Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today we are talking to the CEO of Fanbridge Consulting, and what he does is he helps people to understand the, the non-food franchising and to un- identify the top available opportunities on the market. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Jon Austinson.

Hey, Jon. You ready to rock?

Jon Ostenson: Hey, Tim, ready to rock. Excited to be here

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

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, you know, I’ve been fortunate to be able to build a business that allows me to do what I enjoy doing day in, day out, helping people, working from home, and, uh, yet, you know, been on the Inc. 5000 the last couple years. I’ve been able to build a sizable practice, and I do that by helping others. And so, uh, yeah, it’s incredibly fulfilling.

Um, I spent many years in the corporate world and always had that desire to be a business owner, didn’t know where to start, didn’t have franchising on my radar, and it was about 10 years ago that, uh, franchising landed on my radar. So look forward to unpacking that. Um, but yeah, I pinch myself every day.

Could never work for anybody again, and, uh, just feel very blessed to, to be able to serve others[00:01:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you can’t go back, eh? It’s, it’s a tough thing

Jon Ostenson: Can’t come back. Unemployable, as they like to say within entrepreneurship circles. And what’s amazing is most of the folks I hang out with these days are business owners, right? It’s just a different conversation. It’s a different way of thinking and, uh, yeah, a different sense of freedom as well. And, and nothing’s easy.

If business ownership was easy, everyone would be doing it. So I never wanna sugarcoat it, but it does provide that path to the life that you’re looking to, um, that most people are looking to lead

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I mean, there’s just more, I think there is more opportunities. It’s more under- well understood now too. Like, so I, I’ve just seen a massive difference in the last, you know, 15, 20 years that there’s just more and more people that are just choosing to do it themselves, right? Instead of just taking the job.

And then at the, at the same time, the job market is getting wonky. Is that a good word for it? Right?

Jon Ostenson: Well, all I know is I read the Wall Street Journal every day, and I see headlines around AI and workforce reductions or impacts and changes, and [00:02:00] I have so many people reaching out saying, "Hey, either my job’s gonna be impacted, or I’m afraid it’s gonna be impacted, or I’m being asked to do more with less, or I’m being asked to learn all these new technologies."

And they’re saying, "I want understandable cash flowing businesses, things that aren’t going out of style, that are not gonna be disrupted by AI." Um, those are con- the conversations we’re having frequently

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I think the days of just, um, uh, relying on, you know, one employer for the rest of your life, I mean, those have been gone for years now, right? But I mean, I think it takes time for the mindset to just change about that and, and recognize that, you know, the, the safe job is, is, is a thing of the past now, and it’s a little bit…

You know, for people like me and probably you, it’s empowering. I, I, I think having, like, control is, is what I wanted in the first place. It’s why I’m, I’m self-employed in the first place, is to have that control. But, um, but it is scary, like, as you said, and there are a lot of pitfalls that you could fall into, and we do like to talk about some of the mistakes, so I’m wondering, can [00:03:00] you share with me a bad note?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah. Well, I once had a company that did not succeed. Um, when I left the corporate world, you know, I, I did start a company. It was a marketing agency and a call center all under one roof, and we served franchises and franchisees. And, and candidly, we became too customized and ended up not having the best processes, and we were kind of learning on the fly as we went.

Had a lot of fun during the process. We built it up. We were about thirty-five employees. Uh, I had a partner on the business with me and, um, you know, was very proud of it. But end of the day, it wasn’t profitable. We were barely break even, and we were putting a ton of effort into it. So I saw the writing on the wall.

I kicked the can down the road for a little while, but eventually I had to pull the trigger on, uh, on the business. And, uh, you know, that was a humbling experience, right? You know, didn’t have a big, sexy exit. Instead, it was really stepping back and, you know, finding homes for our employees, finding homes for our clients.

Very proud of how we handled it, but it was a difficult situation. It was a tough season to be in. But that experience gave me all the more appreciation for the franchise model because here I’m trying to build something on the fly, whereas [00:04:00] with the franchises, you’ve got a proven operating system. You know, it’s been proven out in other markets.

You’ve got a sea of other franchise owners living the same thing day in, day in, day out. There’s just so many benefits to being in business for yourself but not by yourself, and it de-risked the situation a lot. So, um, it was a negative at the moment, but it led to a much more positive, uh, kind of long-term tr-trajectory

Tim Melanson: Wow. So to customize, I’d like to dig into that a little bit ’cause, uh, I’ve definitely, I think I know what you mean by that, right? Well, but what do you mean by that?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, to build a business, you’ve got to have margin, right? And oftentimes you can get that through streamlining and efficiencies, right? Uh, you’ve got to have… But what, where we became too custom was we were doing something a little different for each of our clients, even within a franchise system where we should have been treating them all fairly equal.

Um, you know, answering their phone calls, how we answer those calls, how we customize the marketing in their area. Whereas if we’d kind of stuck to the script, we would have been a lot more efficient. Our clients probably would have been better because they’re not the subject matter experts on all this feedback they were giving us.

[00:05:00] Um, a- and so yeah, big lesson learned that, you know, e- e- either you’ve got to be willing to charge for becoming very custom can’t have a low price and be custom, um, or spread yourself too thin and not have the resources to fulfill the business

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that can apply to so many businesses, especially service businesses. And it’s tough because, you know, in the very beginning when you’re, you know, looking for those initial clients, you, you sort of take anything you can get, right? Um, but I think what probably we should be doing in those circumstances is learning which clients we’re best at serving, and then try to figure out how to, like, package up that product or that service into something that is really, um, predictable, right?

Jon Ostenson: 100%. No, even if you have like a service-based business, let’s say it’s truck-based, you know, you wanna keep those routes tight. Well, or else there’s gonna be inefficiencies. Uh, well, therefore, you wanna market in a couple of zip codes instead of spreading [00:06:00] yourself too thin at the beginning, right? And so, uh, a lot of lessons learned, but those are lessons I’m able to pass on to our clients today

Tim Melanson: Well, and speaking of which, so how did you learn all this stuff? Like, do you hire coaches? Like, how, how did you get into those, or did you already know, right? H- how did you get there?

Jon Ostenson: Well, again, I spent many years in the corporate world, so there are definitely skill sets that I brought over. However, I, I never learned how to be an entrepreneur until I was an entrepreneur. And, uh, some of the resources that really helped me, I have had several business coaches over the years, Jack Daly being one.

He’s a pretty well-known guy out there. Paid a lot for him, but it was worth it. Um, you know, so I learned from experts, but also learned from peers, and I’d say that was a huge im- part of my growth in learning how to be an entrepreneur. Uh, one organization as an example, EO, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization.

It’s a big global organization. Here in Atlanta where I am, we have about 175 members. You have to do at least a million a year in revenue, and then they’ve got kind of a JV program, 250,000, I think is the threshold there. But, you know, we were in forums where every month I’d meet with [00:07:00] seven others, and we would go deep in our businesses and kind of serve as a board of directors.

I learned so much from these other folks that were in different industries, different backgrounds. Um, and part of it was entrepreneurship 101. So that really helped me on my journey to not have to make every mistake myself, though I did make plenty of mistakes. Um, you know, and I tell my kids this all the time, "It’s okay to make mistakes.

Let’s just try not to make the same obvious mistake twice."

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think the, the, I mean, the, the analogy or the joke that I say all the time is that when we start our business, oftentimes we start because we’re, you know, we’re good at this thing, right? But then we find out really quickly that probably 80% of running the business has nothing to do with that thing, right?

It’s all the other stuff. And so I, I like what you’re saying because, you know, if you go and you meet other entrepreneurs, even if they’re in a totally different industry, there is a lot of overlap, maybe even 80% overlap of things that they’re dealing with as well. It’s just that specific service or a product that they offer that’s different.

But other than that, the, the principles of running a [00:08:00] business tend to be very similar, right?

Jon Ostenson: They are. And I think you have to be wise in saying, what do you wanna take from others and what do you want to leave behind? You know, where I live, most of the people I sur- surround myself with are business owners that are building very large businesses that are gonna have big exits on one day, and that’s kinda what you’re taught, right?

You add head count, scale up, you know, make it as big as you can. For me, with my consulting practice, I have purs- purposefully chosen to keep it at a certain size because I don’t wanna add the head count. I’ve been there. I’ve had a 35-person company before. And right now, I challenge myself to find efficiencies, find better ways of doing things so I can serve more clients without having, adding head, head count on my end, because my desire is to be customer/client-focused.

You know, I wanna be strategic. I don’t wanna manage a large team. So it’s neat when you reach that point in your career when you say, "Hey, here’s what I’m good at. Here’s what I enjoy doing. Here’s what, what I want my every day to look like."

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I think that that’s a probably like a, a cultural or maybe like [00:09:00] a, you know, programming that your business always has to grow. It has to keep growing. Every year it has to keep going, right? And that’s not necessarily true. You can kind of keep it at a size for a long time and still be happy, right?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah. For me, the business cash flows well. I’ve got the consulting business, then I’ve got an investment business, and on the investment side, that’s where I get a… You know, as I’m able to fuel the cash flow into the investments, you know, whether it be real estate, whether it be franchises that I invest in, um, whether it be private credit, private equity, a lot of different asset classes that I invest in, that creates the passive cash flow, right?

So that, that’s expanding. So that’s where I’m getting the growth rather than headcount directly to the bottom line in my consulting practice

Tim Melanson: I have the same strategy. And i- it’s, it’s taken so long to get to that point , right? Where, where, uh, you know, and, and, uh, I think that, um, you know, the, the, the really wealthy employees even, that- they’re- that’s how they do it, right? They use their main income, even though their main income might not be expanding and tripling every year, it’s staying [00:10:00] pretty stable, but they’re taking that and using that money, you know, instead of spending it on, you know anything.

They’ll use that money wisely and, and, uh, a business owner can do the same thing, only the difference is that there’s a lot more flexibility in running a business, but also a lot more risks, too, right?

Jon Ostenson: There is, though I, I would argue that working for someone else is risky, kind of like we talked about in the

Tim Melanson: It is

Jon Ostenson: here. I- it is. And so, now, we have a lot of people reach out to us, probably half of our clients get into businesses where they still have a W-2 or they’re a current business owner of another company and they’re saying, "I wanna diversify.

I want to expand. I want the tax benefits that come through business ownership," right? The government incentivizes people to be business owners. It just opens up the tax playbook. And they want their efforts to not only go towards cash flow, but they wanna build an asset that they can sell one day. So I, I give a talk oftentimes called Franchising as an Asset Class, and so we, as we think about the different things you can invest in, business ownership is one of those, and I believe that franchising makes it much more doable and de-risk the situation in a lot of [00:11:00] cases for people

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So now let’s get into a little bit of the practice side of it, ’cause, uh, I mean, that can mean a lot of different things, right? Um, you know, there’s business practices. There’s also personal practices I imagine too. Like, do you have any of those?

Jon Ostenson: Any personal practices, I’m sorry

Tim Melanson: Things that you do every day, routines, things that make your life s- consistent, we’ll say

Jon Ostenson: Absolutely. No, I, I view everything through five domains, five lenses, if you will. And this is my annual goal setting, my quarterly goal setting, even how I evaluate my day. I call it the five F framework. For me, it’s, it’s faith, family, and friendships, um, fitness, finances, and then, uh, uh, franchising. So for some people that’d be business, for me it’s franchising.

So those five Fs, I mean, that’s how I think about my day. Was I balanced today? Did I move the ball forward? What categories do I need to get more focus on that I didn’t move the ball forward in today? Um, so that’s the framework that I operate through. And as I go about my day, [00:12:00] you know, trying to hit those, you know, working out with a trainer.

I was with a trainer this morning and, um, you know, we’ll do some recovery later today. Fitness is incredibly important to me. You know, starting my day on the faith side. Um, you know, making sure I carve out good family time. You know, and then I’m in a place now where the franchising, it’s not a 40-hour workweek, right?

It, it is less and, um, you know, but there are times that I push really hard. There are times I’m in the office at 6:00 AM. There are other days that, you know, I take the day off. My family and I go on multiple international trips every year. There are things that you can do as a business owner, um, that you might not be able to do as a W2.

I don’t have to ask anyone for permission to do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, exactly. Man, that’s a lot of, uh, positive Fs

Jon Ostenson: That’s right. And, and I oftentimes joke that w- when I say the F word franchise, people think of fast food like Subway, McDonald’s, but, uh, you know, there’s so many categories

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there’s a lot of different types of franchises. It’s not just the fast food ones, and I think that, um, I think that that might be what people think of when they think of a [00:13:00] franchise. They only think of franchi- of, uh, fast food franchises, but there’s a lot, right?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, and we’re seeing… We’ve got nothing against the food guys. We need them, but there’s a reason why I wrote the book Non-Food Franchising, which I’m happy to share with all of your listeners. There’s so many industries that you don’t have on your bingo card when you hear the word franchise. You know, things like home and property services, you know, health and wellness, categories like seniors, which is a huge one today, or, or kids, pets, different B2B type services.

And we can te- definitely take it down a level. I’m happy to give examples behind each of these. Um, but 90% of those that we work with, Tim, when they come to us and say, "Hey, we wanna be a business owner, or we don’t know where to start. We understand franchising a little bit, but we don’t know what industry to go into," I expose them to the top dozen or so opportunities in their market, hitting on different categories.

90% of the time, they end up in an industry that was never even on their radar, so it’s so much fun to expose them to what’s out there

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I mean, uh, I, I think that one of the other things that you get from these [00:14:00] franchise models is just the mentorship and, and, and the, the systems that have been worked before. So it might even be a really good way to, like, bridge the gap between being an employee and being an entrepreneur. Maybe it’s like a stepping stone to doing something that maybe you’ve always wanted to do, right?

Jon Ostenson: I think that’s very well said. I oftentimes joke that training wheels are, you know, resemble franchises, um, in that you’re in business for yourself but not by yourself, to be cliche. You do have that franchisor and their team supporting you or that operator that you put in place. That’s why that semi-passive, I like to call it semi-involved model, is doable.

You have to have a good operator, but they can be supported by the franchisor. So now you’ve got that side, but you also, oftentimes this gets overlooked, you’ve got all these other franchise owners all across North America that are living the same thing day in, day out as you. You’re learning from each other, exchanging best practices.

Um, and so you have this community or mastermind, if you will, um, th- that’s incredibly valuable

Tim Melanson: Okay. What about the, uh, the cash flow of the [00:15:00] business? How do we… ‘Cause I, I, I understand that, you know, some of these franchises may cost a fair bit of money as well. How do you make sure that you’re gonna make your money back?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, absolutely. So every franchise you go into, uh, they’ve got what’s called an FDD, a franchise disclosure document. That’s got the historical financial results. So nothing’s ever a given, right? But at least you have some really good actual data that you’re able to utilize when you build out your pro forma and think about the business.

Uh, your item seven’s where it shows your all-in investment range. Your item nineteen is your, you know, potential, uh, revenue and profit based on others. You also get to talk to other franchisees before you ever buy, so you can hear about their experience and their numbers. Um, so no, you know, you want to plan wisely.

You know, if you’re going to use a loan like an SBA loan, it’s very common to use to purchase the franchise. You know, you need to factor in that debt service into your expense categories. You know, there are franchises where you can be profitable day one, literally, because you have low overhead and the marketing’s been turned on.

There are others, you know, that may take a little bit longer. I’d say on average, you’re probably looking at around six months, six to nine months. I always [00:16:00] encourage clients to, "Hey, let’s be a little more conservative. Let’s assume it takes a full year," right? But what does that run rate look like as you build up to that year?

Um, a-and so, you know, we encourage clients to go in conservatively, have that extra cash or that line of credit that you can tap into. Um, you know, partnerships are incredibly common as well, where maybe someone’s a capital partner, someone’s an operating partner. Um, but a lot of different ways to fund it.

Another way is a retirement rollover. It’s what’s called the ROBS program. A lot of people aren’t aware of that, but that’s a common way to fund a purchase

Tim Melanson: Wow. Now, I, I mean, I, I have, I have a lot of people on the podcast that have different, uh, you know, aspects of the bad note of things that don’t go as planned. But there tends to be some common mistakes that people will make, and, um, a- I’m thinking in the franchise model or versus, like, a, a regular traditional business.

Like, if someone’s thinking about starting a business, a lot of times we’re thinking about it from the perspective of we wanna do it our own way. You know, we wanna, we wanna have our own, our own thing, right? And we don’t wanna [00:17:00] be following r- uh, rules anymore from some employer. But the franchise model, on the other hand, you do have to follow these rules in order to be successful.

Now, do you find that there’s a lot of, like, resistance to following the, the, the, you know, the proven rules that are obviously working for other people?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, it’s a good point. Not everyone’s meant to be a franchisee, right? There are some people that are too entrepreneurial, I might say. You know, they wanna put their thumbprints all over everything, right? And, and they would not be good franchise owners. I do believe it’s a better model of business ownership for most people out there, again, because you have that training wheels, you’ve got the system, you’ve got the product market fit that’s been established.

I can go on and on. You know, technology stack day one, the marketing optimized data day one. Uh, I’ll stop there. But no, what I found is there are individuals that… It, it usually gets… comes out during the discovery process, and I have to tell them, "Hey, I don’t think fra-" or they come to the conclusion on their own franchising may not be right for them.

Tim Melanson: Right

Jon Ostenson: What’s interesting, Tim, a lot of existing bu- business owners come to us and wanna buy a franchise. [00:18:00] Some of them, it’s not a good fit. A lot of them, it’s a really good fit because they say, "I appreciate all the hard work that’s gone in because I’ve been there myself before. I’d rather not recreate the wheel.

I’m ready to just go execute. I’ve got this young employee I wanna put in place, let him go run with it and make us proud." Um, you know, a couple of years back, I had… It was a gutter franchise, about a six billion dollar industry, gutter installation. Placed nine clients with that franchise system. It was, uh, great financials, great model.

One of them went out of business, whereas others were thriving. Some even did a million dollars in their very first year in revenue. One of them went out of business. I called the franchisor. I said, "What happened here?" He said, "John, he wasn’t willing to follow the system. We did everything we could. We coached him.

We flew into his territory. Um, end of the day, he thought he was the smartest guy in the room and just wasn’t willing to follow the system." And so, you know, I think back, I was president of a large national franchise system or international with candles, uh, in the US, Shelf Genie. In that franchise system, our top performers were the [00:19:00] ones that were halfway decent with people, they worked hard, and they were willing to follow the system.

So it does take some humility, um, but that was a great question.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and I, I think that, you know, it is possible that someone could have a better idea, right? I mean, that does exist. Someone created it in the first place. But on the other

Jon Ostenson: totally. Yeah. No, and innovation bubbles up from the franchisees usually

Tim Melanson: Right. Uh, well, and there you go. I was just gonna say that, ’cause I imagine there’s probably a path where you can sort of, like, maybe share that idea and maybe get some improvements in the fin- in, in the way that the franchise r- runs, right?

Jon Ostenson: Oh, 100%. Franchisees are always gonna share their opinions and, uh, you know, but oftentimes that’s where the best ideas come from, ’cause they’re living it day in, day out on the front lines. Um, yeah, I, I mean, I could rattle off examples that they come to mind, but yeah, a good franchisor is going to take that feedback.

They’re going to want to innovate. If it works for this franchisee, hey, let’s roll it out to the whole system and, and institutionalize it. So, um, no, that is a benefit that you have of being a part of a franchise system is that other people are [00:20:00] trying different things. You know, they’re not taking the brand off the rails, you can’t do that, but they can try different things in their hiring or their marketing or what have you

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, and, and I, I, I do think that that’s probably true a lot that when you build the business and you realize what’s involved in it, then you realize, "Okay, th- this is the reason why they do things this certain way." And I think, uh, that oftentimes what you might encounter is, you know, especially when if you’ve been working a job for a long time, you’re just like, "Oh, I just hate the way that they have to do that," right?

And you just wanna do it a different way. But oftentimes there’s a reason why they do it in the first place, right? And sometimes there’s not. Sometimes it is just extra work for no reason. But it’s probably pretty rare, ’cause even in these large, large companies that you’re an employee of, I mean, they’ve got these systems in place for a reason, right?

It’s, it’s usually not random, right?

Jon Ostenson: Uh, when you talk about big companies, I mean, s- uh, sometimes there’s a rhyme or reason, sometimes there’s not, right? So I’m having ghosts from my past all of a sudden [00:21:00] flood my mind with, uh, why did we do this back in the day? But, um, no, I, I’d say within franchising, there’s a healthy checks and balance, right?

I- if the franchisor is saying, "Hey, we wanna do things this way," and fran- multiple franchisees are saying, "No, you’re better off another way," they’re gonna speak their minds

Tim Melanson: Well, and, uh, you know what? Uh, you know, on that topic, and I’m just thinking that it might be possible that the company is so big and there’s so many people that, you know, based on the system that you’re talking about, you’re trying to kind of systemize everything, put everything in the same little box.

Well, now you’ve got too many different people fitting in a little box, right? So it may not be the right thing to do, but it is if the company is that big, which is probably a, a, you know, a good selling point for, you know, maybe keeping a business a, a little bit smaller. Because the smaller you are, the leaner you can be, the more maybe custom, I guess, you can be.

Does that make sense?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, and everyone’s got a different end goal, right? I- and their why behind why they’re doing what they’re doing. I mean, I’ve got clients… Uh, I’ve got one that does close to 50 million a year in revenue. Over time, he’s acquired other franchisees in the [00:22:00] system, built up this large empire. I’ve got others that say, "Hey, I’m happy with the lifestyle business where I can, you know, work remotely and, um, you know, work from the beach, and work the days I want to and not the other days," you know, different con- consulting type gigs, uh, within franchising.

Um, I’ve got others that say, "Hey, I wanna have a large team and nurture them and build a culture." Others say, "Hey, I’d rather be a one-man show." A- and so there’s something just about for everyone, and it’s so much fun to kind of pull the, um, pull the curtain back and expose people to the types of businesses.

And I’ll just rattle off a few, Tim, uh, just off the top of my head here. So this is what gets people leaning in. You know, so home and property services, it’s everything from, you know, restoration to dumpsters, to artificial turf, to pool cleaning, to cabinets. Um, you know, businesses in health and wellness like hormone replacement, recovery modalities.

Uh, you know, in the senior world, you know, in-home care, but also businesses that provide wheelchair ramps and stair lifts and r- retrofitting mobility solutions, allowing people to age in place. Um, you know, i- in the kids space, it’s [00:23:00] everything from youth soccer to teen driving schools to, you know, you’ve got pet grooming out there, um, pet boarding.

And then in the B2B services, it’s different types of consulting like cost reduction consulting or insurance adjusting or freight brokerage or really cool one that we’re working with right now, it’s a big fuel truck. It can carry 200 gallons of, uh, uh, fuel and go around and gas up fleets of vehicles to reduce the downtime that those companies have.

It’s… Some of the ones I’m invested in, I’ve got an asphalt paving and line striping business, so parking lots. I’ve got another one that provides temporary containment walls around renovation projects. So again, things when I say franchise that you would never think of, right?

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, yeah, there’s something for everybody, and when you start a business, if you get really good at creating those systems, you can franchise it. Is, is that, like, is that a thing too? Like, uh, you know, when you… I- if you have a successful business, can you turn that into a franchise?

Jon Ostenson: Very oftentimes. I mean, there are some that aren’t replicable for whatever reason, but many times it’s a path that I consider founders to [00:24:00] consider, right? It could be a good growth opportunity where you have vested interest. You know, people are putting their own money in the game, they’re gonna run the business like they own it, right?

You always want employees to run it like they own it. Um, so no, I’ve got some great partners that take companies through that process. I’m always happy to chat with any, any of them and give them some feedback and some thoughts on, you know, whether or not I think their business would make sense to franchise.

But no, it can definitely be a good path to scale, and private equity loves, loves, loves the franchise model. So, you know, when you think about an exit one day, um, it could be a great model

Tim Melanson: Okay. So there’s exiting from your franchise, and there’s also exiting from your regular business that you could turn into a franchise.

Jon Ostenson: Exactly. Exactly

Tim Melanson: cool. So let’s, uh, I mean, let’s get into that a little bit more. We can get right into your guest solo. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Jon Ostenson: Gosh, there’s so many unique business models that are coming down the chute, and I mean, we’re seeing more interest than we’ve ever seen in franchising, I think for a variety of reasons. You know, I think shows like yours, you know, it’s getting people excited about the idea, and, you know, we’re helping them connect the dots.

[00:25:00] And, you know, Tim, what’s neat about our model, it’s entirely free to work with us. You know, I’m essentially a real estate broker, but for franchises, and so we simply get referral fees on the back end. None of those are passed on to our clients, and, you know, we, we’re part of the largest group out there. We work with over 600 different franchise brands, um, uh, that are looking to expand, and, um, I just love exposing people to these.

So I’m having a lot of fun, um, love educating, love taking clients through the process. I get my validation when they come back to me and they buy additional brands or additional locations, or they refer their brother to me. Um, that’s what really gets me going and, um, excited about the franchises that I own and the ones that I’m helping other clients step into

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s, that’s awesome. So now when… How does the process look like when I, I, if I wanna work with you then?

Jon Ostenson: Yeah. Reach out to us. Come to franbridgeconsulting.com, F-R-A-N bridgeconsulting.com. Share your email address. Uh, you’ll immediately be able to download our book, Non-Food Franchising. Uh, but then my assistant will reach out to you once she gets your [00:26:00] email, and I give you a link to my calendar. So, you know, if you’d like to take the next step and jump on a call, you’ll be happy to, you know, talk through franchising with you and, and through…

talk about your background and what could be a fit. And then, uh, I’d come back to you and expose you to, you know, the top opportunities that I see in your market for you. And, um, you know, from there, you know, talk to the franchisors that you want to. We kind of support you throughout the journey and, um, you know, ultimately, if you move forward, you know, we’ll, we’ll celebrate with you.

But, you know, we’ve got all the funding resources. We have franchise attorneys that can review the agreements. Uh, we’ve got, um, kind of a one-stop shop for those interested in franchising

Tim Melanson: Wow. Is there a type of person or maybe a type of background that tends to get really good success in, in, in this?

Jon Ostenson: I think someone, you know, that has that humility, that’s willing to follow the system. You know, i- we love military veterans. They, uh, you know, they’ve been following systems. It’s all about executing, right? Um, you know, I, I love… I mean, so many… That’s one of the things that made me fall in love with the franchise model is just the diversity of backgrounds that can come together under a shared system of [00:27:00] support and, you know, fulfill their dreams to become business owners.

And, you know, I always say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, right? I ne- I get excited about this. I never wanna sugarcoat it. It still takes work. There’s a reason why the government incentivizes you in the tax code. There’s a reason why not everyone’s doing it, but franchising makes it much more doable and, um, you know, you get to work for yourself instead of someone else.

So, um, you know, I’d say those that have a willingness to work hard, that are, um, you know, halfway decent with people and willing to follow a system, that’s all it takes. And b-

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, no matter what happens, you gotta go to work . And that’s, you know, not necessarily easy for anybody. So, you know, what, what’s the difference, right? You’re gonna struggle either way you go, so why not have a little bit more, uh, freedom in the path that you wanna take, right? And then on the other hand, I mean, as you said, you know, in the franchise model, and, you know, technically even in, in entrepreneurship in general, there’s so many [00:28:00] people out there that wanna help, right?

And so there, y- you know, if you’ve got that humility and you’ve got that ability to wanna, like, listen and follow some instruction, then you can get some really great success, you know, taking your own path, right?

Jon Ostenson: And I encourage people to think about what’s right for the next season. Whatever you do next probably won’t be the only thing you ever do. If you get into a franchise, you can still start a business, you can still buy an existing business. You– But you’re also gonna get a chance maybe to buy other franchisees over time when they look to sell within that system.

You get first look at all of those, right? So that internal M&A could be another path to scale. You can come back to me, and I’ll introduce you to other franchises, right? You can always scale up with complementary or diversifying, uh, franchises. So, uh, y- you have a lot of optionality. And what I love about franchising, it allows you to get in the game.

You know, too many people are sitting on the sidelines today talking about business ownership, and maybe they’re having calls with some existing business owners. They’re consuming a lot of content. Franchising allows you to actually get in the game, start building, get that platform that gives you the [00:29:00] optionality to expand in different directions in the future

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

Jon Ostenson: Yeah, come out to our website, friendbridgeconsulting.com.

Uh, you know, immediately you’ll get a copy of our book and a downloadable copy. If you’d rather buy it on Amazon, all the proceeds go to Hope International, a great nonprofit that we support. Uh, but no, when you share your email address, again, my assistant will reach out, uh, with a link to my calendar, and, uh, would love to serve any of your, uh, listeners

Tim Melanson: Awesome. John, let’s get into music a little bit. Who is your favorite rock star or band?

Jon Ostenson: Uh, Bon Jovi

Tim Melanson: Ah, nice. Livin’ on a Prayer.

Jon Ostenson: Live and entrepreneur. That’s exactly right

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Have you ever seen them in concert?

Jon Ostenson: Have not seen them in concert, no. Um, you know, I, I probably attended a lot more sporting events than concerts over the years, but I do have an appreciation for music

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

Jon Ostenson: Hey, appreciate you having me. Thanks, Tim

Tim Melanson: No problem. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

[00:00:00]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like,

Timmy Van Vonno: Yep.

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yep

Timmy Van Vonno: to a normal person.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: That’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Your specific expertise, yeah,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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’re talking to a coach and fou- and founder of Inspired Stewardship, and what he does is he helps people to master their time, their talent, and their treasures so they can live out their calling.

So I’m really excited to be rocking out today with Scott Maderer. Hey, Scott, are you ready to rock?

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. Let’s go

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

Scott Maderer: You know, I’ve been working from home since 2017. I’ve run my own business full time since 2017. And for me, the biggest successes that I’ve had across all of those years, and, and we can get more into the history and how I got there later, but is when I have those moments that I’m working with a client, I’m working with, uh, uh, somebody, and their life clicks in a way that makes the light [00:01:00] bulbs go on, and you can see it.

It- it’s those moments … I’ve looked at … Actually, last night, I had a, a client last night, a client couple, that they’re- they’re dealing with some money situations, you know, ch- job change recently, this, that, and the other thing. They’ve got a lot going on in their life. But what we talked about and what ended up clicking was on, you know, communication, and how do you make sure that you’re on the same page?

And, and it’s one of those things where he had done one thing and, and she was kind of mad about it, but the percep- It wasn’t really the reality. In other words, you know, the reason why he did it was a good reason, and the reason why she was worried was a good reason, but neither one of them was really hearing the other.

And so even though we’re talking about money, and it was a money-related coaching moment, it was like, "Oh, wait, we were just talking past each other," you know? And- and what actually helped is it helped the marriage, it helped the communication, it helped all of that stuff. So for me, all of my [00:02:00] good moments revolve around when I get to see things go past the tactical into the things that really change people’s lives i- in a, in a good way.

And so last night was a great example of one of those moments.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Isn’t that interesting that it, it, often the problem is not the problem, right? There’s

Scott Maderer: Almost never is the problem the problem.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we have this sort of, like, masking ability of, like, going, "I don’t really wanna talk about the actual problem, so I’m gonna talk about this one instead," right?

Scott Maderer: Well, and it’s, it’s, it’s not even… It’s, it’s that, that’s absolutely part of it, but it’s also a lot of times we’re very unaware of our underlying choices that then reflect in results. You know? I- people talk about behavior y- and belief versus action, and, you know, which comes first, right? Belief or action?

And my answer to that question is always yes, because it’s a feedback loop. You know, what [00:03:00] happens is you begin to see the world a certain way, so therefore you act in a certain way, which then causes that to come back at you. You know? It, and it, it reinforces it. And that could be a positive experience, that could be a negative experience.

It’s not, this isn’t a value judgment. This isn’t a, that makes you a good person or a bad person or anything. It’s just literally how we see the world. It’s how our brain works. And when you realize that, you can’t ever see the label to the bottle that you’re in because you’re in the bottle, and the label’s on the outside.

You know? And, and this is where working with coaches and working with other people can be so valuable because, you know, I’m outside of the bottle. And so I’m out here going, "Well, the label says this," you know? And, and you’re in the bottle going, "I can’t read it." And it’s like, well yeah, of course not, ’cause you’re in there.

You’re, you’re inside your own limiting beliefs, your own biases, your own worldview, your own [00:04:00] history, your own whatever that’s created the situation that you’re in. It sometimes does take talking to somebody. It could be a good friend, it could be, you know, a spouse, it could be a coach, it could be a mentor or mastermind group, whatever.

Talking to those people that are kind of outside of the bottle, outside of the situation that can look at it and go, "Well, I can read it. This is what it says." You know? "It’s really obvious to me." You know, and you’re in the middle going, "It’s not obvious at all."

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, and, uh, I mean, that’s why you need a wingman, right? That’s the whole

Scott Maderer: Yeah, you need somebody

Tim Melanson: So now sometimes things don’t go as planned though, right? And I know that it’s… I mean, the fear of failure is what keeps so many people from doing what it is that they really wanna be doing, right?

And so I like to talk about it on this show and get it out there and go, "Hey, listen. Look, we’ve made some mistakes, and here, we’re still here. Things are still going," right? So I’m wondering, can you share with me something, like a bad don- something that didn’t go as planned, and how you recovered from that?[00:05:00]

Scott Maderer: Uh, sure. Um, i- it’s kind of one of those I’ve got a list of those, right? Um, so I, I could go back in time to where I first started the business, but I’ll let, let me, let me give you something a little bit more recent just so it’s relevant to… ‘Cause people sometimes think, "Oh, you’ve been doing this for a long time.

You must not have any problems now." And it’s like, what are you talking about? I woke up yesterday. Of course I’ve got problems. Um, so one of our, one of the things that’s changed for my wife and I recently is we relocated. So we used to live kind of outside of San To- San Antonio, out in the middle of nowhere, and now we’ve located up to, uh, Bryan-College Station, Texas area, and we’re kind of more in a big community and, you know, kind of now more in the center of things than we used to be.

We used to be, like, two hours from the closest Walmart, Starbucks or McDonald’s, and now we’re, like, 15 minutes from four of those, you know, that kind of thing. So it’s, it’s really been a big change for us personally and, and it’s created some, you know, financial change, it’s created relational [00:06:00] change. We’ve moved to a different area of the country.

You know, we left people that we knew and friends, and we’d lived there for 26 years. So even though my business is portable and I can do it anywhere I have the internet, and I’ve done it anywhere I have the internet, it still affected my business. My, my personal life and having to uproot things and change things and repack things and rebuild networks.

So for instance, you’re working from home, finding ways to socialize and connect with people outside of my home, not just through a screen, you know, is important. Well, I left some of those connections, and so I’m having to create new ones and, and rebuild it. And so it doesn’t sound like a business problem at first.

People are like, "Well, isn’t that your personal life?" It’s like, yeah, but your personal life and your business life are intimately connected. And I would say that’s true, truer when you work from home too because, you know, literally we had to… When we were looking for a house, we had to take into consideration, well, Scott works from home.

Can he work from [00:07:00] home at this house? You know? It, it, it affects all of those decisions. And so for us it was really challenging. Um, it was really hard. Uh, it- we’ve been here a little over a year, and I would say we’re just now kind of getting things rebuilt and reconnected. So for over a year it disrupted everything I was doing, not just in my business but in my, my personal life.

And, and, and again, it’s not because it was a bad thing per se, but it was definitely a bad note in that it, it, it changed the way… You know, we had a tune that was playing all in harmony, and then it’s like, oh, you gotta change the time and the tempo and, uh, whatever, right? You know, the signature of the notes, and completely uprooted, completely changed it and now we’re kind of getting back into tune, I would say finally.

But it’s taken, it’s taken a long time, and it’s taken really deliberate action and planning by my wife and I of what are we gonna do to make [00:08:00] sure that we, you know, we make new connections? What are we gonna do to make sure that the business is still stable? What are we gonna do to make sure that we can continue to do the things that we want to do and feel called to do, but also maintain, you know, throughout, throughout all of that disruption.

Uh, you know, just as simple as scheduling client calls and things can be a challenge through that kind of, through that kind of change and uproot- uprooting.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I think that this, uh, this topic is, is pretty relevant to someone who might be even considering to just start working from home, like right now, because that whole disruption, I mean, that’s a big challenge going from working a job and being pretty much told what to do to now being on your own at home with all those distractions.

And like you just said, I mean, s- you know, taking into account, you know, if you’re relocating, where your home office is gonna be. Well, m- m- some people [00:09:00] might not have the ability to even deal with that right now. They live where they live. So, you know, if they don’t have a dedicated office or something like that, what are they gonna do, right?

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm.

A- and a lot of times, uh, you know, I do talk about, especially if you’re working from home, it, it, it’s creating a dedicated space. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a home office. It’s beautiful if you can get that, and, you know, I would say I’ve been blessed with that and it really helps. But you still need to create a dedicated space.

So even if it’s literally there’s a seat at your kitchen table that you never sit in except when you’re working, you know what I mean? That’s my work seat , you know? It, it can be as simple as that to create it. But what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to create triggers for your brain that when I’m in this place with this environment, I’m working, you know?

Because you get that naturally when you go to the office. You drive into the office and it’s like, "Oh, I’m at work." You [00:10:00] don’t get that naturally when you’re working from home. And so I actually think it’s a mistake to … You know, yeah, it’s beautiful, and yes, sometimes you can work from the couch or whatever and do things, you know, in other places, and that’s fine, and I do that too.

But I still have a dedicated time and place and schedule, and I show up to work, you know, and I put on … I even literally will wear a different shirt or … Now, you know, we’re on a Zoom call. You below, I’m wearing shorts and you know, and, and, and comfy shoes. But, but, you know, I’m gonna put on a nice shirt and, uh, because I’m, I’m at work, you know?

And so it’s creating those mental triggers, uh, with space or with environment or with behavior that, that lets your brain go, "Oh, yeah, I’m at work now. This is, this is work time. This is work space. I need to be focused on that." I, I found that to be really helpful for myself, and I’ve worked with several clients making that transition over the years, and it really helps them as [00:11:00] well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. And when I started work from home, I didn’t have a whole lot of examples around me , right? It’s been quite a while now. Uh, however, if I were to look back, that would, that would’ve been something that I would definitely learn from because, I mean, I think, you know, 20 years in, okay, it’s not gonna really ruin my day if I work from the couch today

But when, when you’re, when you’re transitioning from a, from a job to a, to a business work from home, I, I think the more you can create this routine and, and this, uh, this new, you know, triggers for your brain, the easier that transition’s gonna be, right?

Scott Maderer: Yeah. It, it makes, it makes that transition easier. And, and again, it’s not a, like I said, it’s not about being, um, rigid about it where it’s like, oh, I can never work from the couch or whatever. But when I work from the couch, it’s more like, okay, I’m… It’s kinda like, uh, w- back when I worked corporate, you know, there would be days I got to work from home, [00:12:00] and they were always a little different than the days I got to work in the office.

You know, in terms of what I, my expectations were, my output was, my, you know, what, what meetings did I or not have, and that kind of thing. I kinda do the same thing. It’s like there, there’s, there’s kinds of work I can do on the back porch in the sunlight, you know, watching the chickens kinda thing, and then there’s other kinds of work that it’s like, no, that, that needs to be at the computer focused, intense, you know, at the right spot with, with the intention and the energy that it, it deserves.

So, but you don’t learn that until you do it, uh, if that makes sense. And that’s where I think the routines and the structure can help is then you kinda start to learn, oh yeah, this is work that I can, I can do in the afternoon or in the evening or do from the couch or, or whatever. That kind of, uh, less intense work for lack of a better, better word

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you know, you know that it’s work that you’re doing just on the side, right? I mean, you’re watching [00:13:00] TV, it’s a little bit distracted, but, you know, you’ve… There’s a couple things that you can just throw, like, you know, i- into whatever it is that you’re doing.

Scott Maderer: I can plow through some emails and just figure out whether I need to follow up on them tomorrow, and maybe I’m not even following up. I’m just flagging them and saying, "Yeah, I need to follow up on that one," or something. Yeah, I can do that while other stuff is going on. It’s not that big of a deal

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now speaking about other influences, um, I’m wondering, like for you, do you hire coaches in your business, or do you have masterminds, or like w- where is it

Scott Maderer: A- all of the above.

Tim Melanson: Oh, you do?

Scott Maderer: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I, I’ve been part of several masterminds over the years for different things. Uh, a- and always got benefit from ’em. E- uh, especially as a small business owner, being able to plug into groups where there’s other small business owners, especially if they’re in the same industry, but even if they’re not.

Um, if you’re working from home, same thing. Pe- there’s at least some people there that work from home, so you’ve [00:14:00] got that… I- it’s no longer, "I’m the only one doing this. I’m the weird one." You know, it’s kind of a, "Oh yeah, there’s other people that do this too. This isn’t as weird as everyone makes it out to be."

And I, you know, after COVID, I think working from home became a little less weird, but it’s still not that common, you know? And even running your own business and being an entrepreneur, you know, i- it’s sexy, and everyone likes to talk about it, but at the same time, there’s really not that many people doing it.

And so I’m part of a group called Coach Connections. We’re all financial coaches. We all work together. Uh, through that I’ve got masterminds, I’ve got, um, uh, i- individual coaches. I’ve hired individual coaches over the years. Uh, when I got started podcasting, as an example, I hired a podcast coach ’cause I’m going, "You know, I kinda know what a podcast is and how to do it, but why should I go beat my head against the wall for a year and a half not doing it well when I can hire somebody that’s great at it who can get me up to speed in a couple of months?"

You know, that kind of thing. So I’ve hired both for [00:15:00] specific situations like that, and then I’ve plugged into, you know, just general masterminds and coaches that help with business or particular challenges that I’m having, uh, over the years as well.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. So now, I… And now, when we spoke a little bit about this before the show even started, uh, but there’s a sort of a, a weird situation where I think some people when they’re thinking about a, a coach or when they’re thinking about somebody in that position, it’s like they’ve got their stuff all together and they’re perfect at what they do, and that’s why I’m hiring them, ’cause they’re the expert.

But in reality, everybody’s just people, and everybody has their strengths and their weaknesses. And like y- I like what you’d mentioned earlier, when you hire a coach, you’re like, "Okay, well, I’m hiring them for this specific thing because that’s their gift." But you wouldn’t necessarily go get other advice that they…

Like, i- it’s impossible for them to know everything, right?

Scott Maderer: Right, no. A- and, and really when you hire a coach, the goal, in [00:16:00] my opinion at least, a- and I’ll talk a little bit about the difference between coaching and consulting. You know, coaching has kind of become sexy where everyone wants to call themselves a coach even if they’re not actually coaching.

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Scott Maderer: ‘Cause to me coaching, pure coaching in its purest form, and, and again, don’t hear this as a value statement.

I’m not saying this is better or worse. Everything has its value. But it’s, it’s when I’m coming in from outside of the situation and my job is to probe and to challenge and to ask questions to help raise the awareness of you, okay? In, in other words, I’m not there to provide a solution. I’m there to ask the right questions.

I’m there to challenge your thinking. I’m there … Now, all the way at the other end of this kind of continuum is consulting. Also very valuable in certain situations. This is when I have a specific problem and you have a [00:17:00] specific solution, and if I implement your specific solution, it will solve my specific problem Give you an example.

H- hiring someone to help me with Facebook ads, right? If I need somebody to help me with Facebook ads, I don’t want a coach. I don’t want someone to come in and go, "Well, Tim, what do you think about Fa-…" I want someone to tell me how to run the stupid ad , you know? It’s like… A- and again, that’s not because coaching’s bad or consulting’s bad or coach- coaching’s good and consulting’s good.

You know, it’s not the good or bad. It’s w- what am I trying to solve? But when it’s talking about things like when I was talking about whether I wanted to go into business for myself, when it’s talking about my career, when it’s talking about my family, when it’s talking about decisions I make around finances or my spiritual walk or those sorts of…

Those are very personal. I really don’t want Tim coming in and saying, "Well, Scott, here’s what you should do." You know? I, I, that’s not gonna be helpful to me. It doesn’t solve my problem. I need someone that can stand [00:18:00] beside me and go, "Okay, let’s, let’s think this through. What’s going on?" Now, truth is, usually, and this is definitely true for me, when I’m working with people with time or finances, there’s a little, there’s times that I’m consulting, and then there’s times that I’m taking that hat off and I’m putting on a coach hat, you know?

‘Cause usually I gotta put the coach hat on to actually get into diagnosis and figuring out what’s going on. But then I may get to a point where it’s like, "Ah, now I understand. You know what, Tim? I’ve got a tool that you can use and a simple… You know, this will help solve that problem. Now let’s implement that tool or that habit or that behavior or that way of thinking or that whatever it is."

But I’ve gotta wear the coaching hat long enough to find the right tool. If I come in as a coach and go, "I’ve got the one system that works for everybody," run, okay? That don’t, that doesn’t work , you know? And again, that doesn’t mean the coach is bad. It just means that’s really consulting. That’s no longer coaching.

And, and it could be valuable as long as you have the right [00:19:00] problem and that’s the right solution. But if, if not, it, it’s gonna frustrate you more than it’s gonna help you. A- and unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of coaches… I, like I said, I think since coaching’s kind of become sexy, a lot of people call themselves a coach, and what they’re really doing is consulting or advising or i- mentoring or, you know.

And again, all of these are good, all of these are valuable, but they’re different things , you know? And don’t hire an advisor if you want a coach. By the same token, don’t hire a coach if you want an advisor. You know, that, that’s two different behaviors.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s, uh, maybe just the way to, to figure this out is figure out what you want and then, and then you can decide whether it’s a, yeah, whether it’s a consultant or a coach they want. Uh, but you mentioned finances a few minutes ago, and I’d like to get into that a little bit because running a business, especially in the very beginning, and I, I mean, all businesses are different.

Some have inventory, some don’t have inventory, some are service, some… You know, but, but in the, in the end, I mean, they all have to make money, right? [00:20:00] And I find that, that, you know, making sure that the, the cash flow is positive tends to be a, a really difficult thing that we’re not necessarily taught in our, in our, you know, high school classes or whatever it happens to be.

So I’m wondering, you know, do you have any, any insight on that, on how we can make sure that, that we’re, we’re always in the, in the positive?

Scott Maderer: You know, a lot of it is setting up the, again, we’re back to habits and systems, um, you know, the habits into the systems. So what I see happen a lot that burns people is two things. One is they treat revenue the same as profit, and I’ll define that in a second. And two is when they treat business and personable, personal as kind of…

They, they don’t separate them. And, and I don’t just mean a physical separation, I mean a mental separation, you know? That, that my business is my business and my home life is my home life And I don’t treat the business like a piggy bank, uh, but I [00:21:00] also don’t treat it like it’s just part of my normal routine.

You know, it, you separate them. Um, so with profit and revenue, what I’ve seen happen a lot of times, especially when we first start out, you get that first check, you know, from somebody. They, they paid you, I don’t know, $1,000, right, for whatever you did. You know, you’re a freelancer, you’re doing X, Y, Z, I don’t care.

You get that $1,000 check and you’re like, "I made $1,000." No you didn’t, you know? Because your business has expenses, and there’s stuff that your business has to pay for before that money can come home. I mean, odds are really good there’s something, you know? If nothing else, there’s this little thing called taxes, you know?

And, and guess what? You know, if you work in the US, Uncle Sam wants their cut, you know? And you… But they’re not gonna come for it for months, so it’s real easy to be like, "Oh, I can just, I’ll deal with that later." And, or, "The, the electric bill’s not due till later. I’ll deal with that later." And so you [00:22:00] treat revenue, which is that $1,000, the same as profit, which is what’s left after expenses, right?

That’s kind of the definition of profit. And so when you do that, you’re setting yourself up for failure from the very beginning.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Scott Maderer: And usually it leads to the second problem, which is you start treating your personal, and you may even have it all in one account, and sometimes your business pays a bill that maybe was really a personal bill, or sometimes you pay a bill for the business out of your personal account, and you just start, everything starts blending together until it’s like there’s no separation mentally, emotionally, financially between the two.

And that, again, always leads you towards problems, because you need to treat the business as its own business and, you know, I put on my business hat and I’m looking at my business finances. And guess what? That, that line item there that’s money going home to me, [00:23:00] that’s, I’m paying somebody, you know? I’m paying a 1099 or I’m paying an employee or I’m paying whatever, depending on how it’s set up, but I’m paying somebody.

And yes, it happens to be you, but as the business owner, you have to look at it just like that’s an employee or just a- another expense, and it just happens to be the money going home to your, your personal account. And then when you get on the personal side, you have to be able to look at that and go, "Okay, this is the money coming in and this is what I’ve got to spend, and what am I gonna do," you know, on my personal side, and not just immediately go, "Oh, the business can pay for it."

Uh, and I’ve seen so many people do that, and it always ends up in a bad place.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I’ve, uh, so I- I’ve gotten into tax trouble actually, really serious problems. And it- it’s- it’s pretty much exactly what you just said. Like, it’s like you get this big paycheck, and you’re like, it- it feels like a paycheck like when you were working, like, for a job. Only the difference is that you probably already know that the company takes money [00:24:00] off of that for you to put into taxes.

Y- they don’t do that when you get a check from a client.

Scott Maderer: you still end up having to write a check, you know? That’s the other thing, you

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So, so it’s just, it’s just one of those things. But then the other thing that I, I have found, and, you know, m- maybe you’ve had a similar experience. So I’ve been self-employed for almost the entire time. It’s only since the beginning of 2025 that I actually incorporated my business and, and actually created an actual business business, and it’s so much cleaner, so much cleaner.

This whole separation between business and, and personal. Uh, but when you’re self-employed, everything’s all intermingling all the time, and including your taxes,

Scott Maderer: deliberate to separate it. Yeah. It, it’s… So if you’re a sole proprietorship, so there’s two– there’s business organization from a tax perspective, and then there’s business organization from a business licensing or structure perspective, [00:25:00] you know? And, and what’s interesting is we use exactly the same names, but they’re not the same.

So, you know, it, which is even more confusing for those of us that are s- coming into it. If you’re not a CPA, you don’t know all of this stuff. And again, I’m back to this is one of those times where a lot of times it’s good to hire somebody or, or work with somebody that knows. Or again, like my job sometimes as a coach is to be the quarterback and go, "Okay, I can’t solve that because I’m not a tax expert, but we need a tax expert for that.

Let’s go find one. Here’s the questions we need to ask. Here’s what you need to look for," that kind of thing. Because guess what? Not every CPA knows how to deal with home- work from home and small businesses. Um, and when you talk about incorporation… Uh, so are you a subchapter S?

Tim Melanson: Uh, I’m in Canada, so so we have all

Scott Maderer: okay.

Never mind. Different name. Uh, you know, same concept, but different name, yeah. Um, but yeah, in, in the US, um, we have LLCs, we have sole proprietorships LLCs, partnership LLCs, and then we have subchapter [00:26:00] Ses, which are technically still LLCs, and then we have C corps, right? But what it boils down to, that’s all just gobbledygook and, and it doesn’t matter.

You don’t need to know what all of that stuff is. The point is there comes a time where both organizational structure-wise, you may need to look at a different structure, and tax-wise, you may need a different structure. What I will say is I have– if you don’t have a good CPA, I have seen CPAs who encourage people to do it when it actually ends up being more expensive for them to do it that way, ’cause they can easily make the mistake that, oh, it, you know, we just need to…

‘Cause it makes their job easier. You know what I mean? And, and, and it’s like, so from their point of view, it’s like, "Hey, this’ll make my job easier. Let’s do it." And yet then it costs the, the, the person. So I will say it is one of those things where you do have to really understand and ask questions and work with people that know what’s going on and are good at what they [00:27:00] do and that you can trust.

And, you know, that again gets back to that, um, one of those times where I think it’s good if you have other business owners around you and other support staff or support people who can go, "Hey, let’s…" Don’t just make that as a knee-jerk decision. Let’s just put it that way. Spend some time and some energy on it.

Tim Melanson: No, yeah, exactly. But, but I mean, the, the bottom line I think is your initial point, which is do your best, like even if it’s in different spreadsheets or email accounts to, to have your, your personal

Scott Maderer: you have to create some separation. Yeah, absolutely. Um, mentally if nothing else

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. So it doesn’t necessarily ne- mean that you have to go incorporate, ’cause as you mentioned, there, there are some nuances with that, both in Canada and in, in the States, where you really should talk to somebody about that.

I know I did, right? And, and it, it took me… I mean, w- when I was even thinking about incorporating, it was, oh, it’s gotta be at least [00:28:00] six or seven or eight years between the time when I start, first started learning about it to when I actually did it. So I, I mean, it, it, it was just my business needed to be into a certain po- portion, or, um, I mean, um, uh, to get to a certain place before I was ready to move that.

And we were not gonna get

Scott Maderer: Yeah, sometimes there’s certain income y- limits before it makes sense. There’s all sorts of particulars, so that’s why, yeah, like you, I’m like, I’m not an expert of that. I’m not an expert. I’ve worked with clients in over 20 countries. There is no way I know this in 20 countries, you know? It’s like, I can’t,

Tim Melanson: But in all 20 countries, having a good clean separation between the two is always a good

Scott Maderer: in all 20 countries, the separation is the key. Absolutely

Tim Melanson: when you get to the point where it is time to, uh, to incorporate it, if, if you ever do, I mean, you might, might not, well, then having that separation’s gonna make it so much easier too.

Like, all of a sudden, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a simple [00:29:00] transition. At this point, you’ve already got your personal on your personal and your business on your business, right?

Scott Maderer: Not to mention, it, you know, it, it, just to be 100% transparent, it helps you as the business owner 100%, but what I will also say, not to be… It, it helps everyone around you. Um, whether that’s either, you know, in an estate situation, whether that’s, uh, helping your CPA, you know, or somebody like that, whether it’s helping…

You know, what happens if you get sick? You know, and that kind of th- It’s all of those things that we don’t like to think about, but especially, again, when you work for yourself, you need to think about all of that stuff, you know? Because it could happen. Um, you know, and, and it’s, yeah, it makes everything cleaner for, for you and for everybody around you

Tim Melanson: Well, and I, I, I know it ’cause I, I thought about that at one point, like what happens… Oh, let’s just say that you, like you say, you get sick or you, you get hurt or something like that, and now all of a sudden someone [00:30:00] m- running your business for you or helping you with your business is now going to be all in, up in your personal stuff because it’s all together, right?

Now they’re seeing your credit card statement, which has literally everything that you’ve bought personally, when if you just had two different credit cards, I mean, it doesn’t have to be a, a business credit card. It can be two different personal credit cards. One’s used for business, one’s used for personal.

That would create that separation so that if someone was helping you, they wouldn’t necessarily need to see what you bought personally anymore, right? Yeah.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. It, it, it could just be as … Yeah, so there’s, there’s, it, there’s so much … And again, to your point, there’s a lot of particulars, but the concept of … It really goes back to what I was saying at the beginning about you need a separate space that, you know, when I sit down at this space, this is my business.

It, it really comes back to that mental outlook of this is my business and I’m treating it like a business, and then when I go over here, this is my personal life and I’m treating it like my [00:31:00] personal life. You know? It’s that mental separation, that financial separation, separation in time, separation in, in what you do.

And again, the beauty is you can have a lot of flexibility and it can look very different than everybody else

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Scott Maderer: because you’re creating it and you’re designing it. And that’s … Uh, the other piece I would put is be very intentional about how you design that and create that because I’ve seen people create a business that they hate because they just weren’t intentional about it and, and didn’t set it up.

You know, like I said, from day one I set my business up with the intent of I can do this from anywhere because that was important for me. That is a value for me. I want to be able to pick my business up … Because I knew even back then I may need to move up there one day and be a little closer to my mom to help take care of her as she’s getting older.

Uh, so I want a business that I could just pick up and go up there and be close to mom if I need to, you know, that kind of thing. That, those were values of mine and my wife, so we s- [00:32:00] we designed it from the very beginning.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I, I love that. Like, that, that’s the kind of thing that I, I think is really, uh, the big advantage of running your own business, of being your own boss and, and doing this, is that you have… It’s not that you’re not… I mean, you’re probably working more, right? I mean, we joke about that all the time, about you’re probably working more than you would as a, as a, an employee.

But having that flexibility and that ability to just design what it is you want, you’re more proactive in the way that you build your life rather than reactive based on what somebody else says they need from you. Right now, it’s more or less, you know, if, if you don’t do what you want, then someone else is gonna try to get you to do what they want, right?

Because you’re not intentional about your life, right?

Scott Maderer: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and it, it, it’s this idea of, you know, and yes, actually, when you’re a W-2 employee, you have some things that you can do to help control your life and your input [00:33:00] and all of that. But to a very large extent, I like to tell people that when you’re a W-2 employee, you’re self-employed with one client,

Tim Melanson: Yes. Yep.

Scott Maderer: the company you work for,

Tim Melanson: Which is a good way to think about it

Scott Maderer: And if you think about it that way, it really does change the way you look at it because it’s kind of like, "Oh, wait a minute," you know? Because at the end of the day, you want a promotion, there’s things you need to do. You know, you want to get a raise, there’s things you need to do. You, you need to be a self-starter at some level, even in a company situation, if you want to change the situation,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Scott Maderer: okay?

And where now I’m self-employed with multiple clients, and in some ways that’s safer than being self-employed with one client. In other ways, it’s more challenging, you know? So it’s not really one is easy or one is good or one is bad, but for some of us, being self-employed gives us the ability to design a life and work from home and, [00:34:00] you know, spend time with our family or not…

You know, travel when we want to or do all sorts of things that would be much more difficult to do in a W-2 kind of work for somebody else kind of employee-employer situation. That being said, again, the key in both of those is creating a life you want is the intentionality piece. Because I, I think if you’re a passive WT employee, it stinks if, if…

You know, I’m using W-2 ’cause that’s the US term, but you, you get my point. You know, if you’re, if you’re working for somebody else and you’re passive about it, that’s much worse than when you’re working for someone else and you’re actively involved in your own career and growth. And then I think the same thing’s true for us as, as work from home folks or business owners, um, ’cause yeah, so often I’ve seen folks basically create a job instead of a business.

And it’s like, well, uh, that’s easy. I mean, I can create a job for [00:35:00] myself pretty easy, uh, and if I, if, if I don’t, my wife will, right? That’s the honey-do list, you know? But it’s, it’s much more difficult to intentionally create something that actually gives you more of the things that you want in life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. So let’s get into your guest solo a little bit. Tell me what’s exciting in your business

Scott Maderer: Oh, boy. Um, I’ve started a lot of kind of new things. So I work as a one-on-one coach with a lot of folks. Like I mentioned earlier, I worked with over 1,000 clients in 20 countries. I do work international. I, and I love that work, but I’ve started doing more speaking and more actual kind of personal appearance sort of things.

I had a book published a couple of years ago called Inspired Living. I’ve been talking on that topic, uh, as well as disc and, and time and money. Uh, those are kind of the big buckets that I tend to talk on. So I’ve been doing a lot more speaking and a lot more training and kind of [00:36:00] workshops, going in and doing, um, employee wellness, uh, where I go into a small business that maybe has five, seven, 10 employees and do work with all of the employees.

And the business owner, you know, wants that because it’s an employee benefit. Plus, honestly, if your employees are better with money, they work better, um, because, you know, they’re not worried about Visa calling them. They’re, they’re actually focused on the job. So I, I’ve been going in and doing a lot more of that.

Um, so those are all things that are kind of exciting for me right now. Obviously, I always… My, my bread and butter and the thing I love more than anything else is the one-on-one coaching, working with folks to, to… When they basically find themselves saying, "I make too much money to feel this broke," or,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Scott Maderer: "I’ve got all this time, but I’m busy.

I’m not actually doing the things that matter to me. I’m just busy doing the stuff that I have to do," those are the language triggers that usually tell me somebody could work with me as a coach, and we can get [00:37:00] that straightened out and, and get you feeling… It’s not necessarily that you’re making more money, but you’ll feel richer.

And it’s not necessarily that you have more time, but you’ll feel like you have the time to spend on the, the things that actually matter because you’re making different decisions. That, that’s always the, the most exciting thing for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And isn’t that so impactful? Uh, ’cause bec- I, I think a lot of people sort of think that the answer is something else. It’s, it’s like, uh, it’s somebody else’s problem, or it’s, I, if I just get a, this different job, everything would be good. Or if I had… Right? When,

Scott Maderer: Or if I could just download the right app, it would solve all my problems.

Tim Melanson: oftentimes, yeah, it’s just an accumulation of really small little decisions that you’re making in your own life that are accumulating up to big things that now you feel stuck, right?

And, and I, I love that you’re able to kinda like dig into that a little bit, right?

Scott Maderer: Yeah, yeah. Either way, um, y- where you’re at today is based on thousands and thousands and [00:38:00] thousands of decisions you’ve made over however long you’re alive, you know? Um, if, if you’re 40, 40 years. You know, if you’re, if you’re 90, 90 years. Whatever it is. And that also, though, the beauty of that is that means it’s also something that can change.

At any time you can begin to make different decisions. And will it fix everything overnight? Nope. Um, I ordered a magic wand. Unfortunately, it was from Temu, and it didn’t work, you know? It, it, it’s… It, I don’t have a magic wand, neither does anyone else, so it’s not gonna fix it overnight, but that’s not the point.

It will end up in a different place if you start making those different decisions and different actions and different behaviors and different habits and different… All of those things compound, and so it either compounds positively or it compounds negatively. It, it’s, it’s really like compound interest, right?

Compound interest as payments on a credit card, you know, interest payments, works against you. Compound interest when you’ve got an investment and it’s compounding in that way, it works for you. They’re [00:39:00] both compound interest, you know? It’s just which one is for you and which one’s against you. And, and, and against there meaning, you know, it’s gonna go backwards for you.

You, you owe more money with interest, or you earn more money with interest. So it’s, it’s the same kind of thing with behavior. It’s compound behavior. Behavior that’s intentional and goes in the right direction compounds over time. Behavior that’s unintentional or goes in the wrong direction compounds over time.

That’s all, that’s all we work on. So I talk about time, talent, and treasures, but my joke is people usually come to me ’cause they have, they think they have a time problem or they have a money problem. All we ever really work on is talent. Because you don’t manage time, you don’t manage money. What you manage is yourself, and how you manage yourself shows up in your time and money, and that’s the result, not the cause.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s really good. Yeah. And I mean, uh, I love that whole residual portion because I think a lot of people sort of think that, okay, today’s gonna be different, and they wake [00:40:00] up and they go, "I’m gonna make all these different decisions." And then things keep happening, but the things that are happening are not the result of today you making the change.

They’re a result of what you did yesterday, and it’s gonna sa- take some time before… Today’s change is only gonna have an impact in a few days now, only if you keep doing it, right? And, uh, people get discouraged ’cause they’re like, "Oh, this just doesn’t work. You know? Might as well not even

Scott Maderer: it’s, you know, health, the health realm is always an easy one for people to understand, you know? It’s like, it’s like dieting, right? You know, if you, if you want a beach body in June, you don’t change the way you’re eating on June 1st, you know? It, it’s not gonna work, um, because you’ve gotta… It, it’s gotta compound over time.

You’ve gotta change things about your exercise or your, your eat, your nutrition, or both, um, you know, those sorts of things to change what it looks like in June, and you, you don’t start in June. You start way before. [00:41:00] The same thing happens in our, our business life, our, our relationships, our, our spiritual walk.

I don’t care what part of your life you want to put it in, your career. Whatever it is, it’s the same formula. It, it’s just, it’s just kind of a different lens through which to look at it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So how do we find out more about you then?

Scott Maderer: So I actually put together a page, uh, just for your podcast listeners. If you go over to my website, which is inspiredstewardship.com, and then just put in /workfromhomerockstar. No spaces or anything, just make it all one word. I know that’ll look weird, but it’s easier, uh, on the internet machine. So if you go to, uh, inspiredstewardship.com/workfromhomerockstar, what you’ll find there is I put together some free resources and free exercises around time and money.

So if that’s just an area you’ve been struggling with and you wanna check something out, uh, it, it is geared kind of towards both personal and business. And then as well, there’s information about my book I mentioned, [00:42:00] Inspired Living, and I have a podcast myself called Inspired Stewardship that’s linked on there as well.

And if you’d like to jump on a quick call, that link is there as well. So all of the resources in one place, so it’d be easy to find at inspiredstewardship.com/workfromhomerockstar

Tim Melanson: All right, love it. That’s awesome. Thank you so much. Okay, one more question. This one might be the hardest one though. So we’re gonna talk about music. Who is your favorite rock star or band?

Scott Maderer: Favorite band is probably Queen. Um, uh, that’s, uh, that, that’s definitely one that I could listen to. Aerosmith’s probably a close second, um, in part because my wife and I, that was like, I took her to an Aerosmith concert in, uh, Austin as our, it, it was our very first date. It, it technically wasn’t even a date, right?

You know, we were just going as friends, one of those things. Um, and obviously it, apparently it worked out. By the way, she had no idea who Aerosmith was I [00:43:00] think at the time, uh, ’cause she grew up on a different kind of music. So it was interesting. But, uh, yeah, so Queen and, and Aerosmith are probably my first and my second

Tim Melanson: Oh, bring a girl to a concert. You know, classic, classic. Always works, right?

Scott Maderer: Yeah, well, we kept moving up the hill ’cause, uh, let- let’s just say there was a, it was an outdoor venue and th- there were rather large clouds of smoke, let’s just put it that way. So we just kept moving up the hill. Uh, and then when it was time to leave at the night, you know, we, we basically were like, "We’re just gonna hang out on the truck for a while and, uh, let everybody else leave ’cause I, I have a feeling there might be some traffic accidents."

So,

Tim Melanson: it’s funny. It-

Scott Maderer: but it was … So we ended up spending a, a good amount of time together, so it was, it was, it was pleasant all around

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

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. Thank you for having me

Tim Melanson: Awesome. 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 Navigating Success: Mastering Time, Talent, and Treasures

[00:00:00]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Max Emma: Mm-hmm. Absolutely

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, where,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Max Emma: Oh, sure. Yes

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

Do you, do you have people that you hire?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Go help.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: they’re

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow.

We must have taken some extra time in,

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

play hard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Well

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: That’s true

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

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

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

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

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah, absolutely

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wow

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

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

Patrick van der Burght: Yeah. Yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yep

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

Tim Melanson: Oh gosh

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Uh, probably like a phone call

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Is the last for sure.

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

Tim Melanson: Email, yeah.

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wow

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: seconds, yeah

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

Tim Melanson: Okay.

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

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

Patrick van der Burght: through those quickly?

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

Tim Melanson: Wow

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

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

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

Tim Melanson: Agree

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

Tim Melanson: I’m so good.

Patrick van der Burght: are…

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

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

Tim Melanson: Wow

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

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow, that’s fascinating

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, people,

Patrick van der Burght: So those are the, the

Tim Melanson: how people think, eh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:00:00]

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m very excited for today’s guest. We have the owner and founder of Avium, and what he does is he helps to build personal brands to distinguish you from everyone else, and to open doors to many opportunities such as jobs and new clients, speaking engagements, et cetera.

So excited to be rocking out today with Benas Leonavicius. Did I get that right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s very good.

Tim Melanson: Perfect. Right on. So are you ready to rock?

Benas Leonavicius: Yes. Yes

Tim Melanson: We always start off here on a good

note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, I suppose my story of success is the one of, um, uh, uh, being very resilient on freelancing. So, uh, I started freelancing when I was sort of, you know, in university. Started doing that for pocket money. Uh, never really thought it’s something serious, [00:01:00] but then eventually decided to go full time and, uh, really stuck with it for a very long time.

I believe a lot of people sort of drop things, but even though I was earning kind of average income for many, many years while being a freelancer, always wanted to find opportunities to improve, and it did take me a, a long while. You know, I’ve been doing freelancing for over 10 years now. But in the last, like, three to four years, that is when things started shifting and I kind of unlocked a new growth path, which then eventually led me to creating the agency and now sort of growing beyond just being, uh, a solopreneur

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons why I’m doing this podcast in the first ti- in the first place is to inspire people to actually do this, to start for, for themselves, right? And I think that, um, a lot of people think that businesses have to always grow, and they always have to end up being, you know, billion-dollar businesses or whatever it is.

But on the other [00:02:00] hand, it doesn’t have to, right? I mean, you can just work a job a- as your own business and just make ends meet for however long you want. And funny thing is that eventually, like you say, things tend to kind of progress, but they don’t have to, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that, that was my personal choice to do that. I could’ve, I, I could’ve easily just went ahead with freelancing for, for many, many years. I now have, you know, established systems. I know how to find clients. So in e- in, in essence, I’m just, you know, a, a, a one-person team that can actually indefinitely sustain myself.

So, you know, going forward is, is, it’s a personal choice. But it doesn’t have to be. You know, I think, uh, uh, it’s always good to have a choice, and in this case, you can build, you know, your own, uh, sort of way of working without the need of, uh, to work for, for anyone else

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. And I, I think that, uh, what you, um, what you notice, I, I think for most, uh, [00:03:00] well, probably for everybody is that you just get better at stuff. You get more efficient, right? You start to, like, do things better because it just makes sense to do that. You start to learn things. And so, uh, at some point, like you say, maybe you unlock this new level and next thing you know your business goes flying.

But then on the other hand, maybe you just get better at what you do and you spend less time doing it, and you have a little bit more time freedom, right? I mean, it’s, there, there, there are just different paths that you can take in business. But after a while you are going to get better at it, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah, exact. And I feel that if you’re doing something on your own, your own project, your own business, your own freelancing opportunity, uh, at least for me, and it seems that it, uh, uh, for, for other people that I talk to, is that, uh, when you’re on your own, it kind of forces you to, uh, learn more and develop yourself compared to if you are working at a company.

At least I’ve seen a lot of examples where c- you can stagnate very easily and still [00:04:00] receive income and still sort of work at that job. Whilst when you’re a freelancer, you’re, you’re kind of forced to develop and, and learn more at least a little bit to basically keep up with all of the new trends and all of the new demands that clients have.

So in that sense of, uh, uh, you know, if you look at it from that perspective, it feels that, you know, this is an advantage, for example, for being a freelancer because you are forced to, uh, to, to kind of, uh, learn and develop yourself, which then, you know, essentially makes you a better expert at the end of the day

Tim Melanson: No, yeah. Yeah, totally. I g- I agree. I mean, if you’re working in a company, one of two things would happen. Either they would push the new thing onto you and say, “You need to learn this,” and w- you know, “We’re gonna send you away for training to do whatever it is that’s coming down the pipe,” right? They would push you to do that, or they’d just push you out of the company, and y- you know, they’d, uh, hire somebody else.

So, you know, when you’re working for yourself, I mean, y- you, you’re gonna figure this out because all of a sudden your revenue’s gonna be dropping, and you’re gonna [00:05:00] be like, “What’s going on?” And, you know, you’ll, you’ll be forced, like you say, to go and figure out why that’s happening, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, and I feel that builds, like, more resilience and independence, like, you know, that you are responsible for your own actions, you know? Instead of somebody forcing you to go and learn, you are the one researching, looking up, learning. And, uh, I think at, at, after some years, it builds you up as a person.

It, it, you know, you, you are now the person who actually enjoys learning, who goes out and do, does that stuff instead of being a passive observer. So, I, I do, I do wanna be more active on things that I do

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Agree. So now over the last decade or more, right? You know, sometimes things don’t go as planned, right? There are some bad notes that people hit, and it, I mean, that’s really a lot of the fear of why people don’t start in the first place. They’re just worried that they’re gonna fail, right? And I mean, the bottom line is that we all make mistakes, and it just is what it is, and we can [00:06:00] always recover.

And I’m wondering, can you share with me, you know, something, something big that happened along that journey that you recovered from and, and, and how that worked out for you?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Uh, well, one of the things I, I wanna say is that I always for some reason didn’t view failure as failure. I view f- I viewed failure as a, as a project. So we create… You know, I go on Google Drive, I create a, a, a, a project named whatever project that is, and if that project ends, well, I g- I’ll go on the next one.

So, you know, if you view it in that perspective, then it’s a lot easier to go and try a bunch of things and see sort of what works, what doesn’t work. I mean, I, over the years I, you know, besides freelancing, I tried a lot of different things from writing books, creating videos, working on, uh, uh, other marketing a- areas, creating your- my own e-commerce shop.

So, I mean, none of these things are, exist now because, you know, obviously I haven’t sort of, uh, uh, uh, um, haven’t done them to the f- their fullest, uh, uh, [00:07:00] potential. But something else clicked for me, like freel- freelancing and stuff like that. But probably one of the Uh, biggest failures would be, uh, or at least the most impactful for me was when I was fired from a marketing agency.

So, uh, after university, I, uh, I, um, I was still sort of freelancing, but it was, you know, like pocket money. I wasn’t taking it full time. It was something, uh, that I had on the side. And then I knew that I, I kind of need to, um, you know, find a job and I wanna get some experience from working somewhere before I do my own thing.

That was sort of my, the way that I thought, uh, things need to go. And I got a job at a marketing agency, uh, as a manager without any managerial experience. I have no idea how I oversold myself or how people overestimated me. I think it was kind of, uh, on both of us here. But, uh, uh, I was there for only two months.

There were also two other girls that were also hired at the same [00:08:00] time as me, and, uh, they did their job by the book. Everything was sort of went as, as company expected. And I was the, the young one trying to improve everything, change everything, go out of my way, do a lot more. And apparently that was not expected.

That was actually considered very intrusive, you know? And, uh, they were like, “Nah, nah, you know, we, we don’t need somebody that basically breaks the way we do things here. We wanna go and do everything by the book slowly, casually, and keep things simple.” And so they fired me. And I remember I was very angry at that time, uh, at, at nine to five jobs in general.

It’s like, why? I’m, I’m trying my best here to make things better, and what I get for is being fired? Um, I– at that time, that… the, it felt like the world kind of has ended for me. I don’t know. It, it really, really stuck deeply with me, uh, whenever, uh, I was let go. I mean, eventually that, uh, [00:09:00] looking back now, it a- it was actually one of the best decisions that, that…

one of the best things that happened to me. But, uh, you know, it didn’t feel that way back then

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I got my hand slapped for trying to make things better at one point too when I was in the corporate world, and that, it is interesting how that works. But you know what? I’m pretty sure that’s like the calling card of an entrepreneur, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. It seems like, uh, I mean, I didn’t… I mean, I was reading a lot of biographies and stuff like that. I, I hear these stories. Whenever that happens to you, never think that it’s, it’s something that, uh, it, th- this is gonna be your story. But then looking back, damn, it’s, it’s the same old tale, you know?

Tim Melanson: You, you try to change things in a corporate world and they don’t like that, and so you start your own thing, right? That’s the way it

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Tim Melanson: Well, that’s awesome. So now let’s talk a little bit about The Jam Room, ’cause I mean, you’ve been working from home for a long time and I’m wondering how do you have your home office structured?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah. So the thing is I, [00:10:00] uh, um, I only have my home office for how many years now? Like maybe four or five. So half of that time, you know, working from home meant working from university sort of, uh, uh, uh, university dorms and working from cafes and, and didn’t even have money at that time to spend on a proper like, uh, co-working setup and stuff like that.

So it was very messy. But, uh, kind of somehow made it work. But eventually I, I always knew that I wanted a proper home, uh, setup and, uh, uh, when– once we bought this place that, that, that we live now with my wife, I wanted to basically make the home setup to feel as best as it possibly can. I kind of… I’m a kind of person that really cares about how things look, the tidiness, the organization.

I mean, you can probably see by the, the way kind of the, the background looks and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s, it’s important to me to create an atmosph- atmosphere where I kind of feel good, [00:11:00] uh, uh, and, and I can sort of be much more productive this way. So a lot of attention to details. I mean, having some lights, you know, for podcast, having kind of microphones set up, having monitors and standing desks and then sort of there is this couch set up here as well for, for chilling.

So, um, just designed a place where I could feel, uh, uh, I could feel very well and, and, and that I think brings out the best of me in terms of productivity

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now I, I, I’m the same way. I worked from kitchen table for a long time before I got to a situation where I could, you know, have a, a space for my actual office. And I’m wondering, like, coming… ‘Cause we all make it work. I mean, w- well, we’re gonna make it work no matter what, right? But what do you think was different now that you have an actual office?

Like, how do you feel like that has changed the way that you work?

Benas Leonavicius: Mm, one of the things that, uh, um, [00:12:00] one of the things that for sure it made, uh, things better is that now since I have everything set up as I want to, it feels that I’m– I can jump into things straight away. So before, you need to go to a coffee, you need to open the laptop, you need to open all of the tabs, you need to connect things, you need to sh- you know, if you’re g- on a Zoom call with a client, then you need to check if everything is right.

So I think there’s just a lot of these minor things that we don’t think about that we need to do just to get started on the work. Now, l- right now, everything is here. Like, I come in, I unlock the laptop, and I can jump in straight into work, which for me allowed me to be much more fluid on when I can jump in, for example, for a quick 10 minutes.

Like, before I go to bed, I can actually come up to m- my table. It’s, it’s a standing desk. I actually even stand. I can answer quick emails. I can do some quick things. I can check some things. And I think [00:13:00] that allowed me to be more organized and productive in that sense, where I have these little moments of, uh, productiveness that is kind of outside of working hours per se, but it allows me to just be on top of things without me feeling that I’m– that I need to go somewhere, open the laptop, uh, figure things out.

I mean, having, for example, bigger screen attached to my laptop allows me to have several different things all, all at the same time. If I’m working on my laptop, I need to be focused on one thing, so it’s very difficult to switch between. You don’t feel productive. You might go on LinkedIn or social media, and it’s, it’s, uh, uh…

I, I think this way, uh, uh, my work is way more structured

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, and, and I mean,

it’s almost like you had to commute to your to

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, in a sense, in a sense, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which

feels very, very weird, but yeah, that’s true.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I, I imagine, like, I [00:14:00] mean, it’s, it’s kinda like a, a progression, right? I mean, maybe at one point you just don’t have the space in your house right now to be able to set up that specific office, and that’s fine. You know, it, it is a s- a shorter commute to open your laptop and get, and get started than going to a job.

But, uh, but it is good to kinda, like, kinda have that as an end goal to have eventually I’m gonna have an office with a, with a setup. ‘Cause like you say, it is so much more productive to be able to come in, you know, five minutes, boom, you’re, you’re, you’re into work, right? Uh, or even less, right? Yeah. That’s

Benas Leonavicius: I do. And I, and I feel like, uh, at least for me, uh, having worked so many years, like, uh, I think it was, what, six years, something like that, having worked from all of the different places, d- not having an office, I now really value all the little details, like the, the, the, the carpet. The, for example, I have these, uh, these things right here on, on this wall basically are soundproof.

So the sound in here is much, much better. It’s [00:15:00] much, much nicer. So it just… it creates this, a much more, uh, calm and relaxing feeling, which for me at least really helps, uh, I think to, to do a lot more work compared to when I was, you know, working from cafes, from loud environments, from just anywhere and everywhere

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So now let’s talk a little bit about the practice. Like, uh, I know that, uh, when, when you work for yourself, um, there’s, I, I guess there’s a lot more self-care that has to go into place, right? ‘Cause you have to bring the energy every single day. And I’m wondering, like h- how do you do that in, in your business?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, honestly, a lot of things, uh, uh, that are not related to work. So I do care a lot about my health and nutrition. I’ve been going to the gym for the past also 10 years, like, ever since I started, really fell in love with it. I mean, [00:16:00] everything that I’m talking right now, it was a slow progression. It wasn’t like that, you know, 10 years ago I was this fit or this well, um, uh, sort of, uh, this well-rounded as I am, as I feel I am right now.

It was a very long journey of finding things little by little. But right now, I think, you know, having a good sleep schedule, uh, working out at least four to f- uh, three to four times per week really helps me as well. You know, having like meal prepping for me was also like allowed me to eat the same meals, uh, at the same time, uh, in the same, same time of day, uh, quite regularly, which just allows me to feel much better.

And everything, I think, basically compounds into me being then, uh, able to do a lot better quality work whenever I need to, because everything else outside of the work is kind of settled. And I do, um, pay a lot of attention to all of these things, uh, [00:17:00] to, to even have things where I can, uh, relax, where I can go for walks, where I can sort of clear my head.

Because if I’m g- because one, uh, one ba- disadvantage of having an o- uh, like, um, home office is that you are technically… I can stay in this room for like 12 hours straight, but I, and I, and I used to, but what I found is that you, you, you kind of burn down, burn out very, very quickly. So like, you know, in, in just a week’s time, you, you still sit those like 10 hours per day, but you barely do anything.

So, uh, you know, I, I found that it, it’s not the way that I need to work. It’s more about the quality of work rather than the actual hours. So, uh, I do try to take care of myself so that then I’m able to do the best work possible.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. This is the topic that just blows my mind the most. Like, it, ’cause, uh, you know, with all the people that I’ve interviewed, everybody seems to have this in [00:18:00] common, and I don’t think it’s super common amongst, you know, the people who are employed to, to, like, really focus on what they’re eating and whether ex- they’re exercising and all that.

It just seems to be a skewed kind of like more people focus on that when they work for themselves than they do when they work in an office. It, it just seems odd to me, but

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, I feel, yeah, I feel– you know what? I feel that, uh, a lot of the, um, uh, skills and traits are very transferable. So let’s say if you are in, uh, like… And it goes, I think, both, both ways. But if you’re inclined to work for yourself, it means you, you’re probably a little more organized, a little more disciplined, a little more into taking things, um, uh, into your own hands type of person, you know?

And then I think all of those same skills and traits, but all– they really well apply to, you know, fitness and gym and, uh, taking care [00:19:00] of yourself and stuff like that. So I think that is why that, that correlation exists. I also fi-find it very interesting sort of that it seems people seem to like– they, they seems to correlate very well.

And at least this is, I think, the reason why it is. Because people that tend to go into working, like freelancing or working for themselves, have these traits and then once they build some kind of income, some kind of business, they, I think get to a point, um, at least I, I got to a point where, oh, okay, now that I have this freelancing thing, now that I have my own income, I– how do I make this even better?

And then I found that by doing things not related to working. Sleep, fitness, nutrition makes my work better. So I think a lot of people arrive to the same conclusion where they then start to take care of themselves and then their business grows, uh, you know, as a side bonus because of that. And then, yeah, and then from there everything kind of grows.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, [00:20:00] and, and the cost is bigger too. I mean, if, if I get sick and, and now I’m off for a couple weeks, uh, I mean, the cost there is way bigger than just calling in sick at your office. And I mean, most offices are, like, you still get paid, right? But I mean, if I’m sick, sick, and I can’t do work for a couple weeks or for even for a few days, that, that impacts things a, quite a bit more than it would if I had a job, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah, I’ve been in many situations like that myself where I got seriously ill for, for, for a week or for a two and, you know, at, at some points, you know, your income basically cuts in half, uh, for that month. You know, nobody is taking care of you. So yeah, yeah, I’ve, I’ve been in this situa- … I mean, that’s also one of the reasons why now I, um, s- started building a team, like a very lean team, started building an agency because I knew that I don’t wanna be the only one that, uh, you know, uh, that clients rely on the work being delivered.

So I’m not planning to do like a big company or anything like that. But just [00:21:00] having a few people, a very lean team, does help with this specific aspect when if you are sick, the work doesn’t stop

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and that’s, uh, that’s a big thing too, especially if you’re thinking about transitioning at some point to maybe eventually stop working, like retiring or whatever it is, which, uh, I mean, how, how does that work, right? If you’ve built this team and now you have all these clients that rely on you, and now you’re saying, “Okay, well I’m done.”

Now what, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. I th… And, you know, I, honestly, I f- I believe that the, in the future, I think we will see an explosion, like, in the next, like, 10 years or something, uh, a lot of these mini teams, like three to 10 people, businesses, teams, service things that, you know, it can be a, a, a YouTuber with a YouTube channel.

It can be an agency with, you know, five to six to, uh, people team. So I think we’ll see a lot of people moving into these structures [00:22:00] because they then allow, uh, uh, basically for, uh, especially for the founders to then step back if they need to while the business is still running

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So how do we, uh, I mean, the world has changed quite a bit in the last even 10 years, right, since you started. So, so w- how do you now get fans? ‘Cause I mean, the audience is everywhere. Everybody can go on social media. There’s people everywhere. H- how do you get them to look at you, right, and, and to follow you and to, and to hire you?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, yes. You know, you know, one of the things that I n- now strongly b- okay, so interesting thing. So I run a personal branding agency, but the reason I run that, because I, I strongly believe that personal branding and having a pers- strong personal brand is gonna become one of the most important things in the next five years.

Like, uh, especially, uh, since AI is kind of taking over, there’s a lot of AI content. People don’t know who’s who. It f- it seems that, [00:23:00] uh, whoever has a strong personal brand can get all of the opportunities come their way, whatever that sponsorship lead clients, you know. And it’s, and it’s personal, meaning that, you know, if you just suddenly decide to change what you do and from agency become, uh, a creator, that also works because it’s your pers- personal brand.

So the way I, uh… And I mean, I, I am preaching what I’m doing for others. I’m also now actively building my own personal brand because I believe that’s gonna be very, very valuable in the future. So, um, how to get fans? Well, having a strong personal brand is one way to go about that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and what does that mean? So that means, like, to, like, brand yourself as your own name rather than a company? Is that what you’re saying, or-

Benas Leonavicius: Yes, exactly. So I’m talking about, so if you, uh, Tim, for example, if you have your own Instagram, if you have your own LinkedIn, it means you [00:24:00] basically brand yourself as, as a person first, and then you attach yourself to projects. A project can be an agency, a project can be a podcast. It can be many different things.

But people, first of all, people like to follow people rather than companies. So they will follow you first before they, you know, have a very strong relationship to an, to an actual company. So it’s, it’s much dif- more difficult to build, um, a relationship with a brand for, for people than, than to build for, uh, with a, with a person.

Also, I mean, we’re talking like millions of doll- of, of dollars spent, you know, on, you know. Look at how Coca Cola or N- or Nike spends much on building their brand and people attaching themselves to a brand. It’s, it’s a very expensive and difficult thing to do. But having just, you know, a few thousand followers on Instagram, a few thousand followers on LinkedIn, people that actually follow you, it’s, it, it, they, having that kind of, of a strong personal brand [00:25:00] allows you to open a lot more opportunities for whatever that you do

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Okay. And so what does that mean, uh, building a brand? Does it mean, you know, posting content or doing website? Like, what, what does it mean to do that?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, so I mean, nowadays there are so many ways of doing it. Like personally, I work with keynote speakers, book authors, uh, executives and, and company founders. And for them we have the few key specific areas that are most important ones. So first of all, it’s their website, uh, which we do SEO and AI search.

Nowadays since a lot of people are looking up for people and experts on AI, we want them to be found. Best way of finding them is having a strong website. Then LinkedIn is also a very important, uh, aspect for those people. This is where event planners, uh, all of the, uh, um, eh, important people that they want to be found are actually finding them there.

And then we also have, uh, podcasts and YouTube, so videos are also very [00:26:00] important, uh, strategy of this short form and long form. And then podcasting is, uh, another way to also build, uh, y- a strong personal brand. And the good thing is why specifically these channels is because w- in this day and age, uh, it’s very difficult to build something, um, on their own, uh, channel.

Uh, I mean technically you can just be an Instagram influencer and creator and stuff like that and have nothing else. But for, uh, people that want their personal brand to be everywhere, it, it makes sense to, to have different, uh, platforms work for each other. So for example, if you have a strong YouTube channel, that helps your website.

If it helps your website, it helps you rank on AI search. If it helps you rank on AI search, then people probably are finding you on LinkedIn. So you need to have a strong LinkedIn presence. So it’s, uh, like everything nowadays are, is very interconnected, so having these key platforms work together as [00:27:00] one, like basically gets you the best results possible

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, and nowadays, I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, especially with podcasting now, right? I mean, there’s a lot of people that consume podcasts, right? And so you can get your personality out there pretty easily and inexpensively now just by appearing on podcasts or even starting your own, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. I, I, I love podc- I love listening to podcasts. That, I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I started doing them myself is I had a thought, “Hey, it would be fun to also jump and, and be on, you know, uh, be on some podcasts, tell my own story.” And I mean, I didn’t know how far that would go. It just started as a sort of a, a, a fun thing that I would try out as many of my other experiments were.

But this one worked very well, and I’m still, you know, continuing, uh, to, to do that. But, uh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s one of the, one of the things

Tim Melanson: Well, we’ve already gotten a little bit into your guest solo, but, uh, we’ll, we’ll go a little bit deeper. So what is exciting in your business right now?[00:28:00]

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, most exciting part for me is, is building agency. Like, I’ve only started… Like, my first team hire was end of last year. Uh, then I hired two more people just in the last couple of months. So for me, building systems, uh, building organizational stuff, communicational stuff, actually extracting everything that was in my brain into some kind of a system, into some kind of, um, a, a document that now everything is much more streamlined than it was before.

I’m, I am organized. I do have my own things of, ways of working, but the way I worked was not set up in a way where, uh, somebody else could come in and help me. So it’s very, like, personal to me in the way I do things. So I’m basically transferring everything and making sure that I’m building something much more sustainable than just, uh, myself.

And for me, that’s actually quite exciting. I mean, I’ve never done that before, so there are challenges. There are things that come [00:29:00] up. But, uh, uh, as I have worked so many years kind of by myself, it’s actually quite cool to have a team. Like, it’s, it’s, not gonna lie, it’s, it’s actually quite refreshing to be able to share some ideas, communicate with people, have some meetings just to discuss things.

So, uh, for me, it’s very new, but, uh, very, very cool

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Yeah, and as you start to, like, set things up for someone else to take over, you learn a lot about your own processes and how things are going, and you probably found some better ways to do things, didn’t you?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We, uh… I mean, I… The, the way I was doing things was it, it worked, it brought results, but it was not, not the most efficient way of doing this. So one, one thing is that efficiency is just increasing through the roof. But now that I’m working with people, I’m finding, like, people are bringing ideas and things that I never even thought of.

So [00:30:00] this is actually expanding how we do things or what we do beyond of my own capabilities. So, uh, uh, you know, going forward, I wanna actually hire people that are smarter and more better in, in, in stuff that I am in the specific things, uh, because I want, you know, the best possible outcome in this area.

I, you know, I’m not that kind of person that I wanna be on, on top of things in… Well, in the sense where I should be the smartest in my company. No, I should hire people that are way better at me at what they do. My job is, is, is basically to bring the team together and make sure everything works and, and, uh, uh, and, and, and keep this agency running

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree with that for sure. You don’t… Uh, what was it, Henry Ford saying that he wanted to be in a room with everybody, or if, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, I think is what he said.

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I’m now finding that, that, you know, uh, it’s, it’s so valuable to, to work with other people. There are so much synergies happening [00:31:00] where one plus one doesn’t equal two. You know, usually with, especially with the small teams, it, it feels that we’re way more efficient than just, you know, four people working on this

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So now tell me a little bit more about the, you know, how people find you and, and what that process looks like if they wanna work with you

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, so avm.vip, that is basically the, the website for the agency, video testimonials. Everything is explained there, case studies, all that stuff. All of that jazz, all the usual things are, are on the website. But if you wanna get more personal, I do share a lot on LinkedIn. So if my name, first name, surname on LinkedIn, I share a lot of behind the scenes.

Uh, and if you really wanna dig in deeper, I also have a YouTube channel where I actually document… Well, first I documented my freelancing journey, now I’m actually documenting behind the scenes of how I’m building the agency and what’s working, what’s not working, and how our things are running

Tim Melanson: Love that. Okay, well, before we end here, I got one more question for you. This [00:32:00] might be the hard one though. So let’s talk a little bit about music. Tell me, who is your favorite rock star or band?

Benas Leonavicius: Rock? Oh, man, I’m not that… I mean, I do enjoy listening to music, and I, I think I have such a big variety that I listen to from, like, rock star to even, like, classical music. But I’m so bad at following artists. I’m so bad at remembering names of the artists. So I, I don’t think I have one, to be honest.

Like, if I had to need to select… Okay, maybe, I mean, Linkin Park was the one that really stuck with me since, you know, the early days, and also with the new artist that, uh, you know, the, the lead singer passed away, and the new female, uh, artist came, came along. And I think they released a couple of songs, and I was really, really impressed with the songs and, and the way she, uh, really, really enjoyed that one.

I think that, that maybe’s… That’s the fir- well, first thing that popped into my head, actually. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Had, do you ever see him in concert?

Benas Leonavicius: No, no, no. No, I haven’t. [00:33:00] But I’ve, I used to listen to them, so I mean, I still actually listen to their music to this day. It’s, it’s, uh, for some reason very comforting

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Tim, for having me

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

[00:00:00]

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m very excited for today’s guest. We have the owner and founder of Avium, and what he does is he helps to build personal brands to distinguish you from everyone else, and to open doors to many opportunities such as jobs and new clients, speaking engagements, et cetera.

So excited to be rocking out today with Benas Leonavicius. Did I get that right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s very good.

Tim Melanson: Perfect. Right on. So are you ready to rock?

Benas Leonavicius: Yes. Yes

Tim Melanson: We always start off here on a good

note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, I suppose my story of success is the one of, um, uh, uh, being very resilient on freelancing. So, uh, I started freelancing when I was sort of, you know, in university. Started doing that for pocket money. Uh, never really thought it’s something serious, [00:01:00] but then eventually decided to go full time and, uh, really stuck with it for a very long time.

I believe a lot of people sort of drop things, but even though I was earning kind of average income for many, many years while being a freelancer, always wanted to find opportunities to improve, and it did take me a, a long while. You know, I’ve been doing freelancing for over 10 years now. But in the last, like, three to four years, that is when things started shifting and I kind of unlocked a new growth path, which then eventually led me to creating the agency and now sort of growing beyond just being, uh, a solopreneur

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons why I’m doing this podcast in the first ti- in the first place is to inspire people to actually do this, to start for, for themselves, right? And I think that, um, a lot of people think that businesses have to always grow, and they always have to end up being, you know, billion-dollar businesses or whatever it is.

But on the other [00:02:00] hand, it doesn’t have to, right? I mean, you can just work a job a- as your own business and just make ends meet for however long you want. And funny thing is that eventually, like you say, things tend to kind of progress, but they don’t have to, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that, that was my personal choice to do that. I could’ve, I, I could’ve easily just went ahead with freelancing for, for many, many years. I now have, you know, established systems. I know how to find clients. So in e- in, in essence, I’m just, you know, a, a, a one-person team that can actually indefinitely sustain myself.

So, you know, going forward is, is, it’s a personal choice. But it doesn’t have to be. You know, I think, uh, uh, it’s always good to have a choice, and in this case, you can build, you know, your own, uh, sort of way of working without the need of, uh, to work for, for anyone else

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. And I, I think that, uh, what you, um, what you notice, I, I think for most, uh, [00:03:00] well, probably for everybody is that you just get better at stuff. You get more efficient, right? You start to, like, do things better because it just makes sense to do that. You start to learn things. And so, uh, at some point, like you say, maybe you unlock this new level and next thing you know your business goes flying.

But then on the other hand, maybe you just get better at what you do and you spend less time doing it, and you have a little bit more time freedom, right? I mean, it’s, there, there, there are just different paths that you can take in business. But after a while you are going to get better at it, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah, exact. And I feel that if you’re doing something on your own, your own project, your own business, your own freelancing opportunity, uh, at least for me, and it seems that it, uh, uh, for, for other people that I talk to, is that, uh, when you’re on your own, it kind of forces you to, uh, learn more and develop yourself compared to if you are working at a company.

At least I’ve seen a lot of examples where c- you can stagnate very easily and still [00:04:00] receive income and still sort of work at that job. Whilst when you’re a freelancer, you’re, you’re kind of forced to develop and, and learn more at least a little bit to basically keep up with all of the new trends and all of the new demands that clients have.

So in that sense of, uh, uh, you know, if you look at it from that perspective, it feels that, you know, this is an advantage, for example, for being a freelancer because you are forced to, uh, to, to kind of, uh, learn and develop yourself, which then, you know, essentially makes you a better expert at the end of the day

Tim Melanson: No, yeah. Yeah, totally. I g- I agree. I mean, if you’re working in a company, one of two things would happen. Either they would push the new thing onto you and say, "You need to learn this," and w- you know, "We’re gonna send you away for training to do whatever it is that’s coming down the pipe," right? They would push you to do that, or they’d just push you out of the company, and y- you know, they’d, uh, hire somebody else.

So, you know, when you’re working for yourself, I mean, y- you, you’re gonna figure this out because all of a sudden your revenue’s gonna be dropping, and you’re gonna [00:05:00] be like, "What’s going on?" And, you know, you’ll, you’ll be forced, like you say, to go and figure out why that’s happening, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, and I feel that builds, like, more resilience and independence, like, you know, that you are responsible for your own actions, you know? Instead of somebody forcing you to go and learn, you are the one researching, looking up, learning. And, uh, I think at, at, after some years, it builds you up as a person.

It, it, you know, you, you are now the person who actually enjoys learning, who goes out and do, does that stuff instead of being a passive observer. So, I, I do, I do wanna be more active on things that I do

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Agree. So now over the last decade or more, right? You know, sometimes things don’t go as planned, right? There are some bad notes that people hit, and it, I mean, that’s really a lot of the fear of why people don’t start in the first place. They’re just worried that they’re gonna fail, right? And I mean, the bottom line is that we all make mistakes, and it just is what it is, and we can [00:06:00] always recover.

And I’m wondering, can you share with me, you know, something, something big that happened along that journey that you recovered from and, and, and how that worked out for you?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Uh, well, one of the things I, I wanna say is that I always for some reason didn’t view failure as failure. I view f- I viewed failure as a, as a project. So we create… You know, I go on Google Drive, I create a, a, a, a project named whatever project that is, and if that project ends, well, I g- I’ll go on the next one.

So, you know, if you view it in that perspective, then it’s a lot easier to go and try a bunch of things and see sort of what works, what doesn’t work. I mean, I, over the years I, you know, besides freelancing, I tried a lot of different things from writing books, creating videos, working on, uh, uh, other marketing a- areas, creating your- my own e-commerce shop.

So, I mean, none of these things are, exist now because, you know, obviously I haven’t sort of, uh, uh, uh, um, haven’t done them to the f- their fullest, uh, uh, [00:07:00] potential. But something else clicked for me, like freel- freelancing and stuff like that. But probably one of the Uh, biggest failures would be, uh, or at least the most impactful for me was when I was fired from a marketing agency.

So, uh, after university, I, uh, I, um, I was still sort of freelancing, but it was, you know, like pocket money. I wasn’t taking it full time. It was something, uh, that I had on the side. And then I knew that I, I kind of need to, um, you know, find a job and I wanna get some experience from working somewhere before I do my own thing.

That was sort of my, the way that I thought, uh, things need to go. And I got a job at a marketing agency, uh, as a manager without any managerial experience. I have no idea how I oversold myself or how people overestimated me. I think it was kind of, uh, on both of us here. But, uh, uh, I was there for only two months.

There were also two other girls that were also hired at the same [00:08:00] time as me, and, uh, they did their job by the book. Everything was sort of went as, as company expected. And I was the, the young one trying to improve everything, change everything, go out of my way, do a lot more. And apparently that was not expected.

That was actually considered very intrusive, you know? And, uh, they were like, "Nah, nah, you know, we, we don’t need somebody that basically breaks the way we do things here. We wanna go and do everything by the book slowly, casually, and keep things simple." And so they fired me. And I remember I was very angry at that time, uh, at, at nine to five jobs in general.

It’s like, why? I’m, I’m trying my best here to make things better, and what I get for is being fired? Um, I– at that time, that… the, it felt like the world kind of has ended for me. I don’t know. It, it really, really stuck deeply with me, uh, whenever, uh, I was let go. I mean, eventually that, uh, [00:09:00] looking back now, it a- it was actually one of the best decisions that, that…

one of the best things that happened to me. But, uh, you know, it didn’t feel that way back then

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I got my hand slapped for trying to make things better at one point too when I was in the corporate world, and that, it is interesting how that works. But you know what? I’m pretty sure that’s like the calling card of an entrepreneur, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. It seems like, uh, I mean, I didn’t… I mean, I was reading a lot of biographies and stuff like that. I, I hear these stories. Whenever that happens to you, never think that it’s, it’s something that, uh, it, th- this is gonna be your story. But then looking back, damn, it’s, it’s the same old tale, you know?

Tim Melanson: You, you try to change things in a corporate world and they don’t like that, and so you start your own thing, right? That’s the way it

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Tim Melanson: Well, that’s awesome. So now let’s talk a little bit about The Jam Room, ’cause I mean, you’ve been working from home for a long time and I’m wondering how do you have your home office structured?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah. So the thing is I, [00:10:00] uh, um, I only have my home office for how many years now? Like maybe four or five. So half of that time, you know, working from home meant working from university sort of, uh, uh, uh, university dorms and working from cafes and, and didn’t even have money at that time to spend on a proper like, uh, co-working setup and stuff like that.

So it was very messy. But, uh, kind of somehow made it work. But eventually I, I always knew that I wanted a proper home, uh, setup and, uh, uh, when– once we bought this place that, that, that we live now with my wife, I wanted to basically make the home setup to feel as best as it possibly can. I kind of… I’m a kind of person that really cares about how things look, the tidiness, the organization.

I mean, you can probably see by the, the way kind of the, the background looks and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s, it’s important to me to create an atmosph- atmosphere where I kind of feel good, [00:11:00] uh, uh, and, and I can sort of be much more productive this way. So a lot of attention to details. I mean, having some lights, you know, for podcast, having kind of microphones set up, having monitors and standing desks and then sort of there is this couch set up here as well for, for chilling.

So, um, just designed a place where I could feel, uh, uh, I could feel very well and, and, and that I think brings out the best of me in terms of productivity

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now I, I, I’m the same way. I worked from kitchen table for a long time before I got to a situation where I could, you know, have a, a space for my actual office. And I’m wondering, like, coming… ‘Cause we all make it work. I mean, w- well, we’re gonna make it work no matter what, right? But what do you think was different now that you have an actual office?

Like, how do you feel like that has changed the way that you work?

Benas Leonavicius: Mm, one of the things that, uh, um, [00:12:00] one of the things that for sure it made, uh, things better is that now since I have everything set up as I want to, it feels that I’m– I can jump into things straight away. So before, you need to go to a coffee, you need to open the laptop, you need to open all of the tabs, you need to connect things, you need to sh- you know, if you’re g- on a Zoom call with a client, then you need to check if everything is right.

So I think there’s just a lot of these minor things that we don’t think about that we need to do just to get started on the work. Now, l- right now, everything is here. Like, I come in, I unlock the laptop, and I can jump in straight into work, which for me allowed me to be much more fluid on when I can jump in, for example, for a quick 10 minutes.

Like, before I go to bed, I can actually come up to m- my table. It’s, it’s a standing desk. I actually even stand. I can answer quick emails. I can do some quick things. I can check some things. And I think [00:13:00] that allowed me to be more organized and productive in that sense, where I have these little moments of, uh, productiveness that is kind of outside of working hours per se, but it allows me to just be on top of things without me feeling that I’m– that I need to go somewhere, open the laptop, uh, figure things out.

I mean, having, for example, bigger screen attached to my laptop allows me to have several different things all, all at the same time. If I’m working on my laptop, I need to be focused on one thing, so it’s very difficult to switch between. You don’t feel productive. You might go on LinkedIn or social media, and it’s, it’s, uh, uh…

I, I think this way, uh, uh, my work is way more structured

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, and, and I mean,

it’s almost like you had to commute to your to

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, in a sense, in a sense, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which

feels very, very weird, but yeah, that’s true.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I, I imagine, like, I [00:14:00] mean, it’s, it’s kinda like a, a progression, right? I mean, maybe at one point you just don’t have the space in your house right now to be able to set up that specific office, and that’s fine. You know, it, it is a s- a shorter commute to open your laptop and get, and get started than going to a job.

But, uh, but it is good to kinda, like, kinda have that as an end goal to have eventually I’m gonna have an office with a, with a setup. ‘Cause like you say, it is so much more productive to be able to come in, you know, five minutes, boom, you’re, you’re, you’re into work, right? Uh, or even less, right? Yeah. That’s

Benas Leonavicius: I do. And I, and I feel like, uh, at least for me, uh, having worked so many years, like, uh, I think it was, what, six years, something like that, having worked from all of the different places, d- not having an office, I now really value all the little details, like the, the, the, the carpet. The, for example, I have these, uh, these things right here on, on this wall basically are soundproof.

So the sound in here is much, much better. It’s [00:15:00] much, much nicer. So it just… it creates this, a much more, uh, calm and relaxing feeling, which for me at least really helps, uh, I think to, to do a lot more work compared to when I was, you know, working from cafes, from loud environments, from just anywhere and everywhere

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So now let’s talk a little bit about the practice. Like, uh, I know that, uh, when, when you work for yourself, um, there’s, I, I guess there’s a lot more self-care that has to go into place, right? ‘Cause you have to bring the energy every single day. And I’m wondering, like h- how do you do that in, in your business?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, honestly, a lot of things, uh, uh, that are not related to work. So I do care a lot about my health and nutrition. I’ve been going to the gym for the past also 10 years, like, ever since I started, really fell in love with it. I mean, [00:16:00] everything that I’m talking right now, it was a slow progression. It wasn’t like that, you know, 10 years ago I was this fit or this well, um, uh, sort of, uh, this well-rounded as I am, as I feel I am right now.

It was a very long journey of finding things little by little. But right now, I think, you know, having a good sleep schedule, uh, working out at least four to f- uh, three to four times per week really helps me as well. You know, having like meal prepping for me was also like allowed me to eat the same meals, uh, at the same time, uh, in the same, same time of day, uh, quite regularly, which just allows me to feel much better.

And everything, I think, basically compounds into me being then, uh, able to do a lot better quality work whenever I need to, because everything else outside of the work is kind of settled. And I do, um, pay a lot of attention to all of these things, uh, [00:17:00] to, to even have things where I can, uh, relax, where I can go for walks, where I can sort of clear my head.

Because if I’m g- because one, uh, one ba- disadvantage of having an o- uh, like, um, home office is that you are technically… I can stay in this room for like 12 hours straight, but I, and I, and I used to, but what I found is that you, you, you kind of burn down, burn out very, very quickly. So like, you know, in, in just a week’s time, you, you still sit those like 10 hours per day, but you barely do anything.

So, uh, you know, I, I found that it, it’s not the way that I need to work. It’s more about the quality of work rather than the actual hours. So, uh, I do try to take care of myself so that then I’m able to do the best work possible.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. This is the topic that just blows my mind the most. Like, it, ’cause, uh, you know, with all the people that I’ve interviewed, everybody seems to have this in [00:18:00] common, and I don’t think it’s super common amongst, you know, the people who are employed to, to, like, really focus on what they’re eating and whether ex- they’re exercising and all that.

It just seems to be a skewed kind of like more people focus on that when they work for themselves than they do when they work in an office. It, it just seems odd to me, but

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, I feel, yeah, I feel– you know what? I feel that, uh, a lot of the, um, uh, skills and traits are very transferable. So let’s say if you are in, uh, like… And it goes, I think, both, both ways. But if you’re inclined to work for yourself, it means you, you’re probably a little more organized, a little more disciplined, a little more into taking things, um, uh, into your own hands type of person, you know?

And then I think all of those same skills and traits, but all– they really well apply to, you know, fitness and gym and, uh, taking care [00:19:00] of yourself and stuff like that. So I think that is why that, that correlation exists. I also fi-find it very interesting sort of that it seems people seem to like– they, they seems to correlate very well.

And at least this is, I think, the reason why it is. Because people that tend to go into working, like freelancing or working for themselves, have these traits and then once they build some kind of income, some kind of business, they, I think get to a point, um, at least I, I got to a point where, oh, okay, now that I have this freelancing thing, now that I have my own income, I– how do I make this even better?

And then I found that by doing things not related to working. Sleep, fitness, nutrition makes my work better. So I think a lot of people arrive to the same conclusion where they then start to take care of themselves and then their business grows, uh, you know, as a side bonus because of that. And then, yeah, and then from there everything kind of grows.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, [00:20:00] and, and the cost is bigger too. I mean, if, if I get sick and, and now I’m off for a couple weeks, uh, I mean, the cost there is way bigger than just calling in sick at your office. And I mean, most offices are, like, you still get paid, right? But I mean, if I’m sick, sick, and I can’t do work for a couple weeks or for even for a few days, that, that impacts things a, quite a bit more than it would if I had a job, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah, I’ve been in many situations like that myself where I got seriously ill for, for, for a week or for a two and, you know, at, at some points, you know, your income basically cuts in half, uh, for that month. You know, nobody is taking care of you. So yeah, yeah, I’ve, I’ve been in this situa- … I mean, that’s also one of the reasons why now I, um, s- started building a team, like a very lean team, started building an agency because I knew that I don’t wanna be the only one that, uh, you know, uh, that clients rely on the work being delivered.

So I’m not planning to do like a big company or anything like that. But just [00:21:00] having a few people, a very lean team, does help with this specific aspect when if you are sick, the work doesn’t stop

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and that’s, uh, that’s a big thing too, especially if you’re thinking about transitioning at some point to maybe eventually stop working, like retiring or whatever it is, which, uh, I mean, how, how does that work, right? If you’ve built this team and now you have all these clients that rely on you, and now you’re saying, "Okay, well I’m done."

Now what, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. I th… And, you know, I, honestly, I f- I believe that the, in the future, I think we will see an explosion, like, in the next, like, 10 years or something, uh, a lot of these mini teams, like three to 10 people, businesses, teams, service things that, you know, it can be a, a, a YouTuber with a YouTube channel.

It can be an agency with, you know, five to six to, uh, people team. So I think we’ll see a lot of people moving into these structures [00:22:00] because they then allow, uh, uh, basically for, uh, especially for the founders to then step back if they need to while the business is still running

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So how do we, uh, I mean, the world has changed quite a bit in the last even 10 years, right, since you started. So, so w- how do you now get fans? ‘Cause I mean, the audience is everywhere. Everybody can go on social media. There’s people everywhere. H- how do you get them to look at you, right, and, and to follow you and to, and to hire you?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, yes. You know, you know, one of the things that I n- now strongly b- okay, so interesting thing. So I run a personal branding agency, but the reason I run that, because I, I strongly believe that personal branding and having a pers- strong personal brand is gonna become one of the most important things in the next five years.

Like, uh, especially, uh, since AI is kind of taking over, there’s a lot of AI content. People don’t know who’s who. It f- it seems that, [00:23:00] uh, whoever has a strong personal brand can get all of the opportunities come their way, whatever that sponsorship lead clients, you know. And it’s, and it’s personal, meaning that, you know, if you just suddenly decide to change what you do and from agency become, uh, a creator, that also works because it’s your pers- personal brand.

So the way I, uh… And I mean, I, I am preaching what I’m doing for others. I’m also now actively building my own personal brand because I believe that’s gonna be very, very valuable in the future. So, um, how to get fans? Well, having a strong personal brand is one way to go about that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and, and what does that mean? So that means, like, to, like, brand yourself as your own name rather than a company? Is that what you’re saying, or-

Benas Leonavicius: Yes, exactly. So I’m talking about, so if you, uh, Tim, for example, if you have your own Instagram, if you have your own LinkedIn, it means you [00:24:00] basically brand yourself as, as a person first, and then you attach yourself to projects. A project can be an agency, a project can be a podcast. It can be many different things.

But people, first of all, people like to follow people rather than companies. So they will follow you first before they, you know, have a very strong relationship to an, to an actual company. So it’s, it’s much dif- more difficult to build, um, a relationship with a brand for, for people than, than to build for, uh, with a, with a person.

Also, I mean, we’re talking like millions of doll- of, of dollars spent, you know, on, you know. Look at how Coca Cola or N- or Nike spends much on building their brand and people attaching themselves to a brand. It’s, it’s a very expensive and difficult thing to do. But having just, you know, a few thousand followers on Instagram, a few thousand followers on LinkedIn, people that actually follow you, it’s, it, it, they, having that kind of, of a strong personal brand [00:25:00] allows you to open a lot more opportunities for whatever that you do

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Okay. And so what does that mean, uh, building a brand? Does it mean, you know, posting content or doing website? Like, what, what does it mean to do that?

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, so I mean, nowadays there are so many ways of doing it. Like personally, I work with keynote speakers, book authors, uh, executives and, and company founders. And for them we have the few key specific areas that are most important ones. So first of all, it’s their website, uh, which we do SEO and AI search.

Nowadays since a lot of people are looking up for people and experts on AI, we want them to be found. Best way of finding them is having a strong website. Then LinkedIn is also a very important, uh, aspect for those people. This is where event planners, uh, all of the, uh, um, eh, important people that they want to be found are actually finding them there.

And then we also have, uh, podcasts and YouTube, so videos are also very [00:26:00] important, uh, strategy of this short form and long form. And then podcasting is, uh, another way to also build, uh, y- a strong personal brand. And the good thing is why specifically these channels is because w- in this day and age, uh, it’s very difficult to build something, um, on their own, uh, channel.

Uh, I mean technically you can just be an Instagram influencer and creator and stuff like that and have nothing else. But for, uh, people that want their personal brand to be everywhere, it, it makes sense to, to have different, uh, platforms work for each other. So for example, if you have a strong YouTube channel, that helps your website.

If it helps your website, it helps you rank on AI search. If it helps you rank on AI search, then people probably are finding you on LinkedIn. So you need to have a strong LinkedIn presence. So it’s, uh, like everything nowadays are, is very interconnected, so having these key platforms work together as [00:27:00] one, like basically gets you the best results possible

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, and nowadays, I mean, it’s, it’s, uh, especially with podcasting now, right? I mean, there’s a lot of people that consume podcasts, right? And so you can get your personality out there pretty easily and inexpensively now just by appearing on podcasts or even starting your own, right?

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah. I, I, I love podc- I love listening to podcasts. That, I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I started doing them myself is I had a thought, "Hey, it would be fun to also jump and, and be on, you know, uh, be on some podcasts, tell my own story." And I mean, I didn’t know how far that would go. It just started as a sort of a, a, a fun thing that I would try out as many of my other experiments were.

But this one worked very well, and I’m still, you know, continuing, uh, to, to do that. But, uh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s one of the, one of the things

Tim Melanson: Well, we’ve already gotten a little bit into your guest solo, but, uh, we’ll, we’ll go a little bit deeper. So what is exciting in your business right now?[00:28:00]

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, most exciting part for me is, is building agency. Like, I’ve only started… Like, my first team hire was end of last year. Uh, then I hired two more people just in the last couple of months. So for me, building systems, uh, building organizational stuff, communicational stuff, actually extracting everything that was in my brain into some kind of a system, into some kind of, um, a, a document that now everything is much more streamlined than it was before.

I’m, I am organized. I do have my own things of, ways of working, but the way I worked was not set up in a way where, uh, somebody else could come in and help me. So it’s very, like, personal to me in the way I do things. So I’m basically transferring everything and making sure that I’m building something much more sustainable than just, uh, myself.

And for me, that’s actually quite exciting. I mean, I’ve never done that before, so there are challenges. There are things that come [00:29:00] up. But, uh, uh, as I have worked so many years kind of by myself, it’s actually quite cool to have a team. Like, it’s, it’s, not gonna lie, it’s, it’s actually quite refreshing to be able to share some ideas, communicate with people, have some meetings just to discuss things.

So, uh, for me, it’s very new, but, uh, very, very cool

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Yeah, and as you start to, like, set things up for someone else to take over, you learn a lot about your own processes and how things are going, and you probably found some better ways to do things, didn’t you?

Benas Leonavicius: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We, uh… I mean, I… The, the way I was doing things was it, it worked, it brought results, but it was not, not the most efficient way of doing this. So one, one thing is that efficiency is just increasing through the roof. But now that I’m working with people, I’m finding, like, people are bringing ideas and things that I never even thought of.

So [00:30:00] this is actually expanding how we do things or what we do beyond of my own capabilities. So, uh, uh, you know, going forward, I wanna actually hire people that are smarter and more better in, in, in stuff that I am in the specific things, uh, because I want, you know, the best possible outcome in this area.

I, you know, I’m not that kind of person that I wanna be on, on top of things in… Well, in the sense where I should be the smartest in my company. No, I should hire people that are way better at me at what they do. My job is, is, is basically to bring the team together and make sure everything works and, and, uh, uh, and, and, and keep this agency running

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree with that for sure. You don’t… Uh, what was it, Henry Ford saying that he wanted to be in a room with everybody, or if, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, I think is what he said.

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I’m now finding that, that, you know, uh, it’s, it’s so valuable to, to work with other people. There are so much synergies happening [00:31:00] where one plus one doesn’t equal two. You know, usually with, especially with the small teams, it, it feels that we’re way more efficient than just, you know, four people working on this

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. So now tell me a little bit more about the, you know, how people find you and, and what that process looks like if they wanna work with you

Benas Leonavicius: Uh, so avm.vip, that is basically the, the website for the agency, video testimonials. Everything is explained there, case studies, all that stuff. All of that jazz, all the usual things are, are on the website. But if you wanna get more personal, I do share a lot on LinkedIn. So if my name, first name, surname on LinkedIn, I share a lot of behind the scenes.

Uh, and if you really wanna dig in deeper, I also have a YouTube channel where I actually document… Well, first I documented my freelancing journey, now I’m actually documenting behind the scenes of how I’m building the agency and what’s working, what’s not working, and how our things are running

Tim Melanson: Love that. Okay, well, before we end here, I got one more question for you. This [00:32:00] might be the hard one though. So let’s talk a little bit about music. Tell me, who is your favorite rock star or band?

Benas Leonavicius: Rock? Oh, man, I’m not that… I mean, I do enjoy listening to music, and I, I think I have such a big variety that I listen to from, like, rock star to even, like, classical music. But I’m so bad at following artists. I’m so bad at remembering names of the artists. So I, I don’t think I have one, to be honest.

Like, if I had to need to select… Okay, maybe, I mean, Linkin Park was the one that really stuck with me since, you know, the early days, and also with the new artist that, uh, you know, the, the lead singer passed away, and the new female, uh, artist came, came along. And I think they released a couple of songs, and I was really, really impressed with the songs and, and the way she, uh, really, really enjoyed that one.

I think that, that maybe’s… That’s the fir- well, first thing that popped into my head, actually. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Had, do you ever see him in concert?

Benas Leonavicius: No, no, no. No, I haven’t. [00:33:00] But I’ve, I used to listen to them, so I mean, I still actually listen to their music to this day. It’s, it’s, uh, for some reason very comforting

Tim Melanson: Yeah, right on. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun

Benas Leonavicius: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Tim, for having me

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go, 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. I got someone who’s been working from home for over 30 years. That’s so cool. He got me beaten big time. He’s the founder and CEO of Sea Rescue Corporation, and what he does is he invents and produces survival gear for the military and civilians.

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Wow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Rob Yonover: Ex- exactly

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

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

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

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

So that’s really critical, I think

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Rob Yonover: Yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Rob Yonover: that’s true

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Rob Yonover: Exactly

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yep,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that’s… I’m all about that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Rob Yonover: Right?

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah

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

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

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

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

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

audioDr: Yonover.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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