Debt financing can be a challenging technique to navigate. It’s important to have someone you can trust on your side. Jeff Shick with Money Miners, a member of the Clear Business Directory^TM, joins the In the Clear podcast to talk about the importance of transparency. Listen in as he shares tips you should know before pursuing debt financing for your business.

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast this is a special edition live from CEO Space. I’m Justin Recla you’re a host of In The Clear Podcast I’m live today with one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Jeff Schick of moneyminers.biz. Jeff is a new member of the Clear Business Directory and we have him here today so you can get to know him a little bit better. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Justin, I appreciate it.

So, I met Jeff here at CEO Space a while back and I was super excited to meet Jeff mainly because he’s in an industry where we don’t cover a lot of fraud and a lot of scams.

What is also super exciting about Jeff is that he’s also a veteran like myself so we connected on multiple levels because of that. CEO Space is a great opportunity. I was super excited that Jeff was able to get in The Clear Business Directory and you can check out his profile there.

Jeff, why don’t you give our listeners a little better understanding as to what moneyminer.biz is.

Sure, moneyminers.biz is a specialty boutique lending brokerage firm. So, what we do is we specialize in helping people who are doing startup businesses or early stage capital raising for their business. So, we really are a one-stop shop for raising funds for their new business.

Fantastic. So, outside of being listed in The Clear Business Directory, which really separates you out from a lot of other companies that are offering the same type of service that you have. What makes your program a bit different from everybody else?

I think probably the biggest thing that makes us different is that we do not require prior business experience, financials, or tax returns. All the requirements that a normal bank would ask for a business loan. We have put together a lending package that doesn’t look at any of those things. What our program does is totally focuses on your current credit score and your credit profile or history only what kind of credit if you had in the past. Those are the only requirements.

Fantastic. I know that’s a pretty big deal for a lot of startups who don’t have the business credit history to be able to get a business loan, but they need that working capital. Is your program expensive compared to some of the loans that are out there?

That’s a great question and it’s one of our key features. When you look at startup funding when you are able to access it, which is very rare and it’s also very expensive. The reason that this solution works so well is due to it not based on being a business loan. It’s based on your personal credit score and history. Although, it is a business loan and used for business purposes it is not looking at the things that most businesses are turned down over. It’s really looking at you.

That is very unique and it. Provides a lot of opportunity for new business owners that are starting up. That’s absolutely fantastic.

So, in your experience and starting a business, is there anything that you wish you could do go back in time and do over again?

Absolutely!

What would that be?

I wish that I could go back in time and know how to keep my expenses down. So, that I actually would have made money when I started. I learned that the hard way.

Not overspending is especially tricky when starting up a new business. It can be very costly.

Oh it’s exceptionally costly, you go back, and you look and then say, “Why didn’t we spend that money on that?”

Right, you say to yourself “I spent how much money for something that I don’t even have anymore.”

Correct.

It’s a huge thing when it comes to business credit and accessing money. I would have been much more careful about making sure all my payments occurred on time. I didn’t appreciate just how expensive that makes lending and for how many years it makes it expensive.

That’s so true. If there was one question that you could educate your prospective clients on and our listeners on; what is one thing that our listeners or somebody that was perspective client should ask you before they actually decide to hire you for instance?

Actually, the biggest thing you want to ask me or anybody else in this subject is you want to ask, who we have worked with and who else have we assisted? What kind of references do we have? What institutions do we work with? You want to be able to verify that we’re real. So, those are the questions I would be asking.

So, in those questions that you get. What are some clients or industries types that you are currently working with?

Without getting permission from somebody specifically, I don’t want to give a name but I would share with you that the bulk of my new customers are new business people that are trying to do a startup. People that are doing things for the first time.

Maybe they’re in the employee sector and they want to break out in the business.

Right, or they’re retiring from what they used to do and they want to do something else. A bank isn’t going to touch you. That’s prime time for us.

So, do you work directly with the banks on behalf of your clients?

We work not only with banks; we also work with credit unions, insurance companies, Wall Street, and private money. So, we source everywhere.

Got it. So, your company manages all of that for the clients, is that correct?

Yes, we put together a package that we call a portfolio of loans or our new term is Publock, which stands for the portfolio of uncollateralized business lines of credit.

That’s key because I know that a lot of time and effort especially something as specific as raising capital. Having somebody that you know has been screened for frauds and scams that is doing that on your behalf is extremely powerful. This is important because, again, we uncover a lot of fraud in the financial sector, especially for business owners that want to raise capital.

Knowing that the first opportunity of “big money” that comes along may not be legit because the amount of fraud that we’ve uncovered in those situations is huge. So, knowing that there’s an option out there that would allow a new business to work with somebody like yourself, somebody who has been screened for fraud, scams, and is listed in The Clear Business Directory. This gives them peace of mind in knowing that you are legit and you are who you say you are. From that point it’s a matter of a conversation about is it good fit or does the program work for them. That’s all part of the relationship building process that they can determine after they engage you.

Absolutely. I think one of the things that we look at that’s really critical is where your credit score currently is and where your current history is and what can we do to raise that score. I typically am able to get anywhere from 25 to over 100 point increase in credit score before we put the portfolio together. The difference in results is night and day.

Oh, I’m sure. Especially, with people who may not have the best credit. Helping them raise that so they get those loans. That’s Huge.

Most of the people we work with don’t have the best credit and need to have some assistance in this area and that’s why we do that first.

That’s a fantastic program and I’m glad that you’re in The Clear Business Directory because again we didn’t have anybody that we can refer out to in that area. Knowing that you’re in the Clear is a big deal for our client base as well for those people that are in the startup sector.

Is there anything that you want your prospective clients know about you specifically or your business? What drives you? What is the one thing you want somebody to know about you and your business?

The biggest thing that I wish everybody knew about me is that the motivation for doing the type of work we do is we believe that the next solution that we need as a country is going to come from a small business.

We believe the next solution for most of the problems we have will come from the genius that is a entrepreneurialism and what we do is we enable entrepreneurs. We provide the rocket fuel they need to take their rocket off. For me that is the ultimate reason why we do what we do.

I absolutely love that. So, much in alignment with what is going on here at CEO Space. Why we come back here as mentors is because like yourself we are firm believers that small business and entrepreneurs are the ones that drive this country. Create opportunities create jobs. It’s why we created The Clear Business Directory was to give business owners an opportunity to work with people that are on the up and up and operating full transparency. Like yourself of course, it is super powerful.

Jeff, where’s a good location. E-mail address or contact information you can share that is outside of looking at The Business Directory where people can find you.

You can find us at our Web site of course which is www.moneyminers.biz. I have lived in the same house for over 20 years. I am in central Florida. You can find me in Palm Bay, Florida. I have a long track record and I think it’s easy to see that.

Again, you can read more about Jeff in his profile in The Clear Business Directory at www.clearbusinessdirectory.com.

Jeff, thank you so much for being on the show today! Appreciate your time.

Thanks and have a great day!

Awesome and until next time make sure your business is IN THE CLEAR.

Serial Entrepreneur Nathan Hirsch talks about transparency in the ecommerce arena. From starting an Amazon business from his college dorm room to co-owning Freee Up, a solution for remote hiring, Nathan knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Listen in as he talks about the importance of transparency in today’s business world.

Hello everyone this is Tonya Dawn Recla, and this is the In the Clear Podcast. And you all are in for a treat. This gentleman is a firecracker. But it’s so refreshing to hear neighbors talk as he’s really cracked the code in the e-commerce industry. I know if you’ve been in business for more than a day, and one of the biggest headaches is how do you how do you get folks to fulfill some tasks that you need in interviewing process and in you get on fiber and that’s a crapshoot. And so, I’ve really tried to be to talk to him and how he’s shaped and molded within that space. So, Nathan, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I am really excited. I get excited to talk to people but with what you’re doing in the e-commerce sphere and the remote hiring and stuff like that. First of all, it’s so in alignment with our transparency mantras and everything, but it’s so necessary right now. The industry’s really icky. How did you even stumble into all of this?

Yes, it’s pretty crazy. And I agree, I was really excited when I talked to you because I do think we’re very much in line, and a lot of our clients have had the same experience across the board.

So, I got into e-commerce when I was 20. I started Amazon business out of my college dorm room. It radically expanded beyond my expectations, where to the point where I was running a multimillion dollar business out of my college dorm room. I was hiring employees before I could legally drink. I’ve hired in the past seven years, I’ve hired hundreds of remote workers, both in house and remote workers. I’ve written an e-book on remote workers. I teach a lot of podcasts and webinars on it because like you said, it’s hard. You never know what you’re going to get. It’s very much like hiring a new business for the first time or a contractor to work on your house or any of that stuff. You don’t know what’s legit, what’s not legit, what quality you’re going to get, what or why you’re going to get and all that stuff.  

So, when I was first hiring, I made some great hires. People that are still with me seven eight years later, and I also made some terrible hires people I fired or people that I kept on too long and it sucked money out of the company. And I should have hired them faster and I learned from those experiences and I wanted to create a better way a company that I wish I had when I first learned about the UpWorks and the Fiverr’s of the world, I was posting jobs and spending half my time going through applicants and trying to make good decision based on limited information. So, I created FreeeUp to be the hands-on way to hire remote workers, where we do the pre-vetting for you, we get hundreds of applicants a week. We have a great interview process that’s based on my seven years of hiring, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and we struck communication, which is half the battle because it doesn’t matter how skilled the people that you hire are if they can’t communicate. It’s never going to work out. So, we test them on communication. We have very strict communication guidelines and then we make these already pre-vetted the top 1 percent workers available to our clients on a first come, first serve basis, to really make a safe and trusting marketplace for freelancers and remote workers.

That’s fantastic. And for those of you who already run into Google to look this up it’s FreeeUp.com.

The third E represents E-commerce.

Perfect. Awesome. It is so nice and refreshing to hear you talking in this way. I can’t tell you how many sites I have tried to navigate and try to find somebody. And it is just gets in the pit of your stomach, like it might not work. One of the things we are teaching, we tell people do play the “What If” game? What if it doesn’t work out. And for specialty, small to mid-sized business, in a momentum and time or every day and it’s not even that costly. You could stomach the loss of the Five Hundred Thousand, Five thousand dollars it’s the loss of momentum and needing to have that done, and needing to have it done well, and there’s nothing more frustrating than folks who don’t come through on those projects.

I agree. I’m someone who preaches this valuing your time at a very high level. And people that waste my time anything that waste my time I try to eliminate to the best of my ability. And like you said just that momentum time is something that you never get back. If you waste three months on someone that isn’t going to work out you’re never getting that three months back. It’s different if you’re five years in your company or if you’re a corporate, and even that hurts. But never mind a startup that really needs that initial time to just get off the ground. A lot of times you can’t make it back out from a really bad hire like that. So, I try to protect my clients. However, I can by pre-vetting and saving on the whole other nightmare.

And it is a nightmare. That’s a great way to describe it. We get all of those for stories because of the work that we do, and a lot of folks, unfortunately, come to us after the fact. What can they do? And what my husband will tell them is, you lost five grand on a bad hire, you might as well crack a beer and chalk it up to experience because it’s actually with the artist and the small businesses, most of them don’t have any money. Like let’s say it is a purely fraudulent scam concept, they never litigate. All the time or the money to litigate, and for most of them, it’s like the biggest risk is in that too. And so, I appreciate the fact that you’re addressing all those things that screen and we see it come up because of the miscommunication pieces. So, we’ve been training people for the last five years in business, how to ask questions. What should we be asking? In fact, for the members that come into the Clear Business Directory, my husband interviews them for the podcast and that’s when the questions he asked is, what should people be asking you before they hire you? And I love the fact he took a lot of that off the table. How do you manage things, communication wise, on the other end of the spectrum with your clients? How does that work?

Yes, so we have very high expectations for our workers. We’re essentially putting them through our process. I was a client myself, so I know what clients want to hear, what they don’t want to hear, what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, and our guidelines are based on that. And we’re expecting our workers to communicate at the highest possible level. So, when I pass over our client to a worker they know they know our processing, know our system, they know our software, and they’re good to go, and hit the ground running. And really, the only time I want to hear back from the clients is if it’s a compliment or they’re requesting a new worker, or they need help with something that has nothing to do with that worker because any I we just don’t have time for client kickback or any bad experience.  

I’m a realist. We get out enough workers each week that stuff happens here and there, and you address it. And from my side. It’s in my best interest to make every client happy with our service, and if there’s a hiccup over the course of a year, there’s always going to be one or two. You make it right. You credit the client or give them a new worker, or get something done for free for them, whatever it is. And we really don’t run into that many issues based on when you put it as a percentage for how many hours you bill. But what’s nice about our service, or what I’ve tried to build is that thing that you have someone to go to. Whereas, if you make a bad hire and you fire them it’s not like you’re going to go to that and be like, hey give me this money back or fix what you broke or whatever. That just doesn’t happen. Or if you hire someone from across the world you are never going to talk to that person again. But with us you have a company that’s going to back you up that has these policies already in place and were insurance against turnover. So, our workers rarely quit, but if they do we cover all retraining costs we get you a new worker right away only make sure you never take a step backwards for H.R. reasons. So, you could hire someone and six months later they quit. We’re covering the training for the new worker. So, you never have to cover training costs twice. And training is very expensive as you grow your company and it’s usually a sunk cost.

So, if I understand you correctly the and if this is in fact true, you are absolutely brilliant. So, the concept of you having direct communication with your client is minimal, and the client communication happens after they’re assigned the workers. Is that accurate?

They’re right on the website. There’s a calendar that you can book a time with me. I’m an open book. I love meeting with clients. I want to hear about the pros and cons your business concerns you’re having what you’re looking for and hiring and it’s me and my team’s job to get you the right workers for once I introduce you the worker. All the communication is between the client and the worker and our worker knows how to communicate at a very high level or they haven’t made it through the process. And we usually only hear back from the client if they’re requesting the next worker or if they have some complimentary feedback.

Perfect, so they are absolutely brilliant. And then my follow up question would be, how do you manage communication on the front end with the client because we see a lot of problems happening when people don’t really know what they need. We always use the website design industry, we pick on thema lot because a big part of the challenge is, not only is there a lot of fraud and scam in that arena, but it’s also that most clients don’t know how to communicate clearly. They don’t even know what they need. And so, they’re not asking the right questions, and they’re not making the right hire. How do you manage that piece of it?

Sure. So, you’re right. There’s really two types of clients that come to me. They’re the clients that have their business and processes in place and they just don’t have the manpower, and they need good reliable manpower. Those are clients that it’s not really my job to tell them how to run their business, I’m just there to fulfill their worker requests and get them the workers that they need. 

And then we have other clients who have a great idea of their business is growing really fast and they don’t know what the next step is, or they don’t know how to get organized. And it’s really impossible for me to do that on a 15 minute or half an hour phone call over the phone. But what we have available is experts, consultants, project managers that you can hire that can really go into your business, do their due diligence, understand your goals and expectations, and come up with a plan that may include just them or may include other cheaper, lower level workers, and creating process and systems and really help you get organized. And that’s for the business owner that doesn’t really know what they need. So, it’s really up to you.

I’m well aware that it’s a client’s business it’s their baby. They’re going to want so on how they want it done. They want to come in and be like Nathan this is what I need get it for me. Great. Boom. I’m going to supply them with those workers quickly. And they’re like Nathan, I want your advice on why your consultant’s advice, I’m all about that as well. I love helping people so we really cater to both kinds of clients.

That’s perfect. Well very cool. It sounds like you’ve thought a lot of this through. And I know a lot of business owners are going to be really excited if they hear about this. What advice can you offer folks in the e-commerce industry that help them. Like let’s say they’ve identified everything you have. What can you help them to get them going along the same trajectory?

Yeah, the biggest thing is diversification. I can’t tell you how many businesses rely on one source of revenue or even on the flip side one worker or one employee. A lot of business owners think that is the easiest or the best way to go about it is to hire one manager to do everything, which is actually the worst way because your entire business is reliant on this one person. So, what I try to preach is diversifying getting on different marketplaces finding different revenue streams, but also your workforce and your processes and your systems. Think about if your entire company would go down if one person left or one person took three weeks off or whatever it is and really break down those processes get multiple people and get assistance and that can cover, cross-train, and really protect yourself at all in all aspects of your business. Assuming that anything could go wrong at any time and that’s the biggest advice that I try to give and the best way that I can protect my clients long term.

Brilliant absolutely perfect and I know everybody is going to want to find out more about you we sent them over to the Web site. Is there anywhere else you want to send them or direct them to.

Yeah, we’re everywhere. You can check out the free app to FreeeUp.com on Skype. All the social media. We have our own free blog where we post a lot about hiring and building a company culture and the e-commerce industry. Anyone that signs up and mentioned this podcast gets 5 percent off their first worker. And we’re really there to help people so right on the Web site you can book a free call with me just see all your needs and see if FreeeUp is a fit. We’re really all about meeting our client’s expectations and helping you grow your business by saving you H.R. time.

Awesome. Brilliant. And kudos to you. Nathan, it sounds like he really cracked the code on that and I for one am excited to get a little bit better. Thank you.

Definitely I’m looking forward to providing you workers, as well.

Absolutely. Thank you to everyone out there of course we appreciate you listening and it’s all next time. Make sure your business is In the Clear.

Realtor Mark Ferguson knows real estate and real estate investing and he knows the importance of transparency. He admits the industry is wrought with snake oil sales tactics and advises clients to educate themselves before trusting an agent. Listen in as he shares secrets from the trenches and tips for becoming a savvy consumer.

Hello this is Tonya Dawn Recla with the In The Clear Podcast and I have with me today a real treat for you all. Mark Ferguson is realtor, real estate investor, author and he has created a whole web site and business called Invest For More.

What’s delightful about him is that he gets it. He understands that the real estate market is fairly saturated and there are some questionable techniques happening with it. So, I’m excited to have him on the show today to talk to you all about some ways that if you’re in that industry you can kind of stand out. Also, if you’re looking to hire someone within that industry just some things to think about.

So, please join me in welcoming Mark to the show, welcome Mark. 

Thank you, Tonya! I am really happy to be here and excited to get this interview going.

Very cool. I think I have laid out the industry that you’re in but you handle both real estate buying and selling as well as investing. Is that true?

Yes. So, I’ve been an agent since 2001. Right now, I run a team of ten with six licensed agents that buy and sell houses. I also have flipped over a hundred houses in my career. I own fourteen rental properties. So, that’s why I started the blog was to talk about all that. I do have both the agent and investor background.

So, what has that done for you by bringing that into the equation; what happened to you at the point that you were buying and selling and investing and how did you move into all of those areas?

My dad was an agent so I got started after college when I graduated with a Finance degree and did not find a decent job. Went to work with him part time even though I did not want to be in real estate. That turned into full time so I started out as an agent. Then my Dad would flip houses once in a while. Then, I learned the flipping side of things that way. So, learning to buy and sell happened at the same time and then I started owning rental properties later on in my career. 

What do you think that has done for both sides of the coin by being able to see both of those perspectives?

I think when you get into the real estate industry many agents have no idea what it takes to have a good investment property. Whether it’s a flip or a rental because most agents have never bought an investment themselves.  

Therefore, by being involved in the investment side it gave me a pretty big advantage to help other investors buy and sell properties. I know what they will have to pay for a property, what repairs will cost, what a property will rent for. So, it gives you an advantage as an agent just from a knowledge base.  

Wow. Yeah, I can tell you honestly we had absolutely no idea when we got involved real estate, which I am sure you hear that story often. I can see how that would be so valuable for your clients to be able to offer that perspective. I think a lot of times people get caught up in the excitement of the homes buying experience. It can be challenging to think critically during that time.

Definitely. Real estate can be one of the biggest wealth building tools out there if use correctly. Most people never really know how to use it. It one of the only places where you can get an awesome deals on houses and make money as soon as they buy it. It’s such a huge advantage financially.

Most people just don’t take the time to learn how to do that or they rely on agents that don’t know how to do that. So, if they can take the time to learn how to get a great deal it can be amazing for your financial stability. 

It’s funny I remember going through that process and I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I was thinking more about all of the responsibility that goes into owning a home. I remember there was a book out there called The Virgin Home Owner. I mean I was reading about septic tanks and all of these things but that is where my mind was really immersed.

It never hit me until years later about really learning the ins and outs about financing that house works. I have mentioned to you that I helped to systemize a few real estate companies. I was floored to learn how much fraudulent activity happens in that industry.

Yes, it is unfortunate. You’re dealing with a very high dollar purchase. There is a lot of people who get dollar signs in their eyes and try and take advantage of people. So, it does happen a lot not just in buying and selling houses but in teaching the investment side of it as well. 

So, since you grew up in that arena, what do you think has changed? One of my personal bias is that with the rise of the internet and social media it really created a ripe environment for some of these snake oil salespeople to come forward.  Have you seen that in that industry? 

Yes, real estate was probably one of the first snake oil salesman industry. I mean I was growing up in the 80’s but I remember the infomercials with the guys with the cars and the yachts and the girls selling real estate. That was kind of the same thing where you’re buying into that. I don’t know if people realize but some of these internet “gurus” which is what we call them. They are charging 30-60 thousand dollars a person for their courses. It’s crazy! They use high-pressure sales tactics similar to selling a time share. Which is also real estate! It’s sad to see people who are trying to make a better life get stuck even further behind because the spent so much money on this training.

So, what can people do? What should they be thinking about, what should they be asking? How can they sort of save themselves from that heartache.

I think one good thing about the online world and technology is that it is so easy to find information now. So, you can go online and research so many things for free. Whether it’s my site or another site. There are tons of free articles out there. Books! Books are a great way to gain information as well. I have written a few paperback books to reach as many people as I can at an affordable level. So they are not wasting all of their money on training.

So, start with that. Learn as much as you can for free online and with books. This way you can get an idea of what you want to do, because there are a lot of ways you can invest in real estate.

You can also learn about what to look out for in these “real estate investment training programs” they usually start out with a free lunch at a seminar and then in turns into a 3 day works shop. What happens is they don’t actually teach you anything it’s just all marketing.

How can people know if what information is being shared is legit. Basically, how can people vet the people they are getting this type of information from?

I think that one thing is being transparent. Are they talking about their investments? Are they investing right now? Are they open about their investments or are they holding secrets back that you have to pay for.

I am a big fan of not having any secrets. I made my books to make the information easier to read so that you don’t have to go through 300 blog articles. All the information is out there for free if you want it. I am not hiding anything, I talk about all of my investments, how I find them, how I finance them. There is a lot of other people who are doing it too I am not the only one. I always just recommend look for signs of secrets and paying for more information.

What do you do with your team to help foster a culture of transparency in a market space that seems to lean in the under direction?

My dad was really a huge help in that. He has been an agent since 1978 and just retired. He is the most honest and transparent person I know. You are so much better off to tell the truth if you screw up that to try and hide it or try to fool people.  Especially in the real estate business because so much of your income is either referrals or people that you have already sold houses to. If you treat them poorly, you’re just killing your income source. The better you treat them and the more transparent you are with them the more money you will make in the end. 

I saw him give away commission for mistakes he made or even for mistakes; he didn’t make to make a client happy when closing deals. He would not buy investment properties if he had another investor who wanted it because he felt it was a conflict of interest. The more honest you are the more people want to do business with you or refer you, which is really what makes you money as an agent. 

I agree with that. It’s funny because we have a seven year old right now and that is kind of like parenting 101. Teaching people to tell the truth and I don’t want to sound cliché about it. I think it can be challenging. We run into so many business owners that are very well meaning people tend to buy into the idea that if they screw up and are honest about it somehow they will be seen as less than knowledgeable or less professional. It invokes these feelings of some real vulnerability.

I have discovered that it’s quite the opposite that your most powerful stance is owning up to things. We could say that it come straight from the espionage book because the concept of being open about things means you can’t be bribed or black mailed for anything.  It is a powerful stance when you can be transparent and honest. It just feels like not everyone crosses over into that space, especially in business.

A lot of times in the self-help arenas it’s the same concept to be honest with your partner and your kids and everyone else. I don’t know where it got messed up translating into business. So, I think that’s where you run into some of the posturing and the egotistical defensive responses to screw ups.  I know I am going on a bit here but I am just reflecting on what you said and how simple and necessary your advice is and yet a lot of people miss that.

Do you run into that with your team members and how do you help them manage that; or is that not a problem in the culture of your business?

I mean it’s always a problem. I hire new agents all of the time. I have also had to let go of quite a few agents too just because they didn’t meet that culture. The tough thing about being an agent is when you first get start out you may not get paid for a few months. That can be stressful on you and your family so that might make you do something you might not normally do in order to get a deal closed.

I saw some agents on my team not being fully transparent and not being honest and we had to let them go. You know I gave them warnings and I tried to help them and if it just keeps happening; not only does it hurt them it hurts my whole team. That is just not something that I can promote. Really what you said too is so true, people like when you own up to your mistakes. I see on Facebook all the time some of these real estate guys out there who fudge the numbers and they try and present it as something better than it is, and then they get hammered by these investors that know what’s going on.

Then the ones who make mistake and own up to it, people see that and they are like “Oh my gosh it’s so nice to see someone say they made a mistake”. One of my most popular article or podcast I have done is about mistakes I have made and learned from them. It shows that your real and not trying to be someone who has never made a mistake and knows every answer. 

Yes, in addition to my counter intelligence background I am very much a teacher by nature. I remember even the freeing feeling when standing in front of a class or a workshop and saying “I don’t know? Let’s figure that out.”  It’s really been highlighted through parenting. You know kids don’t let you get away with anything. I your posturing or trying to pull one on them they are going to call you out on it, you know it their sort of innocent, cut to the chase way.

It has been such an experience to be able to show up in that transparent space with our daughter as well as clients and to translate a lot of that over to business. I can’t imagine operating any other way honestly. I do acknowledge the challenge comes when you’re leading groups of people and to maintain that as part of the culture. It’s one thing to emulate it and of course that always helps, there’s a trickle-down effect, you can’t have that culture if the person leading is not that way. However, like you said it butting up against people’s fears in particularly in business when it comes to money and survivability I feel like you’re spot on that, that’s where people tend to choose differently.

Right, it’s kind of like trading short term gain for long term wealth. You may have to sacrifice sustainability for a short period time. 

I love that. It really investing in the overall reputation of who you are and the business that you operate.

What advice can you offer to other business in your industry that can kind of help them stand out, I know we have talked about being honest, but what do you see moving forward for business in your industry. Do you have any tips you can offer?

I think one thing I would offer is on the investing side of things, and this goes for anyone agent or not. If you’re really trying to buy quite a few good deals, doing what you say you are going to do is huge. If I write a contract to buy a house there is a 99% chance I am going to buy that house. I am not going to fiddle with the numbers or squeeze more money out of the deal.

By doing that I have created, a reputation in my area and my area is not huge its about one hundred thousand people. The investors and agents will often know each other. I will have agents that come to me with investment properties asking me if I want these deals. Because they know I am going to do what I say I am not going to mess around and I won’t screw over their sellers. There are a lot of other investors out there that try and play games with the numbers, mess with inspections claws, or back out. You just don’t want to deal with them, I don’t want to deal with them, nobody does. 

If you focus on relationships and building a reputation it will make you so much more money than trying to nickel and dime people.

That’s brilliant I really like that advice and people just don’t naturally think of that. Having integrity of word and deed and the benefits go way beyond the deals themselves. As you were talking it kind of creates this air about you, you know this sort of whole person concept of integrity which is beautiful. That is fantastic advice. Thank you for sharing it!

It would be much easier to do business if everyone operated that way.

Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be so unique and why would we talking. It would be commonplace. Haha!

Thank you for joining us today. I know the listeners are going to want to find out more about you, where would you like us to send them?

Yes, my blog is www.investfourmore.com  is the best place to find me. I have a couple of free books on investing and on being an agent. There are also over four hundred free articles, You can also email me, I answer all of my emails personally, mark@investfourmore.com is the best place to email me.

So, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the number four is because you have two beautiful children and a lovely wife.

That’s actually completely wrong. Don’t feel bad most people have no idea what that means! I started that because it’s really difficult to get more than four loans on a rental properties because none of the big banks will do it. So, the whole idea is getting more than four mortgages and how to do that.

I don’t know I like the whole family thing…but we’ll go with that. Before I let you go you do have a new project that you are working on, do you want to tell the listeners about this?

Yes, I do I am working on a new big project on the basics of buying and selling houses. Hoping to be able to educate people on the overall process so they are not blindly going into it just hoping that the people that they hired are doing a good job. 

Awesome! Well, I look forward to that and I know our listeners will too, so keep us up to date on the release of that. It has been a real pleasure getting to know you a little bit better and I appreciate your perspective and you being so open and honest regarding the real estate industry with our listeners.

Of course. Thank you for having me on the show and I look forward to keeping in touch. 

Very cool! And to everyone out there, thank you for listening and until next time make sure your business is In The Clear.

Being vulnerable in public relations feels like inviting the sharks to circle. But what if vulnerability and transparency are the quickest ways to truly connect with your audience and create raving fans? Josh Elledge talks about his experience in the PR world and why he chooses to operate transparently.

Hello everyone! This is Tonya Dawn Recla. This is the In the Clear Podcast. And I am really excited to have with me today Josh Elledge, out of the PR sphere. So, this is particularly entertaining for me because we hear a lot about people getting snookered out of the PR and Marketing Sphere. And it’s such a necessary part for business, to get out there and to get well-known. What our bias is that you could do that in a transparent and authentic and integrity way. And so, I think we’re going to hear from Josh some ways to do that because he embodies that also. That, hey-let’s-put-it-all-out-there-and-be bold-and-courageous. And I’m really excited about the conversation that’s going to unfold between us.

So, if you all could help me welcome, Josh is Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngels.com, which I’m excited to hear about. But the bigger pieces is just that knowledge around the PR industry. I’m really excited about sharing lessons learned with us today. So, welcome Josh to the show. We’re excited to have you.

Thank you so much Tonya. So, great to be here.

Yay! So, would you consider yourself in the PR industry? Is that your main sphere?

Yeah. So, I own two companies. So, the first one, Savings Angel, I’m very much a consumer expert and a consumer advocate. And we’ve done very well over the past 10 years in helping consumers cut their grocery bill in half and save money in all areas of their life. And it’s certainly where I have gained my own success in working with the media. So, a few years ago, I started teaching on how I was able to do this and how we were able to create millions of millions and millions of millions of dollars in sales with next to zero advertising. And I just started getting inundated with requests from other business owners who also wanted to learn this. So, I reluctantly started a PR firm. Yeah, we do things a lot different from what is currently exists out there in the marketplace. And so, we try to focus only on working with entrepreneurs and business owners and startups who are comfortable in telling their story, and they’re comfortable networking. And we just speed up the process of turning entrepreneurs into media superstars.

Wow. So, you stumbled into PR. I love that. I think those are the best stories of the accidental businesses that develop. So, were you pretty cool with that. Were you hesitant to get into that space or how did that feel for you?

So, I was in the United States Navy for five years, and I was a Navy journalist who did a lot of work in public relations then. Although I studied family science and family therapy in school, I found in fact that that was actually very helpful because to become very successful in communications or public relations or journalism, you have to respect and honor relationships. Relationships with other business owners, relationships with your audience. And if you’ll do that you’ll find that things like PR will come very natural for you.

I did also own a small-town newspaper for a couple of years and I’ve always been just fascinated in working with and around the media. So, when we launched Savings Angel 10 years ago, I had no money for advertising. I had a great idea. But instead of just paying to put up billboards and who knows what else, instead I just reached out to local newspapers, local radio stations, local ad magazines and other digital influencers and I just found ways to bring them value. And I brought enough value to other people because of so doing, I ended up gaining a lot of audiences who really wanted more. And we developed a membership based Website. And that became our success.

Awesome. First of all, thank you for your service, we appreciate that.

Thank you.

Beautiful. I love the story. You and I talked very briefly before the show about you just have to gear up for this thing. That idea of vulnerability and being transparent in front of other people is a little bit foreign in our world. My big promotion of my campaign these days is to make it more popular. But I think it’s picking up steam. We’re hearing a lot more about it. Especially in business. It’s something we’ll talk about in relationships and parenting and all kinds of stuff, but bringing that into the business arena is new. It used to be we wore our 9 to 5 mask when we were somebody else. And I see a lot of folks opting for what I call the holistic lifestyle anymore. It’s like you are who you are, who you are, and every scenario is that. Does that feel like what you’re seeing?

Oh, my gosh absolutely especially for digital influence I’m sorry for digital entrepreneurs. You look at your average person who has a decent social media following. And you’ll see that the one thing that they have in common is they’re generally very transparent. They’re generally very open about their lives. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to share things that would be too much in terms of it would put your family in harm’s way or that sort of thing, and you don’t have to share your personal mailing address, that sort of thing. But you definitely will find that the more vulnerable you can be with your own insecurities, with your own failures, with your own questions, and concerns, and fears, you’ll find that people will say, “Oh my gosh, this person is a real person and I identify with them because I feel those same things. And as a result, I want to find out how did they overcome it or what is their solution or maybe I can join them in that journey and I can experience the reward of growing together.”

I love how you’re saying that. I think it’s spot on. I think that’s why we saw the rise in social media, like people wanted to get glimpses inside people’s lives. Of course, we have an entire business because of social media, because it’s easy for people to come into the business sector and look good and really have no oomph to their business or anything else. So, for us if you have to at both sides of that coin you have to have that willingness to be open and transparent and also be honest about what you can really. Accomplish and not accomplish. I love that you said you had a great idea, but you didn’t have the budget like you were it wasn’t it wasn’t a successful business yet so you had to go out there and bootstrap it a little bit to see what could happen. those are my favorite examples of like the brick by brick by brick building. And it’s OK to be transparent about that when I’m out the gate with our successful multi-million dollar businesses.

And it also does not need to be done overnight. And I know there’s so many people were like oh I want to get rich overnight. No, I don’t think you do. I really firmly believe that. And it can be disruptive, and it can be a bit uncomfortable. But enjoy the journey. Chances are, if you’re listening to the sound of my voice, you’re going to be around for a while. So, you may as well just enjoy this thing.

So, with this second company, which I launched a couple of years ago, I’m very intentionally controlling growth. So right now, we’re not taking on new clients because I wanted to do this right. But in January we look to scale and turn upendPR into a company unlike any other PR marketing company. We fully intend to have over a thousand clients. Now, our clients are a little bit different than what most PR firms try to get in that our clients they generally pay us about a thousand dollars a month. And most PR firms like really big clients. I don’t. I like to operate more as a Special Forces, a SEAL team approach, as opposed to calling out the entire inventory and just charging these ridiculous billable hours. We really just want to empower our influencers, our business owners to become very successful with or without us. And that means that we need to make them the stars and not just try and get in the way of everything.

I love everything you’re saying. I’m laughing because you’re absolutely spot on. We did identically the same thing we did. Initially, we didn’t. We came out the gate really naive and made some huge mistakes and reeled it all back in very fast. Like OK stop. What are we doing here? And I do, I like the journey. Moving into emerging growth and a couple of different businesses. You can’t beat startup. It’s like courting people. Startup is like a magical time. And not that the other stages of business are, but I tell people that a lot enjoy this. You don’t ever get that back in big business. So, it’s very much like relationship building.

I think you’re spot on. I think that people have no idea what they’re asking for when they talk about some ways these get-rich-quick schemes or moving into capital raises prematurely. If you don’t have the same confidence to be an exist at that next level which some people can only get through the experience of getting there more and more up to the night you’re going to fail anyway and so. So, you’re better are doing it methodically. There’s so much that occurs in that growth phase, much more than what the bottom line would reflect. I think that’s awesome.

And I like your approach to the PR thing. I’ve been on my own little personal rant here that I don’t see a ton of really awesome service providers in that sphere. We I would love to see more people service –the just-after-startup space. Tons of solutions in the higher-end big corporate spaces. I’m not a business person, so I’m not sure I’m saying the levels right or categories right. But I see a lot of folks serving the early-stage startups and the solopreneurs and the professionals coming out the gate, and a lot of folks serving the bigger companies. I don’t see a ton of really solid offerings in that middle sphere. Sounds to me, that’s your sweet spot.

Yeah it is. And I really just signed up and PR to be the service that I needed for so many years, but it just really didn’t exist. It seemed like if you wanted really great service, you’d have to pay a ridiculous sum of money. And if you just wanted to try and find a solution for a thousand dollars or under, good luck because of my experiences was generally not real great. And either you were just not treated as a very important client or again just the caliber of the PR expert that you would be working with, just not real experience or just not very successful, which is why they were charging so little. So instead, we just try and focus on well what do we absolutely need to do and what can we work together on with the client, empower them so that they can do some of this stuff, so they don’t have to pay us. So again, it’s just I think it’s just the perfect balance of identifying who needs to do what. And as a result, we can provide what other PR firms easily charge $5- 8000 a month for. And we only have to charge a thousand to get the same, or in many cases much better results.

We do the exact same thing and. Bring the corporate counter-intelligence perspective into small and mid-sized businesses. The biggest issue is scalability. Can you systemize it, can you create it, and are you comfortable sharing like you’re talking about that education piece and really training plan to do what you do. And I think for once we had a huge year and he to be the running mantra of the speaking industry and training industries, you don’t want to give up all your information and like trust me when I say that you could throw it all out there. Anybody who spends any time on YouTube has access to all that information anyway. People are still going to hire you. They want to know who you are because as a business owner you can’t do it all anyway. And so, I’m much more apt to go with the company that has shared their information, is putting it out there, wants to educate their client base. Those are the ones I’m more likely to completely outsource to than the ones who are trying this trickledown effect, and going-to-give-him-a-hug-but-I’m-really-not-going-to-tell-you-anything. I’m an intelligent person, I will go and fight. I could become an expert in just about any arena, if I really wanted to, just with the Internet alone. So, those days are over in my opinion. So, yea, you have a raving fan in me with regard to that perspective. And it’s very refreshing to hear about.

What can people do? What can clients do if they’re looking for PR folks? What questions can they ask? How do you help people in that space?

So, if they’re looking to create their own PR or if they’re looking to hire a PR firm?

Yeah, I guess it wasn’t really clear that they’re looking to hire somebody if they’re looking for some assistants. How do who’s legit who knows what they’re talking about and that type of stuff.

Well, you clearly want to look at whoever they’re working with right now. And so, the more information you can get about the placements that they’re giving for their other clients, I think that’s going to be a great indicator. Are they comfortable letting you know who that is? What you want to look for are are they working with clients that are like you. Are they in your industry? Are they about the same size as your company? What kind of budget are they operating, is it a similar budget? Because again, look, PR is not going to happen overnight and it’s not going to be free. Now, you can do it yourself. And we do a lot of work in helping people, educating them and helping them do it themselves. But just know that it is going to take a little bit of time, if you want to do it yourself. If you want to hire someone to do it, just make sure that they’re not going to waste your time by just talking about theory and philosophy and all this garbage that you don’t need. Most of our clients didn’t really care about that. They just want to know can you get me a lot of visibility? Can you get me on different Websites? Can you get me on TV? Can you get me quoted in magazines? The answer to all that is, yes.

And for us, we show you here is all the media placements that we’ve done in the past couple of months. And you could see very directly. Now, if you can find a PR firm that’s willing to do that and they’re comfortable with that then I think that’s a good indicator. Are they willing to let you talk to their clients? And so, similarly, you can go and you can see exactly who we work with and go connect with them on social media and talk to them and say, “Hey Josh and upendPR, are those guys are legit?” And I think any of them will tell you, “Yeah, let me just do it.”

You could do a Google search for any of our clients and you could see exactly what media placement that they’re getting. So, that’s the thing that you would want to ask. You want to see. You don’t want to do whatever their lip service that’s one thing. You want to see their results. 

Also, are they invested in teaching and giving with or without you’re billing information and so that’s another thing that I really believe in is that you want to look for a firm that is a giver not a taker. And so, if they are forwarding thought for their industry for their clients then that’s another good sign. Is there are a lot of really great information that you can read that you can learn. Do they have a podcast?  Do they have a blog? Do they have great social media stuff. And look and see what they’re doing. And then finally, one thing and I think this is so funny, I see this all the time, is that you come across like a social media or a marketing or public relations firm a,nd you say, “OK well let’s check these guys out on social media,” and they’ve got like fifty-eight followers! That’s another thing, look at the amount of engagement they have on social media. And that should give you an indication of how conscientious they are about practicing what they preach.

And so, for us, you and I we’re talking and we’re very methodically growing slowly the first two years where. We turn away about as much business that we bring in just because we’re looking for great fits, we’re learning a lot ourselves in terms of all of our tips and tricks and secrets and stuff that nobody else in this industry is doing. And so, we want to perfect those systems before we go into hyper growth because you can always go into hypergrowth. That’s not hard on grow a business. You just need to find something that works and then just do a bunch more of it. People will do your advertising for you and have good success first. Otherwise it can all crumble on you.

And so, as a result we have focused on making sure that we’re practicing what we preach and so we’ve built a lot of. We’ve done a lot of work on authority building first before we go on and just sell the thing. One thing that I really dealt with in the beginning was this imposter syndrome. Like who am I? I didn’t go to school for public relations myself. I was in public relations for the Navy for five years and I owned a newspaper for a couple of years and I certainly had a lot of success, but going back 20 years ago, that’s not what I majored in. There’s, I think, a lot of people have that hang up. And I’ve never had a client ask me what’s your educational background. Never. They don’t care. They just want to know can you get me results. And we focus on getting our clients results. And as a result, we end up getting a lot of business.

We went through the same thing. I’m the first person to admit that I was the slowest moving into this space because I didn’t see it. I didn’t see how espionage translated into a business. People kept coming to us and asking us to do these things for the. And I’m like, how can we do that? It just didn’t make any sense to me. And I think that that’s a real valuable thing. A personal attribute to have is you do question, you do look at yourself, you do observe and not from a disempowered place, but from a really like I-want-to-make-sure-I-know-I-can-do-this. I want to make sure my business can do this. Because you’re spot on. Growing it is not difficult. It’s sustaining that growth that is really super challenging.

But I do want to circle back because I think you made a number of really critical points. But one in particular. Folks, when you are looking to hire somebody in your business, you need to know that they’ve done that for a business very similar to yours. The business landscape is super complex right now. There’s a million and one different business models. It’s not like real estate, is real estate, is real estate, or marketing, is marketing, is marketing. When people come to us and they ask us to vet companies, what the first thing the investigators ask them is, what are they going to do for you? And you will believe how many people are like, “Oh, they’re going do my marketing.” OK, what marketing? Are they going to put an ad in the newspaper, are they going to do it on social media? What are we talking about here? And, most people aren’t asking those questions. And our very favorite is, “They’re going to help me take my business to the next level.” Well, what does that mean? Which level? And do you even want to be there?

And so, not to poke fun, because very educated business owners fall into that trap because it’s overwhelming. There’s many aspects to your business, but you are the one who is in control of it like you have to be and you have to be asking questions. Don’t get intimidated by folks who seem to know more about their area of expertise than you do. That’s why you’re talking to them. But anybody who’s confident in what they’re doing, wants you to ask questions and wants you to be ready to hire them and wants you to know what you’re getting into. There’s nothing worse than taking on a client and you really have no idea how you’re going to serve them. It’s a pain for all of us.

And so, don’t hesitate to ask. One of our favorite questions we advise people to ask is, what questions should I be asking of you? What should I need to know before I hire you? And anybody who is really wanting to work with you on the up and up will answer you, and they will answer honestly, and they will work with you to build that relationship. And so, Josh, I love everything that you’re doing with everything you stand for and it’s so needed particularly in the PR industry. So, for sure we’re going to want to stay close to you and as you grow 2017 and support you however we can because it because we have so many clients who need that. So, thank you. 

Terrific Absolutely.

Very cool. Well so, I know people are going to want to know more about you. Where can we send them?

Oh yeah. Well you’re welcome to. You could just Google me and you can find all kinds of stuff that I’ve done. Isn’t that a powerful statement by the way? I thought you would appreciate that, and I really mean that. And that’s another thing that you should do when considering bringing on a contractor is just Google them and see and if you don’t find a lot then chances are they may have been working very privately with clients, but maybe they haven’t done a whole lot in terms of making the space better for everyone.

So, if you search Google my name is, Josh Elledge. J O S H E L L and then edge, E D G E. And you’ll find a lot of stuff all about me. I work really hard to make sure that I have a great digital reputation. And the way that you get a great digital reputation is you just have to be a giver and you have to serve a lot of people. And as a result, Google will reward you for that. And if you like, you can just go to upendPR.com and you can see exactly how we work with other clients as well I’ve got some great blog articles, I certainly have a lot of great audio and video you can learn from, even if you never pay me a dime. That’s terrific. I hope I have made your life just amazingly better on how you increase your own exposure so that you can go out and become wildly successful.

I love that well. Very cool. We’ll just definitely keep us posted on your successes as you move forward. And let’s stay in touch around that. I appreciate everything that you’re doing and thank you for coming on the show and give us some advice for our listeners.

Thank you so much Tonya.

And to all of you out there, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate your loyalty. And until next time, make sure that your business is In the Clear. Take care.

Prescott Perez Fox is the founder of The Busy Creator and joins the In the Clear podcast to talk about transparency in the creative space. “The Busy Creator is a website and podcast about creative productivity. So, it’s essentially a resource for folks in the creative fields. This is for designers and illustrators, and writers, photographers, and really anyone that makes things, creator. And really, I wanted to offer folks insight on how things get ahead they get made, how things happen.”

Hello this is Tonya Dawn Recla with the In the Clear Podcast. And I’m excited to have with me the founder of the Busy Creator Brand, which is a lot of fun. And this is Prescott Perez Fox, and they have done a hundred episodes on this podcast, and that’s no small feat. I am really excited to have him come and speak with you all about some of the things he’s seeing within his industry and how that looks from the transparency perspective and how to establish trust in a really saturated and busy market space. And so, please join me in welcoming to the show Prescott Perez Fox. Welcome!

Hey it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Oh absolutely. I’m delighted to have you here sir. So, let’s jump in and talk just a little bit about Busy Creator. What’s going on there?

Yeah. Well, the Busy Creator is a Website and Podcast about creative productivity. So, it’s essentially a resource for folks in the creative fields. This is for designers and illustrators, and writers, photographers, and really anyone that makes things, creator. And really, I wanted to offer folks insight on how things get ahead they get made, how things happen. So, not just the finished piece, which is very inspirational and it’s the thing you look at on Pinterest, and you’re like, oh man, that’s good. But actually, how it gets done on a daily basis. So, this is workflow, this is software, this is agency culture and employment issues. This is logistics and finance too, especially for solo practitioner’s freelancers, they don’t really have a background in accounting. So how do you get a client to give you a down payment and how do you conclude a project? And things like that. So, it’s mostly cool yeah, it’s needed It’s a big issue though it’s like a monumental undertaking. And mostly I’m doing it as a podcast. I’m also blogging and also posting resources and other things to the site.

Very close. How did you get into that?

Well it’s a side project and the need I guess arose because I was a little frustrated in my current job at the time. And I was like hang on. The only way that I’m really going to be able to exercise my ambitions is to have a side project because I wasn’t in, let’s say, a top 10 firm working for like top 10 global clients, which is the first way the conventional way. But then I was seeing how a lot of people, my peers and other industries, that you can bring a lot of notoriety to yourself through a project. And for some people, this is a whatever-daily napkin sketch, or it’s some pop up store. And I’m thinking, OK, well let’s do a podcast, and let’s get in for the long haul and talk to other practitioners and learn from them and then each it right back. So, there’s the altruistic side of seeing the industry and seeing where folks need to learn and what they’re struggling with.

Very cool. I love that. And I like that it grew out of your own creativity with a guy like how do I do this like how do I contribute in this fashion. That’s pretty awesome. So, let’s add in that idea of transparency. Do you ever, on the show, about how do you engage in dialogue with them? What do you do when somebody asks how do they know you’re for real? Have you ever dialogue around that?

Yeah. The funny thing is that creatives are actually very open and sharing. And I’m a designer. I’m a practicing designer, and with my clients, most of them have never actually asked me. They’ve never questioned the work in my portfolio. But if they did, I’ll be happy to show them a whole case study and show them how it started. And even sketches and the ideation process at the beginning of the project and then show them because that’s a process as well. So, if it’s where the past client I could do it again with them and I’ve sort of codifying my process as well.

But most creatives are like that. And they’ll say, yeah, we did this last year, and here’s how it started, here’s where it went wrong. And they save everything as well. So, a lot of designers and writers and photographers are packrats, digital packrats. So, if for some reason a client wanted like your second draft of the logo or something, you could dig it up if you wanted to talk about it. That’s one side of it, I guess. The other side is that, if someone’s making those requests for you, and you’re not even in a paying relation to the writer, they’re not actually clean. There is a prospect at some point it’s it becomes about time. It’s like listen man I’m not turning over a college thesis just to do a brochure like do you want to work with me or not? That is another part of it definitely becomes a balance.

And then we spoke with one of our members in The Directory about that exact thing. We did a whole meet in the middle for a while because he she had a whole process where if people ask for references, he didn’t provide them unless they had at least taken some action toward showing that they were interested in working with him. And I saw his viewpoint after we dialogued about it because, exactly what you’re talking about. Especially solo practitioners, consultants, people who do operate their own one person show. Time is money. And it’s very time intensive to respond to requests like that. I think that’s to toot our horn, I think that’s one of the biggest selling points of The Clear because that’s all been done for you on some level. And so, you get the opportunity say look, I’m legit. Not from the creative aptitude, but from the year and legit company. You’re a real person. That type of stuff. Yeah. And I totally get. And so, it is always a balance between your time. And to your point, I think we always talk about your client due diligence. And sometimes if the person is really pushing persnickety up front sometimes it’s just easier to say I don’t think this is a good fit because it’s usually very telling about things to come.

Oh, yeah totally. And same thing with this sort of controversial now in a lot of creative fields about doing an RFP or doing a proposal. And I’m in some online groups and things that people talk about this, and say hey do you guys do proposals to you. How long are your proposals? And some people are like I don’t do all my flat out refused. And some people like I have a standard two-page capability’s document, whatever the other person’s, like I’ll do it. But it depends on the size and the effort. Somethings for example like anything in the public sector there’s going to be some big process there’s going to be some documentation and like a standard form that you have to go through. So, you have to look at that. No, this is the funny thing that so many creatives. Want to do good in the public sector. They want to work for museums and waterfront commissions or whatever the heck. But. It’s just so arduous to get involved with the red tape and all these compliance issues. So, for a one-person firm who’s saying for example like hey I can redo your whole logo and your whole identity system whatever. All you have to do is like give me someone to call and they won’t do that there’s no phone number available because that would be an inside bidding or maybe like hang on. So sometimes it’s a little baffling in that side of things. But the other thing I want to add it’s hard to go back to your previous point that a lot of creatives especially firms will celebrate their own agency culture and they’ll post photos of their company and they’ll paint the front of the building and then they’re like stand in front of it for a group photo like they’re very happy to celebrate their workplace and their work product. So, the fact that they would be like potentially hiding it and hey you guys I saw you guys in a photo but it’s actually your office. Like usually yes, they then.  

I guess the only way the creatives, I’m speaking more specifically to designers, and web firms, and advertising firms, that type of thing because that’s what I’m familiar with that I guess the one area of deception we sometimes run across is that folks will say like oh we have an office in New York and another one in Singapore and another one in London. But actually, it’s just like one person in London. And so maybe he can rent a conference room if you if you need one that type of thing.

Some folks try to appear bigger than they are. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case where people want to appear smaller than they are, but I guess it does happen. It becomes a cultural issue within the creative fields. It’s like, how do you write your copy? When you have a website and talk about “we did this,” “we engaged such-and-such client,” is it actually just you as one person? And if so, why don’t you just own it and say, “Hey, I’m a solo practitioner. I team up with freelancers when I need to.” Some clients are going to be turned off by that, but other ones are going to be really attached to that and they’re going to know exactly what they’re getting. So, that’s like a new movement too, is to be yourself, even if you’re small and admit what’s actually happening. And say “Listen, I live in New Jersey, but I call it New York because no one knows where Hackensack is, or whatever it is.

Well and I love that you’re bringing all of that up. Those are conversations happening in every industry because that trust component is becoming so crucial. We created, perhaps inadvertently, a world where it is difficult to know who’s legit and who isn’t, unless you’re able, or even have the thought to dig under the surface a little bit, and just make sure that that the person is actually a legitimate person, that they can do what they claim to do, and all of that good stuff.

Unfortunately, in our industry, we do see flat out lying, like flat out. There’s a lot of companies that make decent money simply pretending to have a company. And it’s easy to do. I think that what I love about what you do is you naturally attract the people who are improving their business, and want to know about business, and want to make theirs better, and really want to serve their clients better. You have a real opportunity to change that dialogue a little bit, and say, “OK within us, the legit people, like how can we help our clients know that we’re not that?” And that’s really all you really have to do because in the creative field it’s either you’re creative or you’re not. You can make a good product or you don’t.  Your products speak for themselves. The issue is just getting over that initial hurdle of do-I-even-want-to-see-your-portfolio, type of thing. That’s a worthwhile conversation to be having, especially because, as you as you pointed out, so many people have these amazing gifts and really just want to work with cool, appreciative clients. It’s like, can we do a matchmaking service or pair cool, appreciative clients up with really cool people who have cool skill sets? That would be an amazing business.

Absolutely totally. Let me come back to just a second because I thought of something. A lot of times with firms in web design, and marketing, and graphics, or whatever, it is that you’ll see their site and it’s done well. What usually gives you the impression of confidence, and this is what branding is done well, is that you have an understanding of who you’re dealing with and it’s clear there’s a sense of clarity. And even if it’s small, you can read their web site, look at their photos, whatever it is, and you say, “Oh, this is a three-person web design company in Cleveland. Cool.” You’ve learned that and you are clear about that. And not only that, but a third, if they’ve really done their site well, you’ll also learn from their colors, and from their choice of type, and from their choice of photos that they have a certain personality. So, it’s like, “Hey, this is a web design firm and they specialize in metal bands and rock concerts.” That’s going to have a certain aesthetic.

So, this is when branding really comes together. You get that clarity and you get that purpose. Especially with a small business. You’ll often see a photo, you’ll often see an address, and you can see the social media links, so you can Google it. So, you don’t really have to be a detective. You just have to go one layer deep, literally. And then, if somebody doesn’t have any social media links, they don’t have any address, they don’t have any photos, it’s almost that they’re hiding by default. So, you’re like, “Wait a minute, what is going on here?” And you see that a lot with search engine marketing, with SEO. Sometimes it’s just coded Web sites that like services, that will take your designs and turn it into a coded Web site for people that sort of don’t know how to program, but they can apparently design a web site, and those types of things. Where you’ve read the site and you’re like, “I actually don’t know what these people do. I don’t know if they’re skilled. I don’t know if they’re good at it. I don’t know where they are located.” And you have to use your best instinct as a consumer because, like in so many situations, don’t blame the consumer just for coming to it with his own instincts.

And you’re touching on two really crucial point. One is that good branding is like gold. It is an art. I don’t care what anybody says. I know everybody out there thinks they cracked the code. It is an art to do all of those components, like you talked about. And I can tell you, just with the number of clients that we do this work for, the biggest issues we see is ineptitude, more than blatant fraud and scam. It’s ineptitude. And so there just aren’t that many people who are that good at it, was one issue that you’re talking about.

But the second piece is, and I love that you’re saying all this, one of the initial things when we first started looking at how can we really provide something of value to clients in terms of training and teach them what to look for? And one of the things we teach and look for the necessary evils of business. And there are just certain components that successful businesses have these days in certain industries. And one of them is social media and an online presence. And if that isn’t there it doesn’t mean they’re a bad company, but you should ask why. What is it about their business that would not have them be there? And there are legitimate reasons for that. Well there’s a lot of not so legitimate reasons as you pointed out.

And I love that you’re saying all this. I will tell you, the vast majority of businesses before they hire people, don’t ask these questions. They don’t look. We’ve had a number of situations where clients called, this is back when we were heavy into the consulting side of the house, and wanting us to look into people, which started asking a few pointed questions. And it was shocking how little they knew about this person they were thinking about hiring.

Well that’s a whole other side of things, too. It is like, how does someone represent themselves as an employee? Because if you can craft a message, I think it’s easy to get through one or two interviews and hoodwink somebody, especially if you speak the language of viability, if that makes sense.  

Absolutely. And I was speaking more like service providers and transactions. But we see it in employment screening as well. And so, there’s all these components. And, just the fact that you’re pointing those out is great, and rare. Much rarer than you would realize. And so, I love that that’s just something that is common sense to you. Like why would you hire an SEO person if you can’t find them anywhere? That’s not a good indicator.

There is there is a situation like the cobbler’s kids never have shoes. I get it. It took us about three years before we did our own due diligence packet. When finally, somebody asked for it and we’re like, oh yeah that’s probably a really good thing for us to have on hand. Like you just don’t think about doing for your own business sometimes, what you do for your clients. And so, I do get that piece but it’s. But there are indicators and I think that that’s that circles back around to what you are or what you’re indicating.

Yeah definitely. And by the way, my Web site too, I think it’s like six years since the last time I updated the actual design of it. Like I’ve added new portfolio projects, but I haven’t redone the whole site. I don’t really do web design. I do more branding, and packaging, and logo design. But it’s getting to the point of making it a little embarrassing, which is funny.

Well it’s tough though. It’s like you go where the money is, and there’s no immediate money on your site. Obviously, over time, of course, you have to do that. But when you’re busy, and sometimes it’s a good indicator. Like they’re busy doing other people’s sites. So, when you say just don’t go look at mine, here go my clients.

Oh definitely. And what’s funny too, on that same point like there are firms in New York that I’ve worked at that basically didn’t have a Web site. And they were, just based on the size of the employees, they’re multi-million dollar companies. And they’re like, “Yeah, we don’t have a website, we just have clients. Everything is word of mouth, and it’s business relationships. We don’t get inquiries based on the front door of our website.”

I remember hearing, this is now secondhand, but Jordan Hartridge from the Art of Charm, was talking about a company that he met the CEO or something. And he never heard of this company before, but apparently, the back-end technology on some of the biggest Web sites on the web. But they barely even have a Facebook page. Well, the CEO was like, “No one’s going to like us. They don’t even know we exist. What are they going to comment on our blog? Which doesn’t make any sense. We’re just a back-end technology. We’re B to B, and we are hard core B to B, really industrial B to B. Our clients are not the bagel shop in town.” They are like Cisco. I don’t even know but that makes sense to that you don’t have to use the same tactics and tools if you’re not visible the same way.

And it’s just knowing what questions to ask. And there are degrees of success in terms of when you’re pounding the pavement and creating your own stuff. Like you’re going to try a little bit harder. The social media, web site game, and then perhaps you’ve got so much work and so much referral business that you don’t really need to upkeep that stuff, and that’s its own look and feel. There’s other indicators of success at that level. Like you. And you obviously just do this stuff naturally because you said, like by the size of their employees, like how do you have that many employees if you can’t pay payroll? That’s an indicator. And so, just training yourself to look for certain things and making sure that there are congruencies, rather than that they’re just pieces that don’t match up. Some people do it very naturally, other people not so much.

Exactly. And I guess there’s also room for a mention here, that I’m always amazed that some companies have almost automatically have big, lucrative, continuous projects, and other companies that are really nice people, really talented people, and they run a tight ship, but they just can’t seem to bring in new projects. For the service, oriented businesses, that applies. But think of like there’s probably a really great restaurant that of your town that maybe went out of business and it’s like they had good food, but they didn’t have the traffic that they needed. And then there’s the opposite case. McDonald’s is the opposite case, where it’s garbage. But everyone knows about it. So, you always have that situation.

I’m always so fascinated by that. And in design, specifically, there are, I don’t even know how to call them, like I don’t want to say like bad design firms, but there are firms that are making a lot of money, making good business, there are solo practitioners who make $200,000 a year from their underwear, doing substandard work. And they’re not up, they’re not pushing the industry, they’re not winning awards, they’re not speaking or anything, but they have captured a market, and they’ve captured the attention of those particular clients, which is really fascinating. So, I wish I could explore that, as well, from a clarity point of view, or just from a business point of view on how they work.

There’s so many components to that. Now you’re speaking my other language, which is in a whole personal development and self-actualization, that fear. And when you’ve got, especially, entrepreneurs, and where it’s so personality and individual specific at its infancy, hyper dependent upon the architecture of the people involved. If those components are there. And so, a lot of times it comes down to straight like chutzpah, like confidence. Like do you have the grit the determination the willpower to push through certain growth phases. And in my opinion that’s the biggest indicator of success in most cases. And then on top of that let’s throw and throw on top of that the branding issue that we talked about, and good branding can sell just about anything. As it’s just it’s just that way and there’s a viral component to it. But I’ve seen phenomenal branding invoke the viral component for absolute crap. But nobody cares because of the emotion that’s been built in the messages that it sends and the association that people want to have with it.There are so many variables.

I know we are talking about, we were talking before the interview about phonies and about user interface and things that everyone, that you eat. Everyday somebody is talking about Spotify. Like today, Spotify wants to offer President Obama a job or something like that, which to give them like the President of Music or they created some phony job for him, just to get their name in the paper. And I’m sitting there like Spotify is the worst web site. It makes no sense. It’s like the intuition is just bizarre. And also, it requires flash, so it doesn’t work on my Mac because I refuse to install Flash. But anyway, this is one of those sites where everyone’s like, oh yeah you got to go Spotify to get music. They’ve like become the winner and I’m sitting here like has can actually use this thing like this is ridiculous. So, it does look like. And there are other choices there that it doesn’t matter.

And that’s the name of the game anymore. And that’s where I think, especially in the small businesses, that’s where a lot of them get snookered, is they want to ride that hype train. And they either end up hiring service providers or consultants or whoever totally out of sequence, and so they can’t really utilize them. Or they hire people with absolutely no substance because they’ve got a lot of the flash. And from the small business, entrepreneur perspective, that’ll destroy any chance you have success. In your personal life, if you want to buy flashy smartphone over the other one, like whatever, you suffer the consequences. But it’ll take down businesses.

And so, it is the conversation of, even in your industry, you mentioned is if you run into situations where creative companies may be amazing at what they do, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily know how to manage the finances of the business, or business strategy, or growth strategies, or some of the some of the more traditional growth building business things. Well what happens then when they turn around and hire somebody because they speak a language they don’t speak. They don’t know what they really need from a CFO or even a bookkeeper. And the next thing they’ve been siphoned. Siphoning off money. And they don’t care if this are they doing what they were doing. And so, the flip side of that coin is true also. Not just how do you promote your own transparency, but how do you demand transparency from all the people you get involved with to make sure that you’re protecting what you’re working so hard to create. And I don’t see any way around it anymore because we’ve created again, perhaps inadvertently, a market space where anybody and everybody can be an expert. All they have to do is put up a Web site that’s in alignment with their social media and they look pretty freaking good online.

Yeah that’s it. That’s all it takes anymore. 

But it’s tough in creative fields I think because you have to deliver value for your client. And if you want to charge more you have to back it up because first of all only a certain caliber of client is going to be able to pay your fees. And if you say OK I’m going to do this logo it’s going to cost you fifty thousand dollars a day, it better have a real impact when it hits the market and it better be on a piece of precision.

Possibly but what we see more often than not is that those things get sold. Sometimes it’s just the right introduction everything else and then. Making run fast enough. Most small businesses aren’t don’t have the money or the bandwidth to litigate. So, nobody knows. So, you can keep going for quite a while doing that. And it’s not a bad gig if you can get it, to pull 50 hundred thousand dollars per client and not really deliver. The challenge is obviously the bigger your clients go the more risk you run trying to pull that scam. But it is happening and it’s not that hard to do, if you can get yourself invited into certain circles and mean a lot of work to get my attention. But we come from the espionage arena and I can’t even tell you what those folks go through to sell secrets. So, who knows why people are motivated to pull deceptive acts like it just is and it’s happening because it’s easy to do.

I guess I’m always thinking of this shadow economy like online, that there’s so much garbage on the Internet and there are entire web sites that are built just to look like a site that you accidentally typed in. And this is not just shady, it’s like downright immoral. But I’m thinking of myself like there’s somebody that had this idea and then not only had the idea but pursued it for months and months. And I think it’s just amazing to me. I don’t know I don’t have a coherent example like really like Rip-Off has a business model, I guess Patent Trolls work, which is if you want to get your head spinning just research Patent Trolls. Oh, it’s just it’s so upsetting. But that type of thing. Non-practicing entities. Oh yeah. It’s amazing. Some shady stuff either.

And, here’s the whole point, not to make everybody paranoid, but to apply common sense. Like if it doesn’t feel right, if something doesn’t match up, if they’re saying one thing and you’re not seeing results like ask the questions sometimes the best gifts we offer people just ask the questions. Say one of our favorite questions is how do I do my due diligence on you? Like you said before, if somebody would ask you that, you would come up with ways to give them. And for me, would say, “Oh here’s a portfolio, here’s my process like you would be helpful. It like that. That’s all that needs to be done usually because it’s easy then to separate out the people who really are confident about what they’re saying that they can do versus the ones who aren’t. And for a small business sometimes that’s enough. Can you just do that part just to that step in any year. Light years ahead of the game.

I’m also surprised too that a lot of times when folks are shopping for creative services and they’re looking for web design, or digital marketing, or photography with something like that, they won’t do the same simple tactic that they’ll do for a plumber or for a guy on your lawn, which is to ask someone you trust. Ask a neighbor, ask someone you’ve been in business with, and say, hey, if you have ever worked with a marketing firm, ever worked with a designer? What’s a reasonable fee, before you just hit Google? Before you open up the trade magazines? Actually, I would say that most clients nowadays probably don’t have the foresight to admit that they’re a little bit clueless and to go research another industry that they’re trying to get services from.

And they’re intimidated by it.

And maybe they’re not admitting it. I know again at times, but everyone’s busy. But if you’re about to spend $50,000, buy one magazine about graphic design and see who’s in the mix. And that presents another problem about fame as an industry. The people getting written about are the only ones getting calls and that they just get written about again. And you have this problem.

Well let’s just add to the problems there.

Well no because it often happens. And this is I guess Cossack’s economics right but if you. If you just picked up a magazine and said OK I want to see the top firm in packaging design today, you could call them and depending on the size of your business if you’re like a local muffin store, and he said, “Hey I saw you in this magazine. You do really great work. Can you take on this project?” And they’ll say yes sure, $200,000. And you say, “Oh, boy. Can you recommend someone cheaper and smaller?” And they say, “Actually, yeah, this guy used to work for us and he just set up his own business. He’s a one-man studio. Why don’t you call him?” That actually happens quite a lot. So, there is someone suited for everyone.  

And I think, generally speaking, businesses want to do business with someone on their same size. And not just for capability and scope, but also just that’s how the relationships work, and how the mechanisms work. A CEO talks to a CEO, and a Director of Marketing talks to a Creative Director. That type of thing. A Solo-Practitioner should talk to and another Solo-Practitioner. The mismatch happens sometimes, and you have someone who is like the head of a three-person firm, he can be the founder and he has to go through seven chains on the other side of the table, just to get something approved that he’s used to doing on literally a minute by minute basis. So, there’s also the cynical side which says companies want to work with someone they can sue if it goes wrong. And if I’m working with Microsoft, Microsoft is going to sue me, it’s like oh congratulations what do you want, my second-hand couch like go ahead and take it.

I love of it. And again, everything that you’ve been talking about really points back to this concept. What’s consistent with that messaging? What works? And does it make sense for you to pay $50,000 to hire a huge company if your companies aren’t ready for that? One of the greatest comments I ever heard was a guy, Chris Collins is the branding guy, and we were talking with him one day, and I asked him, we’re at that point in time I don’t care that his price point was tens of thousands of dollars or whatever it was. So, I said when is it appropriate for a company to hire you? And he said the most brilliant thing. He’s like, “When you and your business are ready to have that size of a Brand.” And I thought about that and I was like that’s a peculiar response. And I really do enjoy dialoguing with him. And when we flushed it out a little bit it just made perfect sense. It’s like there’s no point.

You could you could get a business loan, remortgage your house, empty out your retirement account, whatever you want to do, and hire like this $200,000 firm to remake your website, redo your brand. But if you yourself are ready to step into that space you’ll tank it anyway. And I spoke to somebody who sure enough, she went through that process with them, and she said took two years for her to grow into that brand. Two years, and she was really forthcoming about that. It’s like she’s like, “I just wasn’t ready and it was perfect.” It’s just a great depiction of being where you’re at. We hire the people who are where your business is at who serve that community and then grow it from there to try to be in a space that you’re not in it you chance of success are slim to none in that space anyway.

Totally. No one more thing on the topic of pricing that you’re seeing now a lot of practitioners and small firms are starting to not necessarily list their price because there’s a meme in our field that you don’t want to become like a Chinese menu. It says it’s a logo design $800 what it wherever it is there’s nothing more frustrating than. Taking prospective calls or inquiries or at the worst case doing a whole proposal and then finding out that your budget is way off from what the client has or what you proposed. And I’m talking way off from talking to an order of magnitude 10 times that they want to spend 80 bucks a logo and you’re like are you kidding me. So, what folks are doing now is they’ll just have like a single line on their Web site and it says comprehensive packages start at $5000 a month or something like that. And that will show you what size you’re working with. Now if you’re super huge if you’re a global company if you’re a publicly traded you probably don’t need to do that.

You’re exempt.

No, I’m serious because folks if you are obviously huge, then you obviously have these huge budgets. But if you’re especially a one person or a small firm, it’s good for clients to know what they’re dealing with. And then of course that gets you out of having at least one conversation because folks know they know your starting point. And so, that you’re never going below that. But at the same time, that’s something that I think our industry doesn’t really do a lot of what we used to talk about finances more. Talk about Project fees because you’re seeing this a little bit at conferences, and things. But I think it’s really interesting to hear what folks are charging and how. How do you make these jobs? How do you go from going from $15 an hour to $30 an hour? Because when you make that change, it’s huge. And then how do you go from $30 to $70. How do you get from $70 to $110? And then of course once you’re big, once you’re a big studio and there’s all rates for like a single human. But once you have an aggregate studio rate, now you’re talking $250 to $400 whatever it is. And people rarely talk about those transitions. And when’s the first time that you meet the client who can get you to that next strata. Those are interesting conversations and I would like to see more of that. And for the spirit of transparency but also for the spirit of rising tide the whole industry.

Oh, I agree completely and I think you’re really onto something. And sometimes it just takes somebody starting that conversation to be able to say and how do we go. How did you do it how did how did it work for you. and that was invaluable for any business to find. masterminding and stepped foot in your industry. So, and it sounds like you’re on the right track to create that space for folks so congratulations. Yeah thanks I appreciate it. Very cool. Thank you so for joining us I know people are going to want to find out more about you. Where do you want to send them?

All right well for design and branding type stuff you can check out starship dot design and that is my portfolio and there’s some basic contact info there. And then for everything else it’s BusyCreator.com.

Very cool. Well awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. It’s been really delightful to have that perspective and representation from that industry. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Take care.

Very cool. And everyone else for you get involved with a business, make sure that your business is In The Clear. Take care everyone.

Daniel Ameduri is the editor of the Wealth Research Group and the cofounder of Future Money Trends Letter, FMT Advisory and Crush The Street.

In this episode, we talk about the outdated techniques in the personal finance world. He tears down the veil of a few topics that we all have been taught to do as mature adults, like financial advisors and 401ks. He also provides some tips and resources on finding a great financial advisor to entrust your money with.

Hello, everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla. This is the In The Clear podcast. I’m really excited to have with me today, Daniel Ameduri. If you go back and listen, I also interviewed one of his partners, Lior Gantz a while back. These guys are doing some really remarkable stuff in the finance industry. As you all know, we’re not shy about pointing fingers at the finance industry for being wrought with frauds and scams and some less than savory business practices. I love getting a chance to bring these guys on and talk about some of their approaches to this. Really, in my opinion, kind of tearing the shroud and the veil off of some pretty outdated techniques in that world. I love their approach and I’m really excited about having Daniel here talking about Future Money Trends, which he’d been up for seven years. Then he can introduce a new concept that they recently launched. Please join me in welcoming Daniel to the show. Welcome, Daniel.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. As you know, we like to talk about transparency and how to raise the bar in some of these industries. Tell me a little bit about your approach in the finance industry. It feels really unique.

We consider ourselves personal finance for the new economy.

We consider ourselves personal finance for the new economy. We really try to focus on, first off, offering people the opportunity to make those decisions for themselves. We give them the information, we give them the same thing that a broker or a financial advisor might see. Most people think that a financial advisor might have gone through some four year degree program, but actually most listeners would be shocked to learn that it actually takes more training to cut hair and get a license to cut somebody’s hair at a salon than it does to become, I’m being serious, than it does to become a financial planner.

Now we understand the problem in that industry.

In the finance industry, my goodness, it’s littered with mines, with bombs out there. For the most part, it’s commission based but also there’s something where people don’t even realize, when you go to a 401K, your financial planner puts you in an Oppenheimer Fund or Fidelity Fund, which you don’t realize is the reason, for the most part, it’s going to those people is because the Oppenheimer guys are sending his family to Disney cruises and making sure he gets better pay on the backend. There’s a lot of that going on.

There is something called the fiduciary, which if you are going to get a financial advisor or planner to help you out, I would strongly encourage everybody get a fiduciary. A fiduciary is about that 3% to 4% of all financial advisors. They actually are the only ones that truly have to be transparent to such an extreme that if your fiduciary bought, let’s say, IBM, it’s a familiar stock to everybody, in the morning and then you call them up and wanted to buy IBM by lunch, they actually are legally obligated to give you the better price. If they perhaps bought it for $100 and you bought for $102, they actually have to swap those shares that they bought with yours and give you that price point. A fiduciary is definitely the most transparent possible person you can have if you’re going to use a financial advisor.

Wow, that’s awesome to hear. That’s why I love talking to you guys. That’s really valuable to know. Folks, we like to give you feedback on what questions you should be asking. In my opinion, that’s probably one of the first questions you should be asking, “Are you a fiduciary?” I hadn’t heard that before so I really appreciate that insight. I want to go back to what you’re talking about, about giving people information, allowing them to make their own decisions, which we’re also big fans of. Do you offer services as well for the folks, like me for example. I love getting information, I like being knowledgeable. At a certain point, I also want that trusted person that I can turn some of that over to and outsource. Do you all provide that?

We do have an advisor we recommend. His name is Nicholas Green, he’s in Phoenix. The website is FMTAdvisory.com. Again, that is who we refer to. We have some ownership in the company. The fiduciary actually is the senior owner. He’s been doing this for ten years. By law, he is obligated to give you the best deal. I think that’s a great question to ask anybody that you’re going to give your money to. With that said, at the Future Money Trends letter, we don’t necessarily recommend everybody get in the stock market. In fact, that’s one of the things that we think is the biggest secret in the financial industry. Everybody feels like they earn money, they’ve got to reallocate it immediately to something, reallocate it to the stock market, reallocate it to some sort of mutual fund.

That’s not necessarily the case because the fact is, most people, they don’t understand what they’re buying. If you don’t understand what you’re buying, what are you doing? It comes down to personal finance 101. Majority of the income that you’ll make throughout your life is going to be from you. You’re your best investment. When you look at where your money actually comes from, it’s the person in the mirror. For some reason, we’ve all been conditioned to reallocate our money to other people who happen to earn a living off of taking our money. Really you’re the first and the last line of defense for your money ultimately. Some of the best investors like Warren Buffett and Jim Rogers have said this. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. There’s nothing wrong with having some cash. You’ll sleep well at night.

I like that. I really like that you’re willing to call some of that out because it is an industry. We see this a lot in maybe the tech industries for business owners or finance industry for businesses and for personal. It just is so overwhelming that people get really intimated in that space. I think the best advice for folks out there is educate yourself a little bit and just start to feel into what feels right, what works for you. Ultimately, I think a lot of advisors in this arena don’t stop to ask somebody what do they want. What life do you want to have? How easily accessible do you want your money? All of that stuff. I appreciate that you’re sharing that.

I want to go back to this fiduciary thing. Because in our world, one of the biggest issues we run into is we encourage people to vet people before they get involved with them in their business. A lot of times, what happens is we’ll have clients who bring people to us over and over and over again, they’re finding these scammy people. We’re the bearers of the bad news, “Nope, you picked a bad one again.” They get frustrated, they’re like, “Just tell us who to work with.” I can see folks in the finance side of things feeling similarly, that if the fiduciaries are such a small portion of the financial planner world, other than the gentleman that you recommended, how do people go about finding them? Is there a special secret place to hang out? Where do they go?

There is a fiduciary’s association that you can find. You can find fiduciaries in your area. I’m sure people could find it by googling fiduciary and their city or the next major city next to them, they could find a fiduciary advisor. I know Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, he has a company that’s a fiduciary company that he actually is a partial owner in. There are some good fiduciaries out there. Everyone should take the seriousness of handing money over to somebody and respect their money with what your hard earned dollars deserve by asking these people, first and foremost, “How long have you been in business? I’d like to have three referrals.” If they can’t give you three referrals, I wouldn’t do business with them. These people have been doing business for five and ten years, they should have three people you can call that are non-family members and ask them what is it like, what is it like working with this person and how has your experience has been.

Personal Finance: Be very clear that your financial advisor understands your own needs.

Also, making sure that the person just isn’t putting it into some sort of cookie cutter program. Something that caters to you. Be very clear that they understand your own needs. Perhaps you don’t want the money to be locked up. A lot of people say that they’ll take moderate risk until something goes down 10% and then they don’t want to be moderate risk, they want to be more conservative. There’s other alternatives out there for you. A lot of things that are advertised to the rich, like whole life insurance policies or specific kinds of real estate investment trusts, these things are advertised to the rich but they’re not really advertised to the middle class. The middle class keeps getting thrown at mutual funds with these huge enormous fees that take over a third of your gains over the course of 20, 30 years.

60 Minutes has done an excellent show on this that you can find on YouTube about 401Ks, they did about two years ago. They’re showing that people are getting feed to death. Behind the upfront fee, there’s anywhere from 18 to 21 hidden fees. You just got to be very careful with your money and not so easily just give it to anybody, especially if they’re just a financial planner. Again, these are probably good people, well intention people, but they’re really are salesmen. These are not investment advisors.

That’s so funny. I was just going to say, I bet you have some pretty strong opinions about company 401K plans?

I’m not a fan, to be perfectly honest with you. For the most part, the 401K companies that are approved, these are the companies that are these big corporate donors. They’ve weeded out the competition. They’re very high in fees. Now they have these new things which are target funds, which are even more dangerous. Many people, even in Congress, have come out against these things now that they’ve seen them actually play out here for the last ten years. I’m not a fan overall of the 401K for many reasons. I don’t know if we want to get into all of that.

The 401K, if you’re getting a company match, sure, it could be worth it. You get 100% return from day one, that’s not a bad deal. You can just own some blue chip US stocks. Overall, at Future Money Trends we’re not, only because I don’t like for younger people locking that money up. You have to pay a fee if you want to get your own access to your own savings. You’re very limited to how many investments you can make. On the finance side, the fact of the matter is, the whole idea of a 401K is you’re going to defer taxes so you can take taxes out at a lower tax rate when you’re 65. Look, at Future Money Trends, and I think for most people, I don’t think the plan should be to fail. Why would I plan to be in the lowest possible tax bracket? My plan is, at 65, I’m going to be in the highest possible tax bracket.

Gosh, you’re such a breath of fresh air. I love it. That’s the thing, the responsible message, especially for the middle and lower class, is that you follow the rules and you do this and people pat themselves on the back because they’re doing the responsible, mature, adult thing because that’s what we’ve been told to do. Wait a second, who made these rules? I think ever since I was born, I’m always the one going, “Wait, wait, wait. Who’s behind this? What do they serve to gain from this?” We tell our clients all the time, “Follow the money.” If you really want to know who stands to gain from this stuff, follow the money. We can talk about the medical industry all day long. Everything that we’re taught to do as mature, responsible adults is usually funding somebody else’s dream.

Very true.

I really appreciate you doing that. I think what you guys do is awesome in terms of offering information. I’m sure you find a lot of what we find. We educate, we provide content, we provide training, over and over and over again. I think that for the majority of people, it’s just so overwhelming. I think this information age that we’re involved with, the biggest challenge is making yourself standout as somebody who can be trusted and where people can go. How do you all manage that process, to just tell people, “Hey, look. All of that noise over there, here’s why you should be coming to us for this”?

There is a lot of noise out there, in the markets, with the publishing industry. We just try to give people brutal honesty and say, “Here are your options. Here are options that nobody’s really talking about.” I also tell them what I’ve done with my own finances. “My wife and I, we saved, we were frugal.” I give them extreme savings ideas. I got tired of clicking on articles that tell you how to save money, it’s like these three basic ways. I like to give people, “Here’s how you cut into the bone.” By the time I was 30, I had already become, as far as a net worth millionaire, and then later became a multimillionaire. I’m still in my 30s. I just basically lay it out for people, “Here’s how I did it. There’s no two roads alike, but I’ve happened to notice that when I read about other people who become financially independent, that there are definitely some common denominators.”

Personal Finance: It’s one thing to rely on mentors or experts, but it’s another thing just to follow the conventional plan.

The biggest common denominator is, of course, trusting themselves and looking to themselves for many of the answers they’re researching. It’s one thing to rely on mentors or experts, but it’s another thing just to follow the conventional plan. Because the conventional plan, it’s definitely not a plan. If you do that, “Let’s just retire in 40 years,” that is what you’re going to get. It’s an experiment too. 401Ks were not around when Adam and Eve were around. A lot of people think the 401K was around forever. The 401K has been around since the 80s. It was passed in Congress in the late 70s, it’s been around since the 80s. Only now are we seeing this experiment come to fruition. According to a lot of articles and studies and research by even the mutual fund companies, the 401K is not working out. I just read an article yesterday JP Morgan put out where they’re recommending that, “Hey, this is not going to work.” They’re at least advocating for some sort of mandatory government run retirement system, even beyond social security, because the 401K is not even coming close to doing what I think people had anticipated. This is all an experiment.

The whole 65 year old thing, it’s a hilarious story. You research it and go back to when they created social security in the 30s. They literally were sitting around, having a conversation. First off, the men were dying off at about 58 years old. The women were dying off at 62. This social security plan that we all have now was really meant for the worst case scenario. If you outlived your life expectancy. Anyway, the story goes is they were sitting around going, “Hey, why don’t we do social security at 62?” Then somebody said 67. Then they’re like, “Hey, 65 sounds about right.” There was no study, there was no in depth research with life insurance companies. Somebody just picked the number. That now is essentially our retirement year.

That’s it. That’s the magic number. I can honestly say you’re the first person on this show to mention Adam and Eve. That’s impressive. To tie it into finance, that’s creative. I could talk to you guys all day and pick your brains and everything. I really appreciate your approach to this. I know I’ve said that a few times now. Folks out there, ask yourself, whose plan are you following? I think that’s the heart of what the Future Money Trends guys are all about, is really just think for yourself. What works for you, what works for your family? I love that you said there aren’t any two paths the same. It truly is. You can create it however you want it to be. Get clear on that, and then go about finding the people who can help you get there.

The same is true in business, we advise businesses all the time. Where do you want to go? There’s a million and one ways to do business these days. How do you want it to look? And then go looking for the individuals who can help you with a specific piece of that. There’s nobody who can tell you how to walk your path, it’s impossible. It’s your path. I think that can be applied to the finance game as well. I, for one, love the diversity of the stuff that you’re talking about. I think it’s important to shed light on the fact that there are a lot of vehicles to help you get there. How do you work? Do you work with clients? Do you do trainings? Do you just manage the website? What do you do?

Future Money Trends is subscription based. The subscription is free. The ways the website generates revenues is either through affiliate marketing or just regular ads on the websites. We have ads generation, which is your Google Ads and different ads, we also have mining stocks that sponsor our website that we vet. We have advertisers who pay for the website, which is generated from the website traffic. The subscriptions remain free for users and it also keeps us with a nice relationship with our users, that I’m not accepting any money from them and they’re allowed to come and go as they please and read our newsletter for free.

However, with that said, we have recently launched a new website and it’s PermanentWealthPartners.com. There’s a special link if anybody wants to check it out, PermanentWealthPartners.com/Wealth. What this is, I wanted to start a paid newsletter. There are many out there, but all of them have the same issue that all of the financial people have. Everybody is either making a living off of their paid subscribers or they need the paid subscription, they’re constantly promoting it and it turns into spam in your inbox and they’re constantly trying to upgrade you. Over the summer, what I did is I approached somebody who had made over $100 million, they had built $2 billion companies. I said, “I think there’s a hole in the market for some unbiased advice in these microcap companies that people can make a lot of money from.” They’re just too risky because the microcap space or penny stocks, they are honestly 95 plus percent fraud and it’s a huge scam.

I approached Keith Neumeyer. He’s a very successful entrepreneur. I said, “I know you don’t care about the money, but what if we started a paid letter? It’s something that Future Money Trends people could upgrade into if they wanted to basically invest in what you invest?” I said, “All you’ve got to do is tell us, when you’re about to buy a stock, send out an alert, let us know and let us know why. Then every month, we’ll do an interview with you and get an update on these stocks.” For people who are looking for riskier plays, speculative plays, certainly this is not where your retirement fund should be going. But if you’re looking to have a little fun in the markets, rather than just take some newsletter writers, a guy’s opinion, we’ve simplified the whole thing.

Here’s somebody who’s been doing this for over 30 years, he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars, he’s helped other people make millions of dollars. We’re not asking them for a pick a week, a pick a day. I told him, “What do you do?” He said, “I’m only going to buy about three or four stocks this year.” I’m like, “That’s fine. Then we’ll just do three or four stocks with you.” Just simplified and clear. Because everybody, a lot of people are interested. Penny stocks is still one of the most popular search phrases on Google. We all want to speculate on these things, but I’d like to take out the uncertainty of the whole thing because what’s behind every penny stock is their shareholders. You’re either an insider or you’re not. That’s our new website that we’ve launched that has a paid membership. That’s PermanentWealthPartners.com/Wealth. That’s what Keith Neumeyer as the sole person who picks the stocks.

I’ve managed to get out of this river where everybody is either grinding out ten hours a day with no hope. Now, I’m just trying to help people out.

Otherwise, Future Money Trends. My goal is to help others. I feel like I’ve managed to get out of this river where everybody is either grinding out ten hours a day with no hope. Now, I’m just trying to help people out. I feel great. I wake up every day, I’m with my wife and three children. I work from home and I do what I want. Since I was a little boy, I’ve been reading about personal finance. Now, every day I read about personal finance. If I see a good idea, I love sharing it. I killed two birds with one stone. I’m constantly looking for income ideas for myself, and as I find them I’m able to act on them myself, share them with the Future Money Trends subscribers.

Awesome. We’re fans of what you guys are doing. I appreciate you coming on the show and just sharing your insights and being so transparent. That’s a big deal in that industry. I appreciate that you’re modeling that and raising the bar by calling people out. I think it’s time. We like what you’re doing. You’ve mentioned a few of your websites, is there anywhere else you’d like for us to send people to go check out your stuff?

Future Money Trends is the easiest. It sounds like you guys have already to Lior at Wealth Research Group. FutureMoneyTrends.com, if you go there, that’s the best place. On the website, we have links to other letters, as well as the FMT Advisory.

Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today on the show, Daniel.

Thanks very much.

Absolutely. To all of you out there, thank you. Make sure that before you make any decisions for your business, that you are in the clear. Take care everyone.

David Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC and one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory.

In today’s episode, he discusses Marketing Partners and how their services are so good that they actually do marketing for marketers. Their company is aimed at helping small business owners get more customers and be more profitable. He also talks about the future of marketing in this age of smartphones.

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Recla. Super excited today as we are doing a live, on the spot interview with one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory. We’re down here in Florida at The Business Acceleration Summit. I’m speaking with one of the mentors today. David Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC. He’s absolutely a really neat guy. You could tell that he is just 100% genuine and authentic in who he is and what he does. I’m excited to have him here on the show today. He’s got a business that is tricky for a lot of business owners. He brings an aspect of authenticity that I’m excited to dive in with him here on The Clear Podcast. David, welcome to the show.

Thanks for taking the time to invite me and spend a little time with me.

I spent a lifetime in hospitality sector.

I appreciate it. David, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your business and your background?

Sure. I’ll start with the background. I spent a lifetime in hospitality in a sector called The Private Club World, which is a little bit different. It’s a lot different than a public restaurant segment.  It’s a lot different than hotels. I have operated clubs that did have hotel rooms. But the mainstay of my entire hospitality background was in high end, private social athletic clubs, country clubs, things of that nature.

Fantastic. Tell me a little bit about Marketing Partners?

That segued into a 15-year consulting opportunity that I took on. I focused on generalists, but hospitality kept drawing me back in because my skill set was that strong. But all my entire career marketing was heavily involved; marketing, promotions, and advertising. To make a long story very short, I partnered with a financial backer who has nothing to do with business other than cashing a check, which is great.

That’s a good partner to have.

Because we actually have checks to cash. We service several different niches. We do stuff for small businesses. Most small businesses, the owner or the person running it is scratching their head most of the time, wondering, how do I get more customers? How do I make myself more visible online? All of those types of things. We solved that. We educate our clients what’s most important, what they can do themselves to become more visible online, and what we can offer them in terms of do it yourself, do it with you or done for you. Either way, they’re going to get as much help as they can handle based on what their objectives are. It’s like that bulldog in the corner. You don’t know whether you want to wake it up or not.

But regardless, you’ve got to feed it.

Exactly.

Regardless, you do have to feed it. I know that the concept of marketing, especially about videos, those sketch drawings. There are so many different avenues. Like you’re talking about, video is the new trade. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

The advance of video because of the mobile transition.

The advance of video because of the mobile transition. We are working with fully operational computers in our pockets. It’s in our hand. We look at it all day long. It’s like an appendage. The market is shifting to make a streaming video, the national networks are doing it, cable TV is doing it, business is doing it. The forecast is that by 2018 as much as 70% of all content viewed online is going to be video. That’s pretty shocking to me because the video is not inexpensive. To be done right, there are a few dollars to it. Hopefully, like anything else, when the automobile came online it was shockingly expensive for the average person. But as critical mass took over, like new TV, the first year it’s $2,500. Two years later it’s $299. Hopefully, the price of video will become more reasonable so that small businesses can actually afford quality video. There’s a lot of junk out there.

You see people that do a video on their own. You see people that do a video that right way, they hire a professional. You can see the difference. Like you said, you’re going to have to do it in order to keep up with the competition out there.

The competition is only going to get more difficult.

Exactly. David, what would you like our listeners and your prospective clients to know about you? What is one thing they should be asking you before they decide to hire you?

If they were to ask me why they should hire me over somebody else, I’ll give them a couple of reasons. First reason is, my biggest client, who actually is in New Jersey, is a marketing agency.

You’re a marketing guy who’s got clients that are marketers?

Yes, I have a client in Wales that is a marketing agency. He calls himself a media company. But it’s actually a marketing agency and I do some work for him.

You do marketing for the marketers?

That’s correct. The second reason that I think it’s important to know is that we’re experts at lead generation and that’s what small businesses need. They need more customers. We’re not going to be able to close the customer for them but we can certainly drive them to the business owner and teach them how to make that connection, to make the buyer’s journey end with them. We pride ourselves on being masters at that. Here’s the inside story. We offer a guarantee. Now, there are other marketing agencies that will guarantee some of their activities. We’re the only marketing agency in North America, I can’t say the world because we haven’t looked at Europe yet, but the only one in North America that offers a double back guarantee.

What’s that look like?

What that means is if you worked with us for a year, specifically geared towards awareness, lead generation, traffic to your website, and we don’t produce more qualified leads than you’ve ever experienced we’ll give you every penny back that you have invested with us for the entire year twice, double. That’s why we call it the double back guarantee.

That’s something you’re not going to hear from most people.

You won’t hear it from anybody.

I’m pretty sure you probably will never have to do it.

We’ve been in business almost five years. Haven’t had a client that said, “You failed me.” We’re pretty proud of that.

David, you’ve been in the business world for some time now. As an entrepreneur, you know we all have lessons that we go through and stuff. Is there anything in your business background, in your business history that you wish you could go back and do over again or something that was a huge lesson for you?

Sure, there’s a lot of things.

Anything that stands out?

There’s one thing that I think bothers me more than anything else. That’s when I ran a club that had more than 3,500 members and their families. That’s a population of almost 8,000 people. It was a ragtag mess when I got there and became a club of the year when I left. My biggest regret is I left. I should’ve stayed a little bit longer. But things happen for a reason and people make decisions that they may regret, but it all turned out for the better. I missed probably the best year I could have ever had, was to bask in the glory of the success. But being an entrepreneur, I’m looking for that next challenge. I don’t really regret it, but if had to I would redo it.

That speaks volume as to who you are. That tells me that you dived fully into the projects and the businesses that you work with.

Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever.

That’s also been a challenge for me. In the hospitality business, you tend to live your business. You’re married to the business. I was no different. The 70, 80 hour work weeks were routine. I’m in it, heart and soul. My greatest idol as a youth and still believe that Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever and you couldn’t knock him out. You could knock him down. He got knocked down a couple of times. But that’s like me. I boxed because of Mohammad Ali. I boxed amateur while I was in the military and I had a pretty good record. I was 23 and 3. 23 wins, 20 of them knockouts, 3 decisions and they were mixed decisions and there was no knockout. You can’t keep me down. I refuse to stay down. Maybe that’s why I’m still working at my age. I don’t know. I feel like I’m 30, and I’m twice that. In fact, it’s my birthday next week.

Happy birthday.

Thanks. I’m just going to keep going. One of my catchphrases or clichés, I’m known as the Over Caffeinated Entrepreneur because I’m at a high pace. I have no fear of caffeine. Even though my doctor says I might want to cut back a little. There’s plenty of time for sleep, and when I’m dead I’ll get plenty of it.

I tell people, “I’m an entrepreneur. Sleep is a crutch.”

It’s a choice. Most people make it. I fight it because there’s so much that I want to do. There’s so much out there that needs help. We work with veteran-owned organizations. We give them a 50% discount on everything that we do for them. Non-profits, we offer the same thing. We’ll help whoever needs the help. We even have a non-profit client who is struggling so much to stay alive. We’re just doing the marketing for them pro bono. It’s more about their bottom line than mine. I’ve had a lifetime of successes. Some failures. But it’s my way to give back. The universe is taking good care of me.

That’s awesome. David, thank you so much for being on the show. Before we head out, can you share with our listeners, outside of looking at your profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory, can you share with our listeners where they can find more information about you?

The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights.

Sure. They can find us at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. I have my page. On the About page, there’s the story of how the business got started, some of the key players that are involved. Right now, there’s a free release on a book that I’m about to publish. It’s called The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights. I wrote the original one back in 2011 and it was published right after the first year in 2012. But it’s sorely outdated. I amended the Bill of Rights. It’s pretty interesting to read. It’s based on my beliefs in the entrepreneurial environment, what entrepreneurs are really entitled to. They have rights just like anybody else. It’s formulated from the belief system that I have that I inherited from my grandparents. I talked about my grandparents in all my books. That bothers people that it’s in a non-fiction business oriented book. I’m sorry, but that’s who I am. That’s my story. My grandfather was a tremendous man with a third-grade education who built the largest World War II manufacturing plant for the B29 Superfortress Bomber. They made the engines there. He was the guy that put it together with a third-grade education. He had a story, he had his ways. I learned everything that I know from him. It’s a good read. It’s not heavy. It’s not technical. It’s a light read. It’s fun. You’ll learn something, hopefully.

Fantastic. David, thank you so much for being on the show today. Again, we’re here at The Business Acceleration Summit here in Florida. David Dunworth is one of the mentors here at the summit. We’re just super excited that he’s part of the CLEAR Business Directory. You can check out his profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory at ClearBusinessDirectory.com or you can take a look at his website at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. David, thank you so much.

Thanks for the time. I appreciate it.

Take care. Before you get involved with anybody, make sure that business is In The Clear.

Amen.

Learn more about David Dunworth

Due Diligence: 

Conspiracy Theory vs. Corporate Counterintelligence 

Let’s face it who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? There can be a ton of fun in speculating the who-done-it. However, conspiracy theory can quickly become an emotional roller coaster, especially when a theory assumes that some underlying force is out to get us (or a client).  While conspiracy theory can be fun and entertaining, conspiracy theory really has no place in the business world.

Conspiracy Theory 

This by definition is “a belief that some covert but influential organization or person is responsible for a circumstance or event.” So how does this even enter into the realm of due diligence and business? Simple, often times we come across people who feel they have some understanding of what corporate counterintelligence is and because of the movies, or some misguided understanding, they automatically equate anything “bad” that happens in any business setting as some level of conspiracy.

The problem with conspiracy theory in business is that it actually creates more problems than it does good. Conspiracy theory tends to focus on possible events that may or may not have happened and often relies on speculation and decisions based on an incomplete picture. In essence, conspiracy theory comes from a place of fear and really doesn’t paint a clear picture about any situation.

This is dangerous in business and can cost clients time and money. Not to generalize (ok, I’m going to generalize), but the “background check” mindset tends to play into the arena of conspiracy theory. Now, most of the good P.I.s I know may start in conspiracy, but they are at least aware enough to come back around to good ol’ fact finding. However, there are those P.I.s out there who are more than happy to take your money and feed someone’s running script that everything is a conspiracy theory. This is why you don’t see a term in business called “Private Investigative Intelligence.” This is also what really sets corporate counterintelligence apart in the due diligence world.

Conspiracy theory also operates on the assumption that since someone may or may not do something again, then time is of the essence. This is where conspiracy theory as a means of due diligence begins to really fall apart. This is because most due diligence cases actually fall into one of two camps, cleaning up a messy situation or preventing one. In either case, time is not of the essence but being thorough and efficient become more important because the information discovered in the process may need to be used for a legal situation.  And, if an attorney is already involved in a specific situation then the do’s and don’ts of due diligence become even more restrictive and the level of execution for fact finding and deciphering of information becomes extremely precise. This fact alone is why conspiracy theory becomes dangerous because it can not operate in the same realm of precision that corporate counterintelligence requires. The mere construct of conspiracy theory falls apart when the level of deciphering, assessing facts, and analyzing information needed to protect a client’s interest comes into play.

Corporate Counterintelligence

The term corporate counterintelligence exist at a variety of different levels in the due diligence arena. However, at the very center of the understanding of this concept lays the idea of pure objectiveness. Conspiracy theory is not effective in this realm. In order to be an effective counterintelligence agent, one has to understand the facts objectively so an effective decision can be made to navigate certain life or death circumstances. The same is true of corporate counterintelligence in the business world. The corporate counterintelligence process requires uncovering, deciphering and processing various amounts of information. Depending on the level of risk this level of due diligence can become very complicated. Especially since the goal is to remain objective so the best course of action can be identified that will mitigate any risk.  Notice I did not say eliminate risk. Regardless of the due diligence process, risk still exist. However unlike conspiracy theory that automatically assumes some level of “danger,” corporate counterintelligence identifies the risk so the choices that are decided can be done in confidence.

The tricky part to corporate counterintelligence is navigating the enormous amounts of data in any given problem set while navigating all of the peripheral information that affects the situation as a whole. This includes the emotional impact of a situation, other people’s opinions about how something should or should not go and, of course, keeping any conspiracy theorist at bay. Now to its credit, conspiracy theory can highlight potential avenues of approach, however, objectiveness has to remain the focus when performing due diligence utilizing corporate counterintelligence.

Corporate counterintelligence is not a fast process, nor is it designed to be. Of course there are times where the process can be expedited. However, the process still takes time. That is because of the amount of data needed to be researched, understood, assessed, analyzed, and processed in order for all of the avenues of approach and potential risk to be identified. Once that is done, the information then has to be assimilated in such a manner that it can be understood by those who it serves (i.e. the client) so they can then make an educated decision on a situation.

When it comes to due diligence, conspiracy theory is like throwing spaghetti against the wall in hope that something sticks so you can say, “See, see I was right” with no game plan on how to mitigate risk moving forward. While the corporate counterintelligence method of due diligence may be more time consuming, in the long run it ultimately saves time and money because it identifies the potential risk. In doing so, it gives the client the information required to navigate those risk in order to mitigate loss and prevent repeating similar mistakes that created the triggering event that required due diligence in the first place.

Russell Weigel is a securities attorney and a member of the Clear Business Directory. Through Investment Attorneys, he helps his clients with compliance matters, arbitration defense or investigation defense.

Today, we’re super excited because we’re talking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Russell Weigel. He is a securities attorney, his business is the Investment Attorneys. I’m super excited to have him here because he brings a plethora of information to the business world. If you’re raising capital, if you’ve ever dealt with bringing in investors, it’s so important to have somebody on your side who knows what it is that they are doing. I’ve met Russell at CEO space, Business Acceleration Network and Summit. Russell is the real deal; he isn’t only down to earth but he is extremely knowledgeable. He’s here to join us and share a little bit about what he’s doing in the world and how he can help you with your business. Russell, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Justin.

We’re so excited to have you here. Can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background and exactly what it is you do?

Most of those representations involve compliance matters that we deal with but a lot of them are arbitration defense or investigation defense.

I‘m an attorney, I’ve been practicing securities law for the last 26 years. Of that, ten and a half years I spent with the federal government as an enforcement attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In that capacity I served many different roles, from investigator to litigator to management supervisor. Over the course of ten years, I became fluid with the mindset of the SEC. It’s that background that I brought into private practice. A lot of the techniques and mindsets and approach to handling security transactions and in doing defense work, protecting clients against investigations and litigations from the SEC. The primary areas of my practice are doing security transactions for both private and public companies, I represent both. I also represent people in the financial services industry. Most of those representations involve compliance matters that we deal with but a lot of them are arbitration defense or investigation defense. We handle anybody who’s in the industry or out of the industry but happens to get in the crosshairs of the SEC somehow. I am, I believe, one of the most effective defense counsels in the country for handling those matters.

We have a lot of clients that comes to us that are raising capital.  They do their due diligence on the people that they’re getting involved with, but it’s so important to have somebody like yourself whose got hands on experience working directly with the Securities Exchange Commission because they can be quite the bulldogs if you’re not doing things right. Having somebody who’s got an inside view as to what to do, how to do it, and what not to do, is extremely powerful. Having somebody on your team that can assist you and guide you along the way really sets you up for success.

I know as an entrepreneur, it can be so easy to think that you know everything about raising capital and the ins and outs. But there’s so much to it and so much complexity to raising capital, what you can do, what you can’t do, what you can say and what you can’t say. It’s really easy to get yourself in trouble. We’ve seen it over and over again with clients that we work with. Knowing that they’ve got access to you in the Clear Business Directory is a huge deal. It’s just going to make their teams more powerful by having you a part of it.

Thank you. Just to clarify, in my world, all my clients are innocent. They often times get crossways with the government even when they’re innocent, when they think they’re doing things correctly, may have done things correctly and may in fact be innocent. It’s an adversarial regulatory system that we have. There’s no mediation provision in the securities laws. There’s no pass that people might get if they were arrested. Maybe on a first time basis they might get pre-trial diversion and get out of it, that never happens in the securities world.

It is adversarial; you could do right everything and still find yourself in trouble. That’s why it’s so important to have somebody who’s knowledgeable about the ins and outs of that system, to have someone like you on their team. Russell, one of things we like to ask to everybody who comes on the show is, if there was one thing that you would wish that your perspective clients could or would ask you before they engage you and bring you onto their team, what would that question be? From a due diligence perspective, that know your client due diligence. What is the one thing that you want your clients to know about you and your business?

I’m not sure if it’s something I want them to ask, but I have a threshold amount of disclosure that I require of all clients that are doing offerings or intending to do a capital raise for which they are hiring my firm to assist them. We have a very detailed questionnaire that we ask all the officers and directors to execute and return at the threshold of the engagement. If we don’t get it back we just don’t take the engagement because we expect them to be truthful to their council.  If we’re going to be drafting disclosure documents that are going to be used to present to perspective investors then we want to know that we’ve got a complete disclosure because we’re going to be the ones drafting the biographical information on them.

If there are hiccups in their background, we need to know it so we can decide how to deal with it rather than having our client not tell us and then something that somebody can say later is material background information is omitted from the disclosure document because they didn’t want to let us know about it. That ends up often times being a toll hold for a fraud case. We just don’t want to go down that road and we wanted to start off the right way.  We have done very complicated disclosure matters where people have had histories with the SEC before or criminal convictions, litigations in the financial area or bankruptcies and things like that. We’re able to get around these issues but we just have to be aware of them. That’s a threshold for us.

Transparency expedites trust and it makes doing business, regardless of what you’re doing, so much easier. Especially in the situation like you said, having your clients be transparent is so important. I love that fact that you model that for them because you are part of the Clear Business Directory.  Everybody can go on there and take a look at your report, read you transparency report, know who you are, know what you’ve done. You model that for your clients. That’s extremely important in business where we’ve seen a huge shift in more and more businesses coming online with transparency piece because it just makes things so much easier when dealing with clients, situations and just business in general.

In the securities world in particular, it’s a requirement of the industry. Anybody who’s participating in it, who’s seeking capital and whether or not the client is a startup company and they’re not planning on doing a full blown offering document, it doesn’t matter because we still need to know who they are and what their background is. We just need to have all the cards on the table so that we can do our job the most effective way we know how.

Speaking of transparency, is there anything in your businesses that you may have experienced that you wish that you could go back and do over again or something that’s really unique that really shaped where you’re at in your business?

The court then turned around and appointed a criminal investigator to investigate me and make a report to the court.

One time in a family matter, I was trying to seek appointment as a guardian ad litem. I had other family members who weren’t too happy about it and made false and damaging reports to the court that appointed me guardian ad litem. The court then turned around and appointed a criminal investigator to investigate me and make a report to the court. I can say that I’ve been investigated. For my clients that may be facing that kind of scenario from the SEC, I’ve done this as an enforcement attorney for most of my SEC career, being on that side of the table, but having been with a gun pointed at you, that was a six month matter that ended working out just fine. It was still probably one of the most unpleasant professional things I’ve ever had to deal with. It ended up backfiring on the relatives who complained because they got in trouble with the court and so forth.

That’s so neat that you got to experience that because that really puts you in somebody else’s shoes. If you got a client that is going through that, you know exactly how they feel because you had to experience that for yourself. That’s neat in the sense that it really allows you to connect with those people, see it from their perspective and it gives you a whole other understanding.  Like you said, you’ve been on the other side of it as well when you were enforcing it so you know both sides. That experience in itself is invaluable when it comes to hiring a securities attorney such as yourself. You can bring a lot of unique experiences that you bring to the table that other securities attorneys don’t necessarily have.

That experience was humbling, if nothing else. It’s true, I can easily hold the hand of my client and walk through the valley of death with them because that’s often times, in those situations, what it feels like. You’re whole world is at issue and you don’t know where to turn. You need somebody you can trust implicitly whose going to be there for you. Frankly when I litigate, I bring all that to the table. I fight like hell for my clients because I know what they’re going through. That’s how we play the game.

I know you’re a mentor to so many and an educator as well.  I know you love sharing your knowledge of the securities industry. Is there one piece of advice that you would like to share with our listeners and your perspective clients about what and how they should be doing when it comes to raising capital?

Capital For Keeps is designed to assist entrepreneurs and executives in planning through a potential capital raise.

I wrote an entire book on this subject and it’s called Capital For Keeps. The book is designed to assist entrepreneurs and executives in planning through a potential capital raise. It doesn’t tell them how to do a capital raise because there’s plenty of people out there that’ll tell you how to do it. From a legal perspective, it gives them the full gamut of what their looking at in terms of risks and gives them the descriptions of the exemptions from registration that they’re going to have to work through.  Their attorneys may or may not explain it to them. This gives them all a background and arms them for conversations with their attorneys to help them think about the process and give them options that they might not have even be aware of. The book takes you through what I would take a client through in terms of initial education about the process, what the lawyer has to do and what they should expect in the legal side of things that they’re getting into.

The reason that I wrote the book in the first place is I did it as more of a warning, because in my defense practice I run across people all the time who made simple mistakes. If they knew in advance what they were getting into and the potential consequences are, did they really want to do this,  were there are alternatives to them that they could’ve considered and why did it have to be this way. If they could’ve avoided walking into the so-called shark infested waters unknowingly, some of them would’ve avoided it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t raise capital; I’m probably as much of capitalist as anybody. But there are folks who might not approach things the same way if they were more educated about the process.

I certainly want to minimize the number of people that show up at my door needing defense assistance. That was really the goal. It seems to me that some of these things could be preventable by folks who were better educated. That’s the point of that. Get some understanding and make sure this is what you want to do. Get counseled throughout the whole process of doing the capital raise, from planning to execution, to make sure you stay well within the guidelines. We don’t want any of our clients deviating. That’s the safest thing they can do. We want them to be successful and we want them to raise the capital and we want their business to flourish. We want to be their clients for the entire duration of their corporate lives. That’s our goal, we prefer to be their transactional attorneys rather that their defense counsel.

It’s a completely different ball game when you’re coming in to do transactions versus having to defend somebody. The education piece, especially when  raising capital, is so important just because it’s got so many moving parts. You have to ask yourself, “Is this what you want to do?” The complexities that are involved in it are important to understand and what it really takes to raise capital, to raise that kind of money. Is there a place where people can go, take a look at you website and learn about your book Capital For Keeps?

The website for the law firm is www.InvestmentAttorneys.com. The book has its own website which is www.CapitalForKeeps.com.

Thank you so much for being on the show today. You can also check out his profile at ClearBusinessDirectory.com

This was awesome. I appreciate it.

Before you get involved with anybody, make sure that their business is in the clear.

Learn more about Russel Weigel.

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.

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.