Russell Dennis is helping non profits provide value through his business, RD Enterprises LLC.

Welcome to the In The Clear podcast. I’m your host, Justin Recla. Today, we are interviewing one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory. First off, I’m just going to let everybody know that Russell Dennis is by far one of the most authentic and genuine individuals I have ever met. He’s served his country and now he continues to serve others in his business. His focus is on nonprofits. His business is RD Enterprises LLC. Russell joins us on the show today. Russell, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me, Justin.

Russell, we’ve met multiple times and we’ve interacted on several different occasions from events to some special circumstances that we’ve done some work together on assisting some people with some really specialty needs. Your leadership abilities are topnotch. I’m so excited to have you on the show because you bring a value to the nonprofit sector that is so needed. Can you let our listeners know exactly what you do for those nonprofits?

Essentially, it boils down to me helping nonprofits find more money and attract more support for their causes so they can help more people. Resources include everything from money to talent. It’s very important. I focus on nonprofits that are smaller, which is a tougher market to serve. I look at those that had budgets under $500,000 and fewer than three employees because they’re out there on the front lines and they need the most assistance generally. They’re doing good work. I want to try to serve those folks.

Fantastic. I know you’ve got a very extensive background doing a variety of things and I know the nonprofit sector is one of your passions. What were the reasons that really drew you to work with nonprofits?

Not only had I done work around small businesses, but housing, needs assessments, headstart, infrastructure, social programs, just everything.

Justin, to be truthful, I had fell into it by accident. As a new college graduate in the mid 90s, I ended up going to work for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, a federally recognized Native American tribe. I had friends that were Micmac Indians. They knew I was going to school and they said, “You’re going to school for business, you could really help us.” I stumbled into it, and what I didn’t know was that a federally recognized tribal government is pretty self-contained, it’s almost like a state federal and city accounting government all rolled up into one. I walked in, my title was Director of Economic Development. I ended up with a Department of Education grant on my desk day one. By the time the smoke cleared, not only had I done work around small businesses, but housing, needs assessments, headstart, infrastructure, social programs, just everything.

I love it. What’s neat about your skillset is oftentimes, small business owners will find that they’re just too close to the situation, especially a nonprofit who’s got the added stresses of generating revenue and coming up with funds. To have somebody like you who can put a fresh set of eyes on things, to identify some creative ways on, “Where can we find these resources? What’s some ways that we can structure this? How do we do that?” That’s so important for those organizations to be able to have somebody fresh like you to bring into their business.

The most important asset that any nonprofit will have is people. Like other businesses, developing your people is critical. A lot of the smaller nonprofits don’t have the resources to do that. When you start, it’s critical to have people, not just on your board, but advisors and other people who have skillsets that offset the ones that you lack. Collaboration is the key to doing that and talking to the right people, people that have the same values and want to see the same things accomplished. Your people are your biggest asset. When you’re out there raising funds for a cause, it’s really no different than a venture capital or going to a financial institution for money. What venture capitalists generally bet on is the team that you’ve assembled to put a venture together. When people are donating money to nonprofits or writing grants or giving grants to nonprofits, essentially they’re betting on your team and your ability to serve the people that you set out to serve.

Absolutely. Having you a part of the team is one of those extra added layers, not only because of your leadership skills, but you operate transparently. Again, you’re one of the most authentic people I have ever met. We’re proud to have you a part of the CLEAR Business Directory. The value that you bring to those businesses, those nonprofits and the message that you carry forward also of operating transparency. The nonprofit sector has gotten hit pretty bad over the last three to five years with individuals calling certain entities out on their authenticity and the transparency of where the money that the nonprofit raises actually goes.

It’s really important to have that transparency and have people establish some confidence in what you’re doing.

We’ve heard all sorts of things, particularly around Wounded Warrior, the veterans’ organization. That was a very big hit. It’s really important to have that transparency and have people establish some confidence in what you’re doing. It’s tough, especially for smaller and newer nonprofits. People generally won’t give you a chance. They don’t know enough about you, they don’t know enough about your track record. You have to inspire confidence any way that you can. The other word that you said earlier that almost never hear in any nonprofit discussion is the word ‘value’. It’s not a corporate term.

Nonprofits, like profit making entities, deliver value to the audiences they serve. There’s primarily two. Those would be the people that receive the services directly and who are paying for them. It’s important. To raise money, you really have to communicate that value. When you’re looking for funds, you have to instill confidence that they’ll be used wisely and find out what’s valuable to people that might want to volunteer. Why would somebody volunteer for your organization? Why would they donate to your organization? What’s in it for them? The word ‘best value’. When you can communicate that value clearly, you’ll be able to attract the people that you need to help you earn the funds.

Absolutely. That value, like you said, it stems a lot of the times from the people that are involved. Again, the smaller nonprofits are the ones that are going to face the biggest challenges and they’re lucky to have you out there to be able to service their needs and assist them with some of their challenges. Russell, you’ve been in business for quite a while, especially in the nonprofit sector. In your time in the business world, is there anything that you wish you can go back and do over again or where you learn faster? Is there anything that comes up for you?

What I would like to do is if I had it to do again, would be to step back and try to be more proactive in planning. My time with the Aroostook Band of Micmacs was the baptism by fire. If I had known more about using or looked into more diverse sources of funding, looking to fill those skill gaps in other ways, finding more ways to collaborate with other entities, it really would’ve served us a lot better as far as being able to put some programs together.

That’s one of those things. If you could go back and learn that again and do that over, will we get along to where we are a lot faster? That’s absolutely fantastic. Russell, what is one thing you want to communicate to our listeners about who you are and what you do that if you could share that one thing about you and your business and how you serve people, what would that be?

When people come into your office, you have to see the whole person because there’s a whole set of problems.

Aside from my time with the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, I spent five years as an IRS auditor. These two things have to come together. When people come into your office, you have to see the whole person because there’s a whole set of problems. They might come in to me initially to talk about starting a business, but I happen to know some of those people were looking for assistance with heating, they lived in substandard housing, their children were trying to get their educations. You have to see a whole person, you have to look at people with compassion. What I learned in my time at the IRS though is it’s important to have systems and accountability. You have to do that in order to be effective.

Compassion has to meet systems, it has to meet compliance. Compassion and compliance have to meet in the middle to be completely effective as a nonprofit leader. I’ve been able to do both. I was very successful as an auditor. I was promoted three times. I had success with that. I think I was successful at establishing connections for the Micmac community. I’ve accomplished a few things over the ten years there. Of course, with nonprofits, people have compassion, you never feel like you’ve done enough because there’s so much need out there. A lot of people working in the nonprofit field go home feeling like, “If only I could just do a little bit more.”

I think we’re seeing a shift in not only in nonprofits, but in businesses across the board that are just raising the bar on how business gets done and reconnecting with individuals and coming from a compassionate place and operating in authenticity and transparency. Fortunately, there are individuals like yourself who are out there leading the way in that new way of doing business. Russell, is there a website that we can send members to that they can go check out and learn a little bit more about your services?

They can go to RussellDennis.com to learn a little bit more. That’s my website. I am on a number of platforms, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with the username RmanRussDen. I have that username for both Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m on Google+, I’m on GoRead, GoRead.com/RmanRussDen. But RussellDennis.com is a good place to start.

Fantastic.

I’m everywhere. I’ve tried to put out information on operating nonprofits. I write articles to that effect. If somebody would like to schedule a discovery session, they can schedule one on my website that links right to my calendar. I’m happy to have a 30 minute discovery session with anyone that is operating a nonprofit that would like to just chat. No pressure, just have a chat and talk about where they are and what they’d like to accomplish to see if I can offer them some new things to consider and some alternatives. I’ve written some articles on things to consider before you start a nonprofit. I just posted one on LinkedIn today, 7 Alternatives to Starting a Nonprofit. If you’re a person of purpose, there are a number of different ways. Check that out on LinkedIn.

Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. If you want to get a free session, free 30 minute session with Russell, reach out to him on his website RussellDennis.com or check out his profile in the CLEAR Business Directory at ClearBusinessDirectory.com. Russell, thank you so much for being on the show today. I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Always a pleasure, Justin. Thank you very much.

Awesome. Thank you.

Learn more about Russell Dennis.

Our guest today is one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Shannon Gronich, of the Business Acceleration Summit.

She runs a business conference that really helps small businesses grow through building a high level community. She’s implemented the Clear Directory as part of this process. You can attend the Business Acceleration Summit and know with full confidence that the people that are on her stage have been vetted for frauds and scams.

Today, we are interviewing one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Shannon Gronich of the Business Acceleration Summit. I’m super excited to have Shannon on the show. She’s by far one of my favorite people on the planet. I’m even more excited because not only is she a member of the Clear Business Directory, but she’s also an advocate because she does run a business conference that really helps small businesses grow. She’s implemented the Clear Directory as part of this process. What’s super exciting about that is you can attend the Business Acceleration Summit and know with full confidence that the people that are on her stage have been vetted for frauds and scams. With that, Shannon, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity.

Shannon, can you share with our listeners a little bit more about what the Business Acceleration Summit is?

The Business Acceleration Summit came out of a dream of bringing people together to collaborate, have an experience with high level mentors and supporters to give them access to instant feedback and resources to grow their business. It’s a two and a half day event where we come in and people will mastermind, we do a high performance networking experience. We break bread with other high level industry experts and we work towards a shared vision of creating social entrepreneurs.

It’s such a unique experience. We’ve been to a lot of different conferences and interacted with members and service faculty. What you’ve created is such a unique experience because it’s bringing people together from the business community. Connecting them with some really powerful people, giving them an opportunity to co-create and bring their businesses to a place that they may not have thought of or they didn’t think that they have the support to do. You’ve really created that place that brings people together to allow them to work on their business and grow their business in such a way that they are fully supported.

High Level Community: LOHAS – Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability

As you know from coming, I tend to be a magnet for people that are into holistic health or personal development or green building. It’s like this LOHAS community, Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. A lot of them are really good at what they’re doing, but when it comes to marketing or growing their business, they really need this type of information. It is a unique community that comes together.

For those of you who haven’t met Shannon, she is an absolute powerhouse. Her Rolodex, for those of you who don’t know what a Rolodex is, her contacts, the people that she attracts, the people she knows are just top-notch and amazing content and just amazing people all around. We’re super excited to be a part of the Business Acceleration Summit as well. I’m just super excited that you’re here with us on the show today.

I’m looking forward to sharing this because I really want them to get to know you a little bit more. You’ve built something so unique. People strive for that kind of success that you’ve created. Can you share a little bit about your journey? If you could go back in time and do one thing over again, what would that be?

I think it really involves transparency. I built a company for a really long time, ten years. When the economy shifted and a lot of things caused me to actually close the business, I wasn’t being transparent. I was still the duck underwater where I’m smiling and swimming, but paddling like crazy underneath. What I’ve really learned on this journey shortly after that was had I been really vulnerable and transparent and actually reached out to my community, my rock bottom would’ve been a lot gentler.

It really showed me the importance of being transparent and letting people know that, “Hey, I need help. I need support. Help dust me off.” I kept showing up, smiling and everything’s great. Later, when I did finally share with people, I had some friends that were upset at me because I didn’t let them know what was going on. They said, “I would have loved to have helped. That’s what friends are for and that’s what business partners are for.” I would say being more transparent to the ups and downs in my business.

I love the fact that you shared that because we get that so often with people who go through the Clear Business Directory process of operating in transparency. I know you and I have talked about this, where people think because of the name, it’s a pass or fail type process. It’s really not. It’s really focused on the businesses operating transparency. I love the fact that you shared that with our listeners because that’s typically the same response that we get from people that go through the process, who think it might be pass or fail. But when they get on the other side and they now have the freedom for many stories they had because of the fear of not wanting to operate in transparency, it’s immediately relieved.

Now, they can operate in transparency with full confidence. It really helps them skyrocket with their business because they’ve got nothing to hold them back at that point. Given your extensive businesses experience, I know you’ve been at the business game for quite some time, what’s one of the things that you’ve learned along the way that had really gotten you to where you’re at today?

High Level Community: My biggest success is when I’ve connected with other people.

For me, it’s community and surrounding yourself with others. This concept of we’re alone is definitely an illusion. It can be real if we choose to operate on that place. For me, my biggest success is when I’ve connected with other people, created a place in my business structure to allow people to come in and grow and contribute and really building that community.

When it comes to events, the most successful ones I’ve done, one I had a hundred volunteers. That’s a pretty massive undertaking, but it’s that community of people coming together with a shared vision. Anytime we can surround ourselves with a vision team or supporters that can be there when we go through our ups and downs is key because we really are never alone, Justin. There’s lot of resources. We just have to ask and we just have to create that environment.

That’s what I really love about Business Acceleration Summit. What you’ve built there is the collaboration. The after event that we had with the mentors and the very intimate setting in reviewing things, just connecting with one another. How can we grow this? How do we get it out there to the rest of the world and show them, “Hey, you don’t have to do this by yourself. You could come together with a group of like-minded individuals, business owners, who’re going to help you grow your business.” What’s so exciting about the summit is that you’ve built that for people.

It is definitely the group of mentors. That was a very beautiful experience. When everybody comes together with different skills and sometimes speakers have ego and things like that. I know everybody who shows up at the Summit really has a huge heart, a people-first mindset and a place of giving. That’s a beautiful example of where we can come together with a shared vision. We had a lot of things and ideas that are taking the whole event to another level.

Our listeners want to know more information about the Summit. What are a couple of good questions that somebody could ask you directly about who you are and what you’ve done or what the Summit’s about? What kind of information would you want them to know?

I have personally produced hundreds of events, all the way from webinars to the convention center in Fort Lauderdale, renting the top floor out with thousands of participants. From that experience, I bring it home to everybody that attends this event. When somebody signs up, they immediately get an email with a training video that helps them prepare. If they’re a VIP, they get an assessment and an actual coach that gets them on track for when they show up. We do a lot to really help people when they get there and get the most out of it and start matchmaking in the process.

From doing all of the events I have over the years, I’ve learned that you can just show up, wing it and miracles happen. But if you can show up with intention and a little bit of planning and a little bit of guidance, you can actually get so much more out of it. That’s one of the things that we bring to the table. We have stuff afterwards to really keep that community going and helping people connect. This isn’t just a show up one time event. This is really much greater than that with what we bring to before, during and after experience.

That’s what I love about what you’ve created. It’s not just a, “I want it done.” It’s an ongoing community that you can come back to over and over again. It’s amazing, the relationships and connections that you’ll make at your event are things that are going to last a lifetime. Like you said, it’s what people need moving forward. Shannon, can you share with our listeners a good place where they can learn more about your business?

They can go to BusinessAccelerationSummit.com. If they actually put in the code, ‘Clear Directory’, I can offer them a savings if they decide to come and join us.

If you’re listening to this, come join us. Shannon does the Summit multiple times throughout the year. You can go to her website and get the dates, learn what’s coming up, see who’s coming, see who’s in the Clear Business Directory because those that have already been vetted are listed on the site as being in the clear. Very, very soon here, all of the mentors will be on the Clear Business Directory. We’re super excited to bring that level of transparency to the business conference arena.

If you want to learn more about Shannon, you can visit her website or you can visit her profile inside the Clear Business Directory as well. Shannon, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Justin, for all that you do. This is really important for anybody that’s looking to partner, collaborate. The service that you’re offering is beyond background checks. I’m so glad that we have a resource like you, for not only our mentors to be in the clear but also the businesses that attend, so that they could move forward with the partnership or collaboration with certainty, trust and comfort.

We’re happy to be part of it. We look forward to the future with the Business Acceleration Summit. Until next time, before you get involved with anybody, make sure their business is operating in the Clear Business Directory and that they’re operating in transparency. Take care.

Learn more about Shannon Gronich.

Silvica Rosca founded Business Brains, Inc. in 2016. As its CEO, Silvica facilitates online group coaching programs rich in content, and mentors individuals with a higher level of commitment to their personal, career and business success.

In this episode, she talks about infusing love and human emotion  into your leadership and how that helps you and your business be more successful.  She also talks about how she helps people be more fearless leaders as well as more caring leaders by being more aware of your own emotions and background.

Today we’re talking to one of my favorite members of the Clear Business Directory, Silvica Rosca of Business Brains Inc. Silvica brings such unique insight to the business world from a place of awareness and consciousness that a lot of businesses are shifting into and transitioning into. She joins us here on our show today. Silvica, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It’s so good to be on.

I appreciate you being here with us today. I’m super excited because you’re a brand of entrepreneur and business owner that we’re seeing a lot of more of; the conscious business owner, the more of aware business owner. The value that you bring your organizations with what you do is so needed nowadays as a lot of these businesses are transitioning into a higher level of awareness, social entrepreneurs, and so forth. Can you explain a little bit more exactly about what it is you do?

Yes, for sure. I help people become more caring, more confident and just more fearless leaders. Basically, by being aware of themselves, of all the inner workings of your subconscious mind, but aware of your emotions and be mindfully present and aware of the emotional baggage that we bring to the table when we serve as leaders and when we interact with our teams or with our clients. Helping them process through their stuff and then be able to communicate better and empathize better with our teams, to be able to get them working towards the goals that they want to get to.

I think we’re seeing a lot of businesses look outside their organizations for additional insight. Oftentimes, the managers, the CEOs, the advisers are often too close to their teams to really see the inner workings and the interconnectedness. Bringing somebody like you into the organization is really important in creating those team dynamics and just bringing people closer together.

Infusing Love: Helping each person to be more aware of their stories, their emotional backgrounds to get them to start working together.

The first time I realized that this was one of my natural giftings is when I was twenty. I got hired as an intern for a big Fortune 100 company in the defense industry. I was the only female in the group and also the only person under the age of 50. The people in the group had been working with each other for 25 years already. They’d known each other, they have their patterns and some of them couldn’t stand in the same room together because the team was just completely dysfunctional. Within a year, I was able to get them to start working together. This caught the attention of the executives because this has been something they have been trying to do for a long time. It just was that fresh perspective and helping each person to be more aware of what their stories were, what their emotional backgrounds were and to get them to start working together.

That is such a big deal. The businesses that don’t see that, that don’t move into implementing those kinds of things into their business structure are going to have a hard time and struggle in moving forward. It’s so needed nowadays, especially with the millennials coming in. They think differently. They communicate differently. They’re more connected because they’ve grown up in a world that is close. When I was growing up, it was snail mail and the internet didn’t exist. You didn’t need that connection. We had to struggle to get there.

The young workforce nowadays is so interconnected. Those businesses that have your teams that are implementing the younger workforce are going to have to adapt, they’re going to have to evolve with the team communications, especially as the older work generation starts to wean out and the younger generations start to come in. There is going to be that gap period where that team communication, that team dynamic, it’s so important why somebody like you could really help bring businesses to the next level.

I completely agree.

Silvica, given your history, your background, what is one of the most important questions that somebody should be asking you for their own due diligence, before they decide to hire your business?

That is a very good question. The biggest question they should ask themselves is, do they want to take the traditional route? Are they more comfortable with the traditional route? Or are they open to learning leadership from a fresh voice? When I’m doing the trainings, I’m doing the coachings, it only helps as far as people are willing to be open and to apply. You can’t change someone. You have to be willing to change. What I found is that some people want the more traditional route. They want to do things the way they’ve always done them or the way that their mentors have done them. . Be really honest about that. Are they really looking for something different? Are they really open to dare to find more creative ways of approaching leadership? If they are not, they probably won’t get that value out of my program. Really think about that.

That’s important. I love the way you frame that. Is this something that you really want? Is this something that you are really looking for? That close mindset will definitely just set up the relationship for failure. That’s a great question. Speaking of questions, have you ever experienced a miscommunication with a client? If so, how did that go?

Yes. I remember I had a client sign up and I explained to them the process. I do group coaching programs. Every week I release audios, etc., worksheets and then we have group coaching call. I had thought I explained to my client clearly how to access everything and in my head it made sense. Week after week, I kept getting messages from my clients, “Why am I getting this email? Why am I doing it? Why this?” Finally, after emails going back and forth, I just called them and said, “What’s going on?” It turns out my client had thought that the program was only the coaching calls and hadn’t even realized the entire other half of the program. Which for me, it was amazing because she was bragging to her friends about it. She’s telling them that the program is so worth it and she’d only accessed a part of it. For me, I thought I was doing a clear job communicating. This miscommunication opened my eyes to realize, I need to do a better job of communicating and where my communication flaws were and better improve that for the future.

Sometimes we’re too close to the systems that we build. In our minds, it makes absolutely perfect sense. It’s simple, you just go here, here and here and this is what you get. Oftentimes, it’s easy to forget that just because you see it all the time, it doesn’t mean that your clients are going to Communication is important. I absolutely love it.

We like to have transparency. That’s what the Clear Business Directory is all about. The thing is, it’s all about who you are, what you’ve done, how you own up and the lessons that you’ve learned. Is there anything in your business background that you wish that you could do over again?

Infusing Love: Be a lot more financially cautious, especially to new businesses.

Yes, definitely. Before I officially launched my coaching business, my brother, friend and I launched a real estate investment company. We were so gung-ho about it, we haven’t even started a deal. What I did, because I had the better credit history, I had pulled out a personal loan for the business, invested in the company. As we were going through, we were using the money for advertising, for this, for that and it was very well used. After we closed our first deal, we realized we really don’t like the business. We really don’t want to continue it. We closed the business down. There was that personal loan in my name that wasn’t fully repaid because the deal we had closed wasn’t sufficient to cover it. We have an agreement with each other of how to pay it off, and how to pay me back. But it is just that, be a lot more financially cautious, especially to new businesses. Having not done our homework of knowing, is this really something we want to be in? We had that new startup fervor and everything and logical thinking went off the window, even though we thought we we’re thinking logically.

There are so many people in the entrepreneurial world, in the business world that do that. They’ll take the leap and then, “I should have thought that out a little bit more.” It sounds like you landed on your feet fairly well, so that’s good. Knowing you and speaking with you and working with you, you’re in your passion, you’re in yourself with what you’re doing now, so that’s fantastic. What is one thing that you want our listeners and your potential clients to really know about you and your business?

I think love is an integral part of business. When my clients work with me, the one thing that I will challenge them to do through everything is start infusing love into your leadership. I’ve noticed in my leadership positions in non-profit organizations, in the faith community, in the educational community and then also in corporate America. As soon we start infusing love and that human emotion within our interaction with people, there’s a drastic difference in a way people react to you, the way people connect with you. To be prepared for that, they’re going to be challenged to love.

That is such a good place to come from when you’re doing business. A lot of people come from the “how I make money.” That is just a fear base. When you come from abundance, when you come from, “We’re just here to change people’s lives and make the world a better place.” I know that sounds really cliché, but it’s really what it boils down to. It’s just that, and you focus on that. Like you said, leadership changes, your business changes, your experience with your business changes. The money piece always works itself out. It always does. I absolutely love that. That’s where you come from and the value that you provide for your clients. Outside of looking at the Clear Business Directory, your profile, a little more about you, is there a place that you like to send our listeners to that they’ll learn more specifically about your business?

Of course, they could go to SilvicaRosca.com. There they’ll have access to all the blogs I write, timely information, things like that, the courses I have, also access to social media. I do a lot live streaming on my Facebook.

Silvica, thank you so much for being on the show today. Again, before you get involved with anybody, make sure that the businesses that you are getting involved with are in the Clear Business Directory. Until next time, take care.

Learn more about Silvica Rosca.

Keynote Speaker, Business Adviser, President of Private and Public Corporations, Inventor, Mentor and pretty good guy, David M. Corbin has been referred to as “Robin Williams with an MBA” because of his very practical, high relevant content speeches coupled with entertaining and sometimes side splitting stories.

In this episode, David Corbin talks about how he keeps a business and life balance, as well as in everything that he does, from his relationships to his health. He also talks about some rough times that he’s been through and how that has helped his success in everything he does today.

Today, we are talking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory and what it means to operate a transparency business. I am super excited folks because today we have the one and only David Corbin on the show. David is the founder and CEO of Performance Technology Group and he joins us here today. David, thank you for being on the show.

Happy to be with you, Justin.

David, you are a mentor to so many people, to include myself. We met at CEO Space. You’ve just done so many things. I don’t want to bastardize your experience, can you share with the listeners what you do and who you’ve done it for?

What I do professionally and what I do in life are two of the same things. I love to explore thoughts and ideas. I have been doing this forever. I mentor people. I love doing that. I do it with some amazing people. Some are amazingly famous. Some are not famous. But each of them has their qualities and characteristics that they bring in making this a better world. They do it in the business format, which involves money. They are in the pursuit of the money while they are in pursuit of doing really good stuff. Then I invent products and services. I build companies around those products and services. I sell those businesses and move on. I’ve got a couple of them right now that I am really excited about. I do a whole bunch of fun stuff. I love health and exercise. That’s a big part of my life too.

You are what I like to deem as the quintessential business owner/entrepreneur, because your life is full of this balance in everything that you do, from your relationships, to your business, to your health. You are the full package of what it really means to be in business nowadays.

Business and Life Balance: I teach how important it is to be unencumbered because it’s difficult enough to be a successful entrepreneur.

Thank you for that. Thank you for noticing. Balance is an interesting term. I think sometimes the first name of my balance is off because you are running around and you’re a little off balancing so many different things here. I’ve got a beautiful full day today after yesterday having a magnificent day of exercise, tennis, visiting with friends, sitting and watching some of the crazy news.

I do a talk now in a keynote called the Unencumbered Entrepreneur. In that, I teach how important it is to be unencumbered of physical, emotional, and spiritual encumbrances because it’s difficult enough to be a successful entrepreneur. Where today, it’s as though you got to jump through hoops and they make the hoops smaller and then they set the hoops on fire. It is tough being an entrepreneur, but it’s real tough when you are walking with cement shoes carrying excess weight emotionally and physically. That’s why I am real big about reminding people the importance.

I’ll ask people, “I wonder how Steve Jobs is spending his money lately.” It’s a great question, isn’t it? How is Steve Jobs spending his money lately? He is not because he doesn’t have this gift of life right now. Entrepreneurs must appreciate that and not take their eye off of that while they have their eye on achieving their entrepreneurial success. Does that make sense?

It makes absolutely perfect sense. The value you bring to your clients just comes from that history of your experience and life, that you are doing what you teach people to do. That’s a big deal. There are a lot of people out there who get involved with other consultants and coaches who are talking the talk, but they are not walking the walk. That’s why I love that you are part of the Clear Business Directory, because you bring so much value to your clients.

You operate in transparency. You are one of the most authentic people that we know. Your book, Illuminate the Negative, is such a sticking point. For me, it’s one of the things that truly resonates with what we do with the Clear. What you bring to your clients is just absolutely amazing. David, can you share with our audience, if there’s one thing that you wanted a particular client to know about you, what would that be?

That’s a great question. I want to be as clear and authentic as I can with the people that I work with. It’s not that I want to be, I am and I need to be. I believe that that crosses all industries and all individuals. Just being who we are I think is critical. On my Facebook page, for example, I post liberally, just sharing my life. Because a lot of people, audiences or clients, they want to know and I know that they want to know, so I just live my life openly and it holds me accountable.

Business and Life Balance: I am a human being. I am an embodied spirit who plays the role of those things.

I remember once working with an executive of Tony Robbins’ company. I was doing some speaker training with him. I had him on video and whatnot. He’s a really neat guy, a soft spoken guy from Midwest. As soon as the camera went on, he started imitating Tony Robbins. It was like, he went from being his authentic him to somebody else. Years ago, when Brian Tracy and I were business partners, I used to give birth to process management consultants. When I would have them do their presentation, they would be bouncing on their heels and using their hand gestures, exactly like Brian. I had to say, “You’re not a Tony-clony. You’re not a Brian-clony. You are you for crying out loud.” My objective with them has always been to pull away the veneer so that they could be their authentic selves. Then I realized that’s probably my greatest selling attribute, having that veneer removed. I have no choice but to be in concert, in harmony, and integrity with my values and my beliefs. Of course, our children hold us to that accountability. I have a very precautious daughter named Jenna. They can call us on our stuff. Sometimes it’s cute and funny, but other times it’s enlightening. Clear Directory is like that.

My illuminate concept is in concert with what you guys do. I say you need to face it, follow it, and fix it. In business, there are some people, executives, leaders and the like, who have an inclination or an intuition about someone or something, but they suppress it. They don’t face it. They don’t deal with it and it comes to bite them in the butt. The same thing with vetting partners or vetting employees. When you don’t have the reckless at hand and you are not following your intuition, you can get the big pile of what you do.

Anyway, what do I want people to know about me is that I am not a consultant. I am not a mentor. I am not an author. I am not a keynote speaker. I am a human being. I am an embodied spirit who plays the role of those things. Happily, I have a lot of people that think I play the role pretty well, but I believe those are just roles. My objective in life is to love and be loved, serve and be served, acknowledge and see and the like to live a happy and big life. That’s what I do for a living.

It’s a pretty amazing way to make a living if you think about it. There are so many people out there that are struggling. What you bring to everybody that you touched and the lives that you share and your experiences, it’s just so empowering for people to be around you. I know that there’s probably been some rough times along the way. Is there anything that you can recall or would like to share that didn’t necessarily go right and you wish you can go back and do over again?

I wouldn’t want to do it over again. But I am sitting in a room right now in a house that I bought when I was 29 years old. Now, I am not 29, I am 64. I’ve been in this house for a long time. It brings back a lot of memories. There was a time when I thought I was going to lose this house. I owned a company, started it with under a hundred dollars, expanded to fourteen western states in a matter of three years, had many, many employees who were doing pretty darn well. Then the whole thing started tumbling down. This I know was in 1985 because we were pregnant with my 30-year-old son. Put it all together and I was nervous. Plus we have had a couple of miscarriages and I couldn’t share my fears about my business, perhaps losing my business and home, with my wife, who was so pregnant.

Those were some tough times. It scared the hell out of me. It taught me some lessons. It taught me the power and the importance of mentorship. Because had I had a mentor, I would have sold that business for many millions of dollars, and I didn’t. Happily, I was able to sell that business to Bertelsmann who came in to the United States from Germany and bought Doubleday Books, Bantam Books, Dell Books, RCA Records, Arista Records and my company as well. Had I not sold the company, I would have lost it and I would have lost my house. I’ve had some interesting times and as I sit in this house now, there are a lot of memories of things and that’s one of them. That’s a big one.

That’s powerful for people to hear, and thank you for sharing that, because it’s so important for business owners to know that you are not alone. There are going to be some rough times. There are going to be some fears that come up. Knowing that they’ve got somebody that they can turn to for advice, getting a mentor, talking to you, having conversations that feel like you are not alone and you don’t have to do it by yourself. At the end of the day, it’s going to work itself out. It always does. That’s important to know and connect with people in that level to say, “Look, I’ve been there. We’ve all been afraid. Here’s how you move through it.” David, I know you’ve got a new book out. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Preventing BrandSlaughter: How to Preserve, Support, and Grow Your Brand Asset Value

My books have always done pretty well through the years, but this particular one has taken off faster than any other book I’ve ever put out there, but then again I held it back for a long time. I wrote it over a year ago and we just released it about three weeks ago. It’s called Preventing Brandslaughter. You have been in law and intelligence enforcement. You know that if somebody commits manslaughter, they’re going to be in trouble. I look at the brand as a living entity. You are either building your brand, feeding it, and growing it, or you are not. You are either in brand integrity or you’re outside of that brand integrity and you are committing brandslaughter in the first, second or third degree.

The brand has great value. In fact in Europe, they actually include the brand asset value into the bottom line. They are starting to do that in the United States as well. If you obliterate the brand, you’re stealing the company of money. When CEOs or owners or sole proprietors don’t understand what their brand is and they don’t know how it interacts with all of the touch points of the daily events of business, they can conceivably mishandle that brand. If Tonya Recla answers the phone in a hostile manner and your brand is that of caring and sharing. Let’s make believe you’re the CEO, you can go, “I didn’t do it. Tonya did it.” But the truth is, you are ultimately responsible, in this case, for brandslaughter in the second degree.

Bottom line is, in the book I teach how to do an ABI, happy which is an Audit of Brand Integrity, so that everyone in the organization does that audit and knows how and where that brand is alive in their daily activities. Then it breeds confidence. It also breeds brand asset value.

The analogy of manslaughter versus brandslaughter definitely paints a clear picture as to what you can do to your business if you are not paying attention. Especially the due diligence field, we’ve seen all levels of brandslaughter because people aren’t willing to be transparent. They are not willing to own up to it. Obviously, like you said, it comes and bites them in the butt. That can kill a company. David, where can people go to learn more about your book?

It’s on Amazon for $14. But for a short period of time, and I don’t know how long they are going to extend it, it is $0.99 for the eBook download. That’s not going to be that way forever, perhaps by the time people are listening to this. But it’s well worth the $14 or $15, believe me, because like you teach, it’s what you miss which will kick you in the butt. In this particular case, it’s what you miss in terms of sharing what your brand is and how it is, every aspect of your business, will kick you in the butt and they can undo you. Look at company’s like, and just name it. This week alone, Toyota, Volkswagen, Chipotle, their brand name is just going in the crappers.

I believe strongly in the message, otherwise I wouldn’t write it. I write books on things that are important to me. My book on health and vitality is going to be coming out. My book on values is coming out. My service book is out. My integrity book is out. It’s fun. I just write on what’s important to me.

We look forward to those new books coming out. David, in addition to checking out your profile inside the Clear Business Directory, where else can our audience find you?

It’s just DavidCorbin.com. I am so pleased that Forbes just did an article on me and I was just on Business Rockstars TV show and some other groovy stuff. If you type my name in there, happily, good stuff comes up.

David, thank you so much for being on the show today. We look forward to seeing you in the upcoming weeks. Until next time, make sure your business is in the clear.

Learn more about David Corbin.

Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Incorporated, and the founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, organizations devoted to the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders in the business community, non-profits and education.

In this episode, Steve talks about music, transparency,  love and leadership in business. He explains what the Extreme Leader Institute is about and what they do. He also talks about authenticity, transparency, realness and how people respond to these things.

Today, we are talking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory on what it means to operate a transparent business. Our guest today is Steve Farber of the Extreme Leader Institute. You are in for a treat. Steve is not only an all-around great guy, but he is a musician and he’s been in the business of leadership for the last twenty plus years. He is a best-selling author. This is a guy in business that gets it, who understands what leadership means and everything that he does is top-notch. I am honored to have him on the show today. Steve, thank you for joining for us.

Thank you, Justin. Those are very kind words. I appreciate it.

I got to be honest with you, Steve. You blew me away the last time we went when you broke out the guitar.

Thank you. I started playing guitar when I was thirteen years old. When I was in my late teens, early twenties, if you would have asked me what I’d be doing in my 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, I wouldn’t have said leadership development author, mentor. I would have said musician. I would have said I’d be on tour. I’d be writing songs. Let’s just say it didn’t turn out that way. It’s been really fun, it’s something that I’ve just started to do recently to bring music into my work as a speaker, an author, a coach, and all that. I feel like I’m on a little bit of a new journey by reaching back in the past and bringing forward something that I’ve been always passionate about, music.

It really gives people a good insight as to who you are. I thought I knew you and then, of course, boom, there you are. You break out the guitar and I am like, “Hang on a second. I didn’t know that piece about you.” It’s such an almost intimate knowingness of somebody when you connect through music. I love the fact that you are able to share that. Folks, not only did he play but he also sang. It was a version of Amazing Grace with another member at the forum that we were just at. It was absolutely beautiful. Steve, thank you for sharing that.

My pleasure.

Steve, outside of being a contributor in Inc Magazine, can you share a little bit more about what the Extreme Leadership Institute is all about?

I’ve written three books: The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and Greater Than Yourself. The Radical Leap came out originally in 2004. It’s had a few additions since then. I have been doing the work of leadership development and started in the really late 80s early 90s. I have been doing this for quite some time. Over the years, I’ve developed my own point of view on what great leadership is and I described it as Extreme Leadership and I built my company around that.

Love and Leadership: Understand that leadership is not about your position.

The Extreme Leadership Institute, which is my main company, is really all about helping people to understand that leadership is not about your position. It’s not about your title. It’s not about where you sit on an org chart. It’s not about how much power you have over other people. It’s about your willingness, first of all, and then your ability to step up and change things for the better regardless of your position or title. This is what I help people do.

I help people in lots of different contexts. My primary playground, as it were, has been in the corporate world, in the world of business. I work with people in all different levels. I work with entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and corporate executives. It just doesn’t matter to me. As long as they are human, that’s one prerequisite, and they are interested in changing things for the better, there’s something that I can do to help them.

Tonya’s completing your book and she was just blown away by it. Some of the points that you make and the concepts you bring to the leadership conversation is a breath of fresh air, because the old ways of doing business just aren’t effective anymore. Thought leaders such as yourself who bring new ideas around the concepts of leadership is really what people are craving. You and I have talked on a couple occasions on the concept of transparency in business and what that means from a leadership position. Is there something from a transparent perspective that you would want the audience to know about you, your business history, and some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way?

Let me put it in a little bit of a broader context. If there’s one so-called fresh idea that I am bringing to the conversation about leadership, it’s by bringing in, ironically, something that’s not so fresh. It’s not so new. In fact, it’s rather timeless. It’s rather simply, love is the foundation of leadership. Love is the foundation of great business.

I get on my soap box and I try to get people to understand that love is not, and I can say this because I live here in California, it’s not California touchy-feely hoo-ha crap. Love is just damn good business really. We want our customers to love us. We want our customers to love our product or service that we offer because that’s where our competitive advantage comes from. If that’s the case, then the way to make that happen in a real sustainable and meaningful way over time is to create an environment that people love working in. I can’t create that environment unless I love this work and the people that I work with, myself first. That’s the logical path. Love is the foundation of great business, and that is maybe what sets me apart a little bit perhaps.

I’d say that sets you apart quite a bit, especially in the corporate world.

Love and Leadership: They respond to authenticity, transparency, and realness. We crave that in today’s world.

Of course, love and transparency, they go hand in hand so to speak because this is not about faking it. It’s not about pretending I love my customers or my team when I really don’t. It’s about tapping into an authentic emotion and very human experience. The more I love and trust somebody, the more transparent I am with them about who I am, what I am trying to do, where I come from and where we are trying to go together. Authenticity has become almost a buzz word in recent years. The reason things become buzz words is because there’s a fairly common agreement that it’s a good idea. The down side to being a buzz word, and that is that we think if we’re using the word then we are doing the thing. It’s the old adage that, “Authenticity is a great thing. If you can learn how to fake that, you got it made.” I don’t know who said that originally but it’s been a tribute to a lot of different people. That’s the idea. You can’t fake this stuff. You can’t fake transparency. Either you are transparent or you are not.

I’ll give you a very specific example from my own business. One of the things we do is certify people to teach our Extreme Leadership Workshop. They will come to San Diego. We do it twice a year. The next one is coming up on August 16th. We do a workshop on the first day that anybody can attend. It’s open to the public. Then the next three days is the Train the Trainer or certification process. When people are done with that, they’re licensed and certified to facilitate the Extreme Leadership Workshop. That’s the context for it. One of the things that we do is, at the end of the four days, we invite everybody to our house for a barbecue. To me, that just seems like the obvious thing to do. People are coming in from all over the world; they’re spending all these time and all this money with me to go deep into this body of work, which is my body of work, which is my life’s work. Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with them?

It’s just really interesting, Justin, because to me it just seems like an obvious thing. When I first started doing this, and we’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, I remember people were just absolutely gobsmacked that we invited them to our house. I guess it’s because they just don’t expect that level of intimacy and personal revealing of who you are. When somebody is standing around in your kitchen having a conversation, it’s just about as real as it gets. It’s that human to human interaction, and I love it. We’ve actually had people call the office and say, “When is the program with the barbecue coming up because I want to go to the barbecue?” There’s more to it than that, obviously. But I think that’s what people respond to, Justin. They respond to authenticity, transparency, and realness. We crave that in today’s world of fake news and weird stuff going on. We can’t separate dream from reality or illusion from fact. When we see somebody who’s actually real and is willing to let us in to their lives, we all respond to that.

I have to agree with you. What people I think are really missing in the business world is that connectedness. That tags right into your conversation of love. I get that all the time, “How do you guys do what you do? You just don’t trust anybody?” “No. It’s all about transparency and connecting with people.” By all means, we absolutely love people. It’s just a matter of helping bring that very similar message of, if you are going to connect with people, do it from a place of transparency. Do it from a place of authenticity.

It’s so funny, your story reminds me when I was in college and I had a professor that was teaching us concepts of ego, personal development, and understanding who you were and all these kinds of stuff. At the very end of the course, he invited us to his house for a barbecue. To me that was like, as far as everybody that I have been in front of, if I was going to be taking advice on who I was and what I was going to do with my life, here was a guy who’s telling me, “Here’s who I am. Come see how I live.” In the business world, for you to be able to do that for your clients is huge because that encompasses everything from a leadership perspective as to who you are. They get to see you there and connect with you there. It’s not just, “Thanks for coming to the event and I hope you can learn something.” But “I honor you. I see you. Come be a part of this inner circle and let’s really get a chance to connect.” In that space where you build lifelong clients, lifetime fans and where your business success really accelerates.

I think we also have to acknowledge the willingness to be transparent is scary for most people. We are always afraid that they are going to see something that they won’t like or something that’s even potentially shameful. I am sure you run into this all the time. I had that experience when we give you our information to go through your vetting process.  “What are they going to find?” You run into that a lot when people start the process with you?

Absolutely. One of the biggest things that we come up against is just that, what are you going to find? How is it going to show up? Really where we come in and we help educate people on is like, “There is something out there in your background.” By coming from a place of transparency, it actually disarms any argument that somebody can use against you for not wanting to work with you.

Love and Leadership: Instead of trying to appear to be perfect, how about instead just being really open and transparent?

Let’s take that for a second and look at it in the context of the leadership principle, because the same holds true every day. When I tell people, I coach and I write about this very thing, that human beings follow human beings. We don’t follow some idealized icon of unattainable perfection. We follow people and people are imperfect. It’s just the way we are. This is exactly the same advice that I give to leaders and aspiring leaders. Instead of trying to appear to be perfect, which none of us is, instead of trying to appear that way, how about instead just being really open and transparent and vulnerable with the things that you don’t do well, the areas where you’ve screwed up? It doesn’t mean necessarily revealing all the skeletons in your closet to everybody that you work with. Instead, just saying, “Listen, I tried this. Here’s what I did. It didn’t work. I screwed it up. Here’s what I learned from it. I am sharing this with you so you know that I don’t want to you make the same mistake that I did.” There are all kinds of opportunity just to be real, authentic and transparent.

We’ve been conditioned to believe on some level that when we are in a leadership role, that if we are seen as anything other than perfect, that damages our credibility .It doesn’t. If we are incompetent, that’s something else. I am not talking about, “Let’s all be transparently incompetent.” Even the most competent accomplished people screw things up occasionally. Our willingness to be able to use even our uncomfortable experience as a way to help other people to learn from is a great gift that we can give to people and actually creates a closer and tighter bond and actually increases my credibility, which is what you were saying. If you just come at it and say, “Look. Here is the issue. Here is what happened. Here is what I learned from it. Here’s how it’s shaping me into the person that I am today.” Then any negative charge on that just dissipates.

That’s one of the things I love about what we do, what the Clear Business Directory provides is it provides that safe space for people to share whatever there may be in their background. It’s not as if somebody just goes to the vetting process and then, boom, we populate the directory with whatever we find. Every member has got to review the report and then they actually have to actively choose to participate in the directory. What that really does is it really raises the bar and it’s not a complaint site. It’s not a place to get some fake rating on A+ business without really knowing who they are or what they do. It’s, “Look. I know this is what you are going to find on me. I want you to know about it and go read it. If you have any questions, let’s have a conversation. Outside of that, let’s go down to business.”

I guess what I am saying is it’s true in every context, whether you are leading a team or leading a company or you are in a relationship with somebody. Whenever more than one human being is involved, it’s a similar process. Our willingness to show our trust in other people by being trusting in our approach to them and to do that by being transparent.

Steve, with that, one of my favorite questions to ask people when they’re getting involved with somebody is, if there was one question or two that somebody should be asking you, what would that question be if they were deciding to come to one of your workshops or engage you in your business? About the work that you do, in order for them to do some additional due diligence on you, what would be a good question that would give us some insight as to whether or not it’s a good fit or not?

It would be something along the lines of, “Can you give me real live people to talk to whose lives and businesses have been changed and transformed for the better?” That’s the implication. I think that’s it. “Can you give me live people to talk to, real people, whose lives and businesses have been changed or transformed for the better by participating in your work?” Something like that.

Bringing it back to the people piece is good especially with what you do as far as how has your information impacted them, how has it impacted their business. That’s not something that you are necessarily going to feel from reading a positive review somewhere. It’s something you are going to feel by connecting with other people that have experienced what it is that you have to offer.

Love and Leadership: The emails that I get from people are really personal.

For me, I’ve had countless people really over the years that have responded to me via email to either response for reading one of my books or hearing me speak or attending my events, whatever it is. There has been a lot of different opportunities for that. What’s interesting about it is, it’s a very personal thing. The emails that I get, there are nice reviews on Amazon for the books and that sort of thing, but the emails that I get from people are really personal. They’re the kinds of things that you don’t go up on social media and post. Sometimes you do, “This book is great. It really changed my life.” I am paraphrasing, but I’ve gotten lots of emails similar to this. “It made me rethink the work that I have been doing and I realized that I am in the wrong place. I hate this job. I quit and I went out. I traveled around the country for a year to find myself. Now I decided to start a new business. It all started when I read your book.” That’s the kind of thing you’re not necessarily going to post on Facebook. Maybe you will. On the other hand, if somebody came to me and said, “Listen. I’d like to talk to some people to hear about their experience.” I’ve got probably dozens that would love to do that. They are just not going to do it publicly.

Steve, I know you mentioned that you’ve got an event coming up here in August. Is there a place that we can send listeners to to learn more about that?

Yes. My world lives at SteveFarber.com. I encourage people to go and spend some time there. If this sounds interesting to you, you are going to see on that site, there are lots of video. There are lots of content. There are lots of audios that you can sign up for. If you are interested in our Extreme Leadership Workshop, you will see a tab in the navigation called Workshops and Training. Then if you are interested in actually getting certified to teach that workshop, you will see a tab that says Certification.

Just spend some time there. Poke around. Watch the videos. Get a sense of who I am and what we do here. Then if you sign up for the audio series, and there’s a pretty obvious prompt to do that, it’s hard to miss, the audios are delivered to you from my email address. You can always just hit reply and if you have any questions, comments, concerns, emotional outbursts or whatever, I do respond to the emails that I get.

In addition, you can find more on Steve in his Clear Business Directory profile in ClearBusinessDirectory.com. If you attend one of his workshops, I am sure you are going to get blessed and graced with his music as well.

That is true. We are doing that more and more. I am not so sure about graced and blessed, but you will hear it.

Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to connect with us on the show today. I am so excited that I’ve gotten to know you more. I look forward to further conversations.

Thank you so much, Justin. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I’ll talk to you soon.

Learn more about Steve Farber.

Nathan Hirsch is the CEO of FreeeUp.com. FreeeUp is the hands-on solution to hiring remote workers online. They interview hundreds of applicants accepting only the best so that you don’t have to. You go to them, tell them who you need, and they introduce you to the best remote worker in their network.

In today’s episode, Nathan Hirsch talks about why he started FreeeUp and what problems they are trying to solve. He explains the importance of communication in a working relationship and how they instill that in their workers. He also shares a personal experience that he has learned from and how that helped him grow.

Today, we are talking to one of the members of The Clear Business Directory. I am super excited to be talking to Nathan Hirsch today. He’s the CEO of FreeeUp.com. I do have to brag a bit because Nathan’s got a service that provides outsourced workers for small business owners. In full transparency, we utilize their services for our business and been extremely pleased with the services that their workers provide. More importantly, one of the reasons why we chose to go with FreeeUp was because they actually vet all of their workers. With that, Nathan, welcome to the show.

Hey. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for the kind words. I’m happy you guys have enjoyed the experience so far.

It’s been absolutely amazing. For lack of a better word, it’s been life changing as far as being able to grow our business and what we’re doing. Can you tell the listeners a little bit more about FreeeUp and where you got the idea and so forth?

Whenever you start a company, you never know what the client feedback’s going to be like. You have certain things in mind and you think it’ll go well and you have the client’s best interest in mind. It’s nice to hear directly from clients and see such positive reactions as we’ve had. I’ve been selling online for over eight years. I’ve sold over $20 million online. I started my first company when I was 20 years old in college. I hired my first employee before I could legally drink. I have a lot of hiring experience. Like many entrepreneurs, I made some really great hires, people who have been with me eight years later, like my business partner, Connor. I made some really bad hires and I learned a lot along the way.

FreeeUp: My life just turned into the CEO that was the HR manager. I didn’t like that. I always wished there was a better way.

One thing I quickly realized as I was growing this company and my business was expanding and I was adding more and more people to the team and more roles popped up and more needs, is my focus shifted from sales and marketing and creating processes and all those stuff I really like doing to all the stuff I didn’t really like doing, which was HR and sitting in interviews and multiple rounds of interviews and onboarding new workers. My life just turned into the CEO that was the HR manager. I really didn’t like that. I always wished there was a better way.

I would go on all these different sites, Upwork, Monster, and although there are different variations, they’re very similar. They’re all job boards. You post a job, you get a lot of applicants, you interview them, you pick who you want to hire and you hope it works out. I’ve had plenty of situations where I’ve hired someone with a really great resume and they were terrible. I’ve had alternate situations where I hire someone with very little experience or maybe their profile isn’t topnotch and they end up being awesome. It was just very frustrating and it took up a lot of my time. I wanted a better way.

At FreeeUp, the whole concept, flips around. We get hundreds of applicants every week. We have a great interview process that I created myself based on eight years of hiring. We take the top 1% of workers and we add them to our network and we make them available to our clients on a first come first serve basis. The cool thing about us is not only do we have both US and non-US workers from $5 to $50 an hour ready to go whenever you need them, but we’re also hands-on to make sure you have a good experience with them. We’re insured against turnovers. Our workers rarely quit, but if they do, we cover all retraining cost. We get you a new worker right away and we make sure you never take a step backwards. We really turned it from a big hassle, the HR hassle, into a much more positive experience.

Again, I can’t say more than just the fact that the service you provide is absolutely phenomenal. The training that you provide for your workers, especially in the communication department of effective communication between us as the client and the worker as the “employee” has been extremely seamless, extremely easy and efficient. Again, I can’t speak highly enough about what you offer. We’re super excited to have you a part of The Clear Business Directory because I know there are so many small business owners out there that are looking for solutions. While there might be other potentials out there, in my experience, I haven’t come across other companies that provide similar services like yours that vet their employees the way you do or provide the training and level of communication training that you provide your workers.

If you think of why do you have a bad experience with freelancers, and the most common thing of workers disappearing or having to train people more than once or not communicating updates, it just always comes back to that one thing, communication. We flipped it. If everyone hates communication and the way that freelancers communicate, let’s stress that. Let’s make that the biggest part of the company, the thing that gets thrown into their minds from when they’re right in the interview process, to when we do the new worker orientation, to all our policies that are strictly enforced. All make it so that no matter what you do, no matter whether your PPC campaign runs effectively or not and all the other things that you can’t control, the one thing you can control is how you communicate to the client.

Again, one of the things I’m absolutely loving about your service. Experience that we’ve had has been topnotch. We look forward to continue working with your people as well. Nathan, I know you’ve been in business for a while now, and I know you’ve had some ups and downs. In your own personal business, in your own business life, is there one thing that you’ve learned over the past that people, whether they be in startup or even experienced business owners, something that they might be able to learn based off of your experience?

FreeeUp: The biggest thing that I learned is diversification. You can apply that to so many aspects of your business.

The biggest thing that I learned at a young age is diversification. You can apply that to so many aspects of your business. I’ll tell you a story on how I learned it early on by accident and not necessarily in a good way. When I was running my first company, we were doing really well. I was making more money than I ever had in my life. We finally hired a team that we really liked. They could run the business without me having to work 60 hours a week. I was a college student. I had a lot of other stuff going on. I finally had the business in a really good place. I decided to take a vacation to Myrtle Beach. Day one of the vacation, I got a call from my manager at the time, he was running the company, saying that our sole distributor had decided to no longer work with us. We built this entire company off this one supplier and just like that it was gone. It obviously ruined the vacation.

When we came back, we were like, “How did we even let this happen?” We’re just having so much success from this one supplier that we didn’t even think about expanding and trying other things and ultimately that came back and hurt us. We became more determined than ever to really diversify and never let that happen again. Within six months, we had an even stronger business model because instead of working with one supplier, we were working with 25 and then 50 and then 100. If one person dropped us, it wasn’t the end of the world.

I took that philosophy and I really applied it to other aspects of my company. When you’re hiring, instead of hiring that manager of the day that I used to call it, one person to have a checklist of everything, whether it’s bookkeeping, customer service, orders, and just go through. I would spend a month training them and it would go well and then they would quit and then I’d spend another month training someone else. Diversifying is just so much more effective. You have one person for orders, one person for emails, and you’re never just relying on one person for your entire business. I really try to preach that to my clients. I have a lot of clients that go, “Should I hire one person to do everything? Or should I break it up?” There’s pros and cons to both because you also have to fact in your time managing people. Diversifying on revenue streams, suppliers, hiring, it’s just a really good idea to make your business really strong.

It’s a great lesson to learn. It’s a hard lesson to learn if you find yourself in the midst of it as well. That little saying, “Putting all your eggs in one basket.”

It’s the life of an entrepreneur. You just go from those ultimate highs to those lows and you just got to build yourself back up and you just have to look at it as a lesson. What did I learn? How can I prevent that from happening again?

That’s something that really separates the true entrepreneurs. They are the ones who look at it for the lesson and go, “Crap. Time to start over. Let’s do it bigger and better this time,” and really learning those lessons. It’s honestly one of the reasons why a lot of people don’t become entrepreneurs, because those ups and downs, that rollercoaster ride can be very difficult. The beautiful thing is with the service that you offer, those rollercoaster rides can be mitigated.

That’s what’s cool about the community that we’ve built with FreeeUp. Instead of just being like, “We have workers, you can hire them when you need them,” we want to educate our clients as well. We have our online hiring mastermind group where we’re constantly throwing new information and processes and sharing documents that we used to train and onboard people and get their schedules and all that stuff to really help them. We have our blog where we’re constantly sharing processes that we use. I’m a big fan of practicing what I preach. I have a 20-person internal team, I’ve got 5 assistants that work underneath me, marketing team, bookkeeping team. They run together flawlessly because I’m practicing the same systems and philosophies that I’m telling my clients to use. It’s one of those things like, “This is how I built this team. I can provide you with the workers to skip that entire step of recruitment. But there is still a lot of effort on your part to really onboard them correctly, to motivate them and to get the most out of them. We can teach you how to do it.”

I know you’ve got a great system but along the way, I’m sure there’s been some lessons that you’d learned as far as miscommunication goes. Is there a time that you’ve had a miscommunication with a client and if so, how did it turn out?

The biggest thing is gray areas. If you leave gray areas whenever you’re communicating, whether it’s deadlines or expectations, stuff like that, it always leads to trouble. The most basic example of this is I’ve had clients who were like, “I need this due on Wednesday.” You think about that and you’re like, “That’s pretty basic.” To a worker, what does that mean? What time zone is Wednesday in? Is it due by 2 PM on Wednesday, by the end of the day, when something starts? I’m trying to teach my workers to eliminate that gray area. Don’t start a project unless you have all the facts, all the information you need. Because at the end, if it’s a “e said, she said,” to me, it’s the workers fault because they’re trained to get rid of the gray area right from the beginning.

At the beginning of FreeeUp, when we were first creating these communication guidelines, and I actually created them when I was stuck in an airport for 24 hours. I was really going through and just thinking of every past client experience. Even if the client wasn’t screaming and yelling, even if they’re being reasonable. If I could tell that they were upset, if I could tell that something went wrong and they didn’t get exactly what they wanted, I’m putting steps in place just to prevent it from the beginning.

That’s brilliant because you take that off the plate for everybody that uses your services. They know that they can rely on that effective communication that you instill in your workers. Nathan, is there any special insight, or anything special that you would like to share to your clients? If there’s one thing that you would like our listeners to know about you or FreeeUp that you want to share with them.

FreeeUp: One of my keys to success is to treat people well. When you find someone that you like working with, you want to keep them around.

One of my keys to success is to treat people well. When you find someone that you like working with, you want to keep them around. Turnover is expensive. Turnover sucks. It can cost you your company, set you back months at a time. One thing that you need to keep in mind is how you’re treating and how you’re communicating with people. I have clients all the time that I’ll send an email to a worker that maybe to them they’re being logical and straightforward, and I’m the same way. I’m not someone to talk about feelings all day. I tell people how it is. But those things can come across very differently to someone with a different culture or different background. You never really know who you’re dealing with on the other end and what their life experiences are like. Just being nice on that level. When you find someone you like, treating them well, whether it’s giving them raises or an end of the year bonus. If you’re a startup, you don’t have to go crazy. Anything that shows some kind of appreciation to make them stick around. I can promise you that replacing someone you really like, that you’ve invested a lot of training into, is way more expensive than just giving them a quick end of the year bonus. Even just having a conversation with them and thanking them.

Connor and I, at the beginning of every year, we do a performance evaluation. It’s not the kind of performance evaluation that we’re like, “You did really terrible here or here.” A lot of it is just showing appreciation for everything they did and contributed to the year before and showing them the worth that they did and how it actually affected the company. No one wants to be handed a spreadsheet and be like, “Do this,” and get it back and give them another one. They want to see how the work they did actually affected the company and how the people that own the company or higher up in the company actually appreciate them. That’s one of those tricks to getting low turnover. On the personal side, it makes you feel good and it’s just a good thing to do. On the business side, it’s just a good investment of your time and it’s a good way to save money long-term.

You can find Nathan’s profile inside The Clear Business Directory and take a look at his business, history, and his experience and know that he’s been cleared for frauds and scams. He has a process for his hiring his workers that is absolutely above everybody else that are bringing in outsourced workers. Nathan, is there any place you’d like to send our listeners to where they can learn more about you or get some additional information about Free Up?

If you go to FreeeUp.com, right there you could schedule a meeting with me. I’d love to talk to you about your business and how we can help. Definitely check out our new book that’s launching on April 26th, Fifty Keys to Starting Multimillion Dollar Companies Bootstrapping. That should be a good one. You can also check out the FreeeUp blog, the Online Hiring Mastermind group. We love feedback. We love hearing stories and how we can help you. If you mention this podcast or The Clear Directory, you get a dollar off your first worker forever. Make sure you mention them or use their link when you sign up.

Nathan, thank you so much for being here on the show today. To all the listeners out there, before you hire anybody, make sure that business is in the clear.

Learn more about Freeeup.com.

September Dohrmann is the COO of CEO Space International. Her role in the company encompasses rebranding, HR, office management, and finding external solutions for the company. CEO Space believes in cooperation among businesses; they seek to build a community that encourages and educates in conference settings.

In this episode, she talks about the importance of building business relationships and how CEO Space aims to achieve that. We go into a deep dive on how business relationships help you grow and succeed as a business, even as your own business needs changes and you evolve.

Today, we’re actually talking to one of my favorite people in the planet, September Dohrmann, the President and CEO of CEO Space International. Before I bring September on to the show, I do want to give a huge shout out to CEO Space as an organization because it’s where Tonya and I got our business start. If it wasn’t for what September and her husband Berny have built at CEO Space, I would still be over in Afghanistan or Iraq serving our country as a counterintelligence agent. But because of the network and education that they’ve built through CEO Space, we not only have one thriving business, we actually have two thriving businesses and are raising a budding entrepreneur who is, because of CEO Space, on her own venture, doing a best-selling book. For those of you that are starting off their own business, I highly recommend CEO Space because we would not be where we are in our own business without it. With that, I would like to welcome September Dohrmann to the show. September, thank you for joining us today.

Hi, Justin. Thanks for having me.

I love every opportunity I get a chance to speak with you because we just have a lot of fun. The conversations we have about just how to up level businesses is always fun for me. Can you share with everybody a little bit more about CEO Space and what CEO Space stands for?

Business Relationships: Our mission is to help entrepreneurs flourish by cooperatively sharing knowledge and resources with each other.

Our mission is to help entrepreneurs and their teams flourish by cooperatively sharing knowledge and resources with each other. That’s what we’re after. That’s what we have built our business to do. The way that that’s expressed is in five events a year that we hold. Currently, they’re in Orlando. They will be moving to Tampa soon, I’m pretty excited about that. We hold all these events five times a year where business owners come together to share knowledge and resources with each other. One way that we can help facilitate that is that we have experts that come in to present their content. They are fully vetted. We have a vetting process that we put our faculty members through. We want to make sure that they are solid, they are running a business that’s successful, they’re doing well, and they’ve got some knowledge that they can share with people. The great thing about the faculty and how they play in to CEO Space is that they’re there to tithe their knowledge. They’re not there to necessarily gain business. While gaining business does happen, it’s not their primary objective. They’re really there just to give back to other entrepreneurs.

When you get up to a certain level in business, you want to be able to turn around and say, “Here, let me help this next person up and help pull them up the ladder.” That doesn’t happen just with our faculty members, it also happens with our members as well. We have a ton of brilliant, brilliant minds within our organization. They, too, are there to contribute. Our networking is unique where we don’t start off by saying, “My name is John. This is what I’m doing and this is what I need from you.” It’s, “My name is John. Tell me about what you’re working on.” It’s always that give back first, and what comes out of that conversation. Typically, when it starts off that way, you’ll be surprised at how many people have some expertise in their background that they can lend to another person that they may not be using right now. It creates this beautiful cooperative experience.

As business owners, Justin, I know you can attest to this, it is freaking lonely being a business owner sometimes. There’s nobody that you can connect with, to brainstorm with and throw these ideas against walls with. Sure you’ve got your friends and family and they’ll listen to a certain extent, “That’s really good. I’m so proud of you.” But most business owners, they just don’t have a tribe and a place to go to of likeminded individuals that are looking to help everybody grow in their business. It’s a long answer of what CEO Space is. If you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about it.

The fact that we go back five times a year, like you said, is because of bringing tithe. We’ve gained so much from the people that we’ve spoken with, relationships that we’ve built within our own business that going back to CEO Space to bring tithe and just to give back and help somebody else out, just to impart a little bit of our knowledge, a little bit of our experience of “Have you thought about doing it this way? Do some due diligence,” and just share that with people is huge. If it can save somebody time or money or if they could do something a little bit more expeditiously, it’s a lot easier to do when you have a network of people that you’ve built a relationship with to rely on for those things.

Some of our closest friendships and relationships have come from CEO Space. That’s what I absolutely love about what you and Berny have built for everybody that is journeying on that path of entrepreneurship. One of the things I love about what you are doing that is so different than any other conference out there is the fact that you are vetting all of your faculty and speakers that get on stage. What has that done for your business?

First of all, having the vetting on the questionnaire process of meeting a new faculty member and letting them know this is what we do, letting them know upfront, “You’re going to be vetted. This is what you’re going to be vetted for and this is the cost of it.” It’s an investment that they need to make in themselves. More importantly, what happens is that it runs people off at the very front. It’s like you have a doorkeeper, somebody that’s watching out for you, just having that statement there tells them, “We’re going to look into you.”

Past that, the benefit of it is just the quality of content that we’re providing. The quality of connections that come along with that person that has the content. Our customers are getting more and more success stories, more and more win stories. It’s played a huge role in shifting our culture. That’s a really hot topic right now, Justin, is culture within organizations. For us, that vetting process really laid a solid foundation down for us in setting the tone of our culture. It’s that whole accountability inside of the cooperative environment. Being cooperative is about helping one another and we all have to be accountable. We all have to be accountable for our history, for our past, the things that are in it. If there’s somebody that’s not very trustworthy trying to come into an organization that prides itself on that, then it definitely runs them off. The effect that it’s had on just rebuilding that culture within CEO Space, I cannot put a price on that. It’s priceless.

I appreciate the opportunity to serve at that capacity for CEO Space. You’re absolutely right. What I love about it is that it really lets CEO Space stand out because if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a business owner and you’ve gone to multiple conferences and speaking engagements that you participate in and whatnot, there’s the whole dangers of association of who are you going to be involved with. Unfortunately, there are people that are out there just to get on stage, just to sell their product, who really aren’t serving, who really aren’t doing what they say they could do. If that conference is not vetting whoever they’re putting on their stage, then it puts that entire membership base at risk, which is something that CEO Space takes seriously because you do vet everybody that you put on your stage and that gives your membership a peace of mind. The conversations that we’ve had with the members, they appreciate it fully because they know that they can listen without having to worry about whether or not they’re going to get scammed or not. That’s a huge peace of mind that CEO Space brings to their membership base.

Business Relationships: We encourage people to come back as often as they can. CEO Space is not a one and you’re done.

Something you had mentioned is that you and Tonya come back five times a year. That’s a question that comes up for us quite a bit. Why is it that it’s five times a year? How come it’s this often? As an organization, we encourage people to come back as often as they can. Certainly three times a year is going to be the ideal thing. CEO Space is not a one and you’re done. You don’t come in and get what you need and then your life is perfect. While that sounds lovely, that’s not how it really works.

The reason we have it five times a year is that we find, on an average, eight to nine weeks is about the amount of time that teams need to come back together, companies need to come back and get that next resource. They need that next step that’s in front of them. The way that we’ve structured ourselves is that we’re providing that tribe, the hub to go back to that says, “I now need capital or I now need somebody in branding or marketing or consulting.” or whatever it is that you need on that to do list, on your goal list. Use that. You use these things together; your goal list and CEO Space.

I received an email this morning from somebody that was sharing their experience of CEO Space. “Fifteen years ago, I traded a career as a president of a high tech company to start my own consumer product business on my husband’s patent. We raised $250,000 and launched our very first product, which ended up going into Sam’s Club, Costco, Sports Authority, QBC, and more. When things got tough, my family attend CEO Space, where most recently my eldest son had raised $3,000 for a mission’s trip in two hours.” It’s whatever people need and knowing, it’s that key statement, “When things get tough.” We need an extra boost. We need a leg up. We need something. People just find it there. You set the intentions before you go and it shows up for you. It’s like magic.

Like you said, it’s not a one and done. You have to show up. You’ve got to use your network. You’ve got to build those relationships. You’ve got to fine tune your language and your messaging and what you’re doing in order to get what you’re looking for. I know because that’s how we’ve used it. The very first time that we went to CEO Space, we were calling ourselves, back in the day, our original business name was Defeat the Spies Incorporated. We were going to raise capital on this idea that we were going to be corporate trainers under the name, Defeat the Spies Incorporated. We were going to be training corporate leaders on how to defeat the spies. Spies was an acronym. Spies that rob their organizations of power, time, and money. Lo and behold, we were able to fine tune our messaging, look what we were looking for, and create what we needed. Now, we have a full-fledged thriving due diligence firm. Tonya runs another business as well that is fully thriving with the very large membership base. All of that is because of the education that we received in CEO Space as well as again, doing the work, having to show up.

I’m going to break the news to you, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get back five times this year, I’m thinking three, but that’s only because the business is completely thriving because of that.

That’s what happens. It’s working.

We’re super excited to get back in May. We’ve already been to March and probably going to be out there again in December. We’re super excited about it. What I love about it is it really gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to take a deep dive into businesses and figure out what they need.

You said it. That deep dive is such a sweet spot for business owners. Being able to get into that deeper level with minds. You said, building relationship. Obviously, you and I are fans of CEO Space. For the audience, those that don’t know what is a take away, if I could tell you one thing that would be a take away from this podcast would be, to develop relationships. If you choose to go to CEO Space, that’s wonderful. There’s a lot of amazing people and miracles just seem to happen in the space. It’s a beautiful space, I love it. But if you’re not quite ready for that and you don’t want to take that step, the one thing that I could say, without a doubt, is to establish relationships. Go into your community, find likeminded individuals. There are lots of business meetups, things that you can go to within your area. You have to shop them. You’ve got to find that safe place for you. Where can you be vulnerable and know that it’s okay?

That whole being okay and making sure that you’re in a safe environment is that everybody who participates in the program signs an NDA, a Non-Disclosure. Everybody is protected underneath this Non-Disclosure so that ideas are protected and they’re safe. That’s something that you need to be mindful of when going out and looking for communities and other organizations to be a part of to establish more connections, to open up your rolodex. I know that’s a little old school, your contact base. What are the people that you can lean on and reach out to as it relates to your business that will give you sound advice and be able to have some access to resources that you need? It’s not going to be one person. You could get lucky, like a fairy godmother, but that just doesn’t happen. You need a network of people. Build those relationships and make sure that you feel safe and comfortable within those relationships. Feel free to vet people. Even if you want to work with them as a mentor, vet them. You need to make sure that they’re good people.

September, I know you already talked about relationships a bit. What is another piece of advice that you would give to budding entrepreneurs or people that are in transition? What is something that you would encourage them to do to keep moving forward?

Business Relationships: You’re keeping your eye on the target. What is the target? Simple. State it.

The one advice that I could give on that would be to be absolutely clear about what it is that you’re after. If you don’t have that clarity about what your target is, where you’re ultimately going, there’s no way that you can even define what your daily routines or your daily disciplines need to be if you don’t know what your end point is. Keeping that motivational piece all ties in that as well. You’re keeping your eye on the target. What is the target? Simple. State it. What is the target? It’s easy. This is not a ten-page letter. This is a very simple statement. This is what we’re after. This is what we’re going to do. Then you work backwards from that.

Let’s say that you anticipate hitting this target in five years. Work backwards. What goals do you need to accomplish within three years? Work backwards from that. What does twelve months look like? What does monthly look like? What does weekly look like? What does daily look like? Keeping yourself motivated in that all ties into the clarity of your target.

To add to that, it’s not getting discouraged by the fact that your language is going to change, your focus is going to get narrower. You’re going to start with the, “El mundo, I’m out to change the world,” perspective. That will get narrowed down. The more clarity you get, the more focused you get, and the faster and easier it is for you to build your business.

I was just having this conversation with a new member recently. She was fretting over the fact that, “It seems like my goal is always changing, I’m always changing it.” I said, “Yes, of course.” Have you ever noticed something in the distance? Let’s say it’s something on the road and you’re driving and you see it in the distance and you’re thinking, “It’s an animal on the road.” As you get closer, it gets a little clear like, “No, it’s just rags or whatever.” Then as you get closer, maybe it morphs into something else, “It’s just a rolled up blanket.” As you get closer into it, of course it’s going to morph, of course you’re going to see it differently. One day you’re going to say it looks like this and the next day you’re going to say it looks like that. Don’t worry about it. That’s part of the process. You need to think in those terms and have new questions and ideas come into your mind around that target.

Something my husband says often, “As you grow your business, your business grows you.” That’s all tied into that whole focus thing, that whole clarity thing. Yes, you can set the goal today, and just know that it’s going to evolve, it’ll change. It’ll look like one thing one day and something else at the other. But at the end of the day, at the end of the journey, you’ll get to where you’re wanting to go. Don’t be attached to those little things of, “What if it changes? What if I say it differently?” Yes, you’re going to.

Growing your business, like you said, is going to grow you. When you grow you and yourself, you grow your business. The two go hand in hand. What I love about CEO Space is it gives people the opportunity to do both. September, thank you so much for being on the show. Outside of looking In the Clear Business Directory, where else can people find more information about upcoming events?

You can go to CEOSpaceInternational.com. You can look at different forum dates. You can look under new member information, it’ll tell you anything that you need to know about becoming a new member, including the next conference dates and how you get setup. If you know anybody that’s been into CEO Space, you can always reach out to them as well and they’ll help you get connected.

If you have any questions about CEO Space, you can reach out to us. We fill a lot of questions to CEO Space as well, especially on the due diligence piece. We are more than happy to answer any questions that you have. With that, September, thank you so much for being on the show. We look forward to seeing you and Berny in May.

My pleasure. Thank you so much, Justin.

Bye now.

Take care.

Learn more about September Dohrmann and CEO Space International.

Betsy Westhafer is the Founder and CEO of ActionMasters Network, Editor-in-Chief of Extreme Focus Magazine, a Faculty Member of CEO Space International, and an Extreme Focus Mental Performance Certified Coach. She is also the publisher of ThoughtMasters Magazine
through Rise Global Media.

In this episode, she talks about digital publishing and media and how going digital is different than the traditional publishing world, which she also has experience with. She goes into detail on what ThoughtMasters Magazine is about and who it’s for. She also shares some mistakes that she learned from the hard way when it comes to miscommunication.

Today, you’re all in for a treat as we are speaking with the CEO and founder of ActionMasters and Rise Global Media, Betsy Westhafer. Betsy is, by far, one of my favorite people. We connected at CEO Space, a couple of years back now. Her son ventured out into the entrepreneurial world. He’s also a veteran, which is one of the places where Betsy and I really connected. I’m super excited to have her here on the show today because of what she’s doing and the life she is changing with thought leaders around the globe. I just like to welcome her to the show. Betsy, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much. It’s great to be here, Justin. I appreciate it.

Betsy, can you share with our audience a little bit more about Rise Global Media and what you’re doing?

Digital Publishing: We are producing publications that target very niche audiences that are underserved in the market.

Rise Global Media is a publishing company. We are producing various publications that we really want to target very niche audiences that are underserved in the market. There’s a lot of information out there. There’s certainly no lack of the number of hours you can spend surfing the internet looking for information. What we’re hoping to achieve is the ability for somebody to come to our publication and know that the content they’re going to get is what they need to know. It’s upfront. It’s edgy. They may not have even heard of anything that we put in there, but they can spend their time really gaining knowledge rather than surfing and spending time just trying to find some good stuff. Our first publication is ThoughtMasters Magazine. It’s geared toward the senior leader in a B2B service industry. That’s who we’re going after and just really want to provide them with really great content.

I love the fact that the magazine is digital. It makes browsing through the internet, reading the article, so much easier for the end user. I absolutely love that feature.

This platform really allows us to do some cool, creative things. We have animations in it. We have video. We have the ability for our advertisers to actually live stream through their ad, all kinds of really cool features.

The interactive piece is absolutely brilliant, something that the print industry is missing out on. I think that’s why we’re seeing a lot more magazines go to the digital versions as it just becomes a lot easier to scroll through and look for the information that you’re looking for specifically. That’s brilliant.

I have, years back, publishing experience in the print industry. Since you brought that up, it’s a lot easier as a publisher now. That’s for sure, because we don’t sweat like crazy when we go to the printer. We can update things as things change. It’s a completely different business now. One I’m much preferring over the old way.

I know you’ve been in the publishing industry for a while. You’ve got a slew of experience that you bring to Rise Global Media. Is there anything that you can think of in your business experience that you could go back and do over again? If so, what would that be?

You don’t get this many years under your belt without having a few regrets in business. I would say, and this is what I love about what you do, Justin, just getting into agreements with people that maybe didn’t have the right mindset for doing things the right way, not buttoning up agreements where I should have. I’ve learned a lot the hard way, put it that way. The Clear Directory gives me a way to really make sure that the people I’m doing business with are the kind of people I want to do business with. Hopefully, your audience will understand that what you do with the directory can help save a lot of heartache, a lot of money, a lot of kicking yourself later. There’s definitely been times where I wish I had what you guys offer a long time ago.

For our audience, you can actually go take a look at one of our articles that we’ve written for Betsy in her magazine. We’re super excited to contribute to that. Betsy, thank you for the opportunity to do such. Given your vast experience, you deal with people, publishing deals with people. ActionMasters deals with people. Is there anything that you can think of or was there a time that even if the due diligence was done, that there was a miscommunication that happened? If so, how did that miscommunication take place?

Digital Publishing: Make sure that before you get started, you have everything buttoned up.

I have that story as well. It’s a miscommunication, but the problem is not documenting the communication at the time. A lot of agreements start out obviously as verbal agreements. Everybody’s excited and they trust each other. They have really good common people that they know, all the references and all that stuff. It’s the matter of actually getting that written contract or agreement drawn up and signed and all of that. People want to get started. I made the same mistake. I would get started. I trusted people. I’d be like, “We’ll get to that, but we really need to get going on this project. We’ve got timelines and blah, blah, blah.” The contract never gets drawn up and it comes time for payment. The two parties don’t remember the conversation exactly the same way. That’s the biggest lesson I have learned, is just to make sure that before you get started, you have everything buttoned up.

The good news is with Rise Global Media, my partner is a legal analyst. We are so buttoned up now. It’s awesome. I don’t really worry about that anymore because she makes sure that we do that exactly the right way. I’ve been a little too trusting in business in the past.

I think that’s just the nature of business owners. Trust but verifies what we always say. You bring up some really great points of having the agreements in place. You guys are definitely doing everything correct moving forward. Betsy, what would you like our audience know about Rise Global Media?

A couple of things. One, we’re always on the lookout for subject matter experts that want to share their content. Like you mentioned, I was so thrilled that you were gracious enough to supply us with some really great content. When you think about it, Justin, your article is about exactly what we’re talking about, about how consultants and other people that you might go into business with, if they overstate their qualifications or you don’t have things buttoned up, it can really cause big problems. We’re looking for people that want a platform where they can share their leading edge thinking. We need to really get a lot of eyeballs on our magazine. As a new publication, we want as many people as we can get to find out about it.

In terms of how it relates to the work that you do, I would want people to know that we are a very buttoned up organization. We are doing things the right way. We think we’re good to do business with. I would think that the other people who have done business with us would agree. I just want people to know that we are definitely a high-integrity organization, and nothing will ever change that.

It’s one of the reasons why you and I connected so well, is because of how you do business, always above board. What I love about that is that you’re not just throwing anybody and everybody in your magazine. You’re making sure that they are a good fit and so forth. From that perspective, the information that you have in your magazine got that extra level of quality to it. Speaking of which, who’s your ideal reader? Who should be reading your magazine?

We are really targeting our content toward the senior leader in a B2B service organization. Service providers, it’s a different way to sell and it’s a different way to present than if you have a tangible product that people can see and touch and smell and play with. It can be a little bit challenging when you’re selling something that people can’t see. We are really targeting that market of service providers. We’re also looking for people that are senior leaders in that group to read our content. As you mentioned, we’re trying to provide really high quality content and leading edge content. The content that we’re putting out there, we want to be actionable. We’re looking for decision-makers who can really take action on what they might see in the magazine.

There are basically one or more of four reactions we want our readers to have when they read our stuff. One of them is, “Oh wow. I’ve never even heard of that before.” Two is, “I’ve heard of that, but I never really fully understood it until now.” Three is, “That’s something we need to explore bringing back into our organization.” Four is, “That’s a thought leader I want to start following because I know I can learn a lot from them.” Those are the four things that are my litmus test when I’m putting out the content to make sure that that’s the kind of response we would get from our readers.

You hit that nail on the head with the service industry being a completely different way of doing businesses and selling your “product.” Being in the service industry ourselves, I can appreciate everything that you say about that and what you have to offer with Rise Global Media. The magazine is invaluable to people in the service industry for helping get their message across, sharing what they’re doing. With that, do you have advertising opportunities within the magazine?

Digital Publishing: The way it works is an advertiser can have as many pages deep into the magazine as they need to tell their story.

We do. It’s really an exciting platform that we have. The way it works is an advertiser can have as many pages deep into the magazine as they need to tell their story. It’s so exciting, particularly coming from the print industry, where you get one page, you don’t know who’s been on it. You don’t know if it’s really generating what you want it to generate. Now, with this digital platform, the advertiser can have as many pages as they want. They can embed video. They can actually have the ability to collect payment through the ad. We can do the design work. We have a team of designers. I think they do incredible work. We have a pay-per-click model, so that you know that you’re only getting billed for the people that see your advertisement. Or we have a static billing model where every single time the magazine is opened, people will see your ad rather than it going into a queue like a traditional pay-per-click model. We have a lot of flexibility to work with our advertisers.

That’s absolutely ingenious. As far as understanding where your advertisement dollars goes, that is so unique and useful to the businesses that are advertising, because then you can actually see where and how that money was being used for advertisement. Where would somebody go to if they were interested in either subscribing or learning more about becoming an advertiser in the magazine? Where would you like to send them?

A couple of places. One, to get a free subscription. It’s free for now. That’s going to change. For right now, while we’re getting launched, it’s free. They can just text the word, one word, it’s not case sensitive. “ThoughtMasters” to 444-999. If they are interested in advertising, I’d love to have that conversation. They can just reach out to me at Betsy@RiseGlobalMedia.com.

In addition to finding Betsy on her email and the text message, you can take a look at her profile inside the Clear Business Directory to read more about her business history and her experiences. She does operate a transparent business. Betsy, we’re super excited to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Justin. This has been so much fun. I appreciate it.

Betsy, we will look forward to seeing you again at an upcoming event. Until next time, before you get involved with anybody, make sure that business is in the clear.

Learn more about Betsy Westhafer and Rise Global Media.

After overcoming numerous personal obstacles, including extreme poverty, a broken home, family illnesses and deaths, severe bullying, drug addiction, and even attempting suicide, Keith Leon went on to become a multiple best-selling author, book publisher, and book mentor and is now the CEO of You Speak It Publishing. Now well known as “The Book Guy,” Keith is a professional speaker, life and relationship mentor, and a developer and facilitator of transformational seminars.

In this episode, he talks about why having a business book is the best business card you could have. He talks about the services that his publishing company provides for those who want to write a book, and how they are a full-service publishing company. If you don’t have the time to actually write a book, they can do that for you too with just seven phone calls to get everything they need.

Folks, you’re in for a treat today because we have multiple best-selling author and CEO of You Speak It Publishing, Keith Leon, on the show with us today. Keith, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

For anybody that’s been following my daughter’s journey, Keith is the brilliance behind the book that Neva is doing. He has got a phenomenal product and service that he offers. Keith, why don’t you share a little bit about You Speak It Publishing and what you do?

We work with authors of all sorts. If you are a writer and you just love to write a book, we offer all the services you would need. We’re a full-service publishing company. We can edit the book for you, do the layout for you, do the cover, help you get it up on the Amazon, help you market it. We can do everything. More specifically with the You Speak It program, that’s a program for people that are too busy to write a book. They’re like me, they’re too busy. We created a process where you just show up to seven phone calls. In those seven phone calls, we get everything that we need to create a book for you.

That I know is something that a lot of business owners could use because, as you say, having a book is one of the best business cards, business ideas that you can have. It’s an easy, quick way of sharing who you are and what you do, what your message is to the world. That service that you offer of being able to speak your book in a matter of seven phone calls is absolutely amazing.

Business Book: It can teach you exactly how to give the book out as your business card in a way that it’ll grow your business.

It’s the world’s greatest business card. More importantly, instead of just helping somebody get a book done and then leaving them there, which is what I feel like a lot of companies do, actually it can teach you exactly how to give the book out as your business card in a way that it’ll grow your business, meaning the exact language to use when you do that. You’re giving them something of value. You give it to them with an offer. People never throw away a book. They’ll either read it and call you to get the offer, or they’ll throw it on the table. Every time they pass the book, it’ll say, “Call you and get the free thing. Call you and get that free offer,” and it just harasses them until they call you.

Keith, how long have you been in the publishing business?

I’m coming up on fifteen years. I started out as Babypie Publishing. My wife and I wrote a book together. We did a DBA as Babypie Publishing just so we could have a stamp for our book. Then we had so much success and I started teaching other people to write their books. After a while, we started publishing others and became a bona fide publishing company. That’s just grown from there.

It’s definitely one of those industries that I know myself don’t know a lot about, outside of what I’ve learned from you for our own business. It seems extremely complicated at times. That’s probably one of the reasons why a lot of business owners don’t actually do a book. With your program, you’ve made it extremely simple. What’s a good question that somebody should be asking you before they actually decide to do a book?

The most important question is, does this feel like a match? If it doesn’t feel right, then something’s wrong. Something’s off. It’s important to find out why it doesn’t feel right and then decide. You teach due diligence. I would say you can do it in any order. You can do due diligence then ask yourself if it feels like a match, or the way I would prefer is ask the question, “Does this feel like a match?” If you get a yes on that, then move forward based on that yes answer.

Especially when it comes to writing a book, that doesn’t feel a good piece is essential, especially because the communication that’s required, the languaging that’s required that’s going to go into the book. Make sure that the person that you’re working with understands the message that is getting delivered so it doesn’t get lost in translation. I think that’s spot on. I’m sure that you’ve got a ton of different stories working in the amount of authors that you’ve worked with. Speaking of which, how many best-selling books?

I don’t even know anymore. For me and clients?

Yeah.

I can’t even count anymore. A lot.

I’m sure you’ve had your shares of stories throughout the years. As a business owner, is there anything that you wish that you can go back and do over again?

I don’t know if I would erase it or not, but we’re in the process of shifting our company name and structure over from Babypie Publishing that we started out with. It goes out with our first book. That was my wife’s pet name for me. She called me her “baby pie.” The first few authors that we published loved it. Now, we’re working with so many business professionals based on that process that we created called You Speak it that we talked about earlier.

We found out along the way that business professionals don’t necessarily love the name Babypie. That led us to creating a few more imprints. Now we’re ultimately going to restructure the company into Leon Smith. We’ve got You Speak It for all the people that want to be speakers. That’s a great imprint for them, if they want national press. You Speak It, great title. Some business professionals are like, “I love that Leon Smith because it sounds like HarperCollins, the ultimate company.” which is great. I don’t know if I would erase having the name Babypie. It did serve its purpose. Rather I wish I would have come up with Leon Smith first and created a DBA as You Speak It and Babypie. Now, we have a new one called Beyond Belief Publishing. We have a name that no matter what type of book you have, we’re going to have an imprint that fits your mission and your message.

The fact that you identified that and were able to change it moving forward and so forth, that’s something that a lot of different business owners can identify with, whether it be up-leveling or shifting or adjusting your brand message, the name of your business, making sure that it’s in alignment with what you’re doing. We’re now the Clear Business Directory. One of our first business names, The New Corporate Revolution. I kid you not. That was a business name. I can feel your pain on that. That was essentially what we were wanting to do, but it didn’t necessarily capture it from a brand perspective. Is there a time that you had a miscommunication with the client? If so, what was the outcome?

Business Book: By not trusting the process, they can actually make it so the process doesn’t work as well.

I’d say the biggest miscommunication that people have is that once someone has done their due diligence and it felt like a match and they decided they would hire us, but then they don’t trust us to lead. They try to take control of the process that we’re proven experts at. Really, by not trusting the process, they can actually make it so the process doesn’t work as well. Then they end up disappointed.

Another misunderstanding about doing a book is that they think that they’re just going to write a book and they’re going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. A lot of people think that it’s actually only about selling books when the truth is that the authors who have really made the most money have taken their book and they’ve re-purposed it in many different ways into other products and programs and talks, speeches. They use the book as a platform to something, as a topic for their mission and their message. Again, that’s where it’s important for an author to listen to their publisher and listen to our guidance based on our almost fifteen years of having major success in the publishing industry. Really, the miscommunications have been those two things; people just not trusting the process.

I imagine that the whole book process can be a little scary, can be a little overwhelming. Like you said, there could be the expectations that, “We’re just going to go out and sell a hundred thousand books. I’m not going to have to do anything because I sold a hundred thousand books.” We’ve seen that from a due diligence perspective. “I’ve got a book and I’ve done nothing but the book.” You still have to be able to go out and back that up. The book is just a piece of the puzzle. It’s not the entire business solution. I like that. I’m glad you highlight that for folks. Even with the You Speak It Program that you offer, there’s still the work that people have to do. They start to do that on their own due diligence moving forward.

Keith, if you could let our audience know just anything about your business, what would that one thing be, or a couple of things?

First off, I have the gift of making things that seem hard or feel hard easy. Somewhere along the way, I think it was about the second book that I did and being mentored by all the people that I was mentored by, Jack Canfield and Bob Proctor, ten people from the movie The Secret, the greatest marketers in the world. Those are all the people that took me under their wing and taught me.

Why don’t you share that experience with our audience?  What do you mean by “mentored by Jack Canfield” and so forth? That’s pretty big.

Something that is important for you to know is that I was trained and taught and mentored by all the greatest authors, book marketers, speakers and experts in the world. I did a book called Who Do You Think You Are: Discover the Purpose of Your Life. That was my second book. I interviewed all these people to be in the book. I asked them all three questions. At the end of me keeping my promise, of just asking three questions in an only ten-minute interview, I would say, “Thank you so much for showing up. Bye.” They’re like, “Wait, wait, wait. Tell me about this book. What are you doing? Who are you?” After I shared really what my mission and my message was, they all just took me under their wing and taught me everything that they knew.

Our first book was a seeming failure because I didn’t know how to market it. All I did was take and implement what all the masters taught me personally. That was a completely opposite experience. It was an international best-seller. Sold a ton of books. Now, I’m speaking on stages in front of a thousand people instead of twenty. It was a complete reversal. I went from “Keith who” to “the book guy” in a year’s time. Just amazingly quick. People started calling me “the book guy” because while I was speaking, I was talking about life purpose, that was the talk, but at the beginning of the talk, there’s this piece that every speaker does, it’s called “earn the right.” It’s like, “Why should you listen to me?” In that story, I shared how I did this process and how all these people taught me. Even though I was talking about life purpose, people would come up to me after I spoke and say, “Aren’t you the book guy? Aren’t you that book guy?” I heard that so many times that I said, “I get it.” Until I am Jack Canfield and Bob Proctor and I am Marci Shimoff and the people who taught me that were in the movie, The Secret, until I’m a household name like them, then I’m supposed to be teaching people how to write and get their books out.

That’s the experience of where I come from. I took all that they taught me. I brought my heart to it, my piece to it, who I am. It’s a hybrid of all them, but through me. What I’ve developed through what they taught me is how to take something that appears to be hard and seemingly is hard and make it extremely easy and simple and fast, which has been a blessing because I used to do it the hard way.

Everybody that’s achieved a level of success can look back and go, “We did that the hard way.” The process just gets simpler and simpler along the way. Something like a book that’s got so many moving parts to and is complicated, it’s nice to know that there’s somebody like yourself out there who’s got the experience, who’s got the training, who’s got the title of multiple best-selling author under his belt and who’s been vetted. They know that you’re trustworthy. They know that you are who you say you are, you can do what you say you can do. That’s so important. The book industry, the website industry, there’s a lot of people that say they do books, they professed a little certain level of success, but they aren’t really who they say they are. That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to have you part of the Clear Business Directory and have you in there.

Keith, can you continue to share what that one thing or something that you want somebody to know about you or your business, what you want them to know about you?

Business Book: We were authors before we decided to publish other authors. We’ve set up our publishing platform to favor the author.

We were authors before we decided to publish other authors. We’ve set up our publishing platform to favor the author. That’s why when somebody publishes with us and they do a book deal, we give the author what the publisher would normally get. We get what the author would normally make. We flipped that. I teach people that we publish how to use the book as a platform. I don’t charge for that. It’s like you’re in the family, let me share with you what I know. I’m basically free mentoring the people that we publish how to use the book as a platform, how to pre-sell it, how to get on stage, how to get press, whatever they want.

Then we developed the You Speak It process as well because we’re writers first and we know you’re too busy to write a book, a lot of you. That’s why we created that process. We can do everything, because we’re a full service publishing company. We can do editing, layout, book cover. Maybe you are the person who loves to write and you have a manuscript that’s ready. We can help you get that to a published book. We can do the editing, the layout, set it up on Amazon for you, through the Barnes and Noble order catalog as well. We do all the cart services. Basically anything you need to get your book out there; Facebook ad campaigns, marketing programs, whatever you need, we have it available for you and are happy to share our services with you.

For our audience, first off, if you’re thinking about doing a book, definitely reach out to Keith. You can find him in the Clear Business Directory. Find his profile and his contact information there. If you ever have an opportunity to sit down with Keith, he is by far the real deal when it comes to understanding the strives of being an entrepreneur, of having a business, what it takes to write a book, just a genuinely all-around great guy. For our audience, if you haven’t heard him sing, he has an amazing, amazing voice as well. Keith, is there somewhere that you’d like to send our audience to where they can learn more about you?

Go to YouSpeakItBooks.com.

Keith, I know we’re going to see you again here very soon on the next month or so. I look forward with connecting with you again. Thanks for being on the show today, Keith. Remember, folks, next time you decide to get into business with somebody, make sure that business is in the clear.

Learn more about You Speak It Publishing and Keith Leon.

SEC continues to send the message the due diligence is a must. This follows a recent performance data debacle with F-Squared. “You know what, there’s a good chance because somebody didn’t do their due diligence. Here’s the thing, folks, the SEC has been saying this ever since Bernie Madoff in 2008. If you’re going to hire a sub adviser for your clients, for your business, for your investments, for your business you have to do due diligence.”

Welcome to the In The CLEAR Podcast. My name is Justin Recla, and I’m your host, along with my business partner and wife, the gorgeously talented and amazing, Tonya Dawn Recla.

For the record, folks, if you don’t know it, Tonya is also the CEO of a company called Super Power Experts. You can find out more about Tonya and her Super Power Experts at superpowerexperts.com. It’s a merger of the two worlds here. What you’re getting here, when you have Tonya on the show and taking things from a whole other perspective. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate her being here with me on the In the CLEAR Podcast.

Thank you honey. Thanks for the shout out. We have fun over Super Power Experts. But of course, near and dear to my heart is the CLEAR Business Directory, and the transparency and trust work that you all do over here. It’s awesome.

Well, thank you for being here. So, this week, we are talking about one of my favorite topics. This organization has quickly become one of my favorite government entities, and that’s the SEC. We’re talking about how the SEC continues to affirm Due Diligence as a must for your business.

I just want to take a pause here because this is like a shining moment for the SEC. Somebody just said that you are their favorite government entity. I don’t think they get that very often. Let’s just give them their moment.

The SEC affirms due diligence is a MUST. The horror stories that we get alone, that we hear from our clients, some of the stuff that we uncover and see in the stories we get are just unreal. To see an entity such as the SEC coming out saying Due Diligence Is A Must, is pretty big.

SEC Uses F-Squared Saga to Drive Home Due Diligence Message

In this latest batch of affirmation, stems from the whole F-Squared debauchery of F-Squared producing inaccurate performance data.

I think it’s debacle.

Yes, thank you, debacle. For its Alpha Sector Strategy Investments.

Although, there may have been debauchery involved, I don’t know.

You know what, there’s a good chance because somebody didn’t do their due diligence. Here’s the thing, folks, the SEC has been saying this ever since Bernie Madoff in 2008. If you’re going to hire a sub adviser for your clients, for your business, for your investments, for your business you have to do due diligence.

Just because a sub adviser brings you information, you still have to verify, you still have to do your own due diligence. You can’t just go beyond what one person says. You didn’t have to take that information and verify it because even here at the Clear Business Directory, with our vettings, you still need to go out and do your own due diligence.

And this is so crucial because the SEC gets a really bad rap for being kind of the bullies on the playground, especially when it comes to small businesses. But a lot of their stuff, folks, is for your own good. I know that that’s kind of like heavy-handed parenting tactics, but it’s important.

What we’ve seen, at least from our end of things, is that they’re trying to do everything they can to really convince small businesses to take some extra steps. The challenge with when you operate a small or medium sized business is that you’re not big enough to have the pockets, and the legal teams, and everything else that the big guys do. But yet you have the same responsibilities. And that is consistently what comes forward. You can’t shirk those responsibilities.

If you want to get into business and make money off of people consuming or having your services or whatever the case may be, you have responsibilities. If you’re trying to outsource pieces of your business or bring in other people or whatever the case may be, and you haven’t done your own due diligence, your clients, your customers operate off the assumption that you are operating responsibly. Therefore, they don’t question whether or not you’ve done the due diligence to bring in these sub advisers, or whatever the case may be, a consultant, service provider, vendor, it doesn’t matter. You owe it to your clients and your customer base to have done this. Just like employment screenings. You have to screen the employee before you bring them into a company. It’s no different. For too long ,really bad business practices have been acceptable.

When the concept of due diligence, stopping at “because somebody else told me it was so,” and taking an adviser’s word for it. Especially if that adviser is getting paid if you purchase the investment. How good is that due diligence? If the person is making a commission off of selling you on something and they told you that they’ve done their own due diligence on that investment opportunity. Really, how much weight does that due diligence actually carry?

It’s like asking a drug dealer if you should take drugs.

Exactly. That’s a whole other conversation. Again, we have to consider the source of the information. If you have a sub adviser that is going to benefit or profit off of getting you involved in whatever the opportunity is, you have to do your own due diligence. Again, even the SEC has come out and said that even if you have an adviser, you’ve got to do your own due diligence. It’s essential. it’s a must.

But they’ve said that for a while now, even when they came out with the bad actor, that whole umbrella. That was forcing companies to take responsibility for the people that they’re bringing in, saying that you have to know who’s on your team. You have to know what they’ve done. You have to know if they’ve done bad things. You have to know if they’re still doing bad things. And you are responsible for that. It’s simply the cost of doing business, folks.

It’s also part of the new way of doing business, and that’s operating in transparency. Making sure that you’re throwing everything out on the table, so your clients, your potential investors can see what the hidden risks are. If you are a business that is raising capital and you’re not fully transparent, now you’ve just taken somebody’s money and now they find something else out about you that would have prevented them from investing in you in the first place. Guess what. That’s a huge headache that you now have to mitigate potentially having to give back.

We’ve heard horror stories, folks. We literally got stories where we know businesses have to give back millions of dollars because they didn’t do their due diligence prior to a raise.

Absolutely. Every single securities attorney that we’ve queried, and we’ve talked to many, many securities attorneys, every single one of them has said the same thing. If you can demonstrate that you have a practice of due diligence, that you have a policy, that you have steps that you take and you apply it across the board, the SEC is going to look very kindly upon that. They can’t obviously say that you’re in the clear, or that you’re covered completely, but it’s better than 90 percent of the businesses out there. If you want to stand out, and you’re doing anything that has any kind of SEC scrutiny to it, I suggest standing out and operating in over compliance. Make sure your business has a due diligence process for every business that you’re getting involved with, everybody that you’re bringing into the situation. It’s just smart folks.

It’s not only smart, but it’s really going to increase your chances for success because it’s going to show your prospective clients, your prospective investors, people that you’re bringing in your business that you operate above board. And, you’re going to get a cookie from the SEC because they tell you, you have to do it.

Absolutely. There are places in your business that you can skimp. Buy the cheap toilet paper, whatever that may be for you and your business. But in the due diligence piece of things, when you’re bringing on other companies, or you’re outsourcing, or you’re bringing in people, or whatever that looks like for your business, do not skimp there. Make sure you’ve got solid due diligence processes in place, make sure you’ve been advised by due diligence professionals on how to do that because if not, it’s going to come back and bite you.

And when it comes back and bites you, it’s usually three times more costly then had you done due diligence in the first place. It’s always less expensive to do due diligence on the front end than to clean up on the back end, especially when dealing with the SEC.

Absolutely. And it can be scary. I get it, folks. They feel like an overbearing government entity, and on some level, yes, they are. But, just be smart. If you start digging into things, they usually provide you with a decent amount of information and little clues on what you can do to protect yourself in just about every situation. If you’re a company that falls under their scrutiny, get a really valuable securities attorney. Unfortunately, folks, we have talked to securities attorneys that were really poorly advising their client base and not advising them to follow due diligence practices, but rather getting them to sign waivers so that the attorney and the company the attorney worked for wouldn’t be liable when the SEC came down on them. That’s not the kind of securities attorney that you want. Ask them about due diligence. If you’re doing capital raises ask them about Bad Actor, and they should be able to be educated about that. Ask them what policies should I have in place, what due diligence practices should I have in place? Chances are good that your securities attorney isn’t going to know a due diligence firm that handles that from a people perspective. But you’re listening to us, so you know. And you can definitely connect us with them and we’re happy to work directly with your attorneys.

Exactly. And that’s the key, folks, knowing that you have options out there to help you with your due diligence. That’s where most people get stuck because they had no clue as to where to even start. Fortunately, at the Clear Business Directory, that’s what we do. We live, eat, breathe, and sleep due diligence, making sure that you’re getting involved with the right people and that you know the things that you know to mitigate the risk about those people. So if you’re getting involved with the SEC, if you want to stand out, you have some due diligence needs that you need to stay compliant, make sure you check out the Clear Business Directory.

And one final point here, where we really excel at the Clear Business Directory was predicated on, was based on my experience and Justin’s experience in the human intelligence arena. When we talk about that due diligence perspective, it is strictly from that human perspective. That is really where we are seeing the biggest, gaping holes right now. The SEC has identified it also, and they’re not being lenient about it. And so, when you talk about due diligence make sure that you’re including what we call the human risk factor into those conversations.

Exactly. Before you get involved with anybody and put your business at risk, make sure your business is in the CLEAR.

Nichole Carpenter is highly detailed oriented and organized and has devoted her business to helping small businesses grow. With a background as a Project Manager for a software company, Nichole understands the systems required to make a business run effectively.

In this episode, Nichole Carpenter talks about how she helps businesses through organizing their databases. She goes through a bit of her personal history as well to explain how she became so detail oriented and organized. She explains how planning is very important, not just in your business but also in your personal life.

Today, we are talking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory on what it means to operate a transparent business. Our guest today is Nichole Carpenter. Nichole is by far one of the most organized people that I have ever met. That’s essentially what she does. She is the CEO and founder of Intrabellus Database Design. I’m happy to have her on the show today specifically because we’re in the process of actually using Nichole’s services ourselves. We’re upgrading the Clear Directory database.

Nichole, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Justin.

Nichole, can you give our listeners a little bit more detail about exactly what are the services that you offer?

I’m all about empowering businesses with the most organized adaptive systems.

I will first assess a business, find out what their processes are, what services they offer, and then strategize with them to find a more succinct, smooth flowing way to handle that. A lot of things can be automated. A lot of things can be outsourced. I’m all about empowering the businesses with the most organized adaptive systems for their business.

I like it. I know you’ve referred to yourself often as a virtual COO and be the operations officer for a couple of businesses. I can appreciate what that is and the value that you bring to companies and small businesses that may not necessarily have an operations officer for their business. Can you give an example of what it is you do for businesses in the role of database building and the COO slot?

For the database building, for some clients, it’s a one off. We meet, find out what all they need the database to contain. I build it, we test it and they’re good to go. There’s others that their database may be constantly evolving. We build it and then we’re checking in monthly or weekly depending on how involved it is. For the clients that I’m the virtual COO, it’s sometimes daily connections with them, with different members of their team; to check in, make sure things are on point, what things might be falling to the cracks, how can we tighten things up, bring more revenue, cut down on overhead and just satisfy the customers even more.

Fantastic. I like that because that’s just a vital role. Especially for anybody listening out there that’s a solopreneur or building a small business from the startup, how can something like you on the team is essential because oftentimes, those visionaries get stuck in just the vision. Having something like you to help execute the day to day tasks and to manage the projects is super important, especially in moving a business forward. A quick question for you, how long have you been in the business that you’re in right now?

For this business, it’s been a little over a year.

What got you started in building databases? For anybody that’s listening out there, when she’s talking about databases, this is full API integrations. This is not just a database where you’re putting together a list of names. This is full integration with your websites, organizing things, sending out emails, the whole nine yards. If you need an active database, you have a complex system, that’s definitely something Nichole can assist you with. What got you started on building databases for your clients?

What they were really lacking was the most custom database meeting their unique needs.

I’ve always been extremely organized. Before I was an entrepreneur, I was a project manager and before that I was a teacher. Once I became an entrepreneur and I’ve tried a few different projects, but what I realized in small business is a lot of small business owners are not organized. They’re not detail oriented. We were gravitating towards each other just for me to help them out with a thing here and there. I realized, I could go back to really what’s my superpower is organizing. I did research on what is going to be the most effective way for me to help them be organized. I did some project management with companies, but I found that what they were really lacking was the most custom database because they’re using an out of the box system that’s not meeting their unique needs.

I can appreciate that. Having experiencing that and running databases and then trying to find everything that fixed together to make the system work, thee never really seemed to be, at least for my experience, a one stop shop of making everything work. Then of course, I met you and you’re like, “No, I’ve got the solution.” That’s why we’re super excited to be working with you on that because it is going to speed up our process and really take our business to that next level. What’s one thing that you’ve learned along the way that you wish that you could go back and do over again?

That’s a tough one. Because each step of the way, you learn something whether you continue with that step or not.

A better question then, because I know, I know you personally and I know that you’re very much that personal development piece. To go back and say that you would do something different is not necessarily you because it’s a learning point. Instead of that, what’s one of the most important lessons that you’ve learned along the way?

An important lesson is to plan ahead. It’s very helpful. You don’t have to, but if you don’t, then you’re playing a lot of catch up later on. Planning ahead, trying to foresee. If you know you’re going to an event, plan what are you going to want to talk about your business so that when you’re doing the followup, it’s not two months later when you finally figure out what to email them. If you could have that email template already lined up before you can go to the event, you’re empowered when you get there, confidently knowing that you’re going to be following up with these people and on what topic.

That’s so important to have that foresight. My first sergeant when I was in the Army used to tell me, “Plan your way in, plan your way out.” It’s so true in business today as well. That’s absolutely awesome. Nichole, I know that we didn’t really talk about this, but I know you’ve got a very unique story. Would you like to share that with the listeners? You’ve written a book, right?

Yes.

What’s the name of the book?

The book is called, A Heart Without a Home.

What’s it about?

A Heart Without A Home: A memoir about homelessness through the eyes of a child

It’s a memoir about my childhood. When I was a kid, I grew up in a very dysfunctional, very disorganized environment. My parents were drug addicts. For a period of time, we actually lived on the streets, digging through dumpsters, begging on street corners, the whole nine yards. I actually realized recently, I think that’s a part of the reason I became so organized. Because cleaning and organizing and fixing things was a way that I could control my environment when everything was out of control. Organizing is such a comforting thing to me because it means that I can make something better even when other things may not be okay.

I love it. That book is out on Amazon, correct?

Yes.

Is there a sequel in the works?

There is. My mom and I are actually coauthoring the sequel. It’s going to be about her overcoming addiction and getting her life on track and me being reunited with her.

That’s absolutely super exciting to know that you’ve got that relationship with your mom and you’re able to bring her into the fold and write a sequel to the book that you wrote. That’s fantastic. Nichole, if there’s one thing you would like our listeners to know about you, what would that be?

I think it would be, I don’t stop until I finish something. I get a little compulsive about it. If I’m working on a database or whatever it is with a client, I get so energized by helping somebody that don’t cancel the project midway for me because I’m going to finish it on my own just to have it sit on the shelf, because I have to complete things. It’s just a compulsion that I have. That’s why I have so much fun doing what I do.

You heard it here, folks. If you need something done, you want to get it done, you know it’s going to get done because she can’t let it go. Nichole is the person for you, especially if you got a database. That’s absolutely fantastic. Nichole, what’s a good website? I know it’s NicholeCarpenter.com, correct?

Yes.

Is there a special offer that you wanted to make to the listeners?

If you can go to my site, and I’ll give you a link that you can book a call with me and I’ll provide a 30 minute consultation on how to work on your business or even if there’s something in your personal life that you need more organized.

Again, you can go to NicholeCarpenter.com to get that information for the free 30 minute consult. You can also check out Nichole’s profile in the Clear Business Directory. Nichole, thank you so much for being on the show today. We look forward to seeing you again in the future.

Thank you, Justin.

Learn more about Nichole Carpenter and book your 30 minute consultation.