Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s guest. She’s the founder and executive director of the Association of Ghost Writers and as well the president of of her own, uh, business book, ghost Writing Firm. So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Marcia Layton Turner.

Hey, Marcia, are you ready to rock?

Marcia Layton Turner: Let’s rock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you can’t fail anymore, so it’s

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

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

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

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

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

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

You’re paying attention.

Yeah.

you’re gonna do better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcia Layton Turner: May maybe. Maybe. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Marcia Layton Turner: the way things now were

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes you get garbage though,

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

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

different sources. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

Right.

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

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

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

Right. [00:16:00]

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: yeah,

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

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

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

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

so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

just gotta get that work done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s, and that’s key. Um.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wear them off.

That’s hilarious. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

gonna be better.

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

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

of hiring you if you weren’t doing the writing

right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcia Layton Turner: Yep. Yep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and the formatting was.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

right.

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

And same thing with the tools, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcia Layton Turner: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

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

Right.

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

of like a tool

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

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

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

teaching it who you are.

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

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

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

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

Right. But I mean,

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

with ai.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: We will. We’ll see. So

how do people find out more about you then?

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

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

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

What do you need?

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

so having some help with that is huge.

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: musician?

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

Tim Melanson: So

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the CEO of mBolden, and what she does is she helps organizations and leaders navigate transformation with clarity and confidence. So I’m very excited to be rocking up today with Suzanne Knight. Hey, Suzanne, you ready to rock?

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: incredible as well.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm.

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

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

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

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

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

It’s hard to get a job. Right.

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

Suzanne Knight: Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Forte. Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to operate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Hello.

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

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. That’s a.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Suzanne Knight: That’s the first big one.

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

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

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

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

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

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

Tim Melanson: you can. Yep.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: Apple certified?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

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

So

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

Right?

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: I love that.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

Tim Melanson: Yep.

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

Suzanne Knight: Why stop at a double?

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

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

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

Suzanne Knight: Thanks, Tim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Musician.

Suzanne Knight: musician. I would say Tracy Chapman.

Tim Melanson: Ooh.

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

Tim Melanson: Do you sing along?

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

Tim Melanson: So,

Suzanne Knight: sing along with it.

Tim Melanson: have you ever gone to karaoke?

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Suzanne Knight: of me.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Digital speaker Agent, and what he does is he helps speakers get on more stages so more people can hear the message, learn from experience, and improve lives. Super excited to be rocking out today with Glenn Freezman.

Hey, Glenn, you ready to rock?

Glenn Freezman: Hi, I am ready to rock. How you doing this morning, Tim?

Tim Melanson: I’m doing excellent this morning. We always start off in your good notes, so tell me a story of success. We can be inspired by.

Glenn Freezman: I wanna give you a crazy story that happened 13 years old,

Tim Melanson: Yes.

Glenn Freezman: which was the through line of my entire life. In a nutshell. Uh, family went bankrupt for the third time. are in, repossession house is on foreclosure. I’m a latchkey kid playing basketball with the JCC. I literally live there from one o’clock in the afternoon or two o’clock when the school let out through nine o’clock at night.

When I get picked up playing ball one day on A [00:01:00] and clink it off the rim, and I hear somebody yell from the other court, Hey, little help. reached out and I look up. I’m 13 years old. I’m only five foot five. I need a center at all times to be able to play and get into big games. Ends up that this guy, he asked me, I said, what are you doing here every day?

He says, what are you doing here every day? I thought, I’m latch key kid. Here’s what I do. I said, I have nothing. This is just where I hang out. I said, what? Why are you here every day? He said, I’m just a vendor. I said, what do you ven? He said, Philadelphia soft pretzels. I said, really? I said, where do you sell ’em?

He said, from parade routes, from Maine to Virginia. And every Philadelphia Phillies game, Eagles game, Sixers games, flyers games, the parade route all up and down the east coast as well as, uh, concerts and parade and, uh, circus. Anywhere there’s venue. We’re selling pretzels. I’m 13, we’re broke. Tim, I say to them, where do you sell ’em?

How much do your [00:02:00] guys make? I have to go do this with you. He says, Glennn, I don’t know you. He says, and there’s no way I’m allowing a 13-year-old to come do what you’re doing. I said, Mitch, I need the job. I can do this. He comes over, he meets with my parents, and I said, basically, I will give up my childhood for my adulthood.

He goes, I am not going to do what my father did. So I ended up getting very, very lucky, very, very early on by meeting a very, very street smart pretzel guy.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: It changed my life and literally his, I like to say his lessons were salty. He was a pretzel guy. His lessons were salty, his lessons were hard, and his lessons were twisted.

But it set me up for a lifetime of success because I got to hang out with people when I was 13 who were obviously resilient,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: [00:03:00] resourceful, selling. Magic air, you know, pretzels. And it ended up that through our stories today, hopefully we’ll get to some of the great stories. But he changed three generations because the time that we needed it most, which was about 30 days into our relationship of me selling pretzels.

And I’m talking every night taking a subway to the Phillies games. And we worked a few parade routes. I had heard Tim, that overnight that. They were taking the house and they were, and we were done. And we were in dda, Maryland that that Saturday working a parade route. And after the day, I made my 150 bucks cash and he said, Glenn, you’re off today.

What’s wrong? And I told him this story and I said, Mitch, here’s the deal. I need $13,500 today. And I already did the math. And if you [00:04:00] give me that money, I will have you paid off in two years and I’ll give you 10% interest. And he said, Glennn, I will give you the money. No interest. I control the money. We can learn a lot. He gave me cash that day, which I came home as I did every other night that I came home from work. But normally I put $25 on a kitchen table. This time I put 13,500 and went to bed. That one act from Mitch changed my life, changed my parents’ life, and because of what I learned for the next five years working for him, of which time I sold 500,000 soft Bretzels changed my kids’ life because it set me up with the lessons that I learned while doing it for a lifetime of success.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: That would be my, that, that would be the greatest story that that happened to me, that I’ve told [00:05:00] numerous amount of times, and I’m still friendly with him. He’s a professional now. He professionally plays cards at the, at uh, the Borgata

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: and still hustling on the streets. Still incredible mentor. Still an incredible friend.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s an incredibly good mentor and incredibly lucky that you were able to. Just be there at that time. Right, Right,

place, Right.

time.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

Glenn Freezman: and, and, and as a 13-year-old I had, I had no idea what you were allowed to say. Not allowed to say. There was no, which is one of my, through lines of life, no inventor’s, remorse.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: I didn’t know what couldn’t be done, so I didn’t know what I couldn’t ask at 13 years old saying, listen, I need $13,500.

People said to me at 13, you’ve asked that question. Yeah, because I knew what was happening at home. There was no other choice.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah, you’re not living within a box, right? Like, uh, I know, I, I know that, that, uh, that comes up in music sometimes as well where, [00:06:00] uh, you know, they talk about the Beatles actually is one of the examples. And the, the way that that history goes is that, uh. Paul was the educated one. He had some musical experience and John was not.

He, he just kind of went by feel, and the things that he would come up with would be outta the box. It’d be things that he didn’t, he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to do. Right.

And, and, uh, isn’t that interesting as kids, like, we don’t know what we don’t know. And I, I, I always think, isn’t it amazing how these kids learn so fast?

Well, they don’t know. They’re not supposed to learn that fast.

right.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and when, when you think about, when people say to me, well, like, who is your mentor? Or, or something like that. I think everybody that has ever spoken to me has come into my life for that particular second.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Good or bad, they have mentored me.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: It doesn’t, we can learn a lot from a bad example.[00:07:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It all depends how we disseminate it, right? And how and what we end up with from everything that we interact with.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways we learn, we learn a lot more from our bad, from our bad experiences

than we do from our good ones. Um, which is why we do talk about the, the bad notes. So, I mean, can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned? Like what, what’s, what’s the biggest mistake that you made on the journey?

Glenn Freezman: Yeah. I will tell you that I got into the title insurance business when I came, when I started my real life, let’s say, and there was a piece of the title insurance that I thought it would be very, very cool. Now, this goes back 25 years ago, so before the internet and before wifi,

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: because people don’t understand that you and I, well, I, I am older than Google had people going.

Really? Yeah. I’m older than the internet.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: You know, because people just think it’s been around forever and ever. [00:08:00] So prior to wifi. We own title comp. I own the title insurance company, and I was tired of my people having to leave to go to drive to someone’s house or to drive to an appointment to sign papers.

I thought it’d be really cool to have like a ability to sign papers over the inter over over a trunk line,

Tim Melanson: Right.

Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: which, is the precursor, which would be strong enough. And spent a lot of money and spent a lot of time designing what was called that settles it. ’cause we were, it was for the settlement portion of our title insurance and we were doing a lot of deals and by people were just running around.

And I thought to myself, you know, if we could solve an hour up in an hour back and not having my people be outta the office three hours, but only one hour, I could do three times the amount of settlements. Plus I believed that all the [00:09:00] customers would love it, I, Tim, I was dead on, right? The problem was that I learned that there was nothing that was impossible, as long as that’s what you wanted to do.

So I went off of my merry way because this was my first real, real life opportunity. It wasn’t just hustling and grind, you know, on the streets. So I basically built everything and I did it in, in what I now consider ready, fire, aim. I just didn’t use the correct order.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: So I got ready and I opened and was partnered with a company called Mag Networks at the time, which was owned by Sony, so we could get the trunk lines run into certain office complexes that were very large, so those people could come to an office complex and we could phone right into that office complex and run the paperwork with them.

Tim Melanson: Right on.

Glenn Freezman: Well. Part I missed was that the notary, which I [00:10:00] believed was there to make sure that the customer understood the documents and that Tim was really Tim, right? That Tim Mellington, when you showed up, you were really you.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: However, this second part of that, which is buried deep in is that you are not under any duress while you are signing these documents.

Tim Melanson: Uh.

Glenn Freezman: The president of the National Notary Association out in California, I get a call from him saying, you can’t do what you’re doing. And I said, why? He said, because. I can’t, we, you have no way of knowing, number one, who these people are and I said, yes, I do. Because our technology shows that they can hold their license up to the screens.

We wrote the technology back 25 years ago that would read that strip and know who you were and go right into your, what they now call this wallet, uh, questionnaire. You want to ask you questions that only you would know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I said, and it’s way stronger than me just sitting there plus. The threat is, [00:11:00] Tim, I have you on film.

If you are not you, while you’re signing these papers, good luck telling this to the judge. I have you on film. I view Dead to Rights. I’ve cut out that fraud. He said, but how do I handle dur rest? I said, there’s a three day right of rescission. I said, every time someone signs a mortgage, right, there’s three days that they can rescind that mortgage.

These, these were second mortgages, so it was a three day right Sion. I said, so you’re telling me that the bad guy’s hiding behind the door for three days? He says, I’m telling you, you’re not doing it. We’re gonna shut you down.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I was in the middle of a very successful title insurance and didn’t do what I would normally do and what I’ve done my whole life and say, I’m glad you told me that.

Now I’m gonna beat you at that.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Right? You taught me what the miss is, so now I’m gonna figure it out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: because I was successful doing something else, I didn’t poke the bear. Two years [00:12:00] later, the National Notary Association changed the laws read that the, the rest was out and that remote closings were now available.

And guess who was the founder of that company? The president of the National Notary Association.

Tim Melanson: it was. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. Yeah. Right. So that one I would say is something that. Because of, because of the way I’m wired, which is, Hey, this is the great idea. Make it happen. Now was a big lesson early on that said, you got, you have to, at least you can’t rush time and you can’t fight the law unless you’re powerful enough to have the law changed on your behalf.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Uh, it, it was a huge one, but it, but now if you look every, so. It dragged along, and if the laws changed in Virginia, that Virginia became, in America, a national notary remote [00:13:00] closing network,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: because they were the first state that allowed it. So every remote closing was happening, would use a remote closing, sitting in Virginia.

It was my exact business plan.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: Closings today are done that way because COVID made it sexy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It never became mainstream. It was always, well, we don’t like this. We don’t like it. You know how it works. And then all of a sudden something happens and everyone goes, yeah, we think we could do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we got no other choice.

Glenn Freezman: We have no other choice now.

So now we’ll, now we’ll allow it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

And then they realized how good it was.

Glenn Freezman: They, they, right, right. Uh, I was, I was proud of the fact that I was part of it. And I made something happen, but I didn’t really get anything out of it other than the, you know, the, the try the swing at the bat and to know that a deep down, I know who started this.

Tim Melanson: absolutely. Yeah. Well, the guy literally took your idea[00:14:00]

and just implemented himself because he had the power to change those rules

where he could have done that for you, right?

Glenn Freezman: Well, you could have, but that’s not, but I know where I’m at in life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I, and I don’t really care what he is in life, but I know where I ended up.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Cha, I, I don’t know. I, I do believe in karma, so I think, I think that

things happen the way they’re supposed to. Right?

Glenn Freezman: yeah, yeah. I believe so. Yeah, I believe so.

Tim Melanson: Now I like you, I like the way you think about mentorship, like meaning that everybody that you meet is, is teaching you something. And I’m wondering if we can take that a little bit further.

Like what, like, do you, do you hire coaches? Do you have masterminds? Like what, what do you do anything structured when it comes to mentoring?

Glenn Freezman: For me every time I interview any speaker, it’s gonna be to say, working as within my new company, they all bring their own little slice of what it is that they’re selling on stage. So I have this [00:15:00] passive ability to speak to every one of my. People who pay me to be on my system, I have an incredible ability to learn from every one of what they go out and teach internationally to groups all over the world, and each one of them have a nugget in there, every single one of ’em.

And I’m a huge believer. Again, that knowledge is every place. So I don’t have one particular, because I think that there’s too much good that can come from too many people. I think one of the big problems that I have with what’s going on in the world today is that everyone’s source of truth is whoever they spoke to last.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would rather know a hundred people’s truth and then make up my own mind.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me too. Me too. I find, uh, I mean, not to get into the, into that, those weeds too much ’cause it’s, it’s very charging. But yeah, like there’s, [00:16:00] everybody’s kind of created their own little echo chambers and their own little bubble bubbles where, you know, the people that they’re listening to and they’re talking to are the ones that think exactly the way that they think.

And therefore, uh, you know, and, and then the misinformation runs wild in that circle. Right? Uh, I,

I’m the same way as you. I, I, I don’t, I’m not the type that’s gonna go if you, you know, if you like this guy, I am delete me. Right? Which you, you see people doing all the time. I’m like, no, I, I, I wanna have this, this breadth of people that I can connect with, right? I like having all these different

ideas and then I can make my own idea up, you know? Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Right, right. And then you tell to somebody and that becomes their source of truth.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I, I love the idea that there’s so much going on. I mean, it, it makes it very difficult and we won’t get into it. I understand why, where, where we’re not going with this conversation,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well,

Glenn Freezman: make it difficult to, to understand the truth.

It really [00:17:00] does. So,

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: but as far as the mentors go, my, my strongest one again goes back to when I was 13. The lesson that I learned at that literally were my through, through line. What I, the way I started DSA today. Not today. The way I started DSA, which is digital speakers, uh, agent goes back to this mentor Mitch, who I, I’ll give you a great story. I owed him $13,500. The deal was that if I made a hundred dollars on a day, he was keeping 80 of it, I would get 20. He taught me this thing called the 80 20 rule. I was 13 years old that any time in life, if you don’t end up with your father while you are, every paycheck you make bank, 80% live off of 20%.

You’ll never be like your father. Start it today, and when we get up to being [00:18:00] 21, you’ll have money and that money will keep going. When you get married, go to 30%, you have a buy a house. 40% have kids, 50% have a second kid, 60%. goes to college, 50%, another kid goes to college, 40% and back it in and back it out.

But always pay yourself first. You’ve heard this lesson a billion times. Pay yourself first. was in control of all of that. Every, he would pick me up from school on a Friday and basically I went back to his house. We would work whatever event was Friday night and then the parade route, Saturday and Sunday. We wake up on a Saturday morning and I’m at his house and I, and I knock on his door. It’s eight o’clock in the morning.

I go, Mitch, what are we doing it? It’s eight o’clock in the morning. Where are we? We’re, why are you still sleeping? He goes, we’re not selling anything today. Well, there’s no parades. I go, Mitch, there’s gotta be something to sell. Something. He’s all right. Grab the daily news and figure it out. [00:19:00] Now, Mitch had eight words that changes.

The, the, the landscape and for me changed everything. What do you see? What do they want? They were the eight words I had to live by. What do you see? What do they want? So basically I had to go into the, into a newspaper and find somewhere to sell something today. So I said, Mitch, there’s a temple football game, small college at the time, 40 years ago.

Very small, very small stadium. He says. He says, alright, we’ll go there. We get dressed 12 o’clock game. We drive over to the stadium. We’re walking and I said, Mitch, we have nothing to sell. We didn’t get the pretzels. He said, we don’t order the pretzels before we don’t get pretzels. I said, really? He said, yeah.

I said, then what are we doing here? He said, we’ll figure it out. We walk into the stadium and we’re walking around the concourse and everything is closed ’cause there’s only 2000 people at [00:20:00] this football game. We’re sitting at the, we’re, we’re walking around now the, the stands on one of the, where you can walk around the entire stadium.

And he asked me, what do you see? What do they want? What do you see? What do they want? And I said, well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Watch the football game. Great. We can’t make any money from that. What do you see? What do they want? What do you see? Well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Well, there’s nowhere for them to eat.

There’s no food because all the concourses were closed. What do you see? What do they want? Well, now I see that there are four stands that they could buy something, which is on the two ends of the end zone, on both sides of the end zone.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: What do you see? What do they want? Well, they obviously don’t wanna get outta their seat and go stand behind the end zone, where now they can’t see anything.

It’s going on with the game. They probably, they want, what do you see? What do they want? They want someone to bring them the [00:21:00] food. Exactly. Let’s go do that now. Street smarts, pretzel guy. We have nothing. I said, how are we going to follow me? And don’t laugh, just play your role. He’s six five by the way, so he is, you know, overpowering.

He goes down to the southwest portion of the end zone. He says to the guy for the end zone, and there’s only four stands we were just sent over from the, from the east north side, and we need soda. We gotta have soda right now. You gotta gimme three cases of soda. They hand us soda. We went to the next stand and same story, but we needed cups and then we went to the next end.

Same story. We needed ice. They were selling the soda for a dollar a piece. We now have 200 sodas. 200 cups and ice we go through. He says, what do you wanna sell these for? I said, well, we’re [00:22:00] delivering and we might as well sell ’em for more than a dollar. He said, okay, let’s sell it for $3. We walked through, we sold our, our, we have 600 bucks now, literally out of thin air because he was a, because we had the ability to find money everywhere.

That was his lesson. The cool part of his story is that now it’s halftime and we’re sitting at the 50 yard line. We’re watching a football game, halftime. They’re doing a 50 50 rally for raise money for the school. He says, Glennn, how much money did we make today? I said, 600. He said, okay. What about the cost of the goods?

I said, we didn’t pay for that. He said, someone paid for that. I said, okay. Then we made 400. He said, great. Give me 150. So I gave him 150. He took 150 and he put 300. Into the bucket. I said, oh, that’s cool, Mitch, so we can double our money, right? He goes, no, that was our donation. We have to pay for the goods that we just took.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Glenn Freezman: What I’m not gonna teach you is how to be a thief. [00:23:00] I’m gonna teach you. There’s opportunity everywhere. Keep your eyes in your ears wide open and do the right thing. Yet we didn’t steal their soda, we borrowed it. We taught them you have a better way of selling this. He literally, we donated that money, so he didn’t put his money on anything, so no one ever called the raffle.

So they got to keep the money ’cause they must have picked one of our tickets. Okay. But then he went back to the guy who runs those concessions and said, listen, my little buddy here and I ran doing a little test and you could sell three times the amount of soda at, at triple the price if you just take your product and walk it through those stands. That’s mentorship. That’s mentorship not only in business, but in life.

Tim Melanson: wow.

Glenn Freezman: deal I have ever made, Tim, everybody had to win everybody.

Tim Melanson: And now they all do it.

Glenn Freezman: And now they all right. And now they all do. Oh yeah. Right. And now they all do it. Yeah. But [00:24:00] again, money everywhere. So that, that’s, that’s pure mentorship. Giving, giving yourself to somebody without the expectation of a return.

Tim Melanson: wow, wow, man. So many lessons in that. Now what, what about, what about practicing? Because, uh, I mean. Like, how do you hone a craft like that? Like, it’s so random, right?

Like is there something that, that, uh, like did he teach you any lessons about, about getting good and staying good at, at what you’re doing?

Glenn Freezman: You know, it’s funny you say that because I think most of the, I think all the lessons I ever taught were just by watching.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: I’m watching, I’m watching guys that, and he would hire, most of the guys played basketball with, or he grew up with and they were from people who were, you know, like me, almost homeless to attorneys that just needed extra cash. So, you know, on a four hour ride listening to, and I’m 13, listening to [00:25:00] people who are 25 to 30. Talk about their lives and about what’s happening and how they’re succeeding, and just soaking that in.

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Glenn Freezman: You don’t, you don’t need to be, there doesn’t need to be a quiz to learn. What have you learned? What do you see?

What do you want? So let’s move forward. And now I, I get the opportunity after selling a, I sold the 500,000 soft bretzels. I went to college, paid for my own college, paid for my own car from the pretzel money because, let me back up for a second. At 16, well, I was 15 and 364 days old. When we’re driving to a, a bravery, he goes, by the way, if you had any car within reason that you wanted to buy, what would it be?

I said, Oldsmobile Forza. They were 6,500 bucks. He says. He says, well, we’re driving by to pick Karen dealership. Why don’t we go take a look at that on the way? I said, okay, I’ll show it to you. We get [00:26:00] there, it’s on the little spinny thing, you know that they put the cars on and he says, oh, is that the car?

I said, yeah. He said, oh, that’s really cool. He goes, yeah, it’s 6,500 bucks. He says, do you want it? And I literally say, yeah, I want it. He says, okay, well then let’s buy it. I said, how are we doing that? He said, well, let’s bring the guy over here and see what, what he has to, uh, you know, what the numbers are and do what, do what we taught you.

Do what you’ve learned, work your deal. Let’s see what happens. The guy comes over, he starts talking to Mitch. Mitch is going, I’m not buying a car. He is. So I said, all right. So we lay it out. He gives me a price, he walks out. I said, Mitch, how am I paying for this card? And he literally, he pulls out something and he says to me, oh, this is your Schwab stock account. the 80 cent, outta the 80% of the money you have paid me back. I’ve invested it for you the whole time.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: He said, so let’s buy [00:27:00] this car cash. I’m already paid off. He said, I’ve been paid off ’cause I’ve invested your money. And the money we made, I took my money. I’m good. He says, you now have enough money in here that let’s buy the car for cash so you have no debt.

And in two years we can, you know, you’re, you’re good for college.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: So we ended up making that deal on that car, and I bought a car a day before I was legal to drive it right now, so. So you. We have that now. I go into the title insurance business. Four years later I leave college. My mother had had really gotten bad with her cancer, so I left college with the idea that, dad, I will run our one candy store and you take care of mom at home.

So I left the University of Hawaii if there are one semester to come home and take care of that. When all that was finished and I was done with the title business, my mother had passed away. And my [00:28:00] father took over the one store and I went back to, to, uh, my brother who was a struggling attorney, was opening, was looking for business.

So he got very lucky. Someone from the money store, I don’t know the money store ever hit Canada.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we did have them here.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. So, so it was a second mortgage title at second mortgage, uh, company. So it was before credit lines existed. You would take a second mortgage on your house.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: He happened to be in a, in a strip center there.

So the person from the money store one walks down and says, Hey, we have to have an attorney close our loan. No one showed up. They say, okay, uh, will you close this loan? My brother says, yes. He goes up and he finds a mistake on the paperwork that happens like three times in a row, and they finally say to him, you’re really good at this.

Why don’t you close our lows? That leads into the fact, well, why don’t you open a title company? My brother says to me, are you done doing whatever you’re doing? How about you partner with me in the title company? You do the sales and the marketing. I’ll make sure the [00:29:00] title company runs great. I walk up now again, ready, fire, aim.

I walk up to them five days, intubating the title business. I know nothing. I say to the, and it happens to be that the, the area manager was there and then the district manager was there. So it was from like, Washington was there, Marilyn was there. Everybody from Trevose, Pennsylvania was there. And I sit there with my breast little balls and I said, listen, I know you, I know you wanna give my brother five deals a month, which is very nice.

What I would love to know is what every other title company that you’re using is giving you. Right now that you’re, that is making you happy so I know what my brother has to put together in order to get all your work, because we can’t really live with five between here and New Jersey. You have 30 offices.

That’s what I want. Tell me what I have to do to get that. [00:30:00] The guy from Washington literally stands up and he turns around and he says, why don’t you go take a seat in the, in the waiting room there. I’m like, oh my God, I’ve been in this five days. So I go out there and I come back and he says, here’s what we want.

We want, we are gonna order it. We are, we are gonna have Tim and his wife come into our office on Monday morning when they’re at our office. We’re gonna call you up and we want you to figure out in the courthouse exactly who owns Tim’s house, the names and the address. I need you to send me that, that I need you to call me ’cause we fax machines.

Were not even there yet. I need you to call me. Gimme those. Gimme those names. Wait 30 minutes and come up and close the loan. Great. What else? Well, we’re going to, we’re gonna close, we’re gonna close that loan Monday before you even ordered title. So you have no idea what’s even going on in the courthouse.[00:31:00]

And we’re funding it Friday. So between Monday and Friday you have to order the title, get back to mortgages and liens, figure out the payoffs, see what’s, see what’s actually a lien on any property, and clear all that out because we’re funding it on Friday. I said, okay, what else? He says, I need you to be able to close that loan the day of application. Everyone else is doing that. Okay? I go back and I tell my brother, he goes, impossible. Can’t do it. No way. No way, no way. I said, Brad, I just spent five years. I’m telling you everything’s possible. So I just make a few quick calls to his searchers and I say, you know, to one of the guy who was a Philadelphia surgeon, lemme ask you a question.

How did you, uh. How much do you charge my brother? $15. How long does it take? 12 days. I said, you’re making $15 [00:32:00] every 12 days. He says, no, but you know, he says, that’s our timeframe. I said, what if I doubled your money? I need him back the same day or the next day. I’ll double your money. I’ll give you 20.

I’ll give you, I’ll give you $25. He said, I could probably do that. story short, I do all five of his things and we’re giving him back and I go a respectable 30 days and I call the guy back and said, can we please have another meeting? I think we’ve nailed it. We’re good. He says, okay. He goes, the guy from Washington’s coming in next Thursday.

We’ll do a meeting. Bring your brother. said, okay, great. I tell my brother and he is like, I know you screwed this up. I know he is very opposite of, I was, he’s very, he’s a lawyer, I’m not. He goes, I hope you didn’t screw this up. I don’t wanna go out to work for a bank. Come on. I said, I think it’s okay. We go out to lunch and the guy from Washington turns around and he says, my brother says so, so what are we doing here?

The guy from Washington. So I thought, well, [00:33:00] you’re, you’re a little asshole, brother. Walks into our plays. I’ve been doing this 30 years. He’s been doing it what, five days. And he walks in and he tries to tell us that he could do exactly what every other company can do as long as we just tell him what it is. He says, we thought he needed to learn a lesson. So we brainstormed and decide what five things would be nirvana for us that no one else would ever consider doing. We gave it to him just to kick him out of our office. He did all five of them.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: He literally did all five of them. How would you like Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s work Now what do I see? What do they want? told me exact I didn’t have to be a, I didn’t have to go be a magician or the Wizard of Oz. They told it to me.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: when you say, how did [00:34:00] I hone those skills? I went right back to the fact of if they want it, then 60,000 people in that stadium also want it, which means that every one of the money stores competitors, champion Mortgage, Upland Mortgage, statewide, capital, American business Credit, all wanted the same thing.

And that’s how I got from five deals to a thousand. Eight words, what do you see? What do they want? That’s the through line of my life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Great stories, man. Okay, well I’m excited to get into yours, guess guest. So to find out a little bit more about how you,

how your business is working. So tell me what’s exciting right now in your business.

Glenn Freezman: What’s exciting now is when I had thought I was retiring at 50.

Tim Melanson: I.

Glenn Freezman: I had a bunch of, I went to the National Speakers Association, the NSA and Toastmasters, [00:35:00] and I joined a club that taught standup comedy. I had realized that the grind of trying to get on a stage as a keynote speaker was ridiculous.

It was looking through. Air because you had to find, there was no internet

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: that that had a basis. So you had to find an opportunity and then apply for an opportunity after you figured out what that opportunity was even looking for. It was a, it was a it, it took two and a half hours. It just to apply and just like apply for a job.

You send out 90 of them, maybe you get called back, maybe you don’t. It was so brutal, Tim, him that I said, I, I can’t, I’m not doing this. So I went and I went into consulting for a mortgage servicing company and then a sub servicing company. I do my 10 year [00:36:00] stand. The service, the subs servicing was horrible.

A lot of good lessons of everything I would never do in a business. Got lucky. Got on the servicing side after 10 years, decided, you know what, I’m done again. I’m retiring again. Decide I’ll go back to speaking. Tim. Nothing changed. Nothing changed except the technology. I said, well, what do I see? I see 1,000,200 thousand speakers out there.

That are going through the same grind, and I keep using that word. It’s the same grind that I was, that I walked away from 12 years ago. I am going to create a simple thing for me, a bot for me, an agent for me that can go out into the internet and find these opportunities and something that is going to then fill out my paperwork, meaning.

I wanted to say, here’s what my learning objectives, [00:37:00] takeaways, and challenges in my bio are. Here is exactly what the opportunity’s looking for. Here is the perfect resume for that opportunity so I can do them in 20 minutes. When I wrote a rudimentary coded that and created that, I’m showing to my buddies who are speakers and they’re like.

You wanna speak, you’re gonna speak on this, right? You’re gonna go out and sell this? I said, no, I just bought it. I just created it for me. They said, well, gimme a, gimme one of those. And my, everybody who I spoke to said, well, gimme one of those. I want that, right? I want what you’re doing. I said, all right, well then I guess I’m still not gonna speak ’cause I would rather create this in real,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: real terms, real times.

So we are right now launched. We have built a, a system that literally does exactly what I had envisioned a [00:38:00] 100% from start to finish, and it’s proactive. So what happens in our world is we, we, uh, we’re asking you for five things. What is your, what category do you speak on? What geography do you want to talk on, talk to?

Would you go international, state, local? we ask you for certain pieces of information on something we patented, which we can clone the way you write by what our video voice, your psychometrics, meaning what is your Myers-Briggs score, what is your DISC score? What is your personality like? And then through. A, b, c testing, we can figure out exactly how to write, which means that the answers we’re giving you are as if you actually wrote them. So all of that took 10 months to build and rebuild and reconstruct.

And the difference in this, Tim, was I was totally blind on [00:39:00] what it actually took to open up a technology company. Everything else I opened was bricks and mortar. Well, it was pretzels, it was title, it was candy stores, it was title insurance companies. You opened it up, you had a product. Here you’re inventing a product,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: and then you have to get it out into the world. So one of the, so they, else goes onto TikTok and they go onto Instagram and everyone has their, you know, their selfie and they’re walking down the, you know, this street as if they’re nonchalantly talking to nobody about it. Everything. And it just, I said I can’t mark it that way. I am not a big fan of fighting in the Red Sea.

I need to find a blue sea. What is it? I got lucky again because people came into my life, uh, who were speakers and one of ’em was a TEDx coach

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: nickname. My last name is Freezman, so nickname was Freeze Pop, right? So, hey, freeze pop. What will you give me [00:40:00] if. I can basically, I, I coach people who pay me $7,500 to teach ’em how to get on a TEDx stage. another program that teaches different groups of people for $7,500, how to speak and grow rich. So let’s say I have a hundred people that now already that have paid me. I said, here’s what I wanna do, Frank. I want you to bring my product to them because you’re their trusted advisor. They already trust you and I will make you a partner. everything that you bring to the table, everybody has to win. Okay? So what goes on with that is instead of me looking for Tim, the speaker and Billy the speaker, and mark the speaker and married a I went to who they trust the most. So my affiliate marketing [00:41:00] plan, which is so important to me because I’ve learned from all these people, and then I said, well, if I’m gonna learn from you, that means your people learn from you.

They’ve already trusted you. And if you said to me, Hey, this digital speaker agent, now that I taught you how to get on a stage, can actually find you the stages. Now I’ve actually taught you how to be a TEDx coach. These, this thing points out the world that TEDx opportunities are, and it fills out your paperwork for you. The person who, anybody that’s with does anything with speakers, became my client then they sell to their people, which again removed my grind, which moved my, my, my friction and my grind was going out and saying to a million speakers, Hey, do you want to buy this? No. I would rather give your trusted advisor the ability to say to you, I know this works. I think you should buy this.

Tim Melanson: Wow. [00:42:00] Wow. Love

Glenn Freezman: That was, you know, and that, and that was that. And then again, it’s the through line that tails back to we partnered with the money store when competition, when, when our competition later years started to say, this is a great idea. We’re gonna start like taking bites out of what you’re gonna do. We’re gonna come after you to protect our, our kingdom. And you, and I don’t know if Canada has it, but in America, every real estate office right now owns their own title company and owns their own mortgage company.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: That was because I started that with Jack Kemp, who was the secret, who was the secretary of HUD at the time in America, had said to them, when I walk into a realtor’s office, they extort money from me. They tell me, how much are you gonna make on a title policy a thousand? Then if you’ll give me $400 of that thousand, I’ll make sure my buyer knows you’re alive. Otherwise I’m giving it to another company.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I said, well, you know [00:43:00] that I’m not doing. And I went down to Jack Kemp and I actually met with him with our title underwriter and I said, this is what’s going on.

He took us off the record. He reached over, he pressed the button. He took us off the record. He said, Glennn, there are 2 million realtors in the country that vote Republican. There’s only 10,000 title agents. Who do you think we’re rooting for here? And he reached back over. He said, now we’re back on the record. He said, tell me what your plan is. My plan is to go and partners with the realtors, go and partners with the mortgage companies. Let them put up half the money. We’ll put up half the money, we’ll do all the work. They can control the sale. At the end of the day. I’ll split the profit with them, but it leaves their teeth in the game.

It keeps it, it should be, it keeps it more legal and open to all your, all your buyers and all your mortgage orders. Right? Why don’t we just do it that way? He goes, I like that. Yeah, let’s do that. Let work on that framework. [00:44:00] That was the framework of, of. A controlled business arrangement, which is nothing more than a partnership, was nothing more than what I just did with digital speaker agent.

That mortgage company was my affiliate. They controlled the buyer, they trusted the money store, and yeah, they could get title insurance anywhere, but no one knows what title insurance is. It’s 40 years later. Still know what knows. The title insurance is.

Tim Melanson: I

Glenn Freezman: It, it it great. It’s known as a ripoff at closing.

You go there, it’s another 3000 bucks on there. It was born out of commercial real estate where there’s actual claims. The amount of claims in residential is so infinitely small that it’s just a, it’s, I did, I made, I put two kids through college and built an entire life and got great wealth out of it for the, for the residential. It’s not, it’s not as necessary as it, as it is sold to be. But [00:45:00] the, the lesson being that that same through line that I learned at 13 years old and showed itself in title insurance is the exact same thing I came back to again, where, how do I reduce this friction for everybody? How does everybody win? So now I say to my.

TEDx coach, we’re gonna have a controlled business arrangement. You control your buyers. I’ll do all the work at the end of the month. I’ll give you a piece of the profit.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Glenn Freezman: Well, digital, uh, digital speaker agent.com

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: is our website. You can go there. All our information’s there, my contact information you wanna consider this conversation. Hit me up there.

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Glenn Freezman: You know, wide open. I, I love to, I like to, I, I did a Ted, TED talk on that, right? On giving without an expectation of return.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:46:00]

Glenn Freezman: And I, I think it’s incredible how many people in my life that I have gone back to and said, you remember what you said to me here? And they’re said, no, I have no idea. How many people have come into my life? That said, when I was 17, I remember we were at, and you said, and it changed my life. So I think we have to be careful with the words that we use because people do listen and we are, and we are considered mentors

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: whether we know it or not.

And I think it’s important that the lessons that we give are the lessons you wanna be remembered for if it should happen. So. If you’re a speaker, if you’re a coach, if you’re an affiliate, if you’re anything that kind of fits into anybody in the speaker’s world, you know, look us up. A digital speaker agent.

You just wanna have a cool conversation. We can have a virtual coffee, and if you’re close enough, I’ll meet you for dinner.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. I love that so much, Glenn. Alright, so this might be the hardest question. Let’s talk a little bit about music. So who’s your favorite rockstar?[00:47:00]

Glenn Freezman: Lifetime Springsteen.

Tim Melanson: Ah, yeah, of

Glenn Freezman: I’ve seen him over a hundred times. Uh, he was been, you know, the, I, I loved, I liked the energy he brought. I, I remember seeing it, I remember sitting in the concert the first time and looking at it, was at the spectrum and looking around and saying, oh my God. Like if he tells people, like when he stands, they stand, when he clap, they clap.

When he sings, they sing like, this guy’s got total control over this. It’s just incredible. So, you know, and, and I grew up and right in that sweet spot of his era watching, you know, watching his entire career, you know, he would be my ultimate favorite.

And then, and then music wise, anything with steel drums,

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Glenn Freezman: ’cause it puts me right on vacation.

Tim Melanson: right on.

Do you play any music

yourself?

Glenn Freezman: do not, I, I, I, I didn’t, [00:48:00] I was probably the only person ever to get thrown out of choir. ’cause I couldn’t do the recorder. the recorder,

Tim Melanson: The little,

Glenn Freezman: couldn’t screw up.

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would. They gave me a recorder with the holes cut out because I couldn’t do it. Our fifth When, when I graduated from Les Elementary School, it was fifth grade, I was told by the, we had to sing three songs.

Lip Sync. What’s nuts with that is that years later my daughter incredible. She had a Broadway voice. She was in every play. She was, you know, working out, she was in plays everywhere, but I I, I brought nothing to that table. Yeah, nothing.

Tim Melanson: had plenty of other

Glenn Freezman: who’s your influence?

Right.

Tim Melanson: my, my favorite band is The Beatles.

Um, and that’s a huge influence. And actually when I was learning music, it was through The Beatles and actually Dave Matthews band as [00:49:00] well. Uh, those were the two influences when I was

learning.

Glenn Freezman: Great. How’s it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and very, very different types of music too.

But, uh, but it, it, it allowed me to learn lots of different stuff. ’cause The Beatles wrote so much,

so many diff, so many different types of music.

Glenn Freezman: One of the greatest quotes, not quotes, but one of the things I remember from the Beatles, Beatles was The 10,000 Hour.

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Glenn Freezman: You know? And no, very few people understand how power those 10,000 hours are, but the, you know, and the Beatles didn’t understand it, you know, either probably. But they were so ready to hit this ground running when they hit America.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Explode because they were already there. And, uh, lemme give you a crazy quick analogy. I think that’s why I was successful in life. I started out in, in second grade, my defense mechanism was everything was shutting down in my life. Was comedy, making people laugh. Being the class clown is gonna sound crazy.[00:50:00]

Being the class clown literally is the greatest position you can have growing up.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Because at the end of 12th grade, we have learned how to speak to power on behalf of the powerless and learned how to listen and react in real time constantly. We put in our 10,000 hours of public speaking by the time everyone else was ready to begin. I would love, I’m trying to get together the, the ability to do a TED Talk on there’s no such thing as a broke class clown.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I’ll ask you this question, do you happen to remember who your class clown was growing up?

Tim Melanson: Oh geez.

Glenn Freezman: who’s the guy who always had the funniest line and the teacher allowed it because she knew it was part of the ecosystem?

Tim Melanson: I, I, I don’t, it might have been me. I don’t, I

don’t even know ’cause I was pretty loud in my classes.

Uh, but I don’t know. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And your success, if you asked that question, everyone’s gonna go, you know what? It wasn’t me, but who was this [00:51:00] guy? And I’d say, well, what does he do for a living? Very successful. We’re all successful

because we had the, we learned to speak and, and the analogy, and I’m not comparing myself in any way, shape, or foot to the Beatles, but that 10,000 hours of what we honed our craft on,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: whether consciously or subconsciously brings us to our, whatever, 10,000 hours you put in to get to where you’re at right now. There was there, there was an ability, ’cause you’re great at what you’re doing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always loved public speaking and I, I do. Yeah, I think that’s a really great topic. Just that whole class clown thing. I think you need to do it. Do it. I want, I don’t wanna watch that.

Glenn Freezman: I’m gonna keep going. I like it.

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

Glenn Freezman: This has been great. I so appreciate you having me on and every success you can have to you and everybody you love. Okay,

Tim Melanson: Thanks, and to

the listeners [00:52:00] picture you subscribe late and comment. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: and how did they transpire?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Mm-hmm.

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

Right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Assessment.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Absolutely. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: out to Tim.

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

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

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

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

So I think those are huge.

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

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

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

So I think conferences are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Who can say

Tim Melanson: Who can say, isn’t that

R. Karl Hebenstreit: what does real really mean?

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

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

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: that’s right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: she’s

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

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

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

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

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes.

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: From Pink.

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

Tim Melanson: This is the G version of it.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Thank you so much. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and to follow the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to the owner of j Levin Communications, and what she does is she’s a strategic communications consultant that helps businesses with their internal and external communications. She’ll find out a lot more about that.

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

Jamie Levin: I am so ready to rock.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, what next?

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Jamie Levin: I was burnt out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: Right, right. Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Absolutely not. I don’t,

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: right.

Tim Melanson: Um.

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

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

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

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

Just my dog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: Yeah.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right.

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

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

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

Like, you know what you’re walking into.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: 100%.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Jamie Levin: so yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right.

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

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

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

Like they’re busy breathing their business, right?

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: Right? Yeah. Yeah.

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

Tim Melanson: No, no, they’re not.

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

Tim Melanson: Yep.

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

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

Jamie Levin: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Okay.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Have you been to a

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

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

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

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

Jamie Levin: Still going strong.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Well, you did an excellent job.

Jamie Levin: Thank.

Tim Melanson: Thank you. And thank you to the listeners as well. Make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s episode, we are talking to a speaker, an author, a podcaster, an insurance agent, and what he does is he helps people to navigate working from home. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Chris Castanes. Hey Chris, you ready to rock?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Castanes: I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

know? So,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Castanes: Yeah.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Right.

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yes. Yeah.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can always find somebody.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Okay.

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Oh, thank you so much. Right on. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m very excited for today’s episode. We’ve got founder Mark Aylward, what he does is he helps successful men rebuild confidence after hardship. Actually, better yet, he helps capable men rebuild confidence after hardship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

So, I agree.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was a fighter pilot. He was an airline pilot. He was a father, he was a provider, he was a protector. There was never any question about that. Right when I started to grow up, that’s when things started. Feminism arrived in the seventies, maybe even arguably the sixties, and a lot of that was good. We needed a lot of those things.

Women deserved a lot of the stuff that came with that. But what we didn’t do is we didn’t [00:33:00] replace the old masculinity definition with a new one. We just said, don’t do that. We didn’t say, do this instead. So that just leaves men confused. And I, I see examples of that everywhere. So that’s, that’s a long-winded answer to why I think there are more female coaches than there are male coaches.

And then when I went to study my competition there, there isn’t any, you know. it’s crazy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, because, because I mean, the other side of it is that there are probably less men willing to even take on that role in the first place, let alone the men that wanna take it.

Mark Aylward: I, I certainly didn’t see that path coming. It, it came for me. It didn’t come because I was trying to, to attract, I mean, who wants to attract hardship, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, I, I think, I think you’re right. I think men are sort of like supposed to be strong and have it all together, and they’re supposed to be the [00:34:00] leaders of the households and all that stuff from what we’ve been taught. But like you say, things have changed. And now a lot of those things were like, you know, I remember just being even confused if I’m supposed to hold a door open for a woman or not.

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, just like, just the basics of it of going like, I, I think I, I should, isn’t that nice? Like, aren’t I being a good person by holding a door open? Why am I getting yelled at right now? Right.

Mark Aylward: yeah. No, it’s, it’s so funny that I’ve used that analogy many times. ’cause I, I opened the door for everybody

Tim Melanson: so do I.

Mark Aylward: and, and I say hi to everybody. Matter of fact, I was pulling into the grocery last night and I, I was coming around. From this angle and there was a open parking spot there and there was someone in front of me.

That was coming this way and she was there before me, but I had the, I had the space to just slide into that spot and essentially flip her the bird. And I just, I just chuckled and I, I went straight past her and pulled into [00:35:00] the left and gave her that position. And we both got out of the cars at the same time and she just said, thank you so much for doing that.

You’re a good person. And I said, that would’ve been a dick move. And we both got a laugh out of it. It was really funny. I think, I think strong women are really comfortable with masculine men. I think it’s insecure women that aren’t, and I don’t, I don’t suffer. Insecurity. Uh, I’m not judgemental about it, but I’m like, if what I say or do in kindness and good intention is offensive to you, that’s not my problem.

That’s your problem. And I’m not taking that on as my problem, whether you want me to or not. I’m sorry, not doing that. So that’s a very interesting place to be. ’cause as you seem to understand, it’s, uh, why are we confused about these things? Right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it seems, but I mean, hey, who, who knows? Uh, however, I think I, I hope that now men are gonna be [00:36:00] more open to accepting that help. And I, I think maybe can kind of like even flipping back to what we talked about earlier about the, the, the kind candor, right. You know, if. If you’re feeling like triggered regularly by, by things and angry and, and upset and sad and all that stuff, well then maybe that’s the time to kind of look inside and go, okay, maybe I need a little bit of help with this ’cause I don’t know how to fix it right now.

Right.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, well, there’s a humility to that that’s, that’s challenging for people to call upon. I, I think it certainly was for me, I mean, a couple things that happened to me after my contentious divorce and being a single dad was I just became a much better listener. And that’s a good thing. I told you a little bit about the fact that my daughter’s, you know, I, I went through everything that a mother’s supposed to go through as a father.

I’ve had a couple people tell me, I think your experience as a single father of two girls has shaped you in a fashion that makes you somewhat unique. And I keep getting reminded of that. And I think the other interesting and kind of funny [00:37:00] part is, you can’t tell this on, on the podcast, but I’m 6 4 225 pounds.

I’m not a small man and I can be very loud and, uh, so people assume I’m masculine and I believe that I am. But when I come at them with the soft side. I see a lot of surprises. Like I’ve had people tell me before, I didn’t expect that at all, and I’m like, good. That’s good.

Tim Melanson: Good. Alright, so then how do we find out more then?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I mean mark a word.com and it’s mark with a k and a word is A-Y-L-W-A-R-D. And everything that I do can be accessed from there. I would also suggest looking me up on LinkedIn and my name, a word mark is, is my, my, I think if you type in mark a word, I show up, my LinkedIn profile shows up as the number one choice.

’cause it’s a, it’s an obscure English name that doesn’t really. Have much, um, presence here in the States. It’s a Newfoundland, [00:38:00] Ireland, England Trail, you know, Nova Scotia and um. So, yeah, there’s a, and I think the first step for anybody that is intrigued by anything I’ve said would be just click the button that’s on that front page.

There’s like three or four of them. As you scroll down, it just says, schedule a conversation and it’s a 30 minute call. We, I do it for free and I basically just get to where I can tell you at the end of that how I can help you. If I can help you. And I’ll also, if you choose not to. Access my help at that.

I’ll give you a couple things that you can take action on that will move you forward, uh, free of charge. So it’s a, it’s a kindness gesture, but it’s also, you know, there’s a sales component to it. I just don’t get salesy on the call. ’cause as I told you earlier, I’m not interested in convincing anybody about anything.

I’m interested in people saying, that resonates with me. I want to hear more.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t help anybody who’s not ready anyway. Right. So

Mark Aylward: No, no,

Tim Melanson: right on.

Mark Aylward: no. You can’t.

Tim Melanson: One more question might be the hardest one. Who’s [00:39:00] your favorite rockstar?

Mark Aylward: Ha,

Tim Melanson: I.

Mark Aylward: that’s easy for me. He passed a couple years ago, but Tom Petty, um, I went to a Tom Petty concert when I was 15 years old at the Cape Cod Coliseum, which doesn’t exist anymore. And he was the backup band for a band called the Jay Isles Band, which is a, if you’re not from the northeast, you might not know them, but they were.

They were, they had their fame for a while and uh, they were a big deal. And then this band that the blue stage lit up and all of a sudden this song called, I Need to Know, started getting played. And I’m like, man, and I saw him three or four times and it’s, he’s always the best cons, best live show I’ve ever been to.

And, um, my daughters are fans of his now we’ve got all kinds of literature around the house, books about him. And yeah, that was an easy question for me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Don’t get many that know it. Exactly. That’s awesome. Oh, Tom Petty is amazing. I’ve got so many, uh, I [00:40:00] know so many of his songs that I do in my cover work and it. Always gets a, a great reaction from everybody. Like men, women, everybody, everybody loves Tom Petty.

Mark Aylward: have you, have you seen, I think it’s called Wildflower, the

documentary.

Tim Melanson: I have, yeah. Very good.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s a fantastic, it’s a fantastic film. Rick Rubin’s in it. I, as I recall, really interesting. I just found him to be a really interesting guy the whole time. He was a great musician. I mean, he did, he’s the one who said, these tickets are too expensive.

Don’t raise your prices. I want my fans to be able to see me. He was, uh, he had a very challenging life as well, personally. But, um, yeah, that was an, that was a, that was an easy question for me,

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, mark, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, me too. I’ve had a great time and uh, maybe we can do it again sometime.

Tim Melanson: Great. Yes. Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Fight Club, martial Arts and Archery Training Center, incorporated. He also the Master’s method. So I’m excited to be rocking out with today with Emmanuel. Hey, he helps people to go inward and I guess figure out who they are and, uh, we’re gonna learn a lot more about that in a few minutes.

So welcome to the show, Emmanuel Manolakakis.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, look. You got it, man.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So, hey Emmanuel, you ready to rock?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I am right.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh, many, many, uh, stories of success. I mean, uh, for fight club, uh, man, it’s been, um, getting close to 25 years for, uh, martial art club, and I still remember. In the first year or some first year that I started, uh, uh, teaching. It was just the part-time thing at the time. Uh, you know, somebody came in [00:01:00] and said, uh, straight out to me, if you could imagine this set out to me.

Uh, he was looking at different packages that I had for training in martial arts and he said, uh, I’ll, I’ll take the six month one because. Most martial art clubs don’t make it to two or three years. So he goes, I don’t wanna Right to like imagine right to your face. I was still shocked and like basically said, you won’t be around so I don’t wanna commit to you.

And I’m like, wow. That’s, that’s it. I I, and at first it upset me and then I realized, but that’s the truth. And this is the hard part of, of, of life, right? This is the truth. And I said, you know what? I’m gonna make sure that I do everything in my power to make sure that it makes it to three years.

Tim Melanson: That’s a good goal.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: it’s now it’s 25, and it was, I, every time I’m here, every time I do another year, and January’s coming around the corner now, every time I do another year.

I’m just, I’m so grateful and blessed that to be able to do this, I know there’s not many martial arts schools, uh, operating at a full-time capacity, uh, for this long. Um, so I’m quite special. I mean, it, it’s a testament [00:02:00] to a lot of the hard work, but at the same time, it’s still, um, so much of being an entrepreneur.

Being a person is a little bit of luck, right? Like, you gotta, you gotta get lucky too. You gotta be good. You gotta be lucky too. So I’ve been blessed with both. Um, so that’s a great, that’s one of my good, one of my favorite stories that it’s still around ’cause of what that person said.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, I mean it’s, uh, it, it’s definitely the same in just about any business, right? I mean, there’s, most businesses don’t make it through even the first year. So,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: No they don’t. Yeah, they don’t.

Tim Melanson: yeah. So now I.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: go ahead.

Tim Melanson: Well, well, so I was gonna say like on that note, I mean there are things that don’t go as planned, which is the reason why most businesses don’t get through.

And I like to talk about these bad notes because it’s something that keeps people out a lot. You know, they think maybe that person who would’ve said that to them, maybe, maybe they might’ve went, ah, okay, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. Right. Um, so I was wondering, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned, something that was a [00:03:00] big mistake that you recovered from?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Big mistakes, so. When I first started, so there’s, it’s not. I, I don’t see things as right and wrong. Uh, but you can, we can look at this for your listeners. There are things that just happen and no matter, you know, no matter how good we all are, like as an athlete, when I was a younger athlete and I played it pretty high level sports, um, you know, we practiced all week long and we had a great plan and we, we thought of it, everything that could happen.

But when the game happened, man, it all went, it all went. The shit, you know, just went crazy and you just realize the team that will really make it to a higher level. Are the ones that are adaptable, the teams that are able to be, you watch it in hockey, you watch it in baseball, the teams that play together, and that can adapt quickly because everybody’s figuring you out and you’ve gotta be adaptable.

Even as a martial artist, as a person in general, society is changing. You are changing. I mean, getting older, your, your views are changing. Your knowledge is changing. So, you know, [00:04:00] in. When it comes to martial arts, you see a lot of it’s, I, I can only speak specifically to martial arts, but it’s also to musicians.

Anybody that is in the creative realm, right? Like there’s, there’s some creativity there. Everybody begins by copying somebody, right? Like if you’re a musician, of course you’re gonna play Stairway to have it if you stay there like. For five or 10 years, you see the problem, like you’re not, there’s no authentic, and people will realize that, right?

When you’re running your own business, the biggest mistake you can make is copying all the time. Um, it’s fine to do it a little bit at the beginning only to get your bearings and then find out what’s your take on it. How did you, you know, like how did you change it? And that only comes from authenticity.

If you’re a chef, it’s you, you cook from the, the foods that you like, the things that you experienced. Or if you’re a musician, well you, you develop your voice, you develop your song, you develop the stories [00:05:00] and the, and the, the, the, the writing material to be more authentic. And then you connect. So, you know, in martial arts, there’s a tendency to think that you can make everybody happy.

Like somehow cover all the bases. But you can’t do that. That’s ridiculous. You can only, you can only connect with some people that wanna listen or agree with your perspective. That’s it. So don’t make the mistake of trying to make everybody happy. You don’t need to. You could just, you could just do what you do and find your raving fans that, that love you.

You know? So really start it small and like kindling wood and create a big fire of people that, um, like what you do and like exactly how you do it. That doesn’t mean that they hate other people, but they like how you do it and what you do. Right? Like, I like Johnny Cash for Johnny Cash. Like, I didn’t want Johnny Cash to be Bernie Spears.

I don’t want him to. I want that, that, that. That, that’s what I like. So I think a big mistake is, uh, [00:06:00] um, when people start to copy too long, and that can go for even a restaurant. Find your niche, man. Find your niche, find what you, find what you do, and do it really well. You know? And that, that, that is, is probably the the mistake.

The mistake I’ve seen that I did at the beginning too. I started to copy what other martial arts schools did and it was fine. It was a starting point, and then I’m like. That’s not me. I’m not, and I I’m not one of these guys that’s gonna scare students. Like, oh my God, someone’s gonna jump you and beat you up.

And I’m not, I can do that. I’m gonna teach you how to fight as a, as, as a, as a, a warrior poet, as a something. It’s beautiful. I’m not gonna, I want you to understand, you don’t have to fight because you’re angry. You can fight because you love what’s behind you. You don’t have to hate what’s in front of you.

You can just love what’s behind you. That’s all it really is. Like it. Those are old warriors we’re warriors in, in old societies, not that long ago, couple hundred years [00:07:00] ago, it was the most respected person. It’s the person that protected your society, you know, and he was, he was a noble person. It wasn’t like an animal or something.

What’s happened now in martial arts specifically is um, people are crisscrossing entertainment versions. And you know, so well listen, you know, I don’t wanna upset people. We need to be honest about stuff. Boxing used to be a beautiful martial art, but then, and then it was, but then it got associated with entertainment and then it got associated with Vegas and drinking and gambling.

And then so now it changed and it became entertainment. It’s not so much and people can’t, if you can’t see that, you don’t, you, you’re missing it. Right? Uh, MMA is a wonderful thing. Uh, it’s great, but it’s also entertainment. Right. So forget that when you’re protecting yourself, it’s your country, it’s your life.

It’s something really important. It’s not like to, to entertain you. It’s [00:08:00] like, remember that scene from Gladiator? Or you’re not entertained. Like, it’s like, he’s like, I’m in general man. I protected you guys, but now you want me to entertain you. He’s so, he was so frustrated with this concept. I’m a warrior.

I went to battle and protected freedoms and had liberty and noble and respect, and you want me not to dance around and entertain you? It’s like, I, I can’t do that side of martial arts. You know? I can appreciate it. Um, but I, I can’t, I can’t do that side. There’s, if you wanna entertain, you can go see a movie, play some sports and stuff like that.

But for me, martial arts is something a little bit different and I, I think that. Um, for your listeners, you have such a spectrum in music as you’re a musician, right? You have people that do it just for the love of music, right? And, and then they still make a quite a good living. They don’t, they’re not poor.

They’re, but they don’t want like a Britney Spears, they don’t want that, right? There’s a lot of people like this, you know, very impressive people, um, in, uh, [00:09:00] in, in the food industry. And there are people that wanna run a Michelin Star restaurant. What is the difference between a regular restaurant, Michelin, it’s just more detail. The bar is much higher. It’s really simple. They don’t care about more customers or more patrons. It’s like, this food represents me, it represents everything. And it’s like, whoa. And when you, who wouldn’t like me, part of a Michelin star, whoever hasn’t had an experience you gotta do at least once in your life, it’s pretty amazing, right?

It’s, and that bar is set by the entrepreneur.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: That the person running that restaurant, it’s a chef. His and he, he holds what he does at a very high standard, right? And entrepreneurs can choose that you, it’s your choice. Now. You can have a low standard, high standard, or somewhere in between. It’s up to you, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when it comes to music for sure, I mean, there’s so many things that you went through there. [00:10:00] There’s, uh, you know, even genre, right? I mean, if you’re trying to make everybody happy, you know, there are people that sort of gravitate towards one genre and if they like country and you’re playing death metal.

Probably not gonna like you very much, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: but I, I will tell you, I will tell you this though, there’s two, um, musicians at the Fight Club. Um. Both longtime students and one of them is a death metal guitarist. And I will tell you, I I, I’ve known him for a better part of 15 years, a wonderful man and he, um, his taste in music is all over the place.

You can go to his house and he will listen to jazz. He’ll listen to blues. He’ll, he listens to everything. This is a big misconception people have of a lot of it. At the metal guys, like people on the extreme listen to all kinds of music. You know, they’re, they don’t, they love all of it. They’re not saying, oh, it’s not, it’s not this or that.

Like a good chef, he doesn’t care. He might, he might be cooking, uh, making a [00:11:00] Japanese chef, but he can appreciate his French cooking. A, a great chefs, great people, great musicians, they totally appreciate, they love the authenticity. They see that, right. That’s, that’s a, that’s the highest to me, when you’re talking master level stuff, which is the course masters method that I teach.

It’s, it’s really just who you are. And the person that does that, uh, in, in a seamless way and who they are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a chef, a musician, a martial artist, you are showing people who you are. And that’s, I mean, I’m not sure what greater thing anybody could ask for, um, in this world than before you leave this world that people knew who you were, like most people that they don’t know that, you know.

So it really is authenticity that that’s at the core of all of this, and that doesn’t come easy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and a lot of that, that very, very heavy, heavy metal. It’s, uh, it’s technically very, very, very difficult. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: kind of like at the top level, which to [00:12:00] me that kind of makes sense. I think that’s why it’s so difficult to understand for the average person, the average person.

Um, you know, we’re bombarded with all this formulaic, very, very simple, simple music. That’s the stuff that ends up on the pop charts, right? Uh, so something that’s, that technically difficult like , you know, even in the seventies when music came out, uh, in, in the eighties and even in the nineties, I think it started change in the nineties.

Remember when you had to like, listen to something a few times before you liked it. Like, like, that doesn’t happen anymore now. I mean, you, you, the music is created in such a way that you listen to the first time and you’re hooked. And that’s how it’s created. It’s, it’s not, uh, it’s not the same, you know?

And, and I think that, I think that’s the difference between music. I think a lot of people ain. Uh, I mean you say that about fighting, it’s the same in everywhere. I think that everything has become more entertainment. It’s built for the entertainment value of it, rather than [00:13:00] just for the love of it. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I love it. Yeah, and you can always tell, because listen, like I said, copying is fine at the very beginning. We all do it. We copy our teachers, it’s fine. But at some point you have to look at yourself and say, would I really do this? Like, that’s all I’m saying. Would I really do this? Because under pressure, um, real pressure, talking game pressure, the game is on the line pressure or.

For more serious matters like a military people, like your life is on the line. Like that kind of stuff, right? Like that, that’s a lot of reality for people, right? Any of the first responders, every time they go to a call, you don’t know what you’re gonna face. It can be, people may not understand that ambulance, police, firefighter, whoever gets their first.

Somebody calls 9 1 1. Whoever gets there first is responding. And if it’s violent, it’s violent. If it’s, if it looks calm, but then becomes violent like you, their, their lives are on the line, uh, in many cases. And you, when you’re that kind of a person. You are gonna be ’cause you [00:14:00] won’t care. You’re gonna be who you are.

Right. It that’s not just for old people. You know, you meet those old people that just don’t care. Right. They just tell you if they don’t like you tell you to go to. I love, that’s so funny to me because they, they realize they don’t care. They finally reach that point where this is who I am. If you like me, great.

If you don’t, I got this way somehow. You know? And if you want to care to understand how I got here. Right. So as a teacher, I try to, I try to really understand who somebody is. So I’m, I’m teaching an art of course, but I’m also trying to understand the person and seeing how we can bring them together.

Right. And if you ever watch those shows, like the Voice. It’s really amazing how these top level singers look at a person saying, I, I, I, you’re, you’re playing somebody else’s song, but I want to hear it your way. I don’t wanna hear that person. I don’t wanna hear Billy Joel. I want your version of Billy Joel.

And then what, what those professional, you know, uh, you know, [00:15:00] singers are, are, are analyzing is, is the authenticity of that voice And it’s like a, a, somebody looking at a painting, is that a Rembrandt, you know, like. Man there, a lot goes into it, right? If you got, if you are comfortable with your voice and you’re comfortable with who you are, and you can sing somebody else’s stuff in your way, that’s what I want.

That, that I think is a good life. Like you, you’re finding your way. ’cause there is no purpose that that serves Canada, the world, anybody. If you’re just copying somebody all the time, there’s just no purpose.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: It’s just you. It,

Tim Melanson: gets you,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah. The old, the old.

Tim Melanson: figure out what your style is, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the old, the old Greeks used to say, when you need a hero, like when you need a hero in life, you need him now.

Not you don’t have time to train him. So who is a hero? A hero is somebody who sees things differently that nobody’s prepared for. This is the whole kung fu panda. [00:16:00] This is the whole how to train a dragon. The person was absolutely different from the, from the society and, and the enemy or the, or the problem was not ready for them. And that’s how you are victorious. And, and that says so much. Like I, that’s why I I, when I see teachers, especially with young kids, because I teach kids too, and again, here’s a whole other story. I didn’t want to teach kids if we all, I didn’t wanna teach kids, but I’m so good at it. Um. Because I don’t treat them like kids.

I imagine them as an adult. I, I fast forward to the 5-year-old, 10-year-old boy and I say, or girl and say, what do you like at 21? How do I get you to 21? That’s what I do when I teach kids. I can’t teach them at that age. Because they’re just annoying. Everybody is, is lying there that what I’m trying to do at that age is not get in their way.

Don’t, don’t change them if they’re, if they’re like loud, try to get them to quiet down, but don’t take the loud from [00:17:00] them, like that’s their voice or that’s their way. Right. Kids change so much, but people always try to correct them and then they’re, they always feel they can’t be who they want to be.

Feel that, right. Don’t take that from them. That’s the, that’s their gift that was given to them. So try to teach a kid and seeing how they’ll grow and connect the dots. That’s what a teacher should be doing, not just for kids, but for adults. The same thing. Kids are big men are just big babies. Come on.

They break. They’re all the, they’re all the same. You know?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah. You take

Emmanuel Manolakakis: for, we all are.

Tim Melanson: the adult and you take the adults and you treat ’em like the

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. Uh, 100%. And they love it. The, the adults are so tired of adulting. They’re so tired of it. They, they wanna play more. They’re tired of being right and wrong, and they, they just wanna play more for sure.

So,

Tim Melanson: So now you mentioned earlier that, uh, you know, when you get into, uh, you know, sports, music is the same. I mean, you, you, you get, you can practice all you want, but then you get into the, to the game or [00:18:00] whatever it is, and unexpected starts to happen, and all of a

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, everything you practice is not the same.

So how do you practice? How do you get ready for the unexpected?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: great, great. Absolutely, great question. So you, your training has to be like that. So I, I remember, uh, watching, so I, I did, I did quite a bit of bodyguard gigging as well, so I, I did a lot of close protection work, celebrities, musicians as well. I, I won’t say their names. I’m, I’m obligated not to, but I, I still remember one musician, uh, guitarist, great guitarist by the way.

And. Nowhere. He’s, I’m watching him, right? He’s on stage. There’s, I don’t even know how many people, I’ve never seen this many people. I couldn’t run a damn mic across that stage. It was so many, I, I mean, which I was scared to just walk across the stage. Forget about sing. This guy was in the middle. He was in a rift doing just, and I was just enrolled by the, by the music.

And all of a sudden he just stops. He turns and grabs another [00:19:00] guitar and continues away. And it was like, and then I look and he broke a string in the middle of a solo, and he just seamlessly, I, I just noticed that he turned around, which like, that’s kind of an odd time to be turning around and grabbing a new guitar.

Without a hesitation, your training has to, uh, you have to say to yourself, what can go wrong? So let’s give you a martial art example, or even in as an entrepreneur, you can pick your examples. You pick a problem. So I could be in a situation with a person, all of a sudden what appears to be one person comes to more people, all of a sudden there’s three people or two people I’m facing or more.

How do I deal with that now? What would I do now?

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Or all of a sudden, in the middle of everything, I, I hurt my hand, so now I can’t use my left hand. I can only use my right hand or. What happens if in the middle of this altercation somebody grabbed me from behind? Not even a bad person. It can just be a loved one trying to [00:20:00] pull me away from the fight, but doesn’t understand all that’s going on.

And that happens a lot. A lot of people in real situations, bodyguarding for sure, they don’t understand what’s happened because a bodyguard can see things much clearer. He is, that’s. He sees ahead of it. So most people are trying to calm things down, but the situation is escalating and we need to remove people and they don’t understand them.

So you have to look at those situations and and prepare for them. And you don’t have to freak out. You just have to say, what if? Okay, we do that. So I need to practice with one hand. I need to practice against three guys coming at me. I need to pro. What if a weapon comes out, okay, now I need to have some weapons training, and then.

You have to layer and it has to surprise you in training. Your training has to be organic like that. So if I was teaching a class, I’d be like, okay guys, um, you know, go on the ground and wrestle with each other, just one [00:21:00] person at any given moment. If somebody from another group feels like jumping onto the other group, they can. All of a sudden it’s a game. But what you’re doing is you’re preparing those people for things that will not go your way. That’s all. It’s, it’s not, I, I want all your listeners to understand this is an entrepreneur’s life. You, you have to plan everything can go wrong. Like the pandemic. Think about it. For me, the pandemic, I mean, as for martial arts, it was devastating.

Right. It was devastating, but I made it and I made it because I had really dedicated students. I got online, we trained outdoors, we figured it out right, and it was seamless for me. I didn’t hesitate at all. I, I didn’t. When things go wrong, right when they go wrong, they go wrong real quick, and you need a steady hand at that exact moment.

Right. Whether you’re a general in the military or whether you’re a [00:22:00] CEO at a business, you have to not be ready to be with cliches. You have to be ready to do the real work and, and be ready to adapt. Stay positive, but not false positive. Right. Not false positive. Right. Um, I had the luxury of training with quite a few, uh, military special forces and.

It’s, the stories they tell me are, are so funny. They’re not even scary. Like we’re talking about a unit that’s completely surrounded by the enemy and they’re pinned down. They’re waiting for help. They don’t know how long it’ll be. They’re just taking fire from all sides. Like there’s just no front.

There’s like, it’s all around. They’re completely surrounded. The only help is a helicopter that could come in and rescue them and it’s like a scene of a movie, but this was real. And they said, I go, God, what were you thinking? He goes, I don’t know. One guy started talking about how his wife is probably repainting their house.

Another one is probably saying how he’s probably trying to sell his car. Like I go, they’re just talking about normal things. Because it’s too [00:23:00] intense. We, you, you and, uh, I still remember that in my sports days we’d be talking about some of the funniest things in the middle of a quite serious game because it calms you down.

Right? And there’s a scene, there’s a scene in Saving Private Ryan, the movie where the unit was starting to fall apart towards the end of the movie. They were getting all over each other and that. And, you know, uh, Tom Hanks being the, the commander of that little unit that’s looking for, for private Ryan says, uh, to his sergeant, uh, what’s the, what’s the, the, the company had this toll, ’cause he didn’t say what job he did in his civilian.

So people started raise money to see when, if they reach him out the money, he’ll say what he does and he turns to the. To the, to the unit. And he says, uh, how much is the, the, the Tali? He

Tim Melanson: pod A.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the pod, a couple hundred bucks. But he goes, he goes, I’m a teacher and everybody. Your teacher, like if for a moment it broke that [00:24:00] like, it, it, it normalized this thing, this craziness that is the war.

It normalized it for a second. It’s like he’s just, he’s a teacher and it brought them back to when they were civilians, they took them out of like this soldier mode of like constant pressure. So, um, a, an athlete that is at the highest level. Real high levels, not amateur levels. Amateur levels is different.

High levels, they, they don’t understand how to add pressure. They study how to remove pressure because too much pressure hurts them, much like a musician. What do they think about before they go on stage? They’re getting up, but they’re also calming down.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Right. They’re also calming down. So, um, and I, I’ve watched this, you, for all your listeners, look at those people in the Olympics.

It’s a great event. Highest level, right? Pretty high. Pretty high level. Watch what a sprinter is doing before he is about to run or she’s about to run as fast as possible. They’re bouncing, they’re shaking out tension. They’re wiggling [00:25:00] their hands, they’re wiggling their feet, they’re trying to relax.

Nobody is saying they’re just trying to relax. And I’m the same under real pressure. I’m just trying to calm down and when I’m calm, that’s where my confidence lies. When I’m angry or tense, that’s where my fears go, and I don’t want to be in my fears. Right? There is a lot of things as a teacher that will piss you off and anger you.

Um, not just, not just the students. Lots of stuff life. Different obstacles that are put in your way as an entrepreneur, a lot of things will anger you. That is not where your best work lies. It’s not where your authentic work lies. The best a person can be is when they’re calm and relaxed. And it’s also, um, like I talked about, creative expression, right?

Creative expression is when you’re chill, man. That’s, that’s that. That’s when you come up with your song, that’s when you find a solution to this problem that is daunting, right? [00:26:00] So. I hope your listeners understand this. And so, as I was going along teaching martial arts, these threads were coming along.

Students were talking to me. You know, they were saying, oh my God, I, I’m going home showing my kids what you’re showing me. And I, I, I, I, they love it. I mean, you should start teaching kids, oh, I don’t teach kids. Oh my God, no. How, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And then all of a sudden I sat down. What if I imagined them at 20 one’s so that I can do. Right. And then the fighting aspects of martial arts is an, is is another thing. Um, I, I can do that, but there came a point where I’m not really angry and the situations that I’m coming across don’t warrant a fight, but yet they are tough. So I realize that it’s inside your head. So we start working on, uh, mental training.

At that exact same time I was, I was doing very well in archery ’cause I was competing, I was still competing in archery competitions. And I realized how much of it is mental. And I really started to connect these dots. And I started showing a handful of [00:27:00] students this mental training that I go through.

And they loved it. It was, it was more important to them than the physical training. And I fully believe, um, that the future right now for all people. Going forward, past 2026 is gonna be a lot of, is being able to control your mind? That’s not a, is it? There’s just too much information, Tim, for all of us to be sitting here going that we can handle this.

This is like a crazy buffet. There’s no way we can eat all this food and people are trying to. And they’re just getting an upset stomach. They’re getting, they’re getting. And if people don’t believe me, just talk to any medical professional and look at the rise of A DHD drugs. Look at the, look at the rise of, of people that are going on, uh, medication for anxiety, for stress.

All of this is manageable. It’s just stop the information. Do, how much do we need? We have more information than a hundred years [00:28:00] ago. A president or prime Minister had, we have so much information. You don’t need more. You don’t. Last thing is you need more. If you wanna be happy for your listeners, you need less.

That doesn’t mean, that doesn’t mean be ignorant, doesn’t, doesn’t mean be ignorant or naive. It means you need less information and maybe more wisdom. Wisdom is the combination of I get some knowledge and then I practice, or I do that thing a lot and then I get a little bit more knowledge with a lot more action, and that becomes wisdom.

People just, they’re, this is, and this is not my opinion, this is the old Greek philosophers said this, they, they, they were the same, right?

Tim Melanson: Well, I think, I think, uh, I think you’re right. I mean, I mean this is a deep conversation that could go on forever, but, but I think that, I think that, uh, you know, back, you know, 30, 40 years ago, we really were only in contact with our bubble. And the, that bubble sort of [00:29:00] thought the same. We were sort of like similar.

And now with the social media and with the, the world becoming smaller, we’re exposed to everything all at once. And a lot of it

Emmanuel Manolakakis: In

Tim Melanson: the way we think. And people are getting triggered very, very quickly and focusing on the things they don’t like. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Or they can’t control. Or they can’t

Tim Melanson: Or they can’t control. Yeah, exactly. And I think, I think that’s where it is.

I mean, when you, when you think about the people that are the happiest, it’s the people that just. Let it be, you know, whatever. I mean, they’re doing what they’re doing over there. It’s not really affecting, is it really affecting you? I think that that’s the thing is that they’re only being affected because they’re looking at it and they’re focusing on it.

Whereas before we didn’t even have the ability to see it. We might see it walking down the street, oh, I don’t like those people over there on the, you know, whatever, under the bridge, whatever it happens to be, and, and then they just kind of keep walking. But now it’s. It’s in your [00:30:00] hand, it’s on your screen, it’s everywhere, and you’re kind of going like, I hate that.

And, and people are not managing those triggers very well. So I think, I think, I think you’re, you’re into it. I think now is the time to figure out how to handle those triggers and, and, and not be triggered by it, right? Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yep. No, go ahead.

Tim Melanson: so let’s get into your solo a little bit. Let’s, let’s talk about what, uh, what’s exciting your business.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: For me now, it’s the. A shift from when I first started martial arts, a very physical thing. And, and it was great. I mean, I loved it like that as well, but I’m realizing more and more now that it’s the mental side and I’m just, I’m, I’m really digging, helping people manage that side. And they’re like, it’s, it’s so refreshing for people to understand that, um, wow.

Because let’s say to be physical, you gotta go somewhere. You might have to go to the gym, or you gotta go outside and go for a run. Or if you’re in a cycling, you gotta get on your bike. And mental training can be done anywhere. This is what’s great. Like you, you, you have 10 minutes. You can just [00:31:00] sit down and, and, and just, and focus like the, the research on visualization training, which is, you know, maybe long time ago has been, I mean, Pele was talking about that.

I mean, it’s nothing new, but it’s now it’s gone like 3D like visualization is kinda like, okay, me imagining doing a sport and positive outcomes and that being real. But now there’s just so much more to. To that kind of training people starting to understand how deep the mind is. Right. And I, even, me, I’m, I’m amazed that like, it’s not just left and right half of the brain, but it’s, it’s like.

Really maximizing, um, what we do with this thing. And I really see the connection, um, to happiness. I really see the connection to, uh, performing at your utmost best. Like I, I don’t even care about winning. At all winnings like subjective. There are some, there’s some Archer competitions I won, I didn’t deserve, and there’s some that I should have won that I didn’t.

Um, winning is, [00:32:00] is I care about performing at my best. Like when I go to teach. I don’t, the class might not have gone as good as I would’ve liked. Maybe the students didn’t understand the lesson as as good as I would’ve liked, but I know that I, I did my best. I can’t control how it will be understood and really.

Dissecting that, that there’s this idea that we have a powerful brain it, but it’s hard to walk around and just tell people, look at my beautiful brain. You know, it’s much easier to say, look at my six pack. Right? You, you know what I mean? Like, look at my big arms. The problem with inner work mind, like mind and the, and the spiritual stuff, like inside of us.

Nobody can see this, but that’s also what makes it so special. What, what makes your home so special? Nobody sees this. You invite people in and who comes into your house? Only the people that you trust, right? So the inner workings of your mind and, and your spirit. These are places that very special and we should treat them like that.

A long time [00:33:00] ago, I, I grew up in them. I’m a 69 baby, so I grew up like, you know, mostly in the eighties were my, my teen years and everybody in Scarborough and in Toronto in those days, you know, if you’re Greek, Italian, Portuguese, European, you had that nice room. This is, you only went in that room when it was like, you know, Easter, Christmas, you know, that was the good room.

You know, that was a very special place where you went to celebrate over. And, um, the mind is a very special place. It’s a place that only you go really, and, and you go there to find your authentic self, not to copy other people. So I’m really excited about the mental training. I, I think it’s, I think. As a society and as people living in Toronto, for me, my students, this is gonna be the hardest part of living in a big city.

Not the physical ability of it, it’s the mental. So helping them navigate that is, is really exciting. Me.[00:34:00]

Tim Melanson: Wow. So I, I’m d different, I, I, I know that because I talk to people and, and I have no problem being alone with myself and with my own thoughts. However, I hear that a lot of people do have a hard time with that and.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I like how you said that. I hear,

Tim Melanson: I hear

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah.

Tim Melanson: so, uh, uh, I’m wondering, ’cause this might actually be scary to those people thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don’t think I wanted to be doing that.

Or maybe they want might be pushing it away. What would you say?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: 10 minutes. Come on guys. 10 minutes. You can’t sit still like you. I, I hope everybody listens. Do you understand? If you can’t say, if you can’t sit still for 10 minutes, you under listen. In Scarborough, if you rode the bus back when I was, before I had my car, you’re on that bus for like 30 minutes.

There’s, there was nothing to do, guys. Okay. Like I, little did, I know I was practicing 30 minutes of mindfulness. I’m doing not, I was so progressive. Back [00:35:00] in the eighties, you had no cell phone? No. You just sat there, man. You just sat there and you guess what? You looked at everybody. You were mindful, oh, there’s a woman that’s pregnant coming up.

I got it. I should get up. Let a pregnant woman sit down. Or, oh, there’s an older person come up. I should get up. Or you, you just take 10 minutes, man, sit down and don’t look at your phone. Breathe and just observe the world. Just observe it. It it just 10 minutes. It is beautiful. It is beautiful, um, to do that.

And it starts with 10 minutes, and I don’t want anybody to do anything more. I, I did it long time ago and I, I quickly made it 20 minutes. Like you should never, like, I, even though me and you are talking to people now, we’re asked, we’re we’re telling ’em some stuff. I am not a guru. I am, I will present information.

I want everybody to test everything I say and if it’s, if it works and it’s good [00:36:00] for you, please continue it.

Tim Melanson: Love it.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Come on. Like eat some good food. I dare anybody to have a little bit of cabbage with their meal, a dinner for a week straight, just a little bit of cabbage, and watch how their gut will feel. Great. Tell me you don’t. If you don’t like that feeling, well then go back to eating whatever you’re eating. So read something past something, eat something. Try some training to anybody that doesn’t understand how beautiful it feels to go for a 15 minute walk after you have dinner. If that doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. But I will. I will guarantee you, you’ll, you’ll enjoy it. That’s a wonderful practice. Very simple. So I’m all about starting very small. Letting things grow and enjoying it. Just like you’re planting a seed. Let it grow. Don’t, you don’t have to yell at it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: let it, let it grow.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more about you then?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Uh, for me it’s really simple. I have, well, I have a book I’ve written, so if people [00:37:00] want, you can go, you’ll find on Amazon, it’s called Eudemonia the Highest Human Good. By a manual I’ll, I’ll, I’d be happy to. Uh, so it’s on Amazon, eudemonia is the name. Um, they can also go to my website. There’s fight club.ca and there’s another website I started off just after the pandemic, which is a lot more the personal growth, personal development.

Um, it’s called Masters method ca. And I’ve kind of put all my kind of more mental training. There because it seemed like there’s a, a different group of people that not necessarily want martial arts, but do want to want that training without the punches and kicks, which I get right. It’s not for everybody, right?

Not everybody’s a martial artist in a physical sense, but we definitely need, it feels like being a martial artist, living in, living in our society these days. We’re wrestling with so many issues.

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: is, there is that side of it, right? Um, yeah, those are, those are definitely the ways of, of getting in touch with me and just, um, I, [00:38:00] I want to thank you as well for putting me on the podcast.

It’s, it’s, it’s a wonderful way and for all the entrepreneurs listening, um, be adaptable. Find some authenticity. It’s not easy. I know it’s not. You’ve gotta sit quietly. You gotta go back into your history and look at what you did. Talk to your mother if you can. What did you do as a kid? How were you? Stay close to those things, right?

If I can do it as a martial artist, if I can literally play while I’m training, even when I’m fighting, because all of a sudden I’m very authentic. I’m not doing things I regret.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Because it’s, it’s like me to do everything I do. So please find a way. If I can do it in fighting, you can find it in your, in your business and in your personal life as well.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. One more question before I go. Who’s your favorite

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Oh man, you got so many. I rockstar. I, so I grew up in the eighties, so I listened to all kinds of music back then. It’s really hard. Uh, but I did watch the Rise of Rap [00:39:00] and I’m not a big rapper, but I watched it like NWA Public Enemy and I was like. What the hell is this? Like, it’s like you had Bon Jovi, you had, you had, uh, you know, Michael Jackson, you had you this, and then there was this thing that was like so different.

And then to watch the evolution of that music. And how it’s transformed. Um, I don’t think I, ’cause I can’t say saw that with country or blues or, I, I didn’t see that, but I was, you know, I was literally, that was exactly when I was a teenager and I still remember the people blaring some of that public enemy or, and it was like, what the, we were shocked.

That was like a, a very different type of music. So I think that one is the one that really sticks in my mind. It really, it’s, it’s, it’s really to watch something from the beginning and watch it.

Tim Melanson: Expand.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Expand, like, and, and the characters, and some of them are still around, which is, you know what I mean, like [00:40:00] Jay-Z and all these guys, they’re still around.

And to watch them mature, you know, same with Mike Tyson. I, I grew up boxing and, and he was the guy. And to watch him now what a, what a change. What a changed man, what a changed person, you know? Pretty awesome.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Well, thank you so much for rocking it with me today, Emmanuel. This has been a lot of fun.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.