was it was all about getting street cred. So the Miami Herald was the first magazine or newspaper to write about the Streamer. I took that [00:15:00] article and I sent, started sending that out saying, "Look what everyone’s saying."

I kept doing that. I got Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal. I even got it in Playboy. I’ve got it everywhere. And my, my, my collection of articles about the Streamer is now thicker than the Bacon’s Publicity Checker, which I started. And, and, and it includes it, it, it’s still working. I mean, I’m on this show to get the word out organically ’cause you’re not…

I didn’t pay you. You don’t even know me. I’m just, you know, and if it’s you’re 50, 100,000 people, it doesn’t matter. I just want to get the word out, and maybe someone in your audience tells someone that tells someone that tells someone, and you just keep doing that. And I’ve been doing it forever, and I enjoy it too because I’m basically a frustrated college professor.

You know, I’m, I’m preaching my gospel, which is entrepreneurship and invention, and I think that’s, that’s the way I do it. Just keep, keep working it.

Tim Melanson: [00:16:00] Wow. Well, uh, and you know what? The mediums have changed so drastically, like, uh, from the fax machines now to the internet. Like, what do you think? Do you think it’s easier nowadays, or do you think it was harder be-

Dr Rob Yonover: I, I think it’s, it’s easier to make something that you think is good and, but the, but there’s so much noise out there, it’s harder. It’s harder to get something of quality. And, and I mean, I’m a… Like I said, I, I’m a, I’m a polite pain in the ass, but the other P in those Ps is patience. And for, for instance, Outside Magazine, I, I sent them…

I called them for three years before they wrote about it. So you can’t give up on the first no. So nowadays, I think you can create your own brand on your own social media site, but how do you get the eyeballs to get to look at it? And that’s the real challenge, and I think everyone’s trying to do that, so I actually think it’s harder.

But you gotta keep in mind, you go for ni- niche marketing. You don’t want… You know, of course [00:17:00] you want massive national, international, um, recognition, but it might be better if you have a kayak device to go to the kayak people, you know what I’m saying? Go to a smaller audience as your target, and even locally, more locally.

So wherever you live, try to get, uh, a group there, and get to a small email group of those people first. That, that’s what I would do. That’s what I do this, these days

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think it’s probably, I think you’re right. I think it is, it is harder now. However, I think that the difference is back then you probably could throw some money at it. If, if you had a bunch of money, you probably could, you know, cut some

Dr Rob Yonover: that’s true

Tim Melanson: And now I don’t know if you can really do that. I mean, throw as much money as you wa- as you want, there’s still a bunch of noise, right?

Like, so it really is a lot of just hard work,

Dr Rob Yonover: No, it really is, and I… And that’s really the most frustrating thing, and, um, to en- encourage people to be entrepreneurs, the key is to have a product that you can make inexpensively and [00:18:00] have a margin when you sell it, and have a, have an audience that wants it. And I mean, those are not simple questions.

So the, uh, Guy Kawasaki, the guy from Apple, he’s a Hawaii guy, and he talks about if you can make something for a dollar and sell it for five, you’ve got something. You know? A- and, and to have someone want that five dollar item. So those are bo- all big ifs, but that’s the excitement of it, and, and you’re rewarded.

I mean, the beauty of it is if you are a stay-at-home rockstar, a work-at-home rockstar, you ha- you own the ultimate royalty, which is your own time, and that’s what I was taught by my ancestors, and it’s so true. I mean, I, I really… And especially just for whatever you’re doing. If you’re raising a family and you have your own time, you can be with them more.

If you’re a surfer and you have your own time, you can surf when the waves are good. If, if… It just goes on and on and on, and just the whole feeling that you’re not under someone’s thumb like you felt at the water cooler, like everyone does. It, it’s… But [00:19:00] don’t be too proud to not do that. Take that paycheck so you can, so it can fund your adventure, because the truth is it takes twice as long and twice as much money, it might even be 10X, to get something launched.

You know? And, uh, it’s really, really hard and, and it’s sad, ’cause we have all these tools to make work at home so much easier. I mean, I was fax and a phone, that’s it, and a, and a let- and the US mail. Now we have social media, Zoom call, you know, the whole thing. It’s just so much easier to get out there, but everyone’s out there, so…

And everyone thinks they’re a rockstar, and everyone thinks they’re, you know, the center of the universe. So how do, how do you burst that?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, but, but then on the other hand, not everybody has really solid work ethic and you know, that drive and, you know, keep going. I mean, I, I think I heard even just with podcasts, most podcasts don’t get past three episodes. Like, you know, it just is what it is. So if you’ve got [00:20:00] the drive to keep going and keep going, keep going…

Well, I mean, ’cause I, I remember, you know, even just with musicians with making it big or, or athletes, you know, they start talking about statistics and, "Well, the chances of you succeeding are, like, really, really low." I always thought that’s kind of a, not really the right way to think about it. Okay, fine, there’s not very many people that are gonna succeed, but I’m gonna guess that the ones that do are the ones that work the hardest,

Dr Rob Yonover: I’d like to s- I, exactly, I’d like to see that, uh, statistic recast with the real hard work discipline guys that put in the hours, years, that how many of those succeed? I’m sure the number goes way up,

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah, absolutely. ‘Cause you’re comparing them to people who are just, you know, moonlighting or were just doing whatever, you know?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, that’s, that was the frustration. When I started doing outreach to inventors, and I get this all the time, "I got this great invention. Here, look at this. Let’s split, let’s split it and you do it. You, you bring it to market." I’m like, "No, idiot. The hardest part is bringing it to market, and I have no passion for your invention."[00:21:00]

I think the key is you have to have a passion and ownership, and I don’t mean just owning it outright. I mean, ownership in that you created it. You’re, you have to feel that to put in the long hours, or you have to feel the goal of being a work-at-home person. You, you know, you have to know how great the benefits are, ’cause that helps you with the discipline.

You know, it’s a chicken and egg thing, so

Tim Melanson: yeah. It’s funny that you say that too, ’cause in my world I b- I build websites. It’s one of my main parts of my business, and I, I… You don’t, you wouldn’t even, um, believe how many people contact me saying, "You know, I build websites. Can I just white label for you?" And I’m like, "What? Why would I do that?"

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly

Tim Melanson: you know, the hard part is actually going out there and getting the clients, so you want, you want me to do the hard part and you’re gonna do the part that I like? Like,

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly. Now, I, it’s, it is, it’s comical, but, you know, you gotta give, uh, credit for asking,

Tim Melanson: Yep,

Dr Rob Yonover: that, they, they had the balls to try, so that’s fine.

Tim Melanson: They did. talk a little bit about the tools. So now, hey, we’ve already talked a little bit about it ’cause they’ve, [00:22:00] they’ve improved over time, but what is it the, what is your main tool now that you use, and what, how does that differ from when you first got started?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, ironically, the main tool is still face-to-face. And the beauty of the world now is you have- Not, not just a telephone, but you have this ability to talk. Like, I’m meeting you, I can look in your eyes. As I talk, I can tell whether you’re bored, or I have to move quickly, or re-explain something. But the biggest, uh, but the bigger tool is when are we gonna meet?

At a, a trade shows are the… Still, I used to hate them, but I love them, and it’s still the same. I hate and love trade shows, because that is the place where all the industry of whatever you’re in is there, and you can shave, I can put on a suit and tie, and I’m on an even keel with powers in my industry, and I can make a physical impression.

I can shake their hand, look them in the eye, and give them my [00:23:00] elevator pitch, and I have 30 seconds or a minute, not even, to get them impressed, to get another 30 seconds or a minute, or to get their phone number. So I still use that as the main tool and, and it’s not like I enjoy it. I do enjoy when I’m there at the trade show or at the event when I can look people in the eye and talk to them and show them hands-on this is what a streamer looks like.

It’s so powerful. So I, I still think that’s the best thing. But beside that, I, I, you know, you go with the, the marketing you can. And, and, and nowadays you do social media or, I, you know, I have an Amazon site for my streamer and, and I have this whole site there, and of course the website, the regular traditional website, but I have a website within Amazon, a store.

And my social media isn’t the greatest, and I’ve made a strategy, instead of spending money on advertisements, which can hit or miss, and in this world that I’m in, survival, people don’t give a shit about survival, [00:24:00] the consumers, ’cause they wanna buy a… You ask the typical guy when they’re going out fishing in a boat, they want more beer.

They want… They don’t care about a survival gear. The mil- the military wants it. That’s why I stuck with them. They have to be safe. And in fact, the Canadian Air Force is one of my big customers, by the way, which is really cool, ’cause they’re, they have safety down. The Europeans are big on safety, the whole US military.

So you have to find your niche, which is which one is effectively looking and receptive to things. But aside from that, I just put out stuff and just don’t go away. I mean, that, that’s the key is longevity, and that’s why the day job, as much as we hate it, is really critical. ‘Cause the whole thing for me is longevity, and I’ve been doing this 40 years, and really at the beginning everyone’s like, "Oh, that’s an interesting idea.

You’ll be gone in two years." You know, you’re not gonna compete against the Smoke, Flare, Sea Dye, the ePyrb, the big companies. But if you stay and have that staying power, people respect you just for that. And you [00:25:00] have to… It’s almost like you’re a, I hate to use this phrase, but you’re kind of like a sleeper cell.

You’re just staying back there, and I’m all about low overhead, right? I, I know I talk about the, the, the day job. The day job is to fund to keep the lights on. But you don’t want any wild spending, and too many startups spend too much money on everything. Just spend money on the basics and survive, make some money.

When you keep the… You reinvest the money, you don’t just blow it and buy a Ferrari the first time you get a, a big sale, and I think that, that’s a lot of, a lot of people make that mistake, and they don’t plan. You know, the Japanese were smart. They plan, like, 20 years out. The Americans are business guys are planning a year out, and it’s like, "No, we’re planning, we’re playing the long game."

And that’s… I’m all about the long game, and that’s, that’s been a suc- secret to my limited success

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, well, a few things to unpack there. Like, I do agree that face-to-face, either on Zoom or e- like even in person, I mean, that is really [00:26:00] it. I mean, and, and I think that, uh, even more as time goes on because, you know, it’s so easy to just send out a bunch of emails or just post a bunch of things on social media.

Anybody can do that. You can get I- AI to do that now, right? So you’re gonna get an edge if you can get somebody and actually talk to them about what you’re, what you’re doing, right? So people get to know you, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly, and that’s why, that’s why the trade shows and, and associations or clubs or groups in your neighborhood even are so much better. You build relationships. You can’t build relationships with social media and emailing. And, and, but, you know, the Zoom is so effective. You really can do it… You could do it virtually now, which is fantastic, and that’s been…

And, hey, for me living in Hawaii, every, every flight is so long, I’m burnt out. I’ve been here 42 years taking these flights all over the world. I’m sick of it. Now to talk, you know, talk t- across the world real time, I, I feel like I know you now a little, you know me a little, and it just starts the basis [00:27:00] of a friendship, workshop, a collaboration.

And that’s what business is about. It is about relating to each other and seeing what their needs are. I mean, I, you know, uh, for me, I’m pretty rigid in that I have products. I’m not really a service, but I wanna learn a little about what will trigger you. Let’s say you’re a buyer potentially, what do you need and what, how can we customize the unit or, you know, whatever it might be to help you come to the point that you wanna acquire our technology to protect yourself and your people?

I mean, it, it just, it just, uh, you have to read the people, read the person, and the only way to read the person… And I did it by phone forever, and I, I can tell by the voice if someone’s getting bored, right? Or if they’re excited, you could tell. But it’s easier to have the voice and the facial expression.

So that’s… I’m all about that

Tim Melanson: Now, when it comes to, like, the cash flow and all that stuff, like, I, I mean, when- if you have a service and it’s your time, well then, okay, you could [00:28:00] probably work for free for a little while, right, to build that. But when you’ve got a product and when you’ve got a physical product and there’s some, like, real costs associated to that, how do you, like, how do you make sure that you’re gonna be making more than

Dr Rob Yonover: I know. Well, I mean, I, I am being a little misleading in this whole thing because my overall strategy was licensing, and I had licensing deal for 15 years, and I negotiated it with, with guaranteed royalties. So for 15 years, whether we sold a million dollars or a dollar worth of s- product, I got the same monthly stipend, the ma- same base level.

And if it went above, I got more. But if it went below, I still got the same. And that enabled me to invent other things, and it also enabled me to take care of my wife, who became, uh… she got in a wheelchair from multiple sclerosis. So we had little kids. I have a wife in a wheelchair. So luckily, I had this cashflow that was guaranteed, and I, I worked for the company, and I helped build [00:29:00] it.

But the, the… And also, when I wrote the licensee with my attorney, the key thing I wanted was when it’s over, the license, I want it back ’cause I’m not… This is my baby. I’m not letting it… You, you… And I even gave it in perpetuity to the licensee. But after 15 years, they, they didn’t wanna keep paying me royalties, guaranteed royalties, ’cause they were– they made a lot of money, but they just, uh, you know, it’s risky for anyone.

You have to pay based on unknown sales. So when I took it back, that… So the last 10, 12 years, I’ve been running it myself. But for 15 before that, I had a license. So, and I believe in license, but I also believe that what I did was very rare because when I licensed it, I had Navy approvals. I already had some sales.

It’s hard to get a license deal with guaranteed royalties. So to answer your question, it’s, that’s why it, it’s impossible. If you’re inventing a product, you have to have a day job. You have to [00:30:00] have a flow of cash, period, end of story. And if you have one invention or one job that you make money on, you have to keep hitting that and build the other stuff in your spare time.

So there’s no, there’s no magic thing, and I, I totally agree with you. You have to look at your overhead, and you have to say, "I have to cover my nut, and if I have to take the job and go to the water cooler and fall asleep after lunch drooling on my desk, I’ll do that." But it’s just, there’s no way around it

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s gotta be so tough too, ’cause y- I mean, you, you, you go through so many of those nos that it would be so difficult to keep those spirits up while you get to the point where you’re getting those yeses, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: No, exactly. And, and it’s, it’s just, uh, you really have to have tough skin or, you know, thick skin, and I, I don’t… You build it up, but it, it, it hurts. I- it still hurts when someone blows me off and says, "I, I don’t believe that. I think that thing’s worthless," or, you know… Which is totally false, and I try to counter that with testing and a- adoption and life-saving, all these things that it’s done.[00:31:00]

But you still encounter people, and even in social media, there are people, the trolls out there, people wanna shoot you down just ’cause that’s their nature. They get off on shooting you down, and that’s why, you know, I wrote some books and, and, and I thought I was gonna be more of a speaker, and I, I love doing it, but there’s always the trolls that are giving you shit, and I’m like, "You know, you don’t deserve to do it."

And I, and I kinda don’t read my reviews. You know, it’s fun to look at ’em sometimes, and I… But you know, it’s just, you can’t… That affects your thick skin ability. And, uh, and I’m, I’m a, I’m an emotional, personal guy. I, I, I do get offended easily, so I try not to even look at that. And, and I, and it’s tough. I, I mean, it’s very dangerous.

Like, the kids with social media and suicide, there’s a lot of… I, I don’t know how people do it when you’re a… I, I, we grew up with no phones. My kids grew up with flip phones only. So the new… And I have grandkids now. They’re growing up with, you know, y- you, you [00:32:00] get embarrassed or bullied by someone, and there’s pictures of you, and everyone, you think everyone hates you, and it’s embarrassing.

Gosh, that’s so, that has to be so hard on your mental psyche. And I, I really… One of my, one of my goals in life is to get people off phones, and the record will show that in 2007 when the Apple phone came out and everyone was raving about it, I was the only person I knew who said, "This is bullshit. These phones are bad, and they’re…"

And now 19 years later, they’re just as bad, if not worse. And AI, all that stuff’s worse. It’s just making people fatter and lazier and stupider. So it’s like, what, that is not what I want, and the creativity aspect is horrible too. You’re less creative. And when we were kids, if you had a, if you watched color TV all day, you, you were an idiot.

And now you have a color TV in your pocket in the form of a iPhone. That’s worthless. I, I, you know… Yeah, they’re great devices, but I, I [00:33:00] just think you shouldn’t… My personal o- o- uh, opinion is you should only have Wi-Fi at your home or office. You shouldn’t be allowed to be on the internet when you’re out in public, so you can look at people and talk to people and look at nature and experience life.

The phone should only be phone calling and texting out in the wilderness.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it is kind of scary that there’s no guardrails, right, around any of it. ‘Cause I mean, yeah, sure, they’re great tools and they can help you to be… Technically, they can help you be more creative. They can help you be more productive. But they also can steal your time and they can, right, do all these negative things to you too, right?

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly. It’s almost… I used to think about it when my kids were little and I was trying to teach them about saving electricity, and that nothing is free. They just think, "Oh, just write a check," or, "Just turn the light on." I’m think- I wanna invent a, a, I don’t… It’s a 25 cent quarter slot in your house to turn a light on, so kids have, "Oh, you [00:34:00] can’t use your lights or your, your computer.

You can’t use that. You gotta pay to play." Like, it’s a timer. So i- ’cause then you can start looking at your time going, "Oh, man, it’s not free to be on a phone." In fact, if anything, parents should make their kids pay for their phone plans. You know, you shouldn’t even give your kid a phone. You should give them a dumb phone and say, "This is what I’m giv- " I did that with my kids.

Right in college, they were, you know, iPhones were coming out and I’m like, "Nah, I’m not buying you one of those. Those are horrible. I’ll buy you a phone so in an emergency you can call me." And then sure enough, they, they bought them later in life, but I got lucky in terms of timing with how old my kids were.

Now, my grandkids sh- they, they see everyone has these phones, and they expect it, so it’s gonna be tough.

Tim Melanson: It is gonna be tough. Yeah, well, and by the way, that, that, uh, y- your idea about the, the coin slot thing, that actually is possible with, you know, these smart devices nowadays. You could actually have that linked to, uh, some sort of like

Dr Rob Yonover: that’s how we were. We, we, we [00:35:00] had little jobs. I had jobs my whole life, and when we had money, then we could buy candy. To me, the smartphone was candy. You can’t eat candy unless you pay for it. So you save your money, you get an hour of smartphone.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That, that’d be so smart.

Dr Rob Yonover: Right?

Tim Melanson: Let’s move into your guest solo. So what’s exciting your business right now?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, what, what’s exciting

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Dr Rob Yonover: Wow, the whole thing with the military is really cool. The, the, the fact that the streamer went up to space is really cool through SpaceX, and I, I still… It’s really expanding to where militaries all over the world, I’m part of a group, the SAFE Association, a life support survival group from all over the world.

I get to go to this one trade show a year. That’s my thing. I’d like to go to too many, and there are people from all over the world, and I love it. I’ve always been an international person, and I get to work with and equip their people and make them safer, and that really is cool to me. And I’m also working on my other…

My [00:36:00] home run invention is a pocket desalinator. Converts saltwater to freshwater passively just with a solar still. Two, two, uh, two bags, inner bag and an outer bag. The inner bag is black with a Gore-Tex window. You put saltwater in it. The saltwater evaporates, but the vapor goes through the Gore-Tex and gets stuck on the inside of the outer bag.

You can drink it. Salt crystals are too fat to go through the Gore-Tex. Very simple, but I can only make a quarter cup of water a day. Isn’t enough. They need a pint a day for the military, and I just got approached by a group I know that’s r- using AI, which I’m not an AI fan, but in this case, that’s what it’s for, and we’re supposedly gonna figure out AI, I call it Hal, just as an old reference.

You probably don’t know what Hal m- Okay. Well, I’m waiting for Hal. I told them, "Ask Hal to figure out how to manufacture ’em." I know how to… I know in my mind how to build this thing, [00:37:00] and I’ve built them, but I don’t have the expertise in plastics and heat sealing to do it, and I need someone like Hal to tell us what materials, how to do it, and where to do it, and that would be…

If that thing works, that’s gonna be way bigger than a streamer, which is just saving lives. This is providing fresh water to the whole world, which is gonna be the next big wars are gonna be fought over water, not over oil. So that’s exciting, and I wrote a bunch of books, and I wrote… I put a, like a free book out on my, on, on Facebook and Instagram just for fun.

I, like 20 years ago, I wrote all these stories. I had this crazy upbringing with my friends at being a pool boy in Miami and just becoming a scientist working on volcanoes, the whole thing. The whole journey’s been crazy. So I wrote all this stuff, and instead… And I got four books published, Hardcore Inventing, Caregivers Survival Guide, Hardcore Health, and Brainstorm Islands is a children’s book, but this I just put out there.

I’m still hoping [00:38:00] someone reads and goes, "This should be a movie or a TV show." So I put it out on Facebook, and I realized that the beauty of social media is you can have pictures with the text. And I know, I know no one reads anymore, but I put the, I put 15 stories out and, and once a week for 15 weeks and- People that read them just loved it, and I, I’m thinking of, I’m actually thinking of repackaging it, renaming it Pool Boy Underdogs, which is the original name, and doing an audio book, if you will, audio stories where I read it to people.

Because people don’t read, so I have to get over that hump, and it’s gotta be on social media, so I’m gonna put it on YouTube, and this is the irony. You can’t do audio only on YouTube

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Dr Rob Yonover: only, they only want video, so I’m gonna put a picture and read with one picture. Like you read a- you know how you read a book, you keep looking at the [00:39:00] cover?

I’m, I’m gonna do that. A- a- anyway, I’m thinking of doing that, and, and it’ll be f- I, I think it’ll be… I just wanna share these stories, and I still, I think, you know, you watch enough, I watch a lot of movies and TVs, and the stories I’ve had are, are viable, I believe, for someone to take them and do something with.

Or not. Again, e- everything, to me it’s all about what do I wanna do, whether people like it or not. And the beauty of social media, you can do, you can be a rock star on social media in your mind, right? A- wh- whether one person or a million people follow you, who cares? And you know, I’ve, I’ve had millions of people look at my stuff.

The Shark Tank had 16 million that night. Someone just lifted my Shark Tank pitch, put it on YouTube, it has 58 million hits. So I’ve had millions of people looking at this stuff, but in the survival world it’s still hard to sell safety. I don’t know, I don’t care how many millions look at it, they’re still gonna buy that six-pack of beer for their boat.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Dr Rob Yonover: that’s always a challenge. [00:40:00] So I’m, I’m doing all sorts of stuff, and I got grandkids so I’m trying to kind of steal them away from the social media video world. So my new nickname, I used to be Uncle Punishment, ’cause I’m kind of mean to kids, and they love me for that, believe it or not. Kids love rigidity.

They, they like rules. So I’m now, now I’m No Electricity Grandpa. I take the kids and we don’t do anything with electricity. It’s always outdoors. The only thing I do is I take them to, like, the Taco Bell to eat some bean burritos, so that, that’s, I am teaching them how to eat at restaurants, if you call that a restaurant.

But it’s all about being outdoors, in nature, being creative, being, you know, resourceful, responsible, respectful. All those things happen without devices. So I, I’ve got another startup in terms of getting my kids, now they’re grandkids, I can form them a little, as much as my son and daughter-in-law will let me have them.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Right on. So how do we find out more about your [00:41:00] inventions and your book and everything about you?

Dr Rob Yonover: the best thing is just Google my name, Rob Yonover, and it’s on Amazon. I know A- Canada has Amazon all over the world, but you can go to Sea Rescue Streamer, searescuestreamer.com, or Rob

audioDr: Yonover.

Dr Rob Yonover: I’m on all the social media platforms. Like I said, I’m not the greatest social media guy, I’m not on there all day, but I put out stuff like this.

This will be on my social media one day when, when you release it, and just go to my name. My name’s unique so you can’t really misspell it. I mean, you can misspell it, you’ll still show up, ’cause I’ve got 40 years of media play. So, and I, I love talking to people, you know, drop me a line. I, and I, I love trying to inspire people, ’cause I was inspired by my parents, friends, colleagues, mentors, professors, all that.

So it’s all about, it’s all the human touch, man.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, let’s get into the music a little bit. So tell me, who’s your favorite rock star or band?

Dr Rob Yonover: Well, it’s not even close, so. I mean, it, a- and I’m, I’m not alone. [00:42:00] Bob Dylan is orders of magnitude above everyone. That’s why he’s the most covered musician of all time. And I don’t just mean once in, I don’t mean just once in a while Dylan. I, I do what most people don’t do, which is I listen to CDs from start to finish, ’cause that is an artist’s work.

I like to work, look at their piece of art. And today’s music, no offense, I don’t know, and no one does it. You know, I was… My son, when he was playing with Napster back in the day, I’m like, "This sucks. You guy- you’re ripping these guys off and you’re just cherry-picking song, song, song, song." That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

I understand it is that way because artists aren’t that great now. No one can put a CD, which I don’t know if the kids know what a CD is, an album. You put 45 minutes together and, and you got someone willing to listen to it, and the difference between Dylan and everyone else for me is I can listen and then start it again, or, or listen to whole CDs.[00:43:00]

I’ve been listening to s- I wear CDs out. So, and so, and, and I always ask people, "If you’re on a desert island and you have a CD player and you take three CDs, which CDs do you take?" Now, so be careful now, and, and the rule is no greatest hits. That’s not fair, and no double albums. So mine are, again, it’s for sure.

It’s, it’s… I, I wavered a little ’cause I found a Dylan, uh- album that’s a bootleg that’s incredible. It has releases that he never put out, but I’m not gonna even talk about that, ’cause that’s too remote. I’d go Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan, that’s the classic, when Mike Bloomfield was his guitar player, the genius guitar player from little white boy that all the, the Black guy blues like Muddy Waters and then took under his wing.

That’s, that guy was the king. He OD’d at 27, unfortunately. But if you wanna hear his work, go to Highway 61 Revisited. Then I go [00:44:00] to my buddy, Jane’s Addiction. Um, actually they’re third, but Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Shocking, one of the few albums I can listen to over and over. And then Sublime, 40 Oz. to Freedom.

So I think those are my three, and I, and then I love classical, I love all sorts of music, but those are the three that I can listen to over and over and over. And you know, I grew up with Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin and all that stuff, but I, it’s dated and I love it, but I like a one-off song of theirs. I can’t listen to their albums over and over.

Those three bands I just spoke of, Sublime mixes all the genres in one song sometimes, blues, reggae, punk, ska, within a song. So th- those guys were otherworldly. Another unfortunate death from overdose in their 20s. And then Jane’s, you know, Perry, they’re, they’re incredible. Jane’s Addiction is, is just, for me, and, and I tell people this all the time.

It’s not, even if I didn’t know the guy, I would totally be into that [00:45:00] music. And I just think it’s the sound, the energy, the whole thing. And I, I think that I love music and I love creativity, and I wish I could create music, and I can’t. So I’m, I’m a big fan of it.

Tim Melanson: Well, you’re making up for it with lots of creativity

Dr Rob Yonover: Uh, that’s exactly, I’m in my lane.

They’re in the music lane, I’m in the invention lane.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Robby Eonver. This has been awesome.

Dr Rob Yonover: Thanks, Tim. My pleasure, man. That was great

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

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today, I am talking to the owner of Melinda Colón Consulting, and she’s also the co-founder of Fortis OBM Proposal Development. So what they do is they help service-based business owners, especially in construction, engineering, and consulting, to secure lucrative government and corporate contracts.

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

Melinda Colon: Yes, absolutely. Let’s go

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

Melinda Colon: So when I was in corporate America, the number one thing that I did was what I do now, and it wasn’t sexy. You know how like when you’re doing something for a really long time and someone asks you, "What do you do?" Like, "How do you get the result that you get?" And you’re just like, "I have no idea." Like, it just kind of…

I can’t even track it. I don’t even see that it’s important or valuable. And fast-forward what happens. I open my business, start [00:01:00] working and serving people that needed this service, that this consulting, this strategy to win corporate and government contracts, and I found that this was amazing. Like, small businesses are able to compete with huge giants in the marketplace and, and just transform their life without just burning themselves out

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Isn’t that amazing? It’s, it’s getting to be more and more like that. That’s actually what excites me about even just this podcast, is to inspire more people to see that that is possible now. You can actually be a small business and compete with the big guys nowadays

Melinda Colon: In fact, I, I think honestly, Tim, it’s, it’s a benefit because a, a big business, really think about it, a big business can’t do the branding, the relationship, the connection that a small business can. We have a lot of benefits, and we often overlook them because we’re small, and we’re [00:02:00] in an environment where big matters, like big is the best.

But actually, small is better, more intimate, more connectedness, more relationships. Like, we’re not in a big forum right now. It’s just you and me talking to your community, and it feels really effortless. And someone gets to get value wherever they are, whether it’s at work during their lunch break or driving home, pick up the kids at soccer, even just doing a, a load of laundry at home.

And so what the goal is here is to really build real relationships with real people in real spaces. And at the end of the day, that’s what is so exciting about running a business and having flexibilities. So we’re not really structured or controlled by a cubicle per se. It’s like we get to create our own control

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, even just think about our own experiences when we go into, we try to contact a company. I mean, how often do we try to talk to somebody? Uh, hey, now it’s even talk to a person, but let alone a person with some decision-making [00:03:00] ability, right?

Melinda Colon: Yeah. I’m waiting for, like, the reCAPTCHA, you know, when you go to a website and it says like, "Are you human?" Like, "Are you a robot?" I’m just waiting for that to roll out on phone because you just don’t know anymore. You don’t, you, you don’t know if you’re talking to a person or not. And so I think that’s another benefit that we have as small businesses is we get to, we get to scale with relationships

Tim Melanson: Yeah. You know what would be funny is that if I, if we could have, like, the reCAPTCHA on our phone so that when a company calls us, "Are you human? you’re human, maybe I’ll talk to you."

Melinda Colon: Exactly. I love it

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now along with the good notes, sometimes there’s some things that don’t go as planned, and I like to talk about those just to make sure that people understand that, you know, things are gonna happen, and that’s normal, and we shouldn’t be scared of that.

That’s no reason to not start your business, right? And I’m wondering, can you share with me some big mistake or something that just didn’t go as planned for you?

Melinda Colon: You know, when I was preparing for this conversation, I was thinking about just like more of like a heroic [00:04:00] story where it was terrible and then it got better like immediately. And I thought to myself, "That’s not real life." And we touched on it a little bit earlier about failure, and failure isn’t real. A- and I’m gonna tell you why.

So when I started my business, it was success from the start, and that’s not common in my type of world, right? Like in consulting, it’s not common for you just to like run once you get started. Um, but I was just using my mastery, something that I had already perf- pr- practiced and perfected nearly, uh, two decades, and just applied it to small businesses.

That’s all I was doing. So it was easier for me to transition. And so that’s a note for anybody that’s listening, is the thing that you might want to do is not far away from what you can start with. And I thought to myself, "Well, I have to start my business and this is the only thing that I can do." And that made me feel really [00:05:00] overwhelmed and stressed.

And so even though we were getting the clients and the retainers and we were making way more money than, you know, a lot of businesses were making, uh, that were at our, you know, at our size and, and age of business, um, I still felt like disconnected from my business, to be honest. And it felt like, gosh, I’m gonna have to work harder.

Like, it doesn’t feel fun. Like, I thought entrepreneurship was going to be fun. Like, where is the fun part? When am I gonna get to that? Well, I took my eye off the ball because I started paying attention to things that I wanted to do in that season, and didn’t understand. This was before I really locked into, um, you know, just understanding business principles and strategy and hiring a coach and being a part of a mastermind.

These are all so important. And what I did is I just kind of said, "You know what? I, I know better. I, I know everything." I didn’t say it like to myself, you know what I [00:06:00] mean? Like I just kind of believed it and I acted in that way. Well, what happened is, as a strategist, I saw a tsunami coming and I ignored it ’cause I thought to myself, "Well, it’s okay."

The… You know, what I built, I really didn’t like it anyway. I don’t, I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t value it. And just, um, it, it just obviously didn’t happen overnight, but it felt like it did. Um, and so what happened is during a period of time where our retainer clients that were locked in for 12 months paying four to five figures for each retainer suddenly locked out.

They emailed me, called me, said, "Melinda, we can’t pay anymore." And it happened all within 48 hours. And it felt like I failed. Like, "Oh my goodness, what about my team? I have to pay my team, and I gotta pay myself, and who’s gonna pay all these [00:07:00] expenses?" And, well, uh, I mean, how do I move forward? And it felt like failure.

Well, what I learned from that experience is that it wasn’t failure. It was just iterations. It’s kind of like if you’re someone who’s thinking about a gadget or a product, and you have a few iterations. Like, first you have the drawing, and then maybe you get a manufacturer to design it, and then you see it for real, and then it’s like, "Hmm, I wanna change the color.

I don’t like where this piece is landing or how this functions." And then you go and you go through an iteration, another iteration until it gets perfected. And see, that was just a per- that was just an iteration for me. And from that, like someone would say, it was the phoenix, you know, that came from the ashes moment.

Um, but from that it was rebuilding something that I could be proud of and that could be sustainable. And understanding what that was meant that I had [00:08:00] to break my belief of I know everything, I can do it all. I needed to really lean into who is the best at this thing? I will pay them to teach me how to do that thing the way that they do it and actually do it.

And I believe that those are three, three major principles that are so simple, so straightforward, but oftentimes most people don’t do it. Um, I, you know… So I’m sure you can, you know, s- you can relate to that

Tim Melanson: Yeah, definitely. Well, I love, I love that you say iteration. That’s really cool ’cause, because I think, I think that there’s been… There, there’s a lot of iterations that you have to do, especially when just the world changes. And, you know, especially now with, you know, how technology has been moving along. I mean, you know, y- if you think back to even 50, 100 years ago, probably very few of these businesses would’ve [00:09:00] existed the same way.

So how can you not change, right? There, there are, you know, you mentioned the tsunami coming. Yeah, there’s things coming. There are things that are changing, and you gotta adapt to that. And so, but I, I, I like also, you know, you’re mentioning, like isn’t it interesting how if you were to like separate yourself from yourself and give yourself

Melinda Colon: Yeah

Tim Melanson: advice, are you actually taking the business advice that you would give yourself, right?

‘Cause I, I hear you. I, I find sometimes I would like look at things and I go, "I wouldn’t even, I wouldn’t even suggest this to my friend," and here I am doing it ’cause I’m like, "Oh, yeah, no, no, no, I, I know what I’m supposed to do. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll, I’ll handle it," right? Isn’t that interesting how that works, eh?

Melinda Colon: Yes, exactly. And it, and I, I don’t, I don’t know where it comes from. I, I wanna blame it on corporate America, but I, I know that it’s deeper than that. And, um, to break away from that is just doing something, just trusting someone [00:10:00] else. It’s a … Honestly, it’s a fear, it’s a fear. It’s fear. It was, it was fear bottled up in, um, you know, I, I guess this identity that just really doesn’t fit me, and I, I knew it didn’t fit me.

I knew it. It, it’s like deep down you just sub- like subconsciously you know that you’re not where you need to be. But environment says, right, like where we live, where we work, um, what we need in terms of financial s- stability, it’s like that says that’s gonna dictate who I am, and that’s very false. Um, that’s not real.

You know, we get to actually, we get to customize our reality. We get to do that. And I know that sounds flowery, but it’s real. It’s true. It’s factual. It has been proven scientifically that we get to design our world. Now, if we get more [00:11:00] people to believe that, can you imagine the type of impact we would have in the world, Tim?

Tim Melanson: I, I agree. I agree. Yeah, and, and I hope that that’s what we’re doing, right? By just, by just going ahead and… ‘Cause I, I do think that we, uh, th- those of us who have, you know, forged this path, we’re sort of lighthouses for the people around us that are looking at us and going like, "Okay, so they’re making it happen.

Okay, well maybe I can make it happen too," right? ‘Cause that’s the thing, is that you see sort of, you know, uh, whatever, somebody on TV or, like, it’s infomercial and you’re like, "That’s not a real person," right? But if you start to see real people in your own life and, and they’re having some success, and whatever that success means to you…

I think that that’s another, another misconception as well, is that people think that success is, like, a million dollars. Well, success can just be having the flexibility to work when you want to work, you know, to be able to, you know, go to your children’s [00:12:00] recitals or whatever it happens to be, right? Just to have that little flexibility.

I mean, w- wouldn’t that be… I mean, i- if you’re working in a job, you, you’re not a millionaire. You’re… Well, you could be.

Melinda Colon: Mm.

Tim Melanson: But you’re probably not. So what’s the difference? Why not have a little bit of flexibility, right?

Melinda Colon: Statistically, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it, it like, it’s the simplest practice. I, I remember my coach had me do this practice. The, it, it honestly took maybe an, 30 minutes to do, but it has transformed the way that I look at money. And I just defined what would it take for me to be comfortable?

Now, we get to define what comfortable is, right? Maybe you wanna be a millionaire. Maybe you’re good with, like, 300K and you’re good. Like, maybe you just need 100K a year. Like, whatever your comfort- comfortable le- like, level is. And then figure out, okay, so if this is what I… This is where we are [00:13:00] comfortable, does that include all the things that I desire to do in my life?

Maybe it’s travel the world. Maybe it’s to invest. Maybe, whatever it is. Like, seeing your kids at the recital, you can’t take those moments back. You can’t get those again. Like, so what does it take? How much does it cost to do those things? Maybe it’s to buy a car or to, you know, learn how to, like, ride a motorcycle.

Like, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, just go searching. Just Google. Find out how much it costs. Go to chat, you know, AI and just ask AI, "How much does it cost on average in my area to do this thing?" Start adding it all up. And what happened after I did that, Tim, is that I saw that my number was really easy to get.

I was like, "Oh, wow, okay. So I don’t actually have to work crazy. I don’t have to, like, turn myself inside out or divorce myself from family and friends to [00:14:00] start a business. Like, that doesn’t have to happen. I get to enjoy my life as I’m building a business." And, and honestly, that really just changed the way that I look at money.

And so when people talk about money, and actually just this morning I was calling, I was calling a, um, a service to confirm something, and she told me the total, and I think it was like 2,700 bucks, and she’s like, "Um, it’s 27," it’s like 2714. I’m looking at the receipt right now. And, uh, she, she said to me… I paused.

I didn’t actually say anything. I was actually writing it. And she says, "I know that’s a lot of money." And it kind of just, like, stored in my mind, and I thought, "Wow, she’s telling me about what she thinks about money."

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Melinda Colon: And $2,700 depends on who you’re asking how much

Tim Melanson: what you’re buying.

Melinda Colon: right? Like, it’s all the ROI. It’s like the result. And, and so, um, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is [00:15:00] so powerful." If more people can hear how they talk about… how they hear other people talk about money, right? It’s our environment that we have to change, and then how we talk about money.

Do we say, "Oh man, that’s way too expensive to transform my life forever. Like, 2,700 bucks? Oh my gosh." Like, or are we p- are we actually increasing our value by understanding our value? ‘Cause I, I know that I’m way more valuable than 2,700 bucks.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Melinda Colon: so there, there’s this like… Yeah, go ahead

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and also, like, I, I did… I, I do sort of, like, notice this thing, ’cause when people talk to me in a, in a job or in their corporate careers, as you move up the ladder and you make more and more money, the… it seems as though the stress, time commitment, both of those things end up just increasing exponentially.

So I, I think that there may be some of [00:16:00] that, like, that’s just kind of, like, ingrained in us. ‘Cause, you know, as, uh, you know, I’ve, you know, spoken to so many people who are self-employed here, and that’s not necessarily the case when you’re running your own business. As you make more money, you don’t necessarily spend, like, exponentially more time.

In fact, actually, a lot of times it’s, it’s less time. You end up being more efficient, right? And so I, I think that there’s, like, a bit of a misconception that people will think, "Okay, well, I’m sitting in my corporate job. This is what I make. I’m working around the clock to make this money," and they think, "Okay, well, if I transition into a business, well, what is my life gonna look like?"

And then all this uncertainty. And so they just think it’s so much harder and so much more stressful when first of all, like you said, maybe that number is actually a lot smaller than you actually need. And then on top of that, maybe you can actually work more efficiently to get there, right? ‘Cause your boss decides how much you need to work in order to get that, that paycheck, right?

Y- [00:17:00] you decide how much you need to work for your own paycheck, right?

Melinda Colon: 100%. And that’s exactly, that’s what I, what I used to teach is, um, I used to host these in-person workshops, um, called Business Clarity Breakthrough, and to educate people and say, "They’re, they’re paying you in a job what they’re paying you because that’s what they’re willing to pay you for what you do."

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Melinda Colon: That is not say that is the value of what you do. Because the value… See, any business owner, and this is something that everybody needs to know and understand and, and if you guys know what it is, then gr- just, like, lock in, is any role in your company, whether it’s software, contractors, employees, even yourself, everything has to have a return on investment. There is no such thing as, "I need to pay you your worth." There i- like, it, it’s impossible. But I can [00:18:00] pay you the value that I have defined for that role. So the other things that they’re not paying you for is the software that you need, the computer, the cubicle, the AC, the water, the, the plumbing, the office building.

That is all a c- a, calculated into you in that role. You just don’t, you don’t… It doesn’t go through your bank account, but they’re paying for you to be there. So it, it’s, it’s a completely different thing and, and 100%, the more you, the more you charge on, in your business, the freer you are. You know, when I started doing corporate events, corporate workshops, in-person trainings, it was, I was terrified.

I’m like, "Oh my gosh, how many hours would it take to prepare for this, and how much does it cost to do this and that?" And I mean, I got so many yeses so quickly, Tammy. Just, they [00:19:00] were like, "Yes." Like, I, I didn’t even have to send them a proposal. I’m like, "Wow, this is so easy. I could do this forever." And then my coach was like, "No, you’re charging way little for the biggest return that they’re gonna get.

They’re, they have team members that need to learn what you’re teaching them that will result in millions and billions of dollars. That is not a three or four-figure offer. That is a five to six-figure offer." And I had to get comfortable with that. That it, that… And that’s really, I believe, the unlock, is understanding how to charge premium.

Because we’re not charging premium because that’s, like, what we wanna make. It’s, like, charging premium ’cause that’s the, based off the result that I can deliver and knowing what that result is. And it’s really simple. We just ask the question. We say, "Hey, company," "Hey, business owner," or, "Hey, uh, customer. What would it…

Like, once you have this thing, what would it do for your life? What would you not have to do [00:20:00] anymore? What would-" What type of freedom would you have? And then you’re like, "Oh my gosh, it would help me to do this, this, and this." Then you get to measure your ROI on that, based off that, which is like a, it’s like a fraction but way more than hourly or, you know, competitive-based pricing

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, I think most of us have, like, this I’m not enough programming in us too that hold us back from… Uh, but that’s one of those things that I think as you start your business, and I’m sure many people experience this, that, you know, you s- you start of going on what you think you’re worth, right?

‘Cause that’s just what you’ve been programmed to do, and then you start looking around and you start seeing these other competitors that are just, just crushing it, and you’re, like, looking at the, at the value that they’re providing. You’re like, "Whoa, I’m so much more than that," and, and, and they’re charging so much more than I’m charging.

And all of a sudden it’s just kind of this wake-up moment that you’re like, "Okay. Well, obviously I’m not charging enough. I need [00:21:00] to, I need to break through this." But it is really, really hard to br- to break that programming that you have ’cause, you know, as soon as someone sort of like pauses, uh, you know, at your price, you’re like, "Oh, but, uh, I can give you a discount," like that kind of thing, right?

Melinda Colon: Yes, yes. It, it, it, it… Uh, I remember, I remember the day my coach just said, um, she’s like, "You’re gonna, gonna increase your retainer to 8,000." It was e- eight, 8,500. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that’s 12 months, over 12 months, 8,500. Oh my gosh, that’s like 8,500 a month?" And she’s like, "Yes." Okay. So she said, "You need to tell them that you’re gonna send them an invoice for that, right?

You’re gonna amend the agreement." Okay, yes, okay. Got on the phone, shaky voice. And she said, "Say it and then shut up." I said, "Okay." So I was like, "It’s 8,500." I held my breath, I looked down like I was writing something, and I was just thinking, "Dear Lord," you know. And they’re like, "Okay, just send us the [00:22:00] invoice." "Absolutely." Hung up. I sent the invoice. And then again, Tam, it came up again. I was just like this anxiety. Asked my husband. I didn’t sleep until they had paid that. I was just like, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. They’re gonna say no. They’re gonna realize that they made a mistake. They’re gonna…

Maybe they thought I said e- 850, not 8,500." And, and like all of these things just started, like coming to mind. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. But it, I… If I waited until I was ready, it would’ve never happened. I just needed to do it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Amazing how that works, right? And then, and then on the other hand, like, uh, I don’t know what your experience is, but what about the people that actually do bark at that price and want you to discount the price? How are they to work with usually?

Melinda Colon: Oh man, it’s the best thing. It’s actually really… It is… What I, w- And then, then, let me talk about when, how it felt the first time I ha- heard that. I remember he said, "Huh. [00:23:00] Oh my gosh, we would never pay that." I remember him saying that. And I said, "Okay, I understand. I appreciate it," da, da, da. I hung up the phone.

It, I didn’t respond or react to it at all. I was just like, "You’re right. I’m not valuable. I will accept your, what you say that I am." You know? And it’s like I’m not even selling me, I’m selling the transformation, I’m selling the service, right? So I, it, I had to mature through that. And now I see this as the best thing ever because everybody is trying to figure out what’s in the mind of the buyer.

And I have so many saying, "I will never pay that." I should have said, and I wish I would’ve said that, but you know, it’s okay, I can move forward, is, "Man, tell me why." What, what do you think that, like… What, oh, I understand. Like, so you would never pay for this. Why? Here’s the thing, like, they’re gonna tell you.[00:24:00]

They’re going to tell you why. "Well, because blah, blah, blah." Oh, I understand, and I could have transitioned that into marketing research and even closed the sale. I could have closed the sale, because once I helped him understand what he was actually getting versus just something on a proposal, which by the way, please don’t ever send a proposal blindly.

In fact, get on the phone with them, get in Zoom, and like go through proposals with, with them together. And if they ask you to send the proposal, especially for corporate clients, if they ask for, "Oh, just send me the proposal," actually I would be more comfortable to get on the phone. Like, can we go ahead and schedule a time for us to go through it together so that I can answer your questions in real time?

If there’s anybody else that needs to make a decision, please en- you know, let me know and I can add them to that Zoom li- or that calendar invite. I don’t send proposals anymore. Because what happens is they make their own justification, [00:25:00] and then they delay making decisions, and then it slows down the entire sales pipeline.

So when someone gives an objection, this is what it’s called, it’s like they’re rejecting it. They’re like, "Oh, well, what about this? What about this? What about this?" I actually see this as an opportunity to learn more about my audience, and if I can find out what they believe, what they’re believing is way more valuable than what I believe.

Because if they, if I understand what they believe, if I understood he, you know, now it’s just like I, I really don’t know what he was believing. But if he believed, for example, that I can get it cheaper or I can just hire someone as an employee to do it, absolutely. Hire someone to do it. And you know what?

Guaranteed it’s gonna, it’s gonna cost more than eight hun- $8,500 a month. Well, no, ’cause I just, the salary is… Well, overhead expenses, health benefits, um, and then onboarding. [00:26:00] That’s expensive. At least a corporate, a small business corporation of 50 plus invests about, um, 5

to $10,000 per employee on, during onboarding, not including benefits or salary or tools or softwares or anything. So 100% go hire someone or hire a consultant. Where here in the United States, I’m not sure about Canada, you probably could speak on that, is here in the United States it’s a tax write-off.

Tim Melanson: Yep

Melinda Colon: So you’re really actually not paying anything.

So then it’s not really 8,500. Correct.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Melinda Colon: It’s not something you need to concern yourself with. It doesn’t hurt your bottom line, doesn’t impact you in any way. But these are all things that we get to talk about in a Zoom call and record that Zoom call, and that way you can actually create marketing content and hit those objections ahead of time [00:27:00] before it comes up, and man, you’re gonna be a rock star

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and, and I mean, when it comes down to it too, the people that, number one, I mean, there was two… I guess there’s probably two main reasons why someone might not want to hire you at that rate. One is because they don’t actually want what it is that you’re, that, that you’re offering.

Maybe they don’t need it as much as they thought they might. Maybe they’re just shopping around and they’re like, "Okay, well that’s not in my budget right now," so no problem. That just is what it is. Or they’re, like, really difficult clients to work with. ‘Cause that happens as well too. I find the ones that, like, lowball you and stuff like that are the hardest to work with versus the ones that just wanna pay your, your, your price are so much easier, right?

Melinda Colon: Oh, no, 100%. Like, if someone comes circled, you know, "No, I don’t wanna pay for 85, I wanna pay 35. Would you be okay with 35?" I’d say, "No, absolutely I don’t think it’s gonna be the right fit." Absolutely, like, those are people that I don’t even entertain. [00:28:00] Um, or honestly, now I don’t even get to the point where I share the investment, uh, ’cause, you know, my investments are a lot larger than 8,500.

So I actually interview them as much as they’re interviewing me. I’m qualifying them to make sure that they’re gonna be the right fit because I’ve learned not all money is good money. I, I know that’s a cliche, but it’s real. It can really, you know, one rotten apple spoils a bunch. It’s true. I’ve, I’ve… You know, my team members have experienced it and, you know, it’s 100%,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And from the, uh, from the client perspective too, they, I mean, they, um, they… Well, like what you said earlier, they likely know what it’s worth, and so when you give that price, I mean, the funny thing is that if your price is too low, that’s gonna raise alarms for them. They’re gonna be like, "Eh, they don’t really know what they’re doing," right?

Whereas if you come right in, like, uh, at where [00:29:00] it should be, they’re, they’re more likely to go, "Yep, we know that that’s that cost. We know that that we’re, kind of value we’re getting for that," and they’re, they’re up for that, right?

Melinda Colon: I challenge that, that second one because I think it’s about packaging. Um, I think it’s about experience and packaging. You know, it… Of course, you know, i- if I’m gonna help business unlock a revenue stream of 100 million and I go in with a million-dollar investment, it, it’s gonna be hard to digest because it’s not packaged properly.

Um, but there are ways to package it so that it is equates to a million dollars if that’s a, if that’s the true result that I’m getting for them. So it could be, um, you know, a partial, uh, commission stan- state or, you know, like half front or… It’s just these are all like deal-making strategies. But what I had to divorce myself from is believing that there’s a limit to [00:30:00] how much someone would pay me for.

And it, because if I put a limit to how much someone will pay me, then I’m putting a limit to how much value that I offer, and I, I have unlimited value for people.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Melinda Colon: It’s just a matter of like what they need and just delivering on what that is with integrity

Tim Melanson: Wow, right on. Wow, time flies. Hey, let’s get into your guest solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Melinda Colon: Oh man. So, okay, um, gosh, it’s the, it’s the transformation. It’s adding a revenue stream to existing businesses, and even helping people who want to buy a business add a government contract, a revenue stream. And it doesn’t matter where you live, um, e- even in Canada, there are contracts, um, with, uh, you know, in govern- in government.

Um, but they’re, they’re just everywhere. There’s opportunities everywhere, and it doesn’t require you to leave your home. So I’m excited to serve people in that way, just to [00:31:00] kind of stabilize their business so that they can have more freedom to do whatever they want

Tim Melanson: So what would, uh, a norm, like someone who’s gonna get the most out of working with, uh, what, what do they look like? Like what, what situation are they in where they’re like, "Okay, I really need Melinda right now"?

Melinda Colon: They’re a subject matter expert who has experience delivering on results in a service business, whether it’s yours, whatever you can list on your resume or your existing business. And we just work with you to find opportunities that are gonna be the best fit for your business based off your business plan, and make sure that it works strategically so that you can, you know, get the result that you want, which is usually more freedom, more time, uh, more money to invest or to stabilize business.

Delegate is huge for our clients, that they wanna delegate so they, they’re not the go-to for everything. So that’s how we do that, and we help them do that.

Tim Melanson: Okay. So what [00:32:00] kinds of services do you help them with? Like, are you more like a coach or a matchmaker? Like, what, what is it you do?

Melinda Colon: So I help people stay, I help people install a revenue stream of government contracts to their business. So while the industry is volatile, government contracting is consistent and predictable. so sometimes we need that predictability to, you know, plan our life past a month, right?

Tim Melanson: Right. Okay, that’s excellent. So really it’s, uh, you’re more or less a subject matter expert on those more stable contracts rather than, you know, what they’re probably doing right now, which is going out and getting, you know, business-to-business contracts probably at the, at the moment, right?

Melinda Colon: Well, business to business is actually great. It keeps you as an authority and an, and an industry expert in the, in the eyes of a government agency. Um, so you do want both. I don’t recommend doing one or the other. I do recommend having [00:33:00] both, ’cause they serve each other. So, um, if that makes sense. Private now serves government, and it looks like, wow, you can work with a government agency?

You can pretty much do anything, ’cause your business has to be structured, it has to be stable. It’s like, that’s the perception people have. And of course, that’s attractive to other s- businesses that are thinking, "I’m not sure if you actually do what you say you do."

Tim Melanson: Hmm

Melinda Colon: so that’s one. And then on the government side or the public sector side, it shows as you’re an authority ahead of what the government is doing, because they’re looking for industry experts all the time, especially right now as things are just transforming and evolving with AI.

They want real people to help them with the problems they have. And you, Tim, you would not believe the problems that they have are things that we dealt with five years ago. Like, they’re still trying to figure it out, ’cause government is always going to be behind, and that’s a benefit to a small business owner [00:34:00] when you can say, "We have gone through this.

We’ve helped our clients through it, and here’s our case studies. Here’s one after another after another," and educate them on how to source those contracts, how to hire the vendors, what, what the work needs to actually look for, and then ob- obviously, ultimately, um, getting award of the contract itself

Tim Melanson: I love that. And so the process of working with you, I think you mentioned that you, you’re gonna get on a call with them and that

Melinda Colon: Yeah. Yeah, so the first thing is if, if anybody’s interested, you can find me on LinkedIn, just Melinda Colón. You can see my beautiful face, um, on there. And, um, and once we connect and you would apply f- to schedule a call with me, ’cause we don’t take everyone, we, we do give you guidance and direction wherever you’re at.

But for those that are qualified to have a conversation, we would take it to the next step, talk through your business plan, your goals for your business, and then help you develop a strategy to install government contracts [00:35:00] into your business plan. This is about helping you get to your goal, not changing your goal

Tim Melanson: love that. That’s great. And so LinkedIn is the best way for them to contact you then?

Melinda Colon: Yes.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. That’s great. So now one more question. Let’s get into s- a little bit of music. Like, who is your favorite rock star or band?

Melinda Colon: Rockstar? Oh, man. Or band. Okay, I’m gonna say band, and Oh my gosh, should I say this aloud? Um,

Tim Melanson: not?

Melinda Colon: um, oh gosh, what am I gonna say? I’m gonna say AC/DC.

Tim Melanson: Really? Awesome. Awesome. You’re like The Rock.

Melinda Colon: Yeah. It’s great music to listen to just to kinda like get stuff done. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Have you ever seen them in concert?

Melinda Colon: I haven’t, no.

Tim Melanson: No? No. I missed out on [00:36:00] it too, ’cause they did come to my city and I, uh, I, I just qu- wasn’t able to go. It’s too bad. They would be such a high energy show, right?

Melinda Colon: Yes, and like, that’s why I love it, is it gets you moving. Yeah

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

Melinda Colon: This is fun. Thank you so much for having me, Tim

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

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Very excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the CEO. She’s a business coach and outsourcing specialist for Six Figure Business Coaching, and what she does is she helps service-based entrepreneurs to simplify and scale their business by combining coaching, financial clarity, and strategic outsourcing.

Super excited to be talking to Kirsten Graham. Hey, Kirsten, you ready to rock?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely, Tim. Thank you so much for having me today

Tim Melanson: That’s great. So we always start off with a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. So my background is real estate. I sold real estate, I moved to the mortgage side, I went on to own a mortgage company and a title company. And while I did a lot of loans for self-employed people, I would see their business tax returns and their personal tax returns, and then they would always take me to lunch to pick my brain.

So I mentored business owners for about a decade, and then I decided to start taking paid c- coaching clients. And the reason why I wanted to share that story with [00:01:00] your audience today is because sometimes you’re doing something at your job that could end up turning into a business. So always keep your eyes open for that opportunity, because I thought I would live and die in the real estate industry.

I had zero thought. Like, I, I never … the thought never crossed my mind to become a business coach. And because I just mentored people and helped them whenever I could, it eventually turned into a paid business, and that was really exciting because in … You know, we survived 2008, which wasn’t easy. We got beat up quite badly.

But, you know, my mom was terminally ill in 2013, and at that point, I’d taken on enough coaching clients that I was able to say, "I’m finished, um, with the mortgage industry and I wanna spend the next six months or eight months or however long she has with her." And because I’d already taken on those coaching clients, I was able to do that, and that

But it led me down a totally different path and [00:02:00] I’m very excited that I, you know, took the step to move forward, even though I had a business, actually kind of taking on a second business, which was the coaching, because it just made sense. So for all of you out there that maybe you’re, you’re still working a job and you wanna work for yourself, you have skills that you’ve developed in your career and you probably have people asking you for help.

There’s a way to turn that into a business

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I’m really glad you mentioned that ’cause that, that is something that, uh, I mean, we all have something that someone picks our brains about, right? And, and the funny thing about it is that you were doing it for free ’cause you like doing it, you like helping people, and, and that’s the… You know what?

We, we talk about that quite a bit on the, on the podcast, especially when it comes to, like, music and stuff ’cause I think people have a hard time charging money for the thing that they like to do for free.

Kirsten Graham: Yes.

Tim Melanson: Do you find that? Is that a weird thing that we have?

Kirsten Graham: No, no, because it comes so naturally to you that you forget that it’s a challenge for someone else. So you know, for example, a lot of [00:03:00] business owners, they, they don’t enjoy bookkeeping, but it’s hard for us to imagine that there are people who actually that’s their jam. They love doing that, right?

Or if we hate things like technology and video editing and stuff like that, it’s hard to imagine because it’s not our unique ability, it doesn’t come easy to us, sometimes it’s hard to imagine that other people actually love doing that. And it’s… For us, when something comes easy for us, we sometimes think, "Well, why would anybody pay me for this?

It’s so easy. Can’t everybody do this?" And that’s not the case

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. And, and the, the, I think there are certain things that everybody knows is not easy for every- for everybody else, like the math stuff. You can be like, "Yeah, okay, I get it. Not everybody likes that." But there might be something in your business that you are, just think is very easy, like you just said, but isn’t obvious that it’s not, it’s not easy for everybody, right?

Um, and, and that’s the, that’s the gold right there, ’cause that’s the thing that people are happy to pay for ’cause they just don’t wanna do it, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so if you’re thinking about, [00:04:00] just start tracking when people ask you questions. You know, what are they asking you about? What do people come to you for? Because you’re kind of an expert in it, not that you call yourself that. You know, it’s just friends or family or people you know, clients or they come to you and ask you certain things.

And if you find out that that is a unique ability, then do some research and figure out could you turn that into a business and would you enjoy doing that as a business? Or maybe you already have a business, but you haven’t thought about bringing that element into it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, we can get back into that a little bit later. Uh, but before we do, let’s talk a little bit about the bad note. So what is something… Hey, not everything goes as planned, right? There are some certain things that don’t go as planned, and that seems to be the thing that keeps people out of it, out of the game.

They’re thinking, "Ah, you know, it’s not gonna work out the way I want it to. What if I fail?" I, I’d just like to talk about it because we all get those things, and we’re still here, right? So it can still work out for you even though you make mistakes. So I’m wondering, can you share with me one of those mistakes?

Kirsten Graham: Sure, sure. So one of my clients from [00:05:00] my mortgage company was Jeannie Wilson, who’s now my business partner, and she was one of those people that I mentored. And she was at the time building an agency, so this is back… I’m gonna age us really quickly. This is back when Facebook first had fan pages.

Tim Melanson: Oh.

Kirsten Graham: And, you know, at this point local businesses had websites resistantly, but they, they knew nothing about LinkedIn or they thought it was a resume site or email marketing or blogging.

Those things were very prevalent online, but not within local businesses. And so she was starting a digital marketing agency, so you’re kind of swimming upstream because people don’t really know what you’re doing.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Kirsten Graham: so she ended up hosting some classes that taught people about, you know, how to use LinkedIn for business and networking.

You know, what, why should you blog? Why should you add a blog to your website at least once a month, ideally every week? Um, email marketing. What is email marketing and how do you use it? So she hosted some classes, filled the classes because people were interested, but what happened next was she ended up getting really busy really fast.[00:06:00]

And so I said to her, "I’ve read about outsourcing overseas. Would you like to try this?" And I still have my mortgage company, and I’ve got a huge team, uh, all in the States, but we decided to start outsourcing for her digital marketing agency. And she said, "I’ll do it if you’ll help me." So this is before Zoom.

It’s before WhatsApp. I mean, this was back, very old school. And so we kind of found everything we could research to find on outsourcing, and we went down that, that road of helping her hire website, um, developers, people who could create profiles on LinkedIn and fan, Facebook fan pages because business owners didn’t even wanna create their own profiles back then.

Or could blog or set up the blogs once she had written them and things like that. I like to say we’re either we’re stubborn a- and stupid probably in a lot of ways because it went wrong, it went wrong. I mean, it, it went wrong every way it could go wrong. So we had, you know, you have people that don’t show up and do a good job with the project or [00:07:00] you learn that you’ve hired the wrong person because they weren’t honest about the skills that they had.

You know, or one person’s been working for you a while and asked, "Hey, I’ve had a family emergency. Could you pay me early?" And that happened, and then he vanished, right? So it was definitely a learning curve, and we kind of joke looking back that it’s surprising that we stuck with it. But it was one of those things where no one else that we knew was doing it, so we didn’t really have anyone to go to to ask questions.

So it really was white-knuckling it and figuring it out. But Jeanne went on to build a successful digital marketing agency with that process, and then we went on to partner to help other people learn how to outsource, um, because we just realized it can change, it can change a person’s business when you get the support in your business you need.

But it, it, yeah, if, if you think you’re gonna start a business and everything’s gonna be easy, it’s not, right? But sometimes you just have to realize that even though you don’t have a skill right now, you can develop that skill. You [00:08:00] know, as far as interviewing goes, like m- myself and our team, we have it dialed in.

We very seldom have a bad hire anymore, and I will have to say until, um, the pandemic. And what happened was we had… I guess there were people teaching r- people in the Philippines or in India how to become virtual assistants, like how to interview to be a virtual assistant. Not know how to do the skills, but how to interview for the job.

And so we got caught with two, two bad hires, and I was like, "How the heck did this happen?" Like, we haven’t had a bad hire in years. And, um, so I was finally able to talk with one of them and like you said, these were the skills you had. You know, so I was able to get out of that person that they had gone through a program that taught them, told them how to interview,

Tim Melanson: Wow

Kirsten Graham: right?

Yeah. And so, so that was a… Again, it’s always a learning curve. I don’t think… That’s the other thing that’s exciting about owning your own business is every day things are evolving and changing, and you’re always learning. And just have faith that you have the ability to learn new [00:09:00] things and to do hard things.

Um, and at the, at the end, it always pays off.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It does pay off if you stick with it, right? And sometimes if you have some help, right?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely

Tim Melanson: But I mean, that, that’s the thing is that, is that like you say, that you, you’re gonna learn. I mean, they, all these things are gonna happen, and then you’re gonna, you’re gonna move forward. And a- I mean, what’s the other alternative?

You’re, you’re, you’re sitting in a company maybe that you’re not super excited about. I know the thing that, that I dreaded the most about going to a job was just not having that control and that excitement. And I know for me, like, those problems and those things that don’t go well, yes, they suck at the time, but they’re exciting when you figure them out, right?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. And I love the joke that, um, an entrepreneur is the only person that will quit a 40-hour a week job to work 80 hours a week for themselves.

Tim Melanson: Yes

Kirsten Graham: Because you just don’t… When you start your business, you don’t think about that window of time that you spend [00:10:00] learning new things. You know, especially like right now we’ve got AI on the scene, you know, and that’s the past five or six years with that has been amazing, but you’re still in a constant learning mode.

So it, it is a matter of understanding that if you love to learn and you’re excited about learning, then s- working for yourself is definitely the way to go.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think it, like, I think when it comes down to it, like, if you’re the type of person that is very prideful about the work that you’re putting out there, like you want it to be really good and y- you wanna do a great job, a- that to me, and I- it’s just maybe my experience, in a corporate setting, you’re getting paid the same as the guy sitting right next to you that is doing hardly anything.

So I mean, if you’re the type of person that just like, "I just need to get this done right," you’re not gonna succeed in a, in a corporate environment. It’s, it’s gonna be very, very difficult. But now all, all of a sudden if you’re working for yourself, well, now the better you get at what you do, the more you can deliver within the same amount of [00:11:00] time, the more money you make.

Now you can take on another client, right? So it’s, it- it’s just a, a personality thing, I think, and I think a lot of people don’t, um, they, they, they wanna clock in, clock out, and they just wanna, you know, be there and do that thing and not have a bunch, a bunch of stress. Well, that’s probably not gonna work out so well if you’re self-employed, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, no. Yeah, uh, uh, you know, I, I, like you, believe that h- owning your own business is, is amazing. But I do accept that there are some people who enjoy being in corporate America. They enjoy that climbing that corporate ladder. Because there are, on the flip side of this with working from home, it can be isolating and you can feel alone at times, and sometimes it can be challenging to figure out things on your own, which why- is why I think it’s so important to build community of other entrepreneurs that you have somebody to bounce things off of.

But yeah, if you’re that type of person who loves challenges, wants to make more money for what you’re doing, and just, you know, you wanna help other people… I think that’s the other thing. People who are self-employed, they have a huge desire [00:12:00] to help people. And I think sometimes in a corporation you don’t always get to see the, the ultimate outcome of what you do and how it affects someone.

But when you’re self-employed, you do

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I could tell you a bunch of stories about that, but we don’t have time. But, uh, but, uh, the other thing about it too is that, I mean, hey, the, we could talk about the band, we could take that in so many different directions. Uh, one of those directions just to start off here would be that, um, i- if, if you’re the person that is the, the entrepreneur, you’re the person that likes to fix all these problems and all that stuff, it’s also super helpful to have somebody on your team that is not that person, that just wants to be, uh, you know, have really clear direction and they, uh, need to know what they, what they’re doing that day.

You know, that can be the st- the person in your band. You know, they don’t have to be working for a multinational company. They could be working for a small business like you and me and, and, and getting what they want, you know, in, in that kind of atmosphere, right?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. Yeah. I think the people who are willing to work for smaller companies in the States, you know, I have lots of great people who work for my [00:13:00] mortgage company and my title company. You know, those people contribute so much to the success of the business. They contribute so much to the community.

Um, yeah, so a lot of people would rather be part of a smaller business and see it grow and be a part of that growth and have, again, see the tangible results of what they’re doing rather than sometimes being in a very large corporation

Tim Melanson: That’s, and that’s true too, yeah. You, you’re more likely to see, you know, the full scale of what you’re doing in a sm- in a small company than you are in a big company. I used to work in a very big company, and like you said, I, I did not … I, I was on this little, little piece of this puzzle, and I never, I never saw what it was doing, right?

And

Kirsten Graham: the full picture

Tim Melanson: yeah, and, and that can be … I, I don’t know. I, I guess, like, like we’re saying, I mean, everybody’s different, but for me it was demoralizing in a way. Uh, you know, it was just like I, I like to see what my work is doing. Like, I like to see somebody that says, "Great job," and, "This really helped me." Like, I … It, it, it works for me, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yes. Yes[00:14:00]

Tim Melanson: So, um, now let’s talk a little bit about … Okay, so when you mentioned earlier, you know, I mean, you were doing some business coaching on the side. So yeah, um, for me, my bes- first business was basically tech support, fixing computers. Because as I was working for my programming company, I loved fixing problems and troubleshooting things.

"Hey, my computer’s acting weird," and I would love doing that, and so that ended up being my first job. Um, or, sorry, first business. Figuring out how to price it though, and figuring out how to, like, that was really difficult. Do you have any tips on how to make sure that you’re making enough money? Like, should you just charge your hourly rate that you work at your company?

Like, how does all that work?

Kirsten Graham: Sure. Yeah, so w- because we, we, we specialize in virtual assistants, and one of the types of virtual assistants we specialize in are bookkeeping VAs, um, because it’s a lot more affordable than hiring someone locally, and I hire bookkeepers for large CPA firms and larger bookkeeping companies. So they’re already outsourcing it, so [00:15:00] we’re, we’re kind of brought that concept to the small business owner who needs the most support but doesn’t necessarily think they can afford it.

So I would say what I find with people who finally get their bookkeeping in order, um, they start to realize their pricing doesn’t work. So you need to have a structure or a strategy around pricing, but a lot of times, you know, you wanna help someone, so you wanna make sure the price is affordable, or you really need that sale, so you want it to be affordable.

But I think the number one thing that helps people to build successful businesses is a solid financial foundation, and that comes from having your bookkeeping up to date, reviewing your profit and loss statement with your bookkeeper each month, understanding your cashflow, because that’s one of the things we see all the time.

When people get that in order, the first thing they say is, "Oh my gosh, I am undercharging," or, "I cannot afford to even offer this service anymore because I can’t charge what it would be worth."

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Kirsten Graham: So when you really understand your financials, you know, you have that CFO hat on, it makes pricing your [00:16:00] offers a lot easier

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, because it’s, uh, I, back to the, just the way that we think, right? I mean, you look at this hourly rate and you’re thinking, "Okay, well, my job I was making, you know, X amount of dollars per hour." So, you know, y- you feel like if you’re charging double or triple that, that you’re ripping someone, uh, somebody off.

But, but the thing is, is that there’s a lot of things in your business, I, I remember talking about this, y- you know, you, y- y- you, you, you, you start your own business because, "Oh, I’m really good at this thing, so I’m gonna start charging for that." And then you realize that you spend, like, what? 20% of your time doing that thing, and there’s, like, all this other stuff you have to do to run your business.

That has to get charged out, too, right? So you have to work that in to, to the whole, to the whole puzzle. And, and how do you do that, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, I think the main thing, again, it’s gonna go back to understanding your financials. And, you know, if you started a business and you didn’t necessarily have a ton of accounting classes, or you’re a very creative person and you feel like, you know, math isn’t your thing,

Tim Melanson: Yeah[00:17:00]

Kirsten Graham: understand that… A- and I do get this because, you know, I’ve had so many people tell me that their CPA talked down to them, or every time they asked a question they were made to feel stupid, or, you know, th- they, they hired a bookkeeper, but they couldn’t afford it any longer.

So because there’s just this really, there’s a lot of shame and guilt around money, and a lot of stress around money, but that’s the number one thing I think you have to master, and realize you don’t have to do it alone. Like I said, there are people out there, crazy people out there that love bookkeeping.

Like, that’s their jam, that’s their superpower. So learning to lean into people who have skills that you don’t always have, because someone can help you really understand your numbers, and that person can really help you make good decisions. So whether, again, it’s around pricing or looking at some of the things that you’re doing.

Does it make more sense to outsource this so that I can work with more clients? It’s all a numbers game, right? Whether it’s sales or pricing. But a- again, for a lot of people, there can be shame, [00:18:00] guilt, stress around money, and that, I think that’s the biggest challenge. I don’t think it’s always… I think some of it’s on more on a subconscious level, and yet you do forget all the things that you have to do to keep the business running, not just getting paid for the hours that you’re actually working.

And which is a different con-

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, on that note, I mean, it, it’s just a sort of an observation that I’ve noticed is that the, the, the accounting, the money, the numbers, the, even the tech support, all those things are very left brain, and they’re very, like, non-emotional. And the people that tend… I mean, you, you, you see the movies, right?

The tech guy. He tends to be a total jerk, like talking down to you about, "Oh, it’s just so stupid." And, and, and based on what you te- said earlier, I mean, to them it’s easy, so they can’t understand how you can’t understand. It’s just numbers, right? That kind of thing. And so they tend to talk down to you.

Like, and, and, I mean, a bad teacher in, in, in school can really affect how you think about a topic. And like you said, I do think that that’s true, that a lot [00:19:00] of the reason why we don’t like math or we don’t like numbers is because of the arrogant person that taught it to us in the first place and made us feel stupid for not understanding it immediately, right?

Kirsten Graham: Well, and when I look at y- y- it all goes back to math. So let’s say in the example of the bookkeepers, our bookkeeping virtual assistants are $9 an hour. They work directly with the client. You have to ask yourself, if you’ve got this pile of receipts, and you’ve got all of this stuff that needs to be done, and you’re not really sure where your money’s going, and you’re not really sure how you should price your services, then that’s eating away at your confidence.

It’s causing you a lot of stress and anxiety. And as an entrepreneur, you need to be confident. Not arrogant, but confident. But if you aren’t doing things in your business that you know you should be doing, it erodes your confidence. So being able to have someone do that for you at a very affordable rate…

So my question is, if you paid someone $6 an hour or $9 an hour to do something else for you, could you free up time and go make more money? And that’s [00:20:00] the power of outsourcing that people don’t see. You’re, you’re spending money at a very, very cost-effective rate to be able to go and bill your hourly rate working with more clients or improving things in your business that can make you more money in the long term, whether it’s rolling out a new product or service.

So that’s, that’s also something that I think the people who need the help the most, they overlook that because maybe they think they can’t afford it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Kirsten Graham: or they, or they feel like they’re not… Because I don’t know how to do my own bookkeeping or whatever it is we’re talking about, they feel like they can’t outsource it.

And so that’s, that’s a challenge. But your time is your most valuable asset as an entrepreneur, your time. You can make more money. You could lose it all today and make more tomorrow, right? But if you don’t value your time and find, one, systems and processes, two, get the support you deserve in your business by hiring people to do the things you don’t like to do or that you’ve just run out of time to do, then you’re, you’re trapping your…

You’re, you’ve created your [00:21:00] own glass ceiling. You know, in corporate, it’s like they hit the glass ceiling. A lot of entrepreneurs, they build their own glass ceiling

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think a- an- another block too, ’cause I, I think that there is the, you know, "I can’t afford it, I can’t afford to outsource," uh, but also there’s probably a lot of even embarrassment of, like, letting somebody see how bad you are with money type of thing, right? And you might be like, "Okay, well how do I trust this person to come into my business for $9 an hour," like you say, "and they’re gonna magically do all this stuff that I can’t figure out myself?"

Like, I, I think there might be this, like, little circular pattern going on. Like, h- how do you get somebody to let you in, right, to that area?

Kirsten Graham: Okay, right. So yeah, so Tim, what we’ve done is we’re not an outsourcing agency, so we provide a program. So I’m not, I’m not trying to sell you guys, but I’m telling you how, how this

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Kirsten Graham: because exactly what you said. So people come into our program, we teach them about the different types of bookkeeping software.

We teach them cultural differences, what it’s like to [00:22:00] manage someone and lead tasks for someone overseas. We talk to them about security, all the things that they wanna know. Write-offs. So many small businesses are leaving money on the table because they don’t know all the things that they can write off.

So we go through this in a very, um, easy digestible way, and then when the client is ready, they pick their software, they fill out a form, and then we pair them with a bookkeeper that we’ve already interviewed and vetted, and there’s… They’ve gone through our success training portal, so they’re, they’re awesome.

We pair them, and now that bookkeeper works directly for that client, and that client pays that bookkeeper directly because we really wanna empower people to start to build their team. And in most cases, most smaller businesses don’t usually have more to, more than three to five hours of bookkeeping a month.

Um, once they’re caught up, we’ve had a lot of clients that have been behind two or three years in bookkeeping, and we, we say we’re a no judgment zone, right? So that bookkeeper doesn’t care if they’re going back and cleaning up two years of, of bookkeeping for you, or they’re starting fresh today. [00:23:00] They have zero emotion to it.

They’re just gonna get in there and do their job, and they’re gonna do it well so that you don’t have to stress over it. So yeah, that can be a challenge, is figuring out how to hire the right person, which is why we do the things the way we do them. But again, when it comes to outsourcing, it, it’s… Even hiring someone locally I think can be challenging, right?

Because again, it’s the same thing, and there’s lots of awesome, wonderful local bookkeepers. Um, but again, at that, we have had a couple people that have said, you know, it is less embarrassing to be working with someone halfway around the world than maybe working with someone that you might see out networking.

I, I get that, too.

Tim Melanson: does make sense. Yeah, if you see them a- around or if you end up finding out that they’re friends with your friends, right? You’re like, "Ugh, this is awkward." Yeah

Kirsten Graham: So I think outsourcing took away a little bit of that, which was awesome. But, you know, it’s so funny to see people, once they really, you know, have their monthly meeting with their bookkeeping VA and they see that they [00:24:00] can start a- they can ask questions and they’re not made to feel stupid.

You know, it might take them six months before they fully understand their profit and loss statement, but that’s okay. In six months they know something that they didn’t know now, and they’ve got a whole new skill set. They’ve got a whole new vocabulary when it comes to talking to their CPA. So yeah, it, it’s just empowering people to understand that there are lots of different ways to do things, but outsourcing is one of the things that there’s multiple ways.

You could hire yourself, you could go through an outsourcing agency, you could work with someone like us. But there are lots of tools and availa- of people available to help you

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the tools then. So what tools or, you know, instruments do you use in your business to get success?

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, so we’re huge fans of, of GoHighLevel. I don’t know if you’re familiar with

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Kirsten Graham: So we started using that years ago, and it was a funny story because Jeannie and I kept looking at it. It looked too good to be true, ’cause we were spending so much money, and we had all these other softwares and they didn’t talk to each other.

And we [00:25:00] actually ended up getting on a call with Sean, one of the owners, and we actually talked to him about the software, and then we ended up meeting with him again because we wanted to know, like, "What’s your intention? What’s your intention with our daughter? What’s your intention with this software?

Do you plan on building it and then just selling it to HubSpot or somebody that’s gonna s- you know, just squash it?" And we really believe that he was committed to keeping the software, so we moved everything over. This was back before it was easy to do, so it took us, like, six months to move all of our funnels and all the things.

But once we got up and running on that, we fell in love with it. So that is one of our primary tools. We actually went on to white label a version of HighLevel, and we also have software virtual assistants. Because I feel like a tool for people is, like, the foundation of how you grow your business. So definitely having a great CRM, having structure to help you manage your time is really important, and being able to manage con- connecting with your, with your prospects and your clients is, is very important.

The other thing we use is we use Trello a lot. We have a large team, so we lean into Trello for managing tasks. [00:26:00] We believe you lead people and you manage task, and so that’s where project management software… Trello’s free to use. If you haven’t used it, there’s lots of great videos on, on YouTube to watch, but it’s a great tool to help you manage projects.

One of the ways that Jeannie and I use it as a partnership is we have, like, a 2026, and we have Q1, January, February, March. We have Q2. So we have it lined out, because as business owners, we can get really excited about something. You know, we kinda have shiny object syndrome.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Kirsten Graham: So if we, if something, an opportunity or something comes along the way and we’re like, "Oh my gosh, this could be so cool to do," we create a card on our board, and then we look at our calendar and we think, "Well, where will we actually be able to do it?

We can’t do it in March ’cause this is already booked. Let’s put it in the Q2 column, and then when we have our Q2 meeting, we’ll review all the things that are there and decide what we wanna take action on next." And sometimes by the time we get to it, it doesn’t seem as exciting as it did in the moment.

So sometimes those things fall away. And that’s the other thing is, again, [00:27:00] managing time and energy is really important, and by not always jumping on opportunities, like really thinking them through, and making sure you’re planning your, your marketing, you’re planning things out so that you’re not, again, chasing every shiny object out there is gonna help you be more successful.

So Trello we love. Um, we use Zoom a lot obviously. Podcasting, meeting with our team, Zoom’s definitely one of the tools we use. AI is amazing. We started using AI back when Jasper came out, which was a few years before Chat kind of hit the market. So having something to help you write, having something to help you, you know, create documents and things like that is fantastic.

Just remember, it’s not always accurate, so you need to check behind it, yeah? And, um, and, and really as a business owner, everything you put out represents you, so you wanna make sure that you’re not putting out what they refer to as AI slop, and there’s some good rules around that. So just making sure that you’re using AI responsibly and what you’re putting out there [00:28:00] truly represents who you are as a business owner.

I would say those are the primary right now

Tim Melanson: Nice. I wanna, I wanna poi- uh, like, zero in on something you just said, ’cause it’s not, it’s, it has not come up on this podcast in, like, 400 episodes. And it was about how when you come up with an idea, you just create a card for it and look at it later. That is brilliant, because the shiny object syndrome is a big thing for all of us.

I’ve been in, you know, I, I come up with this idea, and I end up, like, working on it for, like, hours, and then the next day I’m like, "That’s not even a good idea." Like, like, what, what’s up with that? It’s almost like you, you finish it. And what a great idea to just write it down, because you don’t wanna lose it, ’cause it could be a good idea.

But, but it’s like the next day if it’s still a good idea, or the next quarter, whatever it happens to be, that’s the right time, ’cause it, ’cause it’s like it stands the test of time, right? But that, that’s brilliant, really, to just write it down right away [00:29:00] so you don’t forget it, but put it over there so that if it’s still a good idea at that point…

Because that’s the thing, you, you’ve gotta be intention about your day. Like, if you’ve, if you’ve planned to work on these five things today and then you drop them because this shiny idea came into play, well, now you’re not doing the things that you thought was important when you were thinking about it, right?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. The other thing you can do is, you, you know, we don’t really, I say, work on Fridays. As a general rule, we don’t take meetings on Fridays, which means we have the opportunity to, to get shit done, let’s be honest. Sometimes to catch up for everything we’re behind on. But, um, that is a time when Jeanne and I will talk out ideas that we’ve had, and we’ll make notes in those cards.

You know, so, you know, putting as much information in the card as possible is important. So for example, I was talking about creating a quiz for a lead magnet, and the timing’s not right, but I d- I did end up getting some information from it last Friday, ’cause that’s some time to… That’s my time to kind of go down a rabbit hole if I want to, a couple hours on [00:30:00] Fri- And so I went down the rabbit hole, pulled a bunch of information, and then I just put it all in the card.

So when we come back to it, you know, in Q2, and we decide if it makes sense to create a quiz funnel, all of my notes and my thoughts are there, so then we have the opportunity to review what we talked about and then have a conversation around it and to develop it into something that might actually be really amazing or viable.

So that, that’s how we, we process that

Tim Melanson: Nice. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, you mentioned AI. I mean, I, I- it comes up on almost every, every podcast now. Uh, b- but I, I use AI a lot for that as well because, I mean, y- you can talk out these ideas. I, I know that it’s always more effective to talk it out with somebody, right? I mean, you’re, you know, you sit in your own head, but, like, uh, but talking it out with an AI is fantastic ’cause you get to work through some of those things, and then it can actually summarize everything and help you put it into the card so that you can r- revisit it later.

Do you use it for that too, or?

Kirsten Graham: We do, yeah. So, [00:31:00] yeah, actually asking it different questions and fleshing out how it would work and, you know, just, just remember, especially Chat, Chat, like, wants to tell you what you wanna know. So

Tim Melanson: It wants to tell you what you wa- what you wanna hear.

Kirsten Graham: everything you say, even if you tell it not to. So we use Claude, we use, um, we use probably four or five different AI tools, and I flip around between them.

I might take everything Chat gave me and put it in Claude and said, "What’s wrong with this?" Pick holes in this. Find … Yeah. So I’m kind of… I’m pitting them against each other, you know? And we joke because Judy says please and thank you to her AI. I, I, I’m like, "You didn’t do that right. That’s not what I wanted.

Get it right." And so we joke that, you know, when AI comes to take over the world, she’s being nice to them so they’ll be nice to her. I’m like, "Oh, no, I’m letting them know we’re gonna have a fight. If they come to take over, we’re having a fight."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow

Kirsten Graham: But yeah, you can use different AI tools to cross-reference what other AI tools have done, so

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But I, you know, to me, that’s encouraging that it makes all those mistakes because you know, people are, like, all scared that [00:32:00] it’s gonna take over everything, and I just don’t think it’s going to. It’s ju- um, but I’m, I’m a programmer, so I see it as code. And, and, and code is not a person. So it’s, it’s very good with the left brain stuff, but the right brain stuff, I think it’s always gonna need us for that, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yes, absolutely

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But, but a l- the, the, the funny thing about it is that the left brain stuff is the stuff that’s super time-consuming and monotonous. It’s, it’s the stuff that most of us don’t wanna do anyway. So why not use, uh, a tool to help us with that portion of things so that we can spend more time in our right brain doing the creative things that actually do light us up, right?

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, absolutely. And, and like you said, AI isn’t… It’s getting there. I mean, it’s changing so rapidly. But for example, like I said, I place bookkeepers for CPA firms and s- and bookkeeping companies, and a couple of the bookkeeping companies have been taking on different AI tools that is supposed to do some of the work for them, but they’re like, "It’s not there yet.

You have to go through and, and, and really sign off on what it’s done." So by the time you review it, you almost could have done it. [00:33:00] And so a, a couple of them have said, "We’ll just, we’ll table it for another year till they get it right and just, you know, use our VAs to do that." The, uh, another thing that people ask is do I feel like AI will replace virtual assistants, and I don’t think so because I feel like AI is a tool that can assist the virtual assistants in their job.

You know, our VAs are trained to use different AI tools, and we give them support on learning about AI. So I, I don’t really think people are gonna be completely replaced, but it is gonna take, like you said, a lot of the monotonous things away, which is gonna allow us to ask our team, "Hey, you know, that used to take you 10 hours.

Now with AI, it takes you two. What do you wanna do with those other eight hours?" Like, you know, "Is there a project that you see that we could work on?" Or, you know, Jeanne and I might decide this is the next project, so this is what we want you to do for this. So I, it’s, I think it’s a great tool, but it is a tool.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Uh, you and I agree on that. I, I said the same thing. I, I don’t think it’s gonna replace hardly anything. It’s just gonna make the people that we’re hiring more effective. ‘Cause I do see it as a hammer, and y- y- I mean, if, [00:34:00] if, if I’m hiring somebody, I need to hire somebody to use the hammer, right? And unless I’m using the hammer, and then I’m my own virtual assistant, which I’m not.

I don’t, I don’t wanna be my own virtual assistant. I want somebody else to handle that portion. So give them the hammer. They can do it. I’ll hire them to do it. Now, will that make me pay a lot less or, or have a much more effective VA? Probably. I think it’s actually going to, like, really dial that up. I mean, hey, I mean, a virtual assistant now might only be able to handle one or two or three clients or whatever it is, but man, give that a few years, and they will be able to actually up-level their own business to be able to handle so much more, ’cause they’re an expert in that area and they know how to use the tool.

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, absolutely

Tim Melanson: You know? It, it- to me, what’s, what’s the most exciting about AI, I think, is the way I see the future, is I think that it’s gonna make everybody significantly more productive. And to me, that means more small businesses. [00:35:00] That means more people work from home and doing these things, right? And, and being able to compete with large, large businesses.

So I, I think it’s, I think it’s exciting. But I mean, hey, I’m an optimist.

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, it, yeah, it, it’s funny too because I, in my whole life I’ve never thought, "Oh, I’d love to be 20 again," until it came out and I thought, "Oh my gosh, I would love to be 20 again because I want to see where this is gonna go over the next 80 years," right? So but like someone said, 20 years is gonna happen in like two years based on AI ’cause things are getting compressed.

But yeah, we do have to figure out how to set aside time to learn AI, and like you said, not let it re- derail the day of the tasks that you need to get done

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I’ve gotten into pretty big arguments with AI too, so don’t let it ruin your day. Like,

Kirsten Graham: Yeah, that

Tim Melanson: it’s not a person, it doesn’t get it, so you can yell at it all you want and it just doesn’t get it, right?

Kirsten Graham: exactly

Tim Melanson: So let’s move into your solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Kirsten Graham: Oh my [00:36:00] gosh. So in the past, all of the virtual assistants we have offered have really revolved around marketing, so because Jeanne owned an agency, so we offer virtual assistants for clients who wanna start a video podcast or virtual assistants for people who want to get booked on podcast. Or like I said, we offer software virtual assistants for building funnels and, and websites and things like that.

So everything we have done has really been geared around marketing. In 2025, our bookkeeper retired, and she sold her business, and because I’ve already been hiring bookkeepers, you know, for other companies, Jeanne and I decided to outsource it. And we knew we’d save money. We saved about $3,600 a year. But what happened was it changed the relationship because, again, business to business is one thing, but having a virtual assistant who’s on your team that you’re paying hourly…

And again, even though our bookkeeper works, like, four hours a month for us, she’s still on our team. It changed some things because in our second meeting, one of the things she asked us was, "You have a lot of [00:37:00] different revenue streams. Would you like me to separate those?" And we’re like, "Yeah, that’s a great idea."

Our past bookkeeper never asked us, but we never asked her. It was something that we didn’t even think about. But breaking down the income streams gave us a lot of information. It was interesting to see, you know, one, we were bringing in more affiliate commission than we realized. You know, it was interesting to see which offers had been more profitable.

It was interesting to see where we needed to raise some prices. So that was really powerful. And somehow we started talking about that, and then someone said, "Are you gonna offer bookkeeping virtual assistance?" And we had kind of said we weren’t gonna roll out anything else new until 2026, but we did roll it out in 2025.

But, but yeah, it just… Yeah, we had a, we had a big enough demand for it. So we ended up creating, um, it’s called Love Your Profit, and it’s a program that helps our clients get their finances in order with a bookkeeping, a, a bookkeeper, affordable bookkeeping virtual assistant. And my heart was singing because, again, my background’s mortgage, and so I’m back in the numbers, so that was really [00:38:00] exciting for me.

And at the end of 2025, I just said to Jeanne, you know, as a business coach over, you know, the past couple decades, one of the things I’ve realized is the business owners that have their finances in order are always the ones that are more successful. And the people who, you know, they might… Uh, there are a lot of people who will take manifesting classes, like money manifesting classes, but that’s not gonna work if you’re afraid of your money and you’re sticking your head in the sand and your bookkeeping’s not getting done, right?

And so we were like, okay, well, this is people who I really wanna help, the people who have a lot of guilt, a lot of shame around money. I want to really empower them to build a successful financial foundation. So our mission for 2026 is to help 1,000 business owners to get their finances in order and, uh, pair them with fabulous, um, bookkeeping virtual assistants, and it was a big goal.

So I, I always said I- I’m a little bit scared to put it out there because I have no idea how we’re gonna make this happen. But we’ve had an opportunity, two different, um, creators that have [00:39:00] fairly large audiences have invited us to come into their marketplaces or to speak with their people. So it’s, it’s starting to fall in place.

You know, here we are with, uh… We’re recording this on the 3rd of March. Um, so we’re not cl- we’re not, we’re not on track to hit that thousand right now, I’ll be honest. Like, and that’s the other thing, being honest, right? So you have a big goal, and you know, well, I need to sell this many a month in order for it to work.

We’re behind on that right now, but we’ve been really doing the foundational work to build relationships of people who also have our ideal client and who believe and know that if they change that one thing in their business, it’ll boost their confidence. It’ll change their pricing. It’ll, it’ll help them become successful.

So that’s, that’s what I’m most excited about.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s awesome. So I’m wondering, if someone is running a business, what would be- they be looking at? What would be happening in their lives right now where they actually need to be hiring you? H- how would

Kirsten Graham: Uh, sure. Yeah, so I still offer one-on-one coaching. It’s really funny, I hadn’t taken on new clients in a while [00:40:00] because I’ve, I have clients I’ve had for over a decade. But I, I recently have started taking on some new one-on-one clients, which has been fun. So if you’re, if you’re just feeling overwhelmed or you don’t have a strategy, that’s something we do in one-on-one coaching.

If you really wanna start a podcast, or if you know guesting on podcasts would be a great marketing strategy, that’s something else we can help you with. So these are the- we just wanna help people… So we don’t offer virtual assistance for everything, and the reason why we don’t do that is because we have very detailed SOPs.

So we interview and vet all of the virtual assistants. So for example, Tim, if you said, "Well, I need someone to produce my podcast," you know, we interview them, we vet them, they go through a paid internship with us. They work with you two weeks, um, with our hiring manager and training manager, because we wanna make sure the client understands all of the structure and the SOPs that we provide so that everything gets done week after week consistently.

So we have really dialed in processes, and that’s why our clients have such great success. Uh, we have clients going on six years with the same [00:41:00] VA, so that’s, that’s our goal.

Tim Melanson: of course is good advice for anybody. Niche in, figure out exactly what you do so you c- you’re an expert in that area, right?

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely, yeah. And it’s hard, ’cause sometimes people are like, "Oh, well, I want you to do this." And it’s like, well, I can give you some outsourcing companies that I think have good reputations, but, you know, we can’t be all things to all people. And that’s the other thing I would say if you’ve started a business.

It’s really easy to say yes to projects or clients that are not ideal. It’s gonna eat away at your soul. It almost always ends up costing you money. So, figure out who your ideal client is and how you can serve them, um, to, to the best of your ability. And, and that sometimes means saying no

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Is that something that you also help, uh, a client with is to figure that out?

Kirsten Graham: To figure out, sorry

Tim Melanson: Who their ideal client is

Kirsten Graham: Yes, in one-on-one coaching we can definitely go through all of that. Um, yeah, we have a process for that. So yeah, absolutely

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

Kirsten Graham: Uh, so you can go to [00:42:00] sixfigurebusinesscoaching.com, sixfigurebusinesscoaching.com. If you really wanna get your finances in order, we host a master class twice a month, and you can sign up for that at lessmathmoremoney.com, lessmathmoremoney.com

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Awesome. Hey, uh, I think everybody’s gonna like that. Except for me, I like math, but whatever. I still like money, too.

Kirsten Graham: You, you’re kind of like creative with a math brain. The music and the coding kind of co- in some ways go hand-in-hand, I think

Tim Melanson: Uh, there’s a lot of math in music. So you’ll find a lot of crossovers between musicians and mathematicians, for sure.

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely

Tim Melanson: Hey, speaking of musicians, so tell me, who is your favorite rock star?

Kirsten Graham: Oh my gosh. I always loved Tom, Tom Petty back in the day. I’m gonna age myself. I love the Grateful Dead.

Tim Melanson: Wow

Kirsten Graham: yeah, so probably more older rock, I guess, ’80s and ’90s stuff

Tim Melanson: Nice. Did you [00:43:00] see them live at all?

Kirsten Graham: Yes, I’ve saw, I saw The Dead and Petty, Tom Petty Live, yes, several times. The Eagles. Yeah

Tim Melanson: The Eagles too, yeah. Oh, so good. Right on. Yeah, I love, I love all that music too. Tom Petty is one of my favorites as well. And, uh, the Grateful Dead, I, I didn’t listen to a whole bunch of them. Um, but I did go see Phish, which is a similar type band.

Kirsten Graham: Kingfish too, yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, those, those are experiences.

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. And then Fleetwood Mac. I love Fleetwood Mac too.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. L- you love classic rock then?

Kirsten Graham: I do. Classic rock kind of girl.

Tim Melanson: Is that the kind of stuff you sing in the shower?

Kirsten Graham: Oh, I don’t sing in the shower. I get downloads. I’m in the shower and all of a sudden an idea comes for a client or an idea for a blog post. So

Tim Melanson: Awesome

Kirsten Graham: time is usually my, uh… I think it’s when I’m relaxed and all of a sudden, like, good ideas come into play. So that’s my idea space

Tim Melanson: Is that, is the car your idea of space too?

Kirsten Graham: In some cases, but a lot of times now I spend so much [00:44:00] time either working, meeting on calls with people, or dictating. Like, so that when I get back I can, uh, uh, just copy and paste it into chat and figure out what I need to do with whatever I dictated. So not as much. Plus I work from home, so I’m not usually out driving a lot.

It’s not like I have to commute to and from work. So I would definitely say the shower. I, I live in Florida, so the beach. We go to the beach a lot. So those, those are my favorite places. Water, water-

Tim Melanson: I live in Canada. Oh, you know what? The one thing about living in Canada is that you really appreciate the summer.

Kirsten Graham: Absolutely. Yeah, we have a lot of Canadian clients and, um, you know, I, uh, but it- where you live is so beautiful. Like, I always see pictures of our, you know, with our clients up there and, you know, you’re surrounded by water. It’s just frozen most of the time. But it is, it is beautiful. You guys have such gorgeous and different types of landscapes.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah. I used to, uh, I used to do a lot of traveling down to the States and to Florida, and it was, I just thought it was always funny [00:45:00] that we would go down there and, uh, there’d be a group of us, and everybody who lives there would be in the air conditioning, and we’re outside.

Kirsten Graham: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: in air conditioning?

Kirsten Graham: Right, or the winter. So we’ve had a really cold winter. I had frost on my windshield one day. But, um, yeah, if we go to the beach, last time I went to the beach my girlfriend wore jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, and so of course we’re kind of bundled up, and obviously the crazy Canadians are swimming, so…

Tim Melanson: Yep. That is awesome. Thank you so much, Kristen, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Kirsten Graham: you. Yeah, it’s been awesome. I really appreciate the conversation.

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