Ep 367: Tips For Being a Better Coach | Minal Mehta Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So this note is specifically for the coaches out there. I had an awesome podcast interview actually earlier this week with a new friend of mine, Minal. And we got to talking about coaches and the coaching community and the coaching industry as a whole. And there were a few quick takeaways that I thought would be worth to pull out, put ’em in a little condensed version for you right now. But this is for you coaches out there who are out there serving your clients. So here was the question that was asked, what do you think coaches need to know to be better coaches? And I thought the answers were super helpful and pretty tactical, so I’m gonna share ’em with you right now. Number one, be niche, right? Get clear on who you wanna serve, how you wanna serve ’em, and what you’re going to actually do, right?
AJV (00:53):
Being a generalist is not in your best benefit. So niche down, niche down, both on the who, the how, and the what. Like what is it that you actually do coaching on? Who do you do it for and how do you uniquely do it? So it’s niche down in each of those three categories. So that’s the first thing you can actually do to be a better coach, is be more specific, less general, right? There’s a little saying in our house at the vaden household, the more specific, the more terrific, right? And this is a chance that you can be more specific and be more terrific. So niche down on the who, what, and the how of how you serve your clients. All right? That’s number one. Note, note and be honest with yourself, that being a great coach and building a coaching business are two very different things.
AJV (01:45):
The talent and the skills that it takes to be a great coach are often different than the skills that it takes to learn and master of running a great coaching business, right? Being a great coach means that you’ve got tactical experience and expertise that you can help someone with. You’re a great listener. You are a great asker of questions. You have great empathy, you have great accountability. There are so many amazing skills that it takes to be a great coach, but there are also some really important skills
AJV (02:58):
Uniquely different than the skills that it takes to run a coaching business, and definitely different than the ones it’s gonna take to grow and scale one if that’s of your desire. So it’s just to be aware consciously aware of the unique set of skillsets that you need in both areas, both of being a coach and running a coaching business. And if you’re not even sure what those are, then that’s what we at Brand Builders Group, that’s what we do. That’s what we help you with,
AJV (03:45):
E it works either way. I think the first step is just be consciously aware. Those are uniquely different skill sets, and you need ’em both. Okay? Yes. Number two number three is the importance, the importance of organized systems and how important that organization is to the client experience. And this is where there’s a combination of both technology and psychology that’s really important for your practice as a coach, is that there’s a, a component of me where it’s like, man, I, I want access to that recording that we just did on that session. I want access to the raw notes. You said you were gonna put a a list together. I have some action items. Where is it? You were gonna refer me a book, you were gonna send me this. Where is it? There’s a, a process to the organization that improves the experience that makes it easy for me as your client to have a great experience and make positive progress on every single call.
AJV (04:38):
And that’s where technology plays a great role. Automation and just different platforms. But there is a really important part of our role as coaches of staying organized to improve the customer experience so that they can make the progress they need to improve their lives and their businesses. So just the importance of organized systems will make you a better coach, right? Then that kind of lends itself to this question of technology, right? Which is, well, how does technology make the coaching experience better? And there are three simple things. One, it’s consolidation, right? Keeping all of your emails, chats, communication, documentation, recording content material in a a singular place is so helpful when I don’t have to go to a SharePoint drive and an email and a text thread and an L m s, I’m only saying those things because we have these same struggles, right? But the consolidation, if I go to one place to find all my stuff, then that’s so helpful to me. It allows me to be a better client by saying, organize so I don’t bug you the coach all the time. So it’s in your benefit too, as the coach. It’s like the more that you can consolidate, it’s like your life is gonna be more streamlined because your clients’ lives are more streamlined. So consolidation is a
AJV (05:56):
Major perk and benefit of technology. The second thing, it’s simplicity, right? Finding technology platforms that are simple they don’t have to be robust and complicated. They just need to work. So finding a technology platform that actually is easy to use, simple to use, right? Has basic trainings already available out there. So you’re not the person to conduct in inform, instruct and teach everyone how to use this, right? But the, just having something that is simple and easy to use, and there’s already a well known process, right? So easy user interface is a part of that. If I log in and can’t figure out how to do it, it’s not a good platform, right? So as you go through it of going, Hey, how long did it take you to learn it? And just double that or triple that for each of your clients, right?
AJV (06:44):
So pick technology that is simple. And then the third thing about technology and how we can use technology to create better experiences with our coaching community is community. It’s connection, right? So use technology to actually amplify the community component, which makes your clients have a better coaching experience. So how can you use technology to better create the connection within all of your different clients, or even if it’s just you and your client? That could be something as simple as having a Slack channel for all of your clients. That could be having a private group of some sort, a private community group somewhere. Maybe it’s hosting unique group calls that you just do over some sort of, you know, webinar or virtual meeting. I’m, I’m trying to stay technology agnostic right now and not mention any technologies because I think there’s pros and cons to all of them.
AJV (07:41):
But it’s just finding ways to use technology to increase connection, not decrease connection, right? And that can happen too. Like one of the things that I’ll do to keep this completely technology agnostic is that I just make video messages. I make videos or even audio messages and send those to my client, right? Just seeing the face means a great deal. So instead of sending a text, make a quick video message or an audio message versus sending an email or sending a text, really simple increases that connection point in that community. And so there’s some things that you can do right now to increase the community experience, the coaching experience by using technology and at the same time making your life and your business easier and the process. So you coaches out there, you’re doing awesome. I so admire what you do. I, I, you are who I am meant to serve. Keep doing what you’re doing and let us help it make just a little bit easier for you. So keep on coming, we’ll see you next time.
Ep 366: How Coaches Can Use Technology to Scale with Minal Mehta
AJV (00:00):
Welcome to our latest episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here, one of your co-hosts. And I am uniquely excited about today’s interview because we have really chosen to do a super selective conversation, really built for the coach community that’s a part of our audience. So coaches, speakers, consultants, authors, trainers, like we serve all of you. But this is like really built for this unique piece of our audience that is growing and growing and growing. And it was a decided choice to do this. So if you are a coach, this is for you. So don’t tune out. Like this is the time to like double down and tune in because this is really built to help you be a better coach, better serve your clients, and do it in the most effective and efficient way possible, using some awesome technology.
AJV (01:03):
So that is what this is about. That is why you should stick around. Now, you should want to know who’s going to be talking about all this awesome stuff because it’s not me,
AJV (01:52):
But Minal has also worked at so many of the powerhouse platforms and tech companies from Amazon to YouTube to LinkedIn. There’s so much, so much wisdom and smarts. She’s just really smart behind this conversation. But then made it, she made a decided decision to tailor to this unique coaching community, develop her own technology, which is what we’re doing right now. And really why, like why did we, why did you decide to do that? And how is it gonna benefit so many people in this coaching community? So I can go on and on and on, honestly, cause I think there’s so many awesome things that I have learned about you and this technology and why you do it. And I love the heart behind it as much as I love the technology itself. So, without further ado, Manal, welcome to the show.
MM (02:42):
Thank you, aj. I’ve really enjoyed meeting you. I enjoyed your mission and I’m really excited for this conversation.
AJV (02:51):
Oh, this is gonna be so awesome. So here’s where I wanna start, is I wanna just talk about the rise of the coach, right? We are in an era where in our last conversation I shared this like statistic that I just stumbled across. Like if you just go and do a super, a, a simple LinkedIn search and you just type in coach, right? There is over, I think 1.2 something million people just on LinkedIn mm-hmm.
MM (03:52):
Awesome. And I think there’s just so many things that have come together to make this happen. So, on one hand, all of us just lived through one of the craziest fla swan events in our time. The pandemic and mental health became an imperative. And as we thought about our mental health, we started going deeper into who we are, what we care about, how we show up in this world. And there’s no better person to take you on this journey than a coach who’s been there, done that, been in your shoes, gone on that journey before you, it is tailored and targeted for you. And so I do believe that people are really excited about working with very specific coaches in this moment in a way that’s never happened before. We’re all very open to both taking care of our mental health, but also really going deep and understanding who we are and showing up in the way we want to show up because mm-hmm.
AJV (04:52):
No, go ahead. I’ll, I’ll reserve my thought for a second.
MM (04:54):
I was gonna say, then on the other hand, people who went on this inner journey realized that they also wanna be entrepreneurs. That, you know, the era of being an employee I think is also changing. You know, I myself was an employee, as you mentioned, I worked at Google and YouTube and LinkedIn, and here I am an entrepreneur. Because I do think people are looking deep inside themselves and, and trying to figure out what kind of life they wanna live. And many people are choosing the route of becoming an entrepreneur. Many people are being called to serve and share their knowledge and their wisdom with other people. And I think, like no other time before, both of these trends are happening at the same time. So we’re in this like precious moment where people need the services of coaches, coaches are being called to serve. Many coaches use the services of other coaches because it’s so interconnected and we all believe in our own growth and the growth of the planet at the same time. So we’re in this unique moment where everything is building on each other. And as you said, this is the moment the rise of the coach. It’s happening.
AJV (06:02):
Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s so interesting because I hadn’t like quite connected the parallel of, you know, the rise of this coaching industry with this rise of the entrepreneur community, right? Mm-Hmm.
MM (06:32):
I think those are very intertwined because I do think a lot of people are also realizing the expertise they have to offer. And it’s a great way to get started on building out a business that is uniquely you, right? If you go back to owning who you are and being who you are, and showing up in this world in your truest, most authentic form, then there’s no better way to do it than coaching because you, you are your business and your business is you. So I do think people are choosing to live the life that they want, and many are saying, I’ll become a digital nomad. I’ll become a consultant, all of that stuff. But I do think being a coach and serving global audiences from the comfort of your computer is something that is appealing to a lot of different people right now.
AJV (07:15):
Yeah. That’s, that’s such a great insight. I hadn’t quite connected those two until you said that. And, you know, you said something else that made me think about this. And you know, I have been in the coaching, speaking, training, consulting world for a significantly long time compared to how old I am,
AJV (07:59):
And I was like, no, no, I mean, I’m a coach and a consultant. And they’re like, like, you actually do that. And I remember like, I remember just hearing that and there was like such a assumed insignificant component of that. And then you fast forward to today, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a coach mm-hmm.
MM (09:01):
Mm-Hmm.
MM (09:48):
Because that is their unique edge. So that’s like table stakes. I know a lot of coaches work on that. I think the second thing that I’ve realized is being part of this, this movement almost at this point in this industry and this community, as you’ve said, is that there’s a difference between coaching and building a coaching business. And I don’t think people realize
MM (10:41):
Like, how do you run your business? That’s like number one, there’s a skillset set to building a business, right? I’ve spoken to so many coaches who are like, well, can you just market us? And I’m like, no, because you are serving your niche audience. You need to speak to your audience. I cannot speak to your audience for you. So you have to learn how to market yourself and how to sell your services. So like, you’ve gotta learn how to build that business, right? So that skillset in addition to the coaching work that you do, and then of course, there’s the tool set as a client of many coaches, I will admit the level of service varies not so much because the coaches are better or worse. Like most coaches I’ve worked with are excellent, but just the way they deliver their coaching is so different.
MM (11:26):
Like, I, I mean, I feel like I’ve gone through coaching programs where they’re like, here’s a zoom link. Oh, and the calendar invite is sent. People are scrambling to find the zoom link to meet after the zoom link. Where’s the recording? I can’t find the recording. Did someone take notes from that previous session that I can lean into? Where do I register for the next thing if I need to subscribe for your ongoing community? I don’t know where to find it. And like so much of my my experience as a client sucks because of the way you choose the tools, right? To, to kind of share your coaching expertise with the world. And so that’s your tool set. Like how do you actually create the right tool set to be able to build out your coaching business? So I think like anyone embarking on this journey today and say, find your niche audience and then make sure you do the work and your mindset, your skillset and your tool set to, to reach where you wanna reach.
AJV (12:24):
Yeah. I think that’s, that third thing is probably, probably the most common thing that I hear. It’s like, I love them and it’s like the content is great and they help me, but, but man, it’s like it’s a cluster. Mm-Hmm.
MM (13:00):
Yes, exactly.
AJV (13:02):
Exactly. those are, that’s really helpful and insightful specifically for all of you coaches who are listening of going, man, it’s like, do you have the organized systems to put all the pieces together to make it easy and consolidated mm-hmm.
MM (13:58):
Yeah. So I’m gonna take a little bit of a journey here with all of you. So I have a degree in computer science. I believe in the power of technology, right? Technology is my friend. I’m a technologist at heart. And the journey that I’ve gone on is a long journey and a short journey all at the same time. But I will start my journey almost from well after college. I, I worked at Amazon for a brief period of time.
AJV (14:23):
Well, you’re also being super humble right now. It’s not that you just went to college and got computer science degrees. It’s like you have a computer science degree from Stanford. Mm-Hmm.
MM (14:41):
That’s true. I will share the details. Thank you AJ, for helping me out here. So I have a computer science degree from Stanford. I actually came into Stanford thinking I was gonna be pre-med. I came from India. I chose Stanford because they gave me the most financial aid. I actually had no idea what Stanford really was. This was back in the day. And I came in 1999 and they gave me more money than anyone else. I’m like, I’ll try it out. And it was literally one of the best happy coincidences of my life. And I think that just taught me, right? Like, things show up in front of you and it’s up to you what you do with them. And I was very lucky to go to Stanford. I was very lucky to discover computer science at that period of time, right? The.Com era and all of that, and the power of technology and where technology can be used for good.
MM (15:22):
I then went and worked at Amazon where I, for those of you who you who used Amazon in sort of like the 2005 to 2010 timeframe, like everything before that buy button on the product detail page was managed by my team. So I’ve touched search on the product page and the homepage for a brief period of time. Navigation, I changed multiple times. And so I truly love making life easier for users online because I do believe in the power of technology. But when you think about how a user interacts, it marries, you know, technology, psychology, like our own feelings as we interact our own needs as we’re solving the problems. There’s like this very interesting moment that comes together when you deliver an interface to a user. So that was Amazon. I then went to business school. I went to Harvard as you mentioned, aj, and that was also a turning point in my life.
MM (16:18):
I, as part of my time at hvs, I really got involved in the career, the career community out there, the career center, like I was part of that. I led various programs for that. And so I don’t even think we’ve talked about this, but a couple years later I reached out to HBS and I’m saying, I said, you need to hire me as a coach. And they said, you are 25 years younger than any other coach we have on staff, right? Like, just go back to that time
MM (16:59):
So you need me, I’m a product manager. I guarantee you 30% of MBAs are gonna try to be pro product managers in the next five years. And so they said, yeah, you’re right. Like we’ve looked at the data
MM (17:45):
So I joined LinkedIn, and at LinkedIn I managed all of LinkedIn groups and LinkedIn messaging. So any member to member communication anything that had to do with building community like that was my area that I worked on. And you know, I think we’ve, we’ll talk a little bit about the power of community, but community is so important to all of us. And yet finding and building the right online community is really, really, really, really hard. And I got to learn a lot about that. Working on LinkedIn groups, the incentives that work, the incentives that didn’t work, all of that. From there, I went to Google. And at Google I worked on a different segment for, for the, you know, five years that I was there. Between Google and YouTube, I worked on what they called the next billion users, which is all of the high growth emerging markets.
MM (18:30):
So people who are rapidly coming online, getting their first mobile phone, don’t know what to do with the data, and how do we give them the best introduction to the internet possible. Because, you know, like these are literally baby internet people coming online. Never. Like we, we’ve been in the internet, we’ve been in the internet for like, you know, 15, 20 years by that point. And you talk about somebody like jumping in in this moment. Yeah. And how do we transition them online? So really got to understand the needs of these users. And at YouTube especially, it is the largest segment of users, the fastest growing segment of users and really understanding all of their needs and helping them with that. And all of this ties together because I was doing the career coaching at hbs. I was going through my own journey of inner growth.
MM (19:19):
Everybody has that moment. I think every coach has that moment that they deal with where they just go deep inside themselves and like turn themselves inside out and like, push forward. And all of this was happening as I was working on the next billion users. I had two kids around that time. It broke me in ways I didn’t expect it would break me cuz I have an incredibly supportive spouse. But it was a shift in identity, a shift in how I worked, a shift in how people treated me. And I found myself yeah, like really doing the inner work to stay true to me. It was hard work to just stay true to me when I worked in like from the outside, some of the best environments in the world, right? You work at Google, that’s incredible. Like, you know, 1% of 1% of people get into Google or whatever it is, right? Like, this is even harder than getting into HBS or Stanford. Like how can you complain about that? But there was a moment where I was like working so hard to keep the balance between the internal and the external. So pandemic happened early in 2021. I decided there was time for a change and I decided that I should go into coaching full-time. And I actually started this YouTube channel that no one can find right now. But I still my
MM (20:36):
But the, but what was happening is all these women were breaking around me. 2 million women left the workforce during the pandemic in the US alone. And my friends came to me and they said, all I think about all day is, is this all there is to life? I put my kid in front of Zoom school, I cook lunch for them, I take care of them. I’m working, I’m working harder than ever before. People are expecting more from me at work. I have no time for me. Is this all there is to life? Highly educated, you know, very lucky women, like high achievers, very smart, very lucky women. Like is this all theirs to life? And they said like, you, you don’t seem to be breaking. Why is that? And I said, well that’s because I did my breaking and I did my rebuilding and I have like my center.
MM (21:22):
And they’re like, well, you should teach that. And so that’s what my YouTube channel in some ways started being about. And I wanted to become a coach to really help burnt out women in tech really find their center and their joy. And this will become relevant soon. But I wanted to do that. I started creating this content and then as I started doing it, the technologist in me reared its head again and said like, you are a coach for one type of person. There’s a coach for everyone. How can you use your skillset and tool set to make that happen? And that’s how all takes was really born, right? Like every coach should be able to connect with their clients deeply in an organized way, in a connected way, in a loving way, and really help them transform. And I wanted to make that happen. And and that’s the, the platform that you said today. I
AJV (22:10):
Mean, it’s like, this is why I wanted you to tell the story for anyone who is listening is, I think so often technology can be built, not, not from this standpoint, not from this usage standpoint and or not just technology, but businesses, right? Mm-Hmm.
MM (23:05):
Exactly. Exactly. And I find actually a lot of coaches use that as an excuse to not grow their business.
MM (23:12):
AJV (24:09):
MM (24:11):
But like at a point where you need to hire a designer and a developer to take care of a software that is supposed to be quote unquote easy to use. So that, like I’ve heard coaches say, I have no profit because that’s what I’m doing. And I’m like, what is going on? This is not where you should be spending your time Definitely at all. Or your money. Like yes. Like you can always do with a little bit of help, but like, you shouldn’t be paying somebody a full-time salary to manage your technology stack
AJV (24:40):
The basics. Yeah. You know, there’s a, a level of this that we would say it’s, it’s what we would call creative avoidance. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (24:48):
We do, we do the work that needs to be done instead of the significant work that must be done. Or it’s a level of priority dilution. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:49):
I would set up the zoom link, put it in there, I would then have to set up a Word doc where I kept some coaching nuts and I would probably keep that Dropbox. Then when I did the Zoom, I would then have to download this link because they client wanted the recording and then I would have to store it somewhere on this Word doc because they would often lose it because I sent it in an email. And then I would have to keep track of this word doc and this thing, and then I’d have to keep all of the notes. And then they didn’t want the notes in an email. They wanted those in a consolidated document, but they wanted me to email that consolidated document every single time. So it was the top of their inbox. And that’s just a part of the list, right?
AJV (26:27):
And so you kind of go like, whoa, the amount of administrative operational work that it takes to even do one call is quite extraordinary. And that doesn’t even count if they reschedule last minute or cancel, but still wanna do it and on and on and on. I know that those, those of you listening can relate to some of that because I know you do it. I know some of you and I know you’re doing it. And there’s a better way. There is an easier way. So before we talk about all takes and the awesomeness that you have built and that you’re launching out into the world, I’d love to talk just about like how does technology or how can technology, and this is, you can talk about, I’ll take specifically here, but how can it actually make the coaching experience better for the coach and the client?
MM (27:15):
Yes, absolutely. And I think technology is a tool, right? Like, I know I’ve heard from many coaches that they just wanna throw their laptop out the window when they’re dealing with technology
MM (28:11):
So that’s the first level because as a coach, we are all growing. Many coaches start out one-on-ones, but then they do groups like whatever it is that you’re doing, you want a platform that can handle all the things that you wanna do. The second thing I would say is then in the doing of those things, it needs to be really easy to set things up because if it’s not like then you’re going back to exactly what AJ described, right? Like that creative avoidance of like setting up your technology so it works perfectly and then feeling really good about you got that done, but you didn’t actually move the needle forward for your business. And so having something that you can do really easily to set up any of these modalities, in fact, the sign of truly great technology is that it all feels so familiar regardless of what you do.
MM (28:52):
And I think this is where all takes shines and where some of our, the other coaching platforms out there, it’s like depending on if you’re doing a community or if you’re doing a group, like the user interface is completely different. It feels like everything has just been tacked on and so you don’t know how to use it. And then you get to your clients, most of you probably have repeat clients, like they come to you for a webinar and then they join you for a group or they join you for a subscription and they need to relearn the language of the thing every single time. And so giving them a super, super sim simple language to start with, and then keeping that, that language of the website really consistent for them can go a long way in making sure, sure. Making sure that they engage with you.
MM (29:34):
And then the thing that is the [inaudible] the the icing on the cake is can you build connection online? You know, over and over again. Like people, coaches are like, I wanna live anywhere. I wanna work from my laptop. I want to meet my clients wherever they are. But I miss those days where I could see them in person, where we could talk to each other in a conference room when we could go for a walk with each other. And there’s something about that connection that’s really important. And I don’t, having worked on communities for a large part of my career, I don’t know that being online can fully replicate that energy exchange that happens in person, but at all takes, that is one of our guiding stars, is how can we make this online experience feel as real worldly as possible? And so if you see, if you’re watching this, you’ll see that we live in a white background, not a a dark background, right? Because when you’re sitting in a room, you’re sitting in a clean, well lit space talking to a person not in a dark room where it’s like, actually that would scare me if I was sitting in a dark room with a group of people
MM (30:40):
You know? But you don’t, you don’t think about that when you’re there and then you leave zoom feeling, oh my gosh, like I’m feeling a little down, a little depressed. Yeah, you’ve been sitting in a freaking dark room, it makes no sense that you’re sitting in that dark room. So something as simple as that. Like other things are like, we have these like expressions that we share. We have this hard expression that I’m sharing this confetti. We’re building more, if there is more than just the two of us, like at all takes you sit in a round table and have a conversation. And I say that my kids sit in circle time. They’ve sat in circle time since they were two years old. There’s something about sitting in a circle that calms our nervous systems down. We understand it, we get it. And so that combination of the expressions, being able to emote with other human beings and sitting in a circle where, you know, where every person is sitting like people are really vulnerable and open in those settings, which is exactly what you want to build real world connection online, right?
MM (31:35):
So I think technology can be used in a, a variety of ways to not only make your life easier, but to make that connection with your client or client stronger. And then if you have a group, then even making the connection between your clients stronger, because that is a whole another level of unlock that you can, you know, you and your clients can experience. So I’ve spoken a lot about all takes, but I do think like those are the things like great ease of use for the coach, ease of use for the client, one place to do everything. Don’t manage your technology everywhere. Connection, connection, connection. Super important. And okay, my connection is unstable. I don’t know AJ if you can hear me. Let’s see. All right. I’m gonna hope we come back. Okay. So
AJV (32:24):
I, you pick it up where you said I, I’ve talked a lot about all takes, but
MM (32:29):
I think Yes, yes. So I’ve talked a lot about all takes, but I think really like the, the things you’re looking for in your technology are ease of use, ease of view, ease of use for you, for your client. One place to do everything. Not like, you know, 50 different softwares that you have to use and pay for by the way to do all the things that you need to do for connection, building that connection with your clients, even though you live in this world that is very like all over the place right now. And the last, last, last, last bit I’ll add because I do believe in the power of community is having a community of people that can help you. Because one of, one of the things I’ve heard from a lot of our coaches is that they feel very alone as they start their businesses. And I think with the brand builders group, aj, you guys are building a community of coaches that can go through this together. But you know, any platform that can give you the right community of people who believe that all boats rise at the same time, let’s help each other to make this happen, I think is really critical as part of this journey.
AJV (33:33):
I, I mean I think there’s all of that is so true and accurate and I would just say as someone who is using a bunch of different technologies right now as we try to consolidate, right? I think that’s like one of the big benefits that I have seen in all takes is it’s the consolidation of lots of different things that you’re using manually mm-hmm.
AJV (34:25):
Wow. Then we create a client playlist in YouTube for every, a private playlist for every single client that we have, 600 playlists for every single client so that we’re not just recording something once and then letting it drift off into the, you know internet. But it’s a, we, we, we keep those for us, for to review for training for our team, but for the client and the coach. So it’s like even us at this stage of going, we’re trying to consolidate all of this, and that’s the nice thing. And I can only show, I will share this on my behalf of going, like, our team has been on the hunt for like, how do we make this easier mm-hmm.
AJV (35:14):
And it’s how do we consolidate conversations? I e chats. So not everything is going back and forth in email all the time because that’s exhausting. We have enough emails, we don’t need more emails. Mm-Hmm.
MM (36:13):
Yeah. So I think all takes is gonna actually do with all the things that we talked about, right? And I’d say that we are in, we are like our coaches in the state of permanent growth. And so one of the things actually before I even go into the specifics is I will say that we are such believers in what all our coaches are doing, that if you give us feedback, you’ll see oftentimes that the platform is implementing that within the next few weeks. And so, like one of the things we look for is in our coaches is people who are actually willing to give us the feedback and build the platform that they want, right? So I’ll start with that as one of our key principles. But if you are a coach the way you would use all takes is you would come and we’d create for you what we call your business page.
MM (36:55):
It’s one place where all of your offers can be consolidated in one single place. Your offers can be one-on-ones with you know, with as many clients as you have. Each client has its own space. It can be a group offer that you have multiple group offers that you have. It could be webinars, it could be courses. No matter what you’re doing, you have a business page where all of these offers can live. Each offer can be public so visible on your business page or unlisted. So if I’m doing, you know, AJ’s coaching me and we have a one-on-one relationship and we have a space that only she and I can access with our playlists and our recordings and our chats and everything, that can be unlisted. So no one else can find it. She and I can find it and everything we have lives there, but no one else ever needs to see it or find it unless we share the link with that person. And so you can create any type of offer when you go into each specific offer. First of all, your clients can register for an offer directly from our website, so no more Eventbrite plus Zoom, which some of our coaches use, which is really weird cuz Eventbrite wasn’t meant for this use case, right? Event freight is great for, I’m organizing a meetup and I need to sell tickets, but not, not a
MM (38:06):
Coaching call. Not a coaching call, but a lot of our coaches I’m hearing use Eventbrite to manage their registration. So with all takes with any of your offers, the registration page is super simple. The client has all the information they need, images, videos, if you have videos when any meetings are gonna take place, the description of the offer register button, when they register, they can pay directly through all takes. And so you don’t have to build a separate payment processing thing out there. Once they are registered, they then get reminders for when their various meetings are happening, so you don’t have to send out reminders, right? And then once they register, they get into that space, that locked room that only people who’ve registered for that locked room have access to. And that locked room has three key components, which we believe actually constitutes the majority of coaching.
MM (38:56):
You have your live sessions, you have any content that needs to be shared between coach and client or clients. And then you have the conversation history that happens between coach and clients. And it’s really simple. There’s three sections. Anytime people need to attend a live session, they go to the live session area, they click on it, they’re in this round table. Anytime they wanna see content, it’s right in that content section, whether it’s like agenda or recordings, course content or anything in between. And then any conversation that has been had in that community is in that chat section. And so not only is there one space, just like imagine like if, if we had a coaching group meets at, I don’t know, green Library room 1 0 5, and we all end up there and all the information about all of our coaching is stored there, that is the feeling you get when you come into one of our, our spaces.
MM (39:46):
But that space, unlike, you know, green Library 1 0 5, like stays with you. So anyone who has access to that space has access to that space forever. And so your your clients aj, who want access to that playlist six months down the road, like they know exactly where to go to find it. And there is no email back and forth. It was just the space that we shared that has the memory of everything that’s happened. And so I think that’s where technology can be used for good, right? Like the real world is great to build connection, but to like have that history privately because I think the world has also gone too far in terms of what is shared publicly. Like that’s, that’s basically what all takes is. And I think we have a community of like-minded coaches that are helping each other learn and grow while while they use these tools and really grow their coaching businesses.
AJV (40:34):
Yeah, I think that’s like the, like I think that’s like a huge part of this. It’s where technology can really be such a super beneficial asset to you is going, technology’s never gonna replace the human element mm-hmm.
AJV (41:27):
And it’s like at some point you’re going, I’m tired
AJV (42:16):
I can think of ones that do lots of these things individually mm-hmm.
AJV (43:07):
But I don’t, I’m doing this because genuinely it’s like our, I’ve had our team request, like formal demos in addition to our conversations. It’s like we need tools that allow us to do better work and this is a tool that could really help you. So go to all takes.com, request a demo and check out the work. Now I will say, and I’m watching the time cuz we only have a couple of minutes left, there is something else that you’re doing right now that is also pretty cool. And before we bounce, because this is like so timely to when this is all happening, I want you to tell people what you are
MM (43:41):
Doing. Okay? So we are doing something really fun and a little bit scary for me. So
MM (44:25):
So we’re doing this thing called the Making of a Coach challenge and our head of sales and you know, she’s also sales marketing and mindset coach. Her name is Mary Diaz, is gonna coach me into becoming a coach. We’re going to do our coaching calls on this platform live. We will share it with everybody. We will share my mindset shifts in addition to the tool set and skillset shifts that need to happen. And within eight sessions or 30 days, we expect the coaches that go on this journey with us and do the work to be able to enroll paying clients. And whether it’s a workshop or a cohort or one-on-one, whatever it is that you wanna do, like we’ll, we’ll guide you on that journey to making this happen. And you’ll get to see me do it with you and in front of you and share with you like how I’m feeling.
MM (45:12):
Cuz this journey is one of like great grit. And the, the more you can have the tools, the technology tools of course, but also the mindset tools to make this happen and the community that pushes you forward, that that’s something that can only be a superpower that you have. So sign up for the making of a code challenge. If you go to all takes.com, there’s a banner up top click on that banner, there’s a landing page with all the information. You click yes I want in and I’ll take you down that process. We’re looking forward to welcoming the right people with open arms on the other end and holding you and supporting you as you build out this business that you’ve always dreamt of building.
AJV (45:55):
Yeah. And I would just encourage that because this episode was really designed to tailor and to reach the coach community that’s a part of our audience. And doing this life, this thing called life. We were not meant to do it alone, right? And this is a great opportunity to come alongside other people who are doing what you are doing or what you wanna do and be a part of the evolution of what does this look like and how do I come along and be a part of this journey with a group of people who are doing what I do or doing what I wanna do. So highly encourage what a cool thing to get to be a first, you know, kinda like a firsthand seat too. And also get to do the work too, right? It’s what really creates this really awesome engagement and starts to build some really amazing community, which we all do need, we all need.
AJV (46:47):
And there’s additional competition here. There’s enough for us all. So come along for the ride. That’s what this is all about. So I’ll put all the links in the show notes. So you’ve got different ways to connect, but thank you so much for coming on and one, just the background and the wisdom and the experience you have. Like we didn’t even scratch the surface of all the things that you could be talking about. Because at the end of the day, this all has culminated in this awesome thing that you’re doing right now for a really unique group of people that we happen to get the privilege to serve. And this is an awesome platform with major benefits to everyone’s involved. So I’ll do one last call to action. Go check out all takes.com, request the demo, see if it’s a fit for you. And Manal, thank you so much. We are so honored to have you on the show and I cannot wait to talk to you again soon, everybody else. I love ya. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
MM (47:47):
Thank you aj. Okay. All right. I’m gonna stop the recording and I will, yeah.
Ep 365: How An App Helps You Build Community | Amanda Moriuchi Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
So I’ve got a question for you. How good are you at building and nurturing your own community? And I think that’s a really relevant question to at least me. As you know, I sit as c e o, which is, you know, more like I just do all the things. Other people don’t have time for more than anything fancy. But as I sit as the c e o of Brand Builders Group this is just a question I ask myself all the time. It’s like our number one priority is to build and nurture deep, meaningful relationships with our community. And our team is always asking, how do we do that? And then how do we do it better? How do we do it more efficiently? How do we build community and nurture them faster in the way that they want? And that led to a, a conversation with a friend of mine, Amanda Moriuchi, who also happens to be a client at Brand Builders Group, which was even more helpful and insightful.
AJV (01:01):
And she happens to be the owner of this really cool custom app company. They build apps called app. And it led to this often conversation around how we use technology to deepen relationships and nurture relationships. And let me say, without going any further, I believe deeply in the importance of one-on-one human interaction on a phone call or in person over coffee. And I also know that there’s just so many minutes in the day. And so to be able to supplement some of that nurturing and some of that community building with technology is just, it’s where we are and there’s components that are really good and healthy and some that are kind of exhausting and overwhelming. So I’m gonna focus on the good and healthy ones. So I thought this was a really great question to go and how do we use technology to increase our relationships with our community as a company?
AJV (02:00):
And so there’s a couple of things I thought were just really noteworthy in this conversation that I would share in this little video with you. So number one is having an app is really what this conversation is about. It’s taking your relationship building off of social media and putting it into a platform that is yours. And in this particular conversation, we’re talking about an app that could also be in an email list. But I think the interactive nature of all the things that are happening in app make it really diverse and unique. Whereas an email list is, that’s an email list. But not to negate that, but this is specifically about how do we use apps to deepen relationships and sit, here’s some of the benefits that came out of this conversation of having an app. One is you own your audience, and that was, that is a number one priority for asset Brand Builders group is we can’t expect that the algorithm is always going to be on our, in our favor on other people’s
AJV (02:58):
Platforms. So, you know, regardless if it’s YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn, it, it doesn’t matter. It’s, we don’t own those audiences. We don’t own that platform. We don’t own that content, even though it’s our content, it’s on their platform. And so to be at the mercy of that is a little
AJV (03:43):
Two is technology is really leveling the playing field. And right now it’s, if I have a small audience with not tons of engagement, I’m not favored on social media, but in my own community where it, although I may have fewer followers, they’re deeper loyal followers, I have more opportunity to even go deeper and broaden those relationships when it’s in my control. So there’s a lot of benefit of having all of your audience or ha giving them the opportunity to have more of you, and thus you get more of them in this technology, you know, component that we’re talking about with an app, right? So it, it levels the playing field and let the small guys, the small gals have more opportunity to have deeper engagement and more access to our community and vice versa. So I think that’s really important.
AJV (04:32):
It’s the difference. The next thing is the difference between community and connection on social media. And I’m not slamming our dog and social media right now. It seems like a, a comparison and a little, a little comparison, but I’m not dogging. I think social media is really important, don’t get me wrong here, but there’s a lot of connection on social media, but not a lot of deep community is being built on social media. And so again, whether it’s your email list, podcast, whatever, but for me, it’s this idea of an app that allows you to create real community where there’s back and forth chats and there’s notifications and there’s internal challenges that you’re not paying for. It’s like you’re getting unique content just for you. You’re getting correspondence. You’re, you’re getting videos, you’re getting all this different stuff all in one platform that is actually you’re subscribing to, you’re saying, give this to me.
AJV (05:23):
I want this. And it allows the person who is managing the community to tailor and augment and make it better for the people who are saying, I want more of this, and just creates more community. It creates a like-minded group of people who are going, this is what I want, more of this, less of this. And they’re asking for it, which is hence why they’re on the app, right? So there’s just a lot of opportunity to build more community versus connection which happens on social media. The next is talking about a, a simple way of taking all of your content as a content creator and having it on one place. So with an app, it’s like, I can have my podcast there, I can have virtual trainings there. I can have live events there. I can have community correspondence and interactions video engagement, eBooks, challenges, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (06:16):
And I’m not having to send some people to this funnel, some people to my website, some over here to iTunes. It’s like, no, no, no, I’m gonna take everything that I’m doing and I’m gonna consolidate it, condense it into one awesome platform that allows you to have everything you want in one place at your fingertips that has just been a game changer of a conversation of how do we do all these things and do it effectively while also keeping in place the integrity of the relationship with the individual. And so as you’re kind of thinking through your strategies for the year and in the years to come, I would just encourage you to think about three things as you listen to this rant on the importance of building community, not just on social media would be one what are you doing to own your audience?
AJV (07:08):
What are you doing to take back control of the engagement, interaction and correspondence that you have with people who subscribe to you, right? In other words, they follow you, like you engage with you. That’s number one. What are you doing to own it? Versus having everything that you’ve built on somebody else’s platform, which is rented real estate. So how can you own those, that audience engagement? Second thing is, how can you consolidate? How can you put everything that you’re doing online and put it into a centralized place where people have a go-to place to get all the things right? Workbooks, downloads, video, content, engagements events, whatever it is you’re doing, webinars. But how can they just get everything into one place to create a better member community experience? So that’d be the second. First one is how do you own your engagement?
AJV (07:59):
Number two is how do you consolidate your engagement? And then the third one is, how do you actually create better deeper community, right? And that just means you’ve got more time with people a huge part of community and relationships. It just takes time. So how are you doing that? How are you creating, you know, better and deeper relationships within the community? And that doesn’t mean just you and one-on-one to your community, but creating them amongst your community and how are you gonna do that? And so the app is not the answer for everyone. The app is the obvious answer for us at Brain Builders Group and what we’re moving ahead with. But I would just pose those questions for you to go back and sit with and think about of how can I do more of this? How can I own it, consolidate it, and make it better and deeper for the people that subscribe to what I have to say and what I have to share. So with that, you have your homework assignments speed
Ep 364: How To Know When You Are Ready For An App with Amanda Moriuchi
AJV (00:02):
Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast AJ Vaden here, and I am with a very good friend of mine, Amanda Moriuchi. And today is always exciting to me whenever I get to do podcast interviews, but then when you get to do them with people that you actually really know personally and you get to share their business and their expertise and their brilliance just makes it extra fun. And so before I formally introduce Amanda, I want to tell you why you need to stick around for this episode. So here’s why you wanna listen to this episode. One, the main reason I have invited Amanda on to our podcast is because of the growing number of questions that our community and our listeners like you ask us all the time around, do I need an app? And if I do, how do I know when I am ready to get an app?
AJV (00:59):
And Amanda is going to answer those two question questions very specifically with real tangible data around why you should or why you shouldn’t, when you should, and what that process looks like. So that’s the first reason. The second reason is that there is this growing trend in the world called mobile apps, right? And there is a lot of things behind the scenes that most of us don’t realize when it comes to building, launching, growing, or even potentially monetizing an app. And so we’re gonna talk about some of that behind the scenes work and really what that means for the everyday entrepreneur, small business owner, coach, consultant, speaker, and what that world is gonna look like in the next five 10, so forth years. And then the third thing that you’re gonna learn, and this is also selfishly, is if you are ready for an app, what does that process look like?
AJV (01:55):
Like, does it really have to cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and does it have to take years? And we’re gonna find the answers to that too. So how further ado, let’s get right into it. So I’m gonna give you a little formal bio on Amanda, and then we’ll then we’ll jump in. And the rest of this will be super casual, but Amanda is the CEO of App Ventures, which is an award win, the inter international custom tech company. They have won lots of awards. And I actually had one, one of Amanda’s clients on our podcast just a little while ago called, the company is called Keep With. And Amanda’s team is the one who actually developed and brought that idea to life and app form. So it’s so cool to not only get to know you, but to see your business actually bring things to fruition and products and services that I actually really love and enjoy.
AJV (02:49):
But I will say, I will tell you also, she has developed and led hundreds of top tier software experts to launch over 1000 apps, which is amazing. These apps are averaging a three times return on investment she has or
AM (03:25):
Thank you so much. It’s good to see you, aj.
AJV (03:27):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about this. And before we get into the nitty gritty details of building an app and what that process takes, I want people to get to know you a little bit and how you got into this business. But right before we do that, to kind of give people a preview of what to expect for the rest of this interview, can you just give us some very quick highlighted data, trends, insights around what this growing world of apps looks like and where you see it heading?
AM (04:00):
Ugh, I love this question. Yeah, so the biggest trend that I’m watching right now that really I think a lot of your clients and listeners are gonna care about is the shifts that kind of the larger social media companies are taking where they’re starting to lock down some of the most valuable elements of their platform. So for example, the most simple example I can share is you can no longer embed a private Facebook group into your app. And really Facebook knows that they know that people really are starting to build their own private communities mm-hmm.
AJV (05:39):
Yeah, so that’s a really good point because we have a private Facebook group at Brain Builders Group, but we have been urgently trying to figure out what is our long term? And for us, long term is like the next, in the next 12 to 24 months, what does that look like? Because not only do we know that that’s not a long term strategy to build our community on somebody else’s platform and that should be no one’s strategy to be honest. But one of the things that we are also seeing is we’re we’re experiencing a growing number of people who don’t wanna be a part of certain platforms.
AM (06:12):
And I’m that right. I’ve, I love you guys. I’ve been working with you guys for a couple of years now, and I’ve never been a part of Facebook as at like, when I’ve been with Brand Builders Group. I was a part of Facebook when I was a college kid when it first started forever
AM (07:06):
That’s, and you also really need to keep an eye on some of the legal changes and regulation changes that are headed our way. I, I know everyone knows about GDPR in Europe similar laws have already passed in California, and you’re gonna start seeing those laws slowly spread across the country. And you have to be very careful as you’re planning ahead for some of that kind of stuff too. So really, I think end users are demanding more demanding more from the apps that they work with demanding more privacy, demanding more intimacy, demanding more connection, and it’s a really exciting time to be developing tech for good that really is in service to end users rather than just taking,
AJV (07:56):
I love that It’s building technology for good. Yeah, I love that. It’s like with any tool, it can be used for good or for harm. And it’s like, how do we just do it that’s got this mutual benefit for the end user. So good. Y’all, this is why you need to stick around. We’re gonna get into the nitty grits of this, but I, I am super curious, like, how did you get into this world, this business? Like, give us just a little bit of background of why apps we could have done so many different things in technology. I know you’re wicked smart, but why this
AM (08:32):
Totally on accident, to be honest with you, I, I fell into technology at an early part of my career and I think truthfully, that’s what made me successful, right? So I think a lot of times where people get frustrated with technology is you have a business person speaking to a technology engineer and they just speak past each other, right? And when I first joined the industry, I didn’t know anything about technology that wasn’t my, that wasn’t my expertise. And so I found the smartest people in my organization and I made them sit down with me and explain everything. And so I think with that, that gave me the ability to blend business and technology and make sense out of something that is really can be overwhelming if you don’t understand the nuance. And so I think I built my career on being that bridge between what a business leader wants as an outcome and what is possible from a development perspective.
AM (09:38):
And I’ve come to realize that’s kind of a rare trait to almost act as a translator between the two ends of the business. And it’s been incredibly rewarding. So the reason why I stayed was because I believe in my core that technology has the ability to level the playing field. It grants access to vulnerable populations, to affluent populations, and everything in between. It really breaks down the barriers between location, right? So, I mean, I have to say a j I found you guys through technology. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (11:00):
You know, it’s so interesting that you say this. I’ve I actually made a post about this book that I’m reading called Find Your People by Jenny Allen. And I love Jenny Allen and I love this book specifically cuz it talks about how we’re in unprecedented times in America at least of a lack of community. And what an interesting thing with more technology availability and more interfaces and more this, that as a country we’re at an all time high of people who suffer from depression, anxiety addiction, and most of that stemming from an internal feeling of loneliness. And this entire book talks about loneliness is the real epidemic that we’re experiencing here in America. And then all these other things are the byproduct. And so I love what you say cuz it’s like, again, it’s like using technology for good and you know, we are most interested in our technology for communal purposes.
AJV (12:03):
It’s how do we stay in touch with people? How do we connect, how do we stay present and available when we are hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles apart? And I really do at some point during this interview wanna talk about the power of using apps specifically for community because as we are experiencing on the social media realms of today, and as we will continue you cannot build your audience on a borrowed platform. And that is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. That’s what they all are. And so if you don’t have a plan of building an audience that you own then at, at some point you’re at the mercy of big tech companies and big investments, bankers deciding how you’re gonna engage with the people that you have built a following with. And so I love what you’re saying about just doing it for the purpose of community and doing it for good.
AJV (12:55):
Cuz I think that’s a really critical part of where business is heading and people are building these communities that are the source of major business and revenue. Back to this like, you know, customer loyalty is like people stay with people more than they stay with companies. So how do we do more of that? So, okay, so getting into this app conversation, which I love and I’m fascinated by because I feel like I get, I feel like going into the app store is like me going into like TJ Max, oh my gosh, I’m so overwhelmed. I go walk in and I’m like, there’s like too much here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which one. It’s like, I’m like doing it by customer ratings and it’s like, it’s so overwhelming to me. It’s like, I won’t even consider an app until like five or six people have said, you have to have this. And there’s just like, it’s so overwhelming and there’s so many of them. And so there’s my question with them being so many, how do you create something that actually does anything for good? And I guess my real, my real first question is, do you need an app?
AM (14:04):
Yes and no
AM (15:06):
And somehow those two buckets have gotten muddled, right? And I think, I think that’s a crusade that I’m up against right now is like, great build your town square, right? Or build your audience in your town square, but you bring them into your community and you protect them. And that’s when you’d want an app, right? So we say, look, work with brand builders group, build your following, build your audience. And once you reach a certain kind of magic number in terms of like a certain number of engaged followers, you need to bring them to a place where they’re sheltered within your community. And then they start to form intimate bonds. And that’s the magic of an app, right? So let’s go back to the TJ Max example. I get also super overwhelmed by TJ Max because like the racks are just overwhelming. I can’t even remember that You have to like, like comb through all of the different types of brands and sizes and product types and all of that.
AM (16:17):
If you could imagine going into TJ Max and knowing, okay, it’s, it’s a Thanksgiving, right? It’s, I call it the high holiday time, right? It’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, like the best time of year to decorate, right? And so in that time of year, if I go into TJ Max, and I know I’m looking for a particular brand of a decor item. Ray Dunn is really well known in TJ Max, right? I don’t have to spend as much time as much of my attention, as much of my focus combing through all these different products if I know a very particular brand that I’m going for. Another example would be like in clothing and Under Armor, I know that I’m looking for that brand so I can go to that rack and more quickly sift through the noise, so to speak, and find the product that I’m looking for.
AM (17:11):
And that’s applying that analogy to technology, right? So one of my biggest gripes is if I’m looking for a particular type of content, not, not that different than shopping for a particular product. Let’s say I need some business inspiration, right? I’ve hit a plateau in my role. I’m tired, I’m burned out, I wanna go find some inspiration. The first thing I do is I go to Instagram and I look at all the people that I’m following and let’s pretend AJ posts something really inspiring that I haven’t seen before. And I’m like, who is this AJ Vaden? And then I start getting to know you, right? Testing you out a little bit. And then I’m like, I love what she has to say. What else does she have? And then I come upon a post where you’re like, Hey, I’ve just launched an app. All of my thoughts, my podcast, my books, any products that I’m selling, the community that I’ve built, it’s all here in this place.
AM (18:17):
Essentially come to my digital store. So we find that customers that rely on simply people finding you through the app store, they don’t succeed. Yeah. Because the app store is not going to elevate your app. The app store, I’ll, I’ll save a lot of my commentary on the challenges of posting something in an app store. That’s not the way to market your app. The way to market your app is by building an audience first. Having that foundation first and then having a plan to convert them to app users, right? You build your audience first and then you protect your community. But you can’t, you can’t protect a community that you don’t have, right? Yeah.
AJV (19:02):
So it’s such a good reminder to anyone who’s listening. Cause I think we all get tempted of what’s the newest, bright and shiny thing? What is everyone else doing? And it, it’s a really core part of mine. And my husband Rory’s philosophies and a part of Brain Builders group, it’s like there is a time and a place for all the things. And, and, and this example, an app is no different than a business model, right? It’s like you gotta have people to buy your products and services if you’re ever gonna make any money, right? And so there are two things that you said I think are really interesting and really important. And you said there’s this magic number, right? Like if you have this many followers and so care to give us any ranges of like what that ma magic number might be be Yeah.
AM (19:47):
Yeah. So our most successful clients come to us with an engaged audience of 10, at least 10,000 followers, right? And that can be across channels, right? Because you could, you can have 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. You can have 10,000 followers on Instagram. They can be divided amongst those right? Now, here’s why. So there are basically three main revenue streams in an app. The first one is pretty simple, paid subscriptions, right? And the second is advertising where essentially you can set up advertising space within your app and you can work on on a content mediation platform. They’ll fill in that ad space for you. And then the third would be like sponsors or strategic partners or people that want to have their logo in front of your community. Those are your three podcasts. Yeah.
AJV (20:43):
Podcast, okay.
AM (20:44):
Exactly. Exactly. And so let’s do some rough math here. If you can convert half of your 10,000 audience members to paid subscribers, and let’s just say you’re charging $20 a month for access to your app, and that would be content. The content that you’re producing, that would be the community that you’ve built around your content. I I describe that as like a digital country club. So this is an exclusive group of people that are building relationships around your core truth, right? So or as brand builders talks about your through line, right? And these are engaged people that are helping you along your path and building community, again, around your core truth. And then you might be selling some products, right? So my most successful clients host their podcast on the app. They will put digital versions of their book on the app. If they’re selling any physical products, you can sell a physical book if you want. You can sell shirts or mugs or whatever it is that you’re selling to further your brand. And let’s say that you have 5,000 users charging $20 a month low cost for high, high value, when you launch on launch day, you’re making a hundred thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (22:18):
So this, so you said something really quickly cuz I’m curious how many people, and this could be just like a wildly guesstimated number here, but how many people do you think are charging for their ad versus just getting it for free?
AM (22:33):
So,
AJV (22:34):
Or should there be some versions?
AM (22:36):
It’s, it, you could do, you could do a freemium version where you’re exposed to ads now. Okay, so let’s talk about ad revenue because a lot of people kind of have the misconception that ad revenue is based simply on number of downloads and that’s not the case. So you need to have a number of active users. I guess that’s where a number of downloads make sense. But if some, somebody downloads your app and never opens it, you’re not making money off of that user, right? So it needs to be somebody that’s in your app and stays within your app for a longer period of time. And so that’s why you need a little bit more. So you need to convert about 80% of your engaged audience to deliver revenue substantial enough revenue on the freemium side, although I spend most of my time convincing my customers to have a paid application. And the reason why is one of my sales managers way long time ago said, Amanda, people value what they pay for mm-hmm
AJV (23:42):
AM (23:43):
And so I would say this back to our most successful apps. They come down to, there are two paths, but the the biggest one that we’re kind of talking about right now is you form a core truth. What are you here for? What breaks your heart? As brand builders taught me, what are you here to solve? That’s your core truth. You build content around your core truth and then you build a community that’s engaged around that content. That’s incredible. Regular high value content and connections that you’re providing your users. And I would say any country club charges for admission, any movie theater charges for admission, the people that you want in your digital community must be paying because they value what they pay for. And that’s what I’ve seen with our most successful clients in this type of a scenario where you have your core truth, your content, and your community.
AJV (24:45):
Okay, so I have like 14 questions right now,
AM (26:14):
No. So I would say this, it, you’re, this is not a cop out. I, I apologize. It depends, right? So looking at like category types, so like fitness for example, most of the fitness apps that we’re seeing out on the marketplace are charging anywhere between 20 to $40 a month, right? But hear me out on this on the fitness side, like you’re, you’re basically getting a digital personal trainer for $40 a month and tell me where you can go in any gym across the country and get that kind of dedicated high level personalized attention. You, you can’t, right? So I think that’s kind of the, the value there. Now let’s, let’s apply, let’s say like brand builders group and what you and Rory have to share, right? You guys are high level business strategists. You guys are coaches, you guys come in and you work directly with an entrepreneur to help them build up your business.
AM (27:20):
Okay? Where else are you gonna find that in the marketplace? Person to person? And if you’re, if you’re able, I would say charge 50 to $75 a month because you’re getting people that are engaged and really wanna, wanna level up their business. And that’s just for the app aj. That’s not for like access to events, that’s not access to products, that’s not access to one-on-one coaching, right? All it is is an entrance fee into the sanctuary that you’re building for your community, right? And so I would say most of our clients start out charging $20 a month just because it’s an even easy number for people to absorb. You’re not gonna get pushback. And then a lot of our clients will engage in ab testing on pricing when we work with our clients, we’ll kind of do a competitive review of what’s in the marketplace and what you can charge. The problem is, a lot of our clients right now that are thought leaders in this space that are kind of building what we are calling like the digital country clubs, they’re at the forefront. And so when you’re at the forefront, you have to guess and when you’re guessing, you have to compare, okay, how much am I charging versus the value I’m providing? And if that gap is big enough, you’ll start seeing volume that comes in much more quickly than, than if you’re kind of just throwing something at the wall and seeing what sticks.
AJV (28:49):
I love that. So, and, and I agree, I do think there is so much value in having gated content and building this gated community. And so that leads me to my next question. And you know, both, for me and everyone listening, I figured if I have these questions, so do you
AM (29:41):
Yeah, great question. So let, let’s talk about the podcast piece first. So I would say if you have a podcast, still put it out on iTunes, still put it out on Spotify because what you’re doing is you’re fishing, right? Like you’re putting lines in the water to attract more people from the town square into your protected community, right? That’s the purpose of having an Instagram feed, of having a podcast, of having a blog, having an email newsletter, all of these things, the purpose of those activities or putting lines in the water into the town square fishing for people to join your protected community. So a lot of times my frustration is I actually follow a, a bvg client on Apple Podcasts and I get super frustrated because Apple is now changing how they set up their podcasts without your per or oversight. They’ll put advertisements into your podcast. Yeah. And you’ll start seeing that with podcasts and iBooks even. They’re inserting ads. And so you’re starting to see the evolution of Apple from a product company to a media company, right?
AJV (30:58):
I have noticed that too. And many people who we know who have very, very, very big podcasts they are quickly going, what? Like, exactly. You can’t have ads on my show without even asking me. But yet they can,
AM (31:15):
They can because it’s rented space, right? So I would say in the podcast example, you put the, that podcast out on iTunes, Spotify, whatever for Phish purposes, you bring that also into your app as, and you can put it in front of the paywall or behind the paywall. That that’s, that’s kind of your prerogative. But what the thing is is now I know if I wanna hear from aj, I’m gonna go to AJ’s app mm-hmm.
AJV (32:40):
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think, again, back to the quickly changing landscape that we’re all living in, where now Apple is deciding, well, we’re gonna decide what ads we put on your podcasts and even YouTube. It’s like, I could put an ad on your podcast today to advertise my podcast if I wanted to, right? And I think there’s just a lot of that of going, man, it’s like I’m trying to create an experience for my audience and Exactly. Advertisers and big media companies are kind of getting in the way of that. So then, so then the question is about how much content do you reserve for the app versus what you’re just putting out there on social media?
AM (33:21):
Yep. So the biggest way I encourage our clients to delineate is the content you put out on social media or in front of the paywall. Those should be an invitation, right? So it’s free because it’s an invitation. The content that goes behind the paywall is the instruction on execution, right? So the invitation might be a sample, might be the first bite or two, but then the real getting down to the nuts and bolts of executing to solve the problem that you’re working against that sits behind the paywall. And so what happens is, if you have a, and actually the beautiful thing is you don’t really need to have a ton of content that you’re consistently refreshing that’s behind the paywall. Because what happens is people will go through that content that’s behind the paywall and through that build connections with the community that have already been around and been doing the execution.
AM (34:25):
And so people will come for the content and stay for the community, right? So what it does is it takes a little bit of weight off of the content creators. The hardest stuff is teaching on execution, right? That takes a lot of thought planning production time, production cost what you can do, once you’ve established that behind the paywall, then it alleviates the pressure. So you can focus more on generating the fresh content that is acting as the invitation, right? Almost like the advertisements to the town square. And the reason why you need to have fresh content constantly is because you as content creators are consistently diluted mm-hmm.
AJV (35:27):
So then this leads me to my next question cause I agree with all of that. Which is what’s the likelihood of, I don’t know, know even like, even in the app store? So I don’t know if this is true, but I was told this here recently and it stuck with me that Apple takes about 30% of revenue for every app sold. That’s about right.
AM (35:51):
AJV (36:36):
Call it, okay, the Apple tax, that’s good, but it’s like, basically if you’re under a million in annual revenue, they’re taking 10% of gross revenue. So just build that into the budget. And so I guess my question is, which I did not realize that, so I think that was really important and I came up in a conversation here lately and then my, so my question is like, what, what is the likelihood that Apple, just like all of these other platforms, as Apple is changing this with the podcast, start doing this own thing in the app store where they’re going, well now I’m gonna decide how things are done, because it too is a little bit of rented real estate in terms of, you know, the marketplace, the grocery store of sorts, so
AM (37:15):
Exactly costs
AJV (37:16):
Around that.
AM (37:16):
Yeah, so we we’re watching a lot of what’s happening with Apple and Google, especially as it relates to the app marketplaces. I, I don’t see Apple increasing commission, nor do I see them trying to make any large changes or dominate app owners or developers for a couple of reasons. First of all, they got in deep trouble with the government on how they were managing a lot of these commissions and what they were doing. And we saw Apple make a pretty abrupt change in their policies from there. The other thing is for as challenging as Apple can be, they really do love their developer community. And you have to remember, they are motivated to keep developers coming back and app owners coming back because that’s a big part of their revenue. And so this is why you’ll see like app, it was a lot, or Apple was a lot of their major updates.
AM (38:20):
They’re slowing down the impact that it has to developers because they wanna keep their developers happy. They have to, it’s a big part of their business. The one risk I would say is it’s really important for app owners to be aware of Apple’s guidelines because they do change. So one example, I’m sure any user who has an app remembers when you’d have to go through an app update and you’d have to click Ask App not to track that was a guideline change from Apple that every app owner was required to add that button back to the user. And really that’s in response to user demand on privacy and shifting laws. So building an app is no different than owning a storefront, right? Laws change, customer preferences change taxes change, revenues change. And I think that’s all the more reason to want to have your own app to give you the control to pivot in a way that works best for you.
AJV (39:22):
That’s good. All right. Well I have, we just have like five more minutes and I’ve got like two questions here I think that are really important. So this whole kind of concept, or you’ve got 10,000 plus, you know, online followers and that’s growing, then this is kind of like, okay, now let’s talk about like, should you have one maybe. So, and then give us just some high level behind the scenes, what’s that process look like? How much does it cost emotionally prepare everyone listening of real numbers, real timelines? What does it look like to have an app?
AM (39:53):
Oh my gosh, this is the hardest part of the process. Shopping for an app makes TJ Max look like a day at this spa. It’s so I, you know, I actually really empathize and I have a high level of respect for all of our clients because building custom software is not an easy thing to find the right person. It’s, it’s really hard actually. And the reason why is because you have developers from all over the world, right? And they have different salary needs. So a developer in Pakistan is going to charge a much different hourly rate than a developer in the Bay Area in California, even if they have the same level of experience and expertise. And so I think that element and also the creative element. So how an engineer would approach a, an app idea or a technical problem, it’s up to whatever’s in the mind of the engineer.
AM (40:53):
And so one engineer may think that a particular app would take 10,000 hours to build, whereas another developer would think it’s only 2000 hours. And so I think it’s those elements of very wildly varying rates and wildly varying ideas on how to tackle a problem. And that’s where, for a single project you could get a quote from anywhere from $10,000 to as high as a million. And in fact, APPT did recently we did a competitive study a a local against our local competitors and nationwide. And it blew me away. We had detailed features like, this is what we want. And we were getting quote ranges that same whip from $10,000 to a million dollars and app it. We tend to kind of come in like mid-level because we’re a hybrid. So it’s, it’s crazy. It’s really hard. And so, oh gosh, I could spend, you
AJV (42:00):
Make a decision based on, I mean, cuz I imagine most people make a decision based on, well, if I got 10,000, a million, 10,000 sounds a lot better. So, but then it’s like, what at what cost are you paying that, you know, fee? So it was like, how do you even make a decision in those types of environments? Yeah.
AM (42:19):
So I, you know what aj I might have to give you a blog on how to vet vendors. Like we had a list of questions that you should ask every single vendor to make sure that they’re a fit for your project because price is a, like, it’s, it varies so wildly that it’s not, it can’t be a deciding factor, right? Because even if you go purely offshore with a very low cost developer, so that $10,000 example, what you’re missing is cultural context. Mm-Hmm.
AM (43:17):
And that in and of itself, I mean, I would say about 40% of our business comes from entrepreneurs who tried to take the cheap route and have ended up spending what they would’ve spent anyways. They would’ve saved the money had they just gone with a reputable shop in the first place. So I would say this, check the reviews a really, really good place to go is Clutch. It’s a, it’s a third party website. They ranker technical service providers like app and you can start to see the rankings If you want somebody local, you can see who’s the best in your local area. But honestly I think it comes down to relationship. Like you have to work with somebody that you know and you trust or that somebody that you know, has worked with and trusted and has done a good job for them.
AJV (44:12):
Yeah, I think there’s three things that kind of to like, to wrap up our conversation cause I could ask another 36 question if we had the time. But but to everyone listening, Amanda and her team at Abbot have put together something really cool for all of our listeners. And if you’re wondering, am I ready for an app they actually have put together a cool quiz that you can take that will tell you are you ready for an app? And so if you go to app ventures.com/b bg app quiz, we will also put that in the show notes. But it’s app a p ventures.com/bbg app quiz. You can go and take this quiz to determine if you’re ready for an app. And if you are, then to kinda recap what Amanda said is that then go to Clutch, which is a great place to review different vendors.
AJV (45:11):
App is reviewed on there to do a comparative analysis of, you know, try to compare apples to apples here. Doesn’t really help if you’re comparing apples and bananas. But let’s look at apples to apples. And then if you’ll send me the blog link of great questions to add or to ask, we’ll add that to the show notes so that everyone listening, you’ve got three amazing resources to leave this interview with. Go take this quiz. Then you can go to clutch start vetting vendors, and then we’ll include this blog link where you can go and say, these are the best questions that I can ask to figure out who’s the best person to proceed down this path. But I think generally speaking, we’re all headed towards this privately owned community realm at some point. And at some point just means when you are ready, when it makes sense for you without comparing yourself to anyone else’s out there, it’s not doing it for the sake of doing it, it’s doing it for the sake of this is what my com, my community and my business requires of me at this time. Now last but not least, if people wanna connect with you personally, Amanda, where should they go?
AM (46:19):
You know, if you anybody has any questions like, Hey, I can you review this bid? Am I crazy or can you help me build out a feature summary? Have them email me, just [email protected]. This is my passion to help people start off on their right foot with technology. So email me, I will answer any question you have or you can find me on LinkedIn. Amanda, more uchi and let’s keep in touch and I’m here to help. I’m here to answer any questions, mostly because I want good tech built for good people. And it should be, it should be way easier than it is. But it’s a challenge. So,
AJV (47:05):
Well that’s outrageously generous. So Race for Impact
Ep 363: 15 Legal Strategies for Entrepreneurs to Reduce Taxes | Henry Yoshida Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Well, most of the strategies that we teach at Brand Builders Group are strategies to help you grow your income, right? Obviously most of the time on this show we’re interviewing guests. Most of the teaching that we do is in our paid membership. Of course, that’s our core businesses, helping mission driven messengers to build and monetize their brand and become more well known and make a bigger impact in the world. So most of what we talk about is how to grow your income. What’s interesting though is the interview that I just did with Henry Yoshida, which if you haven’t listened to it, go listen to it. The first part of the interview is all about understanding a vehicle called a self-directed i r a, which is, it’s not a new vehicle, but it’s one that you most people haven’t heard of that’s becoming more popular, especially because of like a tools being created like the one that Henry has created.
RV (00:52):
Which is very, very affordable way to sort of transfer your i r a into more self-directed or non-trad, non-traditional assets. And anyways, that’s what the whole interview is about. But towards the end of the interview we started talking about just general tax strategy. And you know, there were a few things that came up that inspired me to go, you know what? I’m gonna, I’m gonna put together a killer episode here for you all and this on tax strategy, because this is not something that you normally hear. And I would consider, like when most people think of Brand Builders group, right? They think of like, oh, you guys help people, you know, crush book launches, right? Like, we’ve had at the time of this recording, 11 clients that we’ve helped hit the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
RV (01:43):
We’ve had four clients that we’ve helped that we’ve, that we’ve worked with where their TED Talk has gone viral over a million views. We’ve had five clients grow their business more than seven figures in a year. Like it’s, it’s, we we’re known for like those kinds of things. But when you are with us for a while, like a lot of our clients stay with us for many years. Like as your business starts to grow, our training gets more and more advanced. And one of the things that we talk about, but rarely, it’s more like in smaller rooms like our private Highland Masterminds and like our most experienced people is tax strategy. And, and we talk about things like managing your financial statements and, and you know, forecasting and, and just, you know, legal stuff that you don’t hear a lot. So anyways, what I wanted to go ahead and put out there into the world and just make this available for free is 15 legal strategies to help you reduce your taxes if you’re an entrepreneur. Now obviously I’m, I’m not a cpa, I’m not a C F P. I did, I did go to school by undergrad. I studied much about accounting and I do have an mba. But you should always, always, always, you know, consult with your local tax advisor.
RV (02:58):
You know, know. So I don’t consider this professional like legal advice officially, but I’m telling you, you wanna check into these things. And I’m not gonna explain ’em all in detail cuz we don’t have time. But I’m gonna rattle these off of 15 legitimate legal ethical tax strategies that you can, you can explore if you’re an entrepreneur. And this is important. And, and I would actually say part of why I’m putting this together, and no offense to CPAs, there’s some great CPAs out there, but in our experience, we have worked with a number of CPAs who actually aren’t very well equipped to offer tax strategy advice. Most of them just do tax returns. They’re not very creative, they don’t ask very many questions. And when I mean creative, I don’t mean creative, like they’re bending the rules. I’m saying they don’t even know what questions to ask in order to take advantage of many of the kinds of things that I’m gonna share with you here.
RV (04:00):
Right? And so the, the place to learn tax strategy is not graduate school. It’s it’s not, you know, professional training. Where you really learn it is from other entrepreneurs. And, and honestly, they have to be very successful entrepreneurs. Otherwise, this conversation doesn’t come up very often and very, very few people know much about it. And so, anyways, that’s why I thought let’s go ahead and just put this out into the world. This’ll be, you know, hopefully you’ll see an example of some of what our high level business training looks like. Yes, we teach, you know, all the other things. Copywriting and funnels and podcasting in the business of speaking and book launches and how to train your sales team and sell high dollar offers and, you know, build your content and write your book and your positioning and messaging. But our phase four curriculum gets pretty ninja and it gets pretty advanced on, on just general being an entrepreneur.
RV (04:54):
So here’s just like one example of a micro lesson. I’m gonna put this out here into the world for free. You know, take it with a grain of salt, but this is, this is stuff that we’ve learned by experience. So here we go. I’m gonna rattle through these again, I’m not gonna spend a ton of time on each one, but these are, I’m gonna say these are hints for you to go investigate and look because they’re very legitimate. So, number one is what came up in the interview with Henry and that’s what kind of inspired me to put this together for you is a defined benefit plan or a pension plan. So you can listen more to the interview cuz we kind of talked a little bit in, in detail in the interview. But the bottom line with this is that as a, as a business owner, you can create a, a mechanism by which you provide a, a retirement benefit for your employees, okay?
RV (05:46):
Typically, like you think of 401k, right? And but when you are an employee of the company, there are certain plans that allow, allow you as the owner to maximize or create, create large contributions to your retirement account. So it doesn’t pad your money doesn’t pad your pocket with money in the short term. In fact, it, it takes money out of your pocket because you’re putting it into retirement instead of putting it either into your checking account or or into the government’s pocket. But what it does is it allows you to have to, to, to contribute much more than you would normally be allowed to include with something like the r you know, there’s Roth IRAs and they have income limits, and then there’s traditional IRAs and they have total contribution limits, and then there’s four oh [inaudible] limits.
RV (06:40):
So, you know, typically, you know, 25,000, 20 to $30,000 ish somewhere in there is about what you can do. But if you’re an entrepreneur and you have a successful business and you start to make real money and you go, okay, what are other things I can do? I can provide this awesome benefit to my employees and it gives me a vehicle to sock away more money for retirement later. So, you know, pension plans, defined benefit plan, go, you know, investigate that and listen to the interview with Henry, you can check that out. Second thing if you’re making a profit the, the, you know, the entity, the legal structure of your, of your business entity dramatically affects your, your tax liability and your tax implications. So there’s, there’s more that should be considered into this conversation. But in general, okay, a a great place to look if you are, you’ve been a, an entrepreneur and you’ve got a fairly successful business and you’re making profit, is to look at the structure in L L C filing as an S corp, right?
RV (07:43):
So a lot of times a business starts as like a sole proprietor, then at some point you maybe become an L L C. But look into L L C filing as an S corp for lots of of entrepreneurs that are sort of in this maturing phase, starting to make money. There is a great opportunity for tax advantages. Now there’s some, there’s some other things that get triggered. And, and what I’m sharing with you, I’m not sharing with you unethical or illegal strategies. These are legal ones. Part of what makes them legal is that they have counterbalancing forces, right? So in order to take advantage of some of these, there’s certain other things you can take advantage of. But I’m sharing with you sort of like my, some of my greatest hits here. There’s, there’s a few that are not on this list that are more advanced really for like scaling companies.
RV (08:31):
Really, really like, as as you start thinking about selling your company that would come up. And there’s one on here. The last one, by the way, I’m gonna show you how to become filthy rich and never ever pay taxes in a completely legal way. That’s gonna be number 15 on this list. So, so keep staying tuned for that. All right, so number three specifically, this is something for training companies. So if, if you are a training company which means you train people, you, you train, you have like you know, a lot of times it’s, it’s some type of information marketing type business where you do professional training. There is something called a 1 99 a exemption. Okay? Now this is set to sunset currently, I think in 2025. But if you just go to irs.gov and just look up 1 99 A, this is qualified business income deduction and look for the FAQs.
RV (09:30):
This creates a major tax advantages that, you know, could, can be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. If you have a company that you know, is like, let’s say multi seven figures, that is a true, legitimate training company. And there’s certain things you have to do to qualify as a legitimate training company. Brand builders group, we’re a training company. We have curriculum and, and we have workbooks, and we have courses in systematic training and processes that we put people through. So look at, look up the 1 99. A number four is the Augusta rule. So the Augusta Rule, this is something that says you can rent your home 14 days a year. I, I, I believe, again, don’t quote me on all this, this isn’t what I do full-time, but I, I, you know, I’m, the things I’m saying shouldn’t be grossly out of out inaccuracies.
RV (10:21):
They, they should be pretty accurate. Off the top of my head, I think the Augusta rule says you can rent your home 14 days a year tax free. It comes from the masters tournament and people who live in Augusta who rent their home out during the masters and they make a bunch of money. So what the Augusta rule allows you to do is to rent your own home to your business. So if your business has meetings and you have to rent boardrooms or meeting space and that’s a legitimate business operation and function that you have whatever the market rate is that you would pay to rent somewhere else, can be amount that you can you know, the equivalent market rate of, of renting a similar property or space somewhere else you can rent to yourself and use your home for those meetings.
RV (11:08):
And, and 14 days worth of that can be tax free. So this is this is one of the things you sometimes hear on the internet and you’re like, is that real? Actually is real? A few of these are gonna be like that where you’re like, man, I’ve, I’ve heard, you know, I’ve seen Instagram and TikTok videos like have gone viral. A lot of times they’re over sensationalizing things and they’re not, you know, telling you about like the restrictions behind them, but some of them are, you know, they’re actually legit and you just have to sort of investigate. The Augusta rule is one of those. Number five is a D A F, which is a donor advised fund. This is a charitable, this has to do with charitable givings. And basically, you know, when you make charitable contributions, the government allows you to, to deduct that from your taxable income.
RV (11:55):
Well, the thing is, is you might, let’s say you have a bunch of money come in at, at one year or something, you have a big launch or something, g great happens. You just have a good year and you’re sitting on a pile of money and you’re not sure who you wanna donate that money to. And, and you don’t wanna pay taxes on it. So you go, I’m gonna start a d a f a donor advised fund, which allows me to put my money aside in ear market for charitable givings, and I can take the tax deduction now so that I don’t get taxed this year, but then I have to give that money later. So again, it’s not like it’s some magic way of, of keeping money in your pocket, it’s just saying, rather than paying money to the government, I’m gonna pay money to causes that I care about and, and I’m gonna give, and so I’m reducing my tax liability.
RV (12:44):
And the government does that on purpose. It’s not like you’re sneaking one past them, right? What they’re doing is they’re incentivizing business owners and people of wealth to invest into and give money to things that make the world a better place. You know? And they have to be, you know, actual nonprofit organizations and they, they have to uphold certain standards to, to classify what, whatever it is, a 4 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible] and i, I think is what it is. Yeah, I think, I think that’s it. A 4 0 3 [inaudible] maybe, maybe there’s both of ’em. But anyways, they have to be a nonprofit organization. But the point is, you can take the deduction immediately now and not have to give the money until later. Also, the money inside of your fund can grow and grow and grow and earn interest while you’re figuring out who you want to distribute that money to.
RV (13:33):
So that’s a, that’s a cool one. Number six is a keep bonus, and that’s Q E A A P. It is a rule that allows you to make up to $1,600, I believe, per employee as a gift and a deduction for any gift. So basically, instead of paying them $1,600 in income, of which you have to pay payroll taxes on and they have to pay in income taxes on, you can actually get money to your employees. So it’s a way of getting them more money where neither of you, like you get the tax deduction and they don’t pay the income tax on it. And you can do that up to $1,600 per a year per employee using something called the keep bonus. So that’s a really cool way. Again, it doesn’t put more money in your pocket, but it is, it prevents you from paying taxes.
RV (14:29):
You, if you don’t do that, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get taxed on all that money, and the government’s gonna take a percentage of that. So it’s basically like instead of paying it to the government, you could pay it to your employees. And again, it’s the reason it’s not illegal. It’s not like the government is stupid or that they don’t know this. They’re, they’re doing it as going, Hey, there’s a vehicles and ways to increase the amount of money that you give to people. And this is why, by the way, this is why entrepreneurs get tax breaks, is because the government knows you’re stimulating the comp, the, the economy you are helping you, your, you’re helping stabilize the country. And b by the way, I should have said this earlier, these are all US based tax strategies. So I know we have a lot of you that are listeners that listen internationally.
RV (15:15):
This is completely US based. I apologize, but I’m not, I’m not well versed in international tax law, but what I would say is my experience has been many other countries have similar types of things, similar types of vehicles. They’re often called something differently. So still worth paying attention to this and then kind of investigating your local tax code or asking a C P A or asking a successful entrepreneur or investor about some of these things. But anyways, in the us you know, the, the government gives tax breaks to entrepreneurs cuz we’re creating jobs, which means we’re giving income to people, which means there’s a less dependency on the government for their, for their income and for their health and wellbeing and their family, and also for their retirement, right? And, and that takes pressure off of the government. And so that’s, that’s kind of why this works.
RV (16:03):
It’s not like we’re pulling a fast one over them, but it, it’s also, if no one tells you this, you’re not gonna know any of this stuff. And I went to graduate school, right? Like I went to graduate school and I don’t remember learning any of this.
RV (16:51):
So you don’t have to pay taxes, payroll taxes on that money, but you’re, you’re transferring money from the business to your employees without having a, and it’s lowering your tax burden. It’s lowering your, your tax impact. So that’s number seven. Number eight, okay? This is another classic internet viral video One is something called the section 1 79 deduction. This is sometimes referred to as the Hummer rule. And you go, people are going and buying hummers and taking a hundred percent of that as a deduction. Is that really real? And the answer is yes, it was for a while, and it kind of is still. So section 1 79 refers to that section of the, the tax code, which says that vehicles that weigh over 6,000 pounds are they were, they were a hundred percent deductible. I think that’s trailing off.
RV (17:50):
I think it trails down a little bit year over year. But this, this is something that we actually took advantage of because when you have these, it’s the catches, it has to be a, it, the vehicle has to have a gross vehicle weight rating, G V W R, gross vehicle weight rating of more than 6,000 pounds. And if that is the case and you buy a vehicle that weighs over 6,000 pounds, that’s considered to be like a commercial vehicle for your business, you could take a hundred percent of that amount as a deduction in the year that you made that purchase. Now this was like a year ago, I think this is already factoring out, but and, and, and, and may, it’s gonna disappear at some point unless the tax law changes. But anyways, investigate the details of a section 1 79 deduction.
RV (18:42):
Number nine is vacations, okay? Business trip slash vacations. It is true, you know, to my knowledge that you can take deductions for vacations if more than 50% of the time is for work, right? So you have to be doing work related activities more than 50% of the time. So there are details around this that matter and that, that, that are important. There’s details around all of these things, like I should have mentioned. Going back to the Augusta rule, which was number four on this list, one of the things you have to do if I remember, is you have to take meeting notes and you have to produce meeting notes that say I had, I actually had this meeting in my house on this date. This is what we talked about. And this is a meeting that we would’ve had somewhere else at a hotel.
RV (19:32):
And I would’ve, I would’ve or could have had to have paid that money to a hotel. And rather than doing that, I’m, I’m taking it as you know, a tax deduction for on my taxes, but I actually had a real meeting. You have to actually have a real meeting and have, have notes. Now you know exactly how long the meeting is and what exactly do you cover. Those things are, you know, a little more gray area and a little bit depends on your appetite for, you know, how much you follow the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, et cetera, et cetera. But on business trip vacations, a good example of it is, Hey, I’m gonna go to Miami and I’m going to, you know, set up work meetings on Friday and on Monday, and then I’ll just stay there Saturday and Sunday.
RV (20:14):
All now of a sudden that becomes a business trip that I can write off you know, in full or large portions of, or certain components of, so again, there are, that is a legal, legal deduction. Number 10, this one is interesting. I almost didn’t put this one on the list cuz we’ve, we don’t, we’ve never done this, but I’m hearing of a lot of people doing this. So I would approach this one with extra caution, but if you have a company and you own a video production company, okay, so you have to start a business. You, you know, which means there has to be some legal documents, right? And you create an actual business that is a video production company that does video work. Then anything that you buy that shows up in your videos, it can be a deduction because it’s considered a part of the set design.
RV (21:10):
I’m sure it’s not anything you buy, it’s probably not cars and houses and, and helicopters and things although maybe, but you know, just like certain other things, like anything that would appear in one of your sets, which again, there’s probably limitations to this, but a lot of times it’s much more flexible than you realize if you actually go investigate the details. And this is where I talk about, you know, CPAs aren’t super creative, they don’t think of this kind of thing. And you go, well, if you shoot videos as a part of what you do and you go, can I start a little side business that does this legitimately? Like it’s gotta be a business. You gotta have some other clients beyond just you. But how many clients do you have to have for it to be considered legitimate? You know, is is kind of a flexible conversation.
RV (21:53):
So and then you go, man, I’m gonna, I’m gonna buy a prop you know, and I’m gonna buy a $200 set of bows headphones, because I’m gonna use that as a prop in a video and it’s part of my set design, right? So yeah, there’s an ethical gray area that comes into this, but there’s a, there’s a legal component that is, is perfectly legal if you are abiding by certain things. So pay attention to that. Alright, number 11, another internet one. This one is often becomes, you know, one of these viral videos is to hire your children. And this is true, this is a, is a, is a perfectly legal strategy. As long as your kids have an actual job, I think they have to have a job description and they have to have certain, certain form formalities and certain things that establish them as an employee of the company.
RV (22:46):
So in this case, you can pay your kids up to, at the time of this recording, I think it’s $12,500 a year, and the kids don’t have to pay taxes. Why? Because nobody has to pay taxes on the first $12,500 per year. So how does this save you money on taxes? Well, it’s basically a way that you can get money to your children with pre-tax dollars instead of after tax dollars, right? If, if I were gonna, you know, buy something for my kids, I’d have to buy that with after tax dollars. Like I draw income, I pay taxes, and then I have money to pay, put give to my kids. If my kids are an employee of the company now I can pay them $12,500 every year. They don’t have to pay taxes. And now they have actual money that is theirs that they have earned.
RV (23:38):
Now that money has to, will go to them. It cannot be money that you use otherwise that is like, you know, illegal. But if it is money that is going to them that they’re using for their things, paying for schooling, paying for sports, paying for whatever I don’t even think there’s restrictions on like toys and things. Like I think they can spend the money double check that, but, but it’s their money. It can’t be your money. You can’t pretend to pay that money and then take that money and go buy yourself a car with it. But it can be money that they have and they can, they can then start to invest that money and use that money to pay. I think they can even pay for like private school and things that are of personal direct benefit to them. And you go, the reason it’s an advantage is you’d be paying that money anyways, right?
RV (24:22):
Like if you didn’t pay it to him, you’d be paying that out of your pocket and you’d be paying that money with after tax dollars. So look into the specifics again of exactly you know, you can’t just say they’re an employee, you have to give them certain duties and things, but it’s, that’s reasonable, right? And you’re the business owner. So you’re, you are within your legal rights to determine what you pay people for and what you hire them to do and how much you pay people, right? The, as, as long as it’s above minimum wage, there’s no, there’s no government mandate on what tasks you choose to pay certain money for. And so, you know, there’s a limit here, there’s a threshold, but again, this is perfectly legal. Number 12, anything with your logo on it is considered a uniform or advertising expense, including clothing, right?
RV (25:12):
So brand builders group, you know, I, I’m for some of you are listening to this, you can’t see me, but I’m wearing my brand, a brand builders group sweatsuit that we got. It’s got our logo on it, this is a hundred percent write off, right? So I’ve got this little tiny logo on here, and now all of a sudden this piece of clothing is a hundred percent write off as advertising expense and I would say is very legitimate, right? Those of you that are watching this video, you see the logo right inside the video. So it’s like very, very legit now. So considering put your logo on things now there’s probably some limits here. Like putting a logo on your car doesn’t necessarily mean you can just write off the whole car, but there are some things like that where people wrap their cars and they do certain things.
RV (25:57):
You should look at that. Number 13, number 13 is an H s a A health savings account, okay? A health savings account. Think of it like an I r A, it’s just an account where you can put money in. You know, kind of like how we were talking with Henry about the, this, our whole conversation in this last interview was about SD IRAs, self-directed IRAs. It’s just a, it’s just a special type of account that has special tax treatment in the eyes of the government. And HSA is an account. When you put money into your hsa, that money you don’t get taxed on the money you put in there. Now, here’s the catch. All of that money has to be used for health expenses, right? So that’s why the government, again, you’re not pulling a fast one over the government, it’s legal.
RV (26:46):
They, they ins they create this tax incentive and the whole tax system, right, is not about penalizing people, it’s about incentivizing people to use their money in certain ways, in ways that benefit the economy, the overall health and stability of a country and, and, and you know, a government, et cetera. Well, this, if people have money saved for their own health expenses, that reduces the dependency again on the government. It keeps you healthy, et cetera, et cetera. There’s advantages to the government and to the overall, you know, country of keeping people healthy. So when you put money into your health savings account, now you have money that is earmarked. You can only use that money for health expenses except once you are over a certain age. So if you put money into an HSA year after year after year, and it’s growing, right? It’s an, it’s, it’s, you can have that invested that is growing.
RV (27:43):
You at a certain age, which is probably 59 and a half or 62 and a half or 65 or whatever the number is. Now, if you haven’t used that money for health expenses at that point, I believe you can then take it. And you can use that money. You, you can, you can use that money as retirement if not, even if you can’t do that or even if the legislation changes around that. The advantage is you have money growing and growing and growing. So even if you’re gonna use it for your, you know, your to, to be in a retirement home one day and and assisted living home, the advantage is you’ve had money growing and earning interest and, and, you know, you’re, you’re saving on taxes throughout your lifetime. It’s growing. You’re not paying taxes on that. And then when the time comes that you need it for large health expenses, the money is there, right?
RV (28:34):
So that’s a huge advantage. And I actually think that once you reach a certain age, I think you can access some of that money as retirement money. In, now again, in the interim, it doesn’t put more money in your pocket. It, it’s, it’s all of this is allowing you to invest. Notice the theme here. The government is incentivizing you. The government is using tax law to incentivize you to use your money in certain ways, providing jobs, taking care of your health, investing in things, and providing for your own retirement and for the retirement of your employees. That’s why these things are all legal. It’s, it’s, it’s because they want you to use it in a certain way. So what a lot of successful entrepreneurs do is they go, ah, let me put some money. You know, if you max out your I r a and you max out your 401k, and you start to make real money every year in profits, every year you go, well, let me put all my money, let me, let me max up my hsa my health savings account, which is I think at the time of this recording, around $3,600 a year, you can put $3,600 a year in there and now that account grows.
RV (29:38):
And then if you have the money or hopefully then you just, you pay your health expenses with after tax dollars so that you can have this big thing growing as a nest egg that gets bigger and bigger and bigger over the, over over time. So that’s a great, a great legal strategy. Now, these last two are huge strategies and they, they are gonna, they will sound crazy, but these are ways that you can actually legally avoid paying taxes at all. Like and you know, or certain parts of taxes. Okay? So here’s what number 14 is, and you may have heard of this. The, the more successful you become as an entrepreneur, the more you’ll start hanging around people who are having these kinds of conversations. And you will start to hear about Puerto Rico Act 22, Puerto Rico Act 22.
RV (30:32):
We have several friends now at this point who have moved to Puerto Rico. John Lee Dumas was our first friend that did this. And now I can, off the top of my head, think of like five other friends who all live in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Act 22 allows you to play a, a flat tax rate of 4% again, at the time of this recording. But you have to live, you have to be a primary resident of Puerto Rico. So if you like Puerto Rico and you don’t mind living in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is a US controlled territory, right? So you’re under the protection and the, and the rule of the United States. But you, you, there, there are some caveats here. So you have to live in Puerto Rico, you know, one day more than half a year. So whatever that is, 162 or 163 days a year, whatever the number is.
RV (31:23):
You have to live there. You also have to do certain things to establish Nexus. Like your banking account has to be there, your place of worship your your, your primary mailing address, your your driver’s license, things like that have to be legit. You have to become a legit Puerto Rican resident. But when you do that, you then do not have to pay federal income tax of the us. You only pay Puerto Rico taxes, which are 4%. Now one of the other things to be aware of is that you give up your right to vote, as I understand it, right? So you can no longer vote in elections, but and you gotta move your family to Puerto Rico. So there’s some trade-offs, right? But you’re also going, you might be going from a 40% tax bracket or 50% tax bracket if you live in California.
RV (32:09):
And if you can set up your business and operate legitimately in Puerto Rico, you’re gonna go to 4%. So you could like almost double your income just by moving. And you have to stay there a certain number of years. I think it’s like three years or something. And if you, if you come back before then you have, you know, there’s, you have to like do back taxes or whatever. But so anyways, look at this. It’s a real thing. Puerto Rico Act 22 and then number 15, this is the grand finale, the Grand PBA of how you can literally become a millionaire, a multimillionaire, a billionaire even, and never pay any taxes at all. How does this work? How could you possibly, how is this real? Yes, this is real. Okay? This is how wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people think. How do we know we happen to know a lot of wealthy people?
RV (33:06):
Because a lot of, I mean, we’ve had four clients at Brand Builders Group who are billionaires in like the last 18 months, billionaires with a B, right? So we’re starting to see and hang out with some like really wealthy people. So what is the best way to create wealth and never pay taxes? How is this possible that you can have billions of dollars and never pay taxes? So here’s, here’s how you do it. It’s not easy, but it is real. Is you start a company as an entrepreneur, you grow that business, and then you take that company public. Once you take that pump, that company public, now you have stock that is actually worth real money. It has a, a real market rate. And what a lot of these billionaire founders do, and I’m talking big companies, right? Big time people like celebrity entrepreneurs that you hear about.
RV (33:59):
So what they do is they take their company public, they have millions and millions and hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars in stock. And then what they do is they take a loan against that stock from a bank and you never pay taxes, right? So, so, so they’re using their stock as collateral to take a loan from a bank. So that’s how they turn it into money. If they were to sell the stock, that would be a liquidity event. So they would then realize that as income and they would have to pay taxes on it. But there are, there’s plenty of banks who will look at a public, publicly, publicly held stock as a, as a strong collateral against alone. And so they’ll take a loan from the bank, they hold up the stock as collateral, they technically own the stock. They never have to sell the stock.
RV (34:48):
And what’s happening is the bank is giving them a loan against it. And now they’re just paying, they’re paying interest, they’re paying interest on that loan to the bank. But it is, it pales in comparison to what you would pay in taxes to the government. I found this, bam. That is how you can 100% legitimately avoid paying taxes and become filthy, filthy rich if you wanna do it. So there you have it, no gimmicks nothing illegal. Definitely some things that have some stipulations and some criteria that you want to pay, pay attention to. But these are the kind of things that happen if you hang around brand builders group, right? These are the kind of people we hang out with. These are the kind of conversations we’re having in addition to how do we change the world and how do we help you change the world?
RV (35:35):
And how do you add your service to more people and, and make an impact and make the world a better place? And a big part of how you make the world a better place is how you use your money to do that. So we have no problems making money, right? We love money. Money’s just not the most important thing in our life, right? For us we’re, we’re Jesus followers, we’re Christians. Like for us, we’re a hardcore Bible thump and Jesus freaks. So we don’t serve money, money serves us. Money is a tool, but we, we care about money, we’re deliberate about money. We like to make money, and we want to help you make a lot of money, and then use your money to do good in the world for you and your family and your employees and for the people around you.
RV (36:17):
So there you have it. 15 legitimate legal ways to save money on taxes. Investigate these, check these out. Hey, share this, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and request a call with our team. Will you go to brand builders group.com or sorry, wrong number, wrong number go to free brand call.com/podcast. Go to free brand call.com/podcast. Learn about us. Read a little bit about the people we work with you know, the clients that we serve. We, we serve major celebrity clients, ed Mylet and Lewis, how, and Eric Thomas and Amy Porterfield and Peter Diani, and John Gordon and Matthew West, right? Like, we have major celebrity clients, but our heart is also for the people who are just starting out and who are real entrepreneurs trying to find their way and figure this all out. And we’re gonna guide you. We’re gonna guide you on everything, marketing, sales, positioning and then scaling your company with leadership and financial strategy that is legal and ethical and that actually works to make the world a better place. So check out free brand call.com/podcast. Share this episode with an entrepreneur that you know who needs to save money on taxes. So I want you to think in your head right now, who do I know that is an entrepreneur that needs to save money on the taxes? Share this episode with them. You might just change their life and the lives of their employees and maybe the people around him and the investments that they make. And keep coming back here every single week listening and in to the influential Personal Brand podcast. Bye for now.
Ep 362: Alternative Investment Vehicles for Entrepreneurs with Henry Yoshida
RV (00:01):
Hey, part of what we wanna be doing on this show is just sort of bringing you insights and strategies to help you, obviously as a mission-driven messenger, to become more well known, but also as an entrepreneur, to become more savvy and sophisticated. And today we’re gonna talk about a little bit about tax strategy in investing which may not seem always that exciting, but specifically I’ve asked this guest to be on the show. We’re gonna talk about a tool called Self-Directed IRAs. We’ll explain what that means why you might care about them, how you potentially use them and, you know, immediate action steps. But let me introduce you to Henry Yoshida. So, Henry was referred to me by one of the smartest people I know, Jason Dorsey. He’s been on the show se a couple times. He’s a close friend.
RV (00:51):
We we’re, we’re best friends in real life. His company is who we use to do our, our trends and personal branding, national research study. And Jason told me that Henry is one of the smartest people that he’s ever met. So that said a lot because I was asking Jason about self-directed IRAs, and then I got to learn about Henry. So Henry is the c e o and he’s the co-founder of a company called Rocket Dollar. So this is a FinTech financial technology. It’s a FinTech platform that lets people invest tax advantage retirement dollars into private alternative investments. Now, that’s a mouthful. We’re gonna, we’re gonna break that apart and help you understand what that means. But Henry is a C F P. So he’s a certified financial planner. In fact, he’s been a C F P since he was 22 years old.
RV (01:40):
He was the youngest c f CFP at Merrill Lynch, which is where he worked for 10 years. He’s also a, a professional licensed realtor. And he’s got 20 years of experience in finance. He, he actually was the founder of a venture backed company which was a robo-advisor company called Honest Dollar, that was acquired by Goldman Sachs. And he is the founder of another group that has managed had 2.6 billion in assets under management. He graduated from the University of Texas, UT at Austin has an MBA from Cornell University. And, you know, now is building his like personal brand and expertise really around these kind of like, vehicles of self-directed IRAs and Rocket dollar among other things. So with that, Henry, welcome to the show.
HY (02:24):
Thank you very much, Rory. Thanks for having me on today. Yeah, I’m really excited to be here. And Jason’s spoken very, very highly of yourself. I mean, he, he literally took time from his vacation to
RV (02:34):
Talk about I’m, I am the reason for his success. So he should be speaking highly
HY (02:40):
Denise first and you second. I’m sure
RV (02:43):
Denise first. Yes, Denise for sure. But the you know, so I was asking him about self-directed IRAs be and, and, and was something, you know, we have always had 401k. You know, I think I had a Roth, I when I, when I was 22 years old or something, and started learning about that. But only recently learned about this tool called a self-directed i r a. So can you just like high level layman’s terms, tell us what, what is a self-directed I r a
HY (03:16):
Sure. Self-Directed ira, it’s a, it’s a pretty n terribly de non-descriptive term for a type of ira. So the way we explain it and the way it’s become known, a self-directed IRA is an IRA account, very bespoke product. A lot of people in America have these accounts know generally about how they work, but a self-directed IRA is one that lets you keep the same tax treatment tax benefits of a, of a regular IRA that you would have in any brokerage firm. But instead of public stocks, bonds, mutual funds index fund ETFs, you can make private and alternative investments. So anything that the IRSs allows, which is anything from real estate to digital digital currency to making private investments into a friend’s startup technology business those all can be done inside of an IRA if you have a specialized provider that could do self-directed ira. So that’s what it is. Just think private and alt investments with the ta, same tax benefits for an IRA is what you
RV (04:18):
Can do. So, yeah, so basically this becomes a vehicle that I can take my money and if I don’t like the poll markets or don’t wanna put it there for whatever reason, or I have more there and I just wanna, I wanna invest in other things. Like some of the things you mentioned, I mean, crypto’s been obviously a hot topic in recent years. Real estate. Sure. et cetera. I can then use this account as a retirement account. I can do those investments, I can control those investments all the way to private companies and even debt instruments, et cetera. But have it have the same tax treatment, meaning I don’t, I it is tax deferred. So all the money I put in there, yes, those investments are gonna stay, those assets are gonna grow. Hopefully if I do a good job of stewarding that well and managing it well, and then when I retirement, when I retire, I take it out and then I’m taxed on the gains there. So exactly like an ira, it’s just, it has more flexibility into what kinds of things I can invest into. Yeah,
HY (05:18):
Exactly. Yeah, because the industry, you, you, you know, it’s almost so much so that you said you and Jason were talking about this, that people think that an IRA can only invest in public market securities or some derivative of it, like a mutual fund. But the reality is that the ability to invest in things that aren’t public market securities has actually existed since the inception of IRAs. It’s just not as well known. It’s not as well there aren’t a lot of providers in that space. So really, you know, my company’s mission and sort of my own personal background was thinking that, that now maybe to properly diversify someone should create a very simple, very affordable you know, household brand name to let people do private investments inside of an ira because that’s where a lot of investment opportunities are. But you’re exactly right that, that the, the gains everything is in there is tax deferred. And if and when you sell these investments in retirement, that’s when you actually pay taxes. So you can control it just like your regular IRA right
RV (06:16):
Now. And so basically there is some compliance and headaches and regulations and paperwork and details and kind of like that stuff around starting a self-directed ira. And what you guys do is you basically created a, a vehicle where it’s like you can, you know, for a, for a pretty low, very low fee, you can just, you guys can deal with all that and then now I can open an account and it gives me the ability to manage and do whatever I want to do.
HY (06:45):
Exactly. And, and our fee is structured that way because since these are self-directed, people typically find these investments on their own. So we’re not a mutual fund company creating a packaged product and then we charge the customer a management fee for however much money they put with us. But our fee is actually just a one-time flat fee because we typically are not sourcing those investments for the individual. Our fee, our ongoing fee and our signup fee are just flat dollar amounts 360 upfront and 15 a month. It’s just there to cover exactly what you mentioned. The, the not so fun part, cuz this is an audio podcast, but you know, I can see your face when you say paperwork compliance, the setting up painful and so forth. Yeah, it’s painful. So what, and that’s
RV (07:24):
Why we people do what you said earlier. You said like the, the idea of alternative investments in an I R A has existed for a long time, but you don’t hear about it because there hasn’t been as much of a way to like sort of deal with that stuff. The in, in a, in a really smooth fashion. And that’s kind of the problem you guys are trying to solve, right?
HY (07:43):
That part. And then I’ve been very public about talking about this too. It’s that the, the, the existing industry players that provide IRAs to the vast majority of the American public, they’re also the manufacturers of these these as package products as well. So it doesn’t really, there’s no real incentive for them to allow Rory to invest in Jason Dorsey’s business, for example using an account at a major existing provider because there’s no management fee that they can, that they can take for doing so because that’s a, that’s a deal between you two. Yeah.
HY (08:16):
And so forth. So that’s another reason that that’s why this industry really hasn’t become as well known. But you’ll find that sophisticated investors have been doing this for decades. Yeah. And there are several hundred billion of IRA monies inside of private investments.
RV (08:31):
Yeah. So, so here was my initial question. So I’ll ask you cuz this was the catalyst, right? So the catalyst for me was going, you know, we’ve always done 401k, I r a, we, you know, we’ve got that, we’ve got, you know, somebody that manages that and you know, but we are wanting to kind of start doing more with real estate mm-hmm.
HY (09:35):
Exactly. No personal benefit. It’s a, it’s a prohibited transaction is the technical term.
RV (09:40):
Dang it.
HY (09:56):
And artwork is a collectible. So that’s actually one of the two things that are specifically disallowed inside of an IRA generally. But, but it’s kind of interesting that we’re in a 2022, almost 2023 world now that many investments are actually now securitized. So it, it’s, it’s kind of crazy. But the private investment world now allows stock certificates that, that are, are actually backed by a piece of famous artwork or a collectible baseball card and so forth. And there’s websites that do that. And if the investment is properly securitized, then actually I RRA providers are allowed to hold shares of that. But the example you use, which is by a Picasso, hang it up in your house you wouldn’t be allowed to do that because you have the benefit of of enjoying the artwork or showing it off to your friends.
RV (10:43):
Uhhuh
HY (11:32):
Exactly. Yeah. It’s just all IRAs. These, these are just the types of IRAs. So my own vision is that sometime in the next few years people will say there’s traditional IRAs, there’s Roth IRAs, as you mentioned, you had when you were 22. And then there’s alts capable IRAs or self-directed IRAs. It, it’s just not the known third one, but it’s just, they’re all different types of IRAs Yeah. And so forth. So you’re right. And, and what’s the limit? You can put money in the limit for 2022 is $6,000. If you’re under the age of 50 then you can do another 1000 in 2023. And this is all inflation adjusted. So that’s been kind of nuts this year and probably heading into next that you, next year you’ll be able to put away 6,500 into an ira if you’re under the age of 50.
HY (12:17):
Cuz it’s, it’s just adjusting up for inflation. But remember most of these accounts, and probably a lot in your audience, Rory, that the reason why there’s so much money in IRAs is that most people actually sock away a lot of money in some sort of stint in a corporate world before be going out on an entrepreneurial journey. So, myself included, I worked for Merrill Lynch slash Bank of America for a decade and I contributed larger amounts than 6,000. It was less than at that time for IRAs in a 401k, then the company provided a match. And then when I left Merrill Lynch, that account is able to be rolled into my own IRA in my name and, and it had much more than if I’d been able to just put away three, four, $5,000 per year by the time I was there and so forth. So most IRA money is actually old 401k,
RV (13:04):
Old 401K money that then when you leave the company, it can’t be in that 401k and then it gets moved into an I R A.
HY (13:11):
Right? You’re able to leave it if you want, but you’re even more restricted because that company you know, probably only offered you 20 mutual fund choices. And then if you move to an irate at a major brokerage house, then you can buy any public stock that you want. And then if you are having a discussion to potentially buy real estate or invest in cryptocurrency or a small investment in your friend’s business, then you would need a self-directed ira. So that’s kind of the, the evolution,
RV (13:37):
Right? Yeah. And, and so, you know, a couple of the things, and just correct me if I’m wrong here, but like, as I think about this, I’m going, all right, if I wanna start investing in real estate, which typically takes a lot of money right? To, to, to, or, you know Yeah. Takes a lot of money to get to get going Yeah. Is saying part of the way that I can access capital is to pull it from my own retirement account. Whereas normally if I pulled money out of my retirement account, I would get penalized. But in this, in this mechanism, you could, you could convert from your traditional IRA into a self-directed ira. And now I have capital that I can, I can use to go out and buy real estate as an example. Right,
HY (14:18):
Exactly. You just can’t buy the one that you described, which is a vacation home that I use, you might personally use sometimes on your own up to a certain number of days. But the good news for your audience is that you could actually use a self-directed IRA to buy a vacation home that you permanently rent out on Airbnb. And any of us in your audience can actually go to your vacation home. It’s an investment for you. And it’s a, maybe like a getaway for us, for example. You just can’t use it.
RV (14:44):
Even the vacation business can a and can a and the business can’t benefit from it either. Like, can you buy a commercial property that your business is in and the commercial property is in your self-directed ira?
HY (14:56):
You can’t do that either, because if you control that business, then you can’t do it. But for example, if you bought a commercial property and you wanted to lease space to my business, I have no connection to to to your IRA or to you personally from a, just a relationship status. And then I could be your tenant paying a market rate. It, the, the basic rule thumb to make me make it easy is think that anything that you have inside of an ira, whether it’s self-directed or traditional, it just has to be purely an investment. It can’t be something that you, you know, derive personal benefit from that we talked about earlier, or that you get, you get any sort of benefit from. It has to be arm’s length you know, from you. It has to be purely an investment. And then that’s when the government allows you the opportunity to defer those taxes for years, decades and maybe even longer.
RV (15:46):
Yeah. And then, so when you think about the type, the common types of investments that somebody would do here one of the things that is potentially interesting to me about a self-directed IRA is well, first of all, you’re self-directing it so you have more control over like, what’s going on there. Mm-Hmm.
HY (16:46):
There,
RV (16:46):
There, there’s more flexibility. It gives you a chance to have bigger wins as well as typically bigger losses like Sure. So what are the other like, major types of investments that people are doing inside of a self-directed? Does that mean real estate? You got real estate, crypto, private companies? If I wanna invest in my buddies business mm-hmm.
HY (17:09):
Another big one is, is, so the industry itself is, goes all the way back to the seventies. So IRAs were essentially created in 1974. So for probably the first 20, 25 years, the only IRAs that were not offered by the major brokerage houses to do public stocks, let’s say self-directed IRAs for the first two decades were probably only created to do real estate investments. Private credit investments and probably precious metals. So maybe another one that we didn’t talk about was actually investing in, let’s say, gold. For example, like people held gold inside of ira. So that was a big industry, maybe less so now. And again, you can’t hold the gold bar in your house while it’s in your ira. You have to actually have a custodial provider to keep it in a vault for you. But remember these were created in the seventies and eighties. So at that time, oddly enough, that was probably the last very high inflationary environment and people kind of looked at tangible assets like real estate and assets that might hold their value for the long haul, like precious metals. So the industry actually developed around those asset classes first and
RV (18:16):
So forth. That’s, that’s interesting. So then basically, you know, the market conditions back then were, you know, maybe similar to what we may or may not be heading towards, but certainly recently interest rates have been going up and things like that. Yeah. And so you’re saying that people, you know, sort of tend to start to look more towards alternative investments and these kinds of
HY (18:38):
Sequence? Yeah, and I do wanna go back and say that, you know, I, I talk a lot and people always say that, you know, all alternative investments may be, you know, may be riskier than public investments. And I don’t know if that’s actually the case cuz you know, we just talked about that if you did cryptocurrency or investing in a small private business, yes that may be riskier than buying an s and p 500 company like Tesla or Microsoft for example, or Johnson and Johnson, McDonald’s. But, you know, I think it might be argued that, that as we record this today, Tesla is down 65% year to date so far, you know, heading into the end of 2022, that’s 63, 60 5% is down year to date. And even when what you might consider like the confluence of very bad events for real estate, I’d be hard pressed to think that a single family home has dropped 65% in value, you know, just this year.
HY (19:30):
So it could be argued that that tangible investments, some of which you could do in a self-directed IRA, actually might be considered y you know, relatively more stable than some investments you do in the public markets. So some alt alternative and private deals, yes. Maybe more, I guess you could say risky. But that riskiness is usually due to either you’re investing in an early not yet mature company or there’s an illiquidity issue with that investment. But, you know, sometimes if you’re buying something tangible like precious metals or real estate I would say that that actually is very good. And, and right now there’s, we talked about this before recording, there’s 15 trillion in IRAs in America. Almost all of it is invested in stocks and mutual funds right now. And if there aren’t providers like mine that allow people to get into some more tangible investments, well that’s a risk to the American public at this point cuz they have nowhere to go. Even bonds are down actually 15% year to date right now in the us
RV (20:29):
Uhhuh
HY (20:42):
A big difference. It’s tangible. You can see it versus a piece of paper that, that may or may not you know, know, represent an actual stake in, in an, in a maximum mature company that’s publicly traded.
RV (20:51):
Mm-Hmm.
HY (21:22):
I I just think that self-directed IRAs to me are maybe very similar to your audience. The, the, you’re your listeners, a lot of people are pursuing their passions or what they want to do. They don’t wanna work for a 100 to 200 or 2000 or 200,000 employee company any longer. And they go out on their own. I think self-directed IRAs are almost the embodiment of being able to invest in things that you know about that you care about and so forth. I mean, you, you could do that through your public stock investing and say you believe in, in climate change. So you invest in Tesla for example. You hate supporting the cable companies, so you buy Netflix. But in a self-directed ira, people can really say that, you know, I’m going to use my own capital support a local business if they would take an investment from me to be a passive partial owner of this or real estate in a town.
HY (22:12):
So one of our first customers, and this is one of our first customers at Rocket Dollar. I remember talking to her on the phone. She grew up in San Antonio. She went to business school in New York and was a management consultant with a great salary and said, you know, I actually want to buy all rental properties in San Antonio, like where I grew up. I live in New York, I live in a nice apartment here, great salary. But I would feel so much better if I know that I bought four homes with my I r a there. And were able to let families rent it and live and raise their children in a house that I owned. It’s an investment for me. I’m making money, making gains, making income on a monthly basis. But I also know that there’s four families that live in these homes as well and so forth.
HY (22:59):
And I remember thinking, wow, that was huge. I mean, you know, yes, you may feel some benefits on investing in a public company, but nothing like that. She knew these people you know, they were at otherwise living in an apartment, right? But now they can live in a home with a backyard. And she knew their kids and she’s like, this is the best of both worlds. I’m making money, it’s an investment for me. And I’m able to provide households like real homes with real backyards and real neighborhoods for four families. And where I grew up,
RV (23:28):
What happens with the cash flow on that real estate? So the, the, the property itself is held in the self-directed ira, it’s throwing off rental, is that flow through as personal income or does that have to stay inside the ira? Somehow
HY (23:41):
Everything stays in the ira. So IRAs that are self-directed are exactly the same as IRAs that hold public stock. So if you own a stock that pays a dividend and you bought it in your ira, that dividend stays in the IRA u unless you’re over 59 and a half, at which point you could maybe decide to get that distributed to you and then you pay taxes on it cuz you can control that. But if you’re collecting 1500 in rent times, four homes in your ira, 6,000 a month, that’s 6,000 just accumulates inside of your ira. And what we find with our customers that they end up getting to like, Hey, now I got $50,000 after one year of owning these four properties, I can go do another deal maybe not real estate, but now I’m gonna go buy a $50,000 investment into this real estate syndication for storage units. And so where they build up cash, just like if you owned a bunch of dividend stocks inside of your current ira after a couple years, you’d have a bunch of cash inside. You either redeploy it back into something or if you’re old enough, you might take it as income and just pay taxes on it while leaving the rest of the property in the ira in this case
RV (24:45):
Uhhuh
HY (24:46):
And that’s the tax strategy component that we were kind of hinting at
RV (24:49):
Uhhuh
HY (24:56):
If you own real estate, everything is done with the I rra dollars. So again, you don’t mix and mingle in, in that, in that sense. So th that’s one of the things about owning real estate is everything is done in there. And that’s actually how we’re structured at Rocket Dollar. I kind of liken our account to sort of like an I r A bank account. And you set yourself up to pay property manager landscaper, you know, if you cover some of the bills, for example, for your rental properties, you do it from the I r dollars. You don’t do it with Rory Vaden regular dollars for a property inside of an ira. You have to keep it one or the other. And that’s why a lot of our people, maybe your people as well,
RV (25:37):
Property taxes, landscaping capital improvements too.
HY (25:40):
Everything. Yeah.
RV (25:41):
Uhhuh
HY (26:03):
You would, you would pay whatever income taxes are due on that money. If, let’s say it originally was a 401k, you never paid taxes on any dollar in a 401k and now it’s an ira. If you pull out a $300,000 cash value and you’re under 59 and a half and you’ve never paid taxes, you will add that to your taxable income for that year. That year all at once. But the beauty of IRAs, just so you know, is once you become 59 and a half, you could decide to take out as much as or as little as you like to supplement you know, your own living standard or needs. So if you created, let’s say 15,000 in income but you want to keep the properties, you could just take that 15,000 out when you’re 60 years old and, and use that to supplement against like other income sources. You have follow. That’s what our
RV (26:50):
Customers do. I didn’t follow that part.
HY (26:52):
So after 59 and a half, you can take out any amount in your IRA that you want that’s available in cash and whatever you take out, if you haven’t paid taxes, you will just add that to your taxable income for that year. So if you decide that you want an extra 5,000 a month, cuz you have two properties that generate 2,500 in rental income, you could, if you’re 60 years old, for example, just take that 5,000 every month and then you’ll
RV (27:18):
Taxable income.
HY (27:18):
It’s just taxable income. But remember you were able to roll that, maybe you bought those properties 20 years ago and so forth. You, you didn’t liquidate the property, you’re just taking a distribution on the income from that property.
RV (27:33):
Right. Which is an, which is an advantage at that point cuz now you have your, you have turned your retirement account into an income stream that goes forever and ever, which theoretically you would have also from dividends I guess if you were, if you were in a like, public market or whatever. So
HY (27:48):
Yeah.
RV (27:50):
So then how do, like, if, how do companies buy real estate inside of their businesses and how do entrepreneurs typically buy their second homes? Like from a tax, you know, advantage place? How do you see those kind of tend to be structured?
HY (28:09):
Yeah, so they, they don’t really do, if it’s an ira, they don’t do that. And they, they, you know, again, we talked about it earlier, they wouldn’t really co-mingle.
RV (28:16):
Yeah. So this doesn’t, so now we, now we have to leave, we have to leave the, the self-directed ira, by the way y’all, I haven’t mentioned this yet, but so Henry’s company’s called Rocket Dollar. If you go to brand builders group.com/rocket that’s our affiliate link where you can check this out and you can learn about it. And like you said, it’s, it’s a, it’s a ridiculously low thing. It’s like 360 bucks or something at the time of this recording, one time fee and then a small monthly, like 15 bucks a month. And that, and that helps you deal with the compliance and have this vehicle and this account open and gives you some other features and stuff that allow you to sort of, it becomes the mechanism, I guess the vehicle at which you can like actually do this and, and move money around.
RV (28:59):
So, and then I, so I guess, and then we’re leaving now we’re leaving that conversation. Yeah. Behind. So we have to leave the conversation with a self-directed ira. When you go in, when you, when you start saying, okay, what are some of the tax strategies I can do as a company if I’m a higher earning, you know, entrepreneur because my personal brand is crushing it and you’re generating millions of dollars in speaking fees or your membership side or your royalties or your course sales mm-hmm.
HY (29:47):
The big one, and, and this is actually a very known thing for a lot of your small community and regional banks here in the us they love actually financing successful cash flowing business owners to buy a commercial property that they may use up to 30% ish of the building. So let’s say you purchase a a 10,000 square foot building in the suburbs of Nashville or the suburbs of Austin. And I have friends that actually where I live, I, I have a bunch of friends that actually own these types of buildings and then they run their small business in roughly 10, 15, 20, 30% of it. And the bank is actually happy to finance that. So the business owns, owns the property or the business owner in this case your, your audience listener would buy that property and actually have a lease agreement with the with your business for 30%.
HY (30:36):
And then you’d rent out the remaining 70 and the bank and they help pay that mortgage. And in 10 years time, because commercial loans are, are not amortized over 30 years, in 10 years time, you now might own outright this building for 6 million while actually using a, a normal known expense on a monthly basis for your business. Cuz right now all of these businesses are probably paying some sort of rent right now, but instead wanna pay yourself the rent and have it pay down that loan and 10 years later you own this 6 million building in the suburbs of Nashville, for example. I see a lot of that, that that has nothing to do with IRAs, but I think that’s a great business strategy. Maybe better than the vacation home because it’s, it’s, you know, little, I think that’s something that’s a little more amenable to the local community banks that, that do that a lot right
RV (31:25):
Now. And so in that case, you then start a separate business, like a separate L L C that owns this commercial property that’s then renting it 30, renting like 30% of it, you’re saying
HY (31:37):
The part that you need. Yeah.
RV (31:39):
Back to this other business that you own, which is like, let’s call it your main business mm-hmm.
HY (31:54):
Building. Exactly. Yeah. Uhhuh
RV (32:18):
Uhhuh
HY (32:19):
RV (32:48):
Uhhuh
HY (33:16):
Exactly. Yeah. So I see that quite a bit. And then, you know, if you don’t want to be too actively involved in that business, you can, you can bring on a partner. You could just be very sort of integrated with a property manager that’s experienced. I mean, at the end of the day, you most people probably want to concentrate on their primary business. They’re not in the business of running multiple businesses and so forth. But that’s just just a strategy. The other one I would say this is maybe more specific to the business owner and doesn’t involve needing another outside thing is that if you’re a very successful cash flowing business and you have a small group of employees, let’s say anywhere from five to maybe 20, but these are, you know, maybe even up to 50 a lot of people don’t do this.
HY (33:58):
And this goes back to my pre FinTech days, but I would encourage business owners to actually look at things beyond a 401k. Like we don’t have ’em as much in America anymore, but pension plans are actually very, very good vehicles for business owners to accumulate a large amount of money for themselves while still having an attractive benefit to keep your key people for not just two years or five years, but probably 10 and 20. I mean, that’s another problem we have in, you know, today probably being a business owner is it’s very hard to retain employees. Most people think that they’re gonna stay two years at a place and then go from job to job to job. But you know, you and I, Rory, we probably know a lot of businesses where they’ve had their core group of people with them for a decade or longer.
HY (34:45):
And those tend to be very successful businesses. And if that person sets up a small business pension plan, typically the owner if their spouse is involved, they could put away over a hundred thousand dollars a year to themselves and shield it from taxes while then providing a smaller benefit to the employees in the form of a guaranteed pension. But over the course of 10 years, you’d be able to sock away like a seven figure amount that would turn into a guaranteed income stream. The lesser known, I used to set up a lot of those back in the early, you know, kind of 2000 to 2012 timeframe
RV (35:19):
Now for these businesses. And so pension plan, what is, when you say pension plan, define pension plan for me, cuz I don’t, when I think pension plan, I think very large entities and big structures. I don’t think small businesses. I get that. I get what you’re saying is basically the, the, the mechanism here is that by introducing this benefit to all of your employees or some portion of your employees, you’ve now created a way for you to put more money away each year into retirement accounts so that you don’t have short-term taxes, you don’t get to have that money, but you don’t have to pay taxes on it. And now that money, you have a larger and larger pile that’s growing tax deferred, not limited by the, the normal thresholds of like the 401K and the ira, which are much, much lower. Right. So I’m, I follow you there. Sure. But like what does pension plan mean?
HY (36:10):
Yeah, so pension plan means essentially this is a plan where only the business contributes on behalf of every employee. So you are required to cover every eligible employee. So if you have 10 people in the business, let’s say it’s a spouse and a a couple that basically own the business, the couple might be in their mid to late forties, the other eight employees may average age only 25. So you do a pension plan, it’s adjusted for accumulating retirement. So every year you have an administrator and they tell you that, hey, your business, you need to put $200,000 or $150,000 is your contribution for the whole company’s plan, all 10 people. But because you’re older and you’re more highly compensated, maybe 90% of that money goes to you and 10% goes to the other eight people. But they’re happy because they actually have a guaranteed retirement benefit down the road.
HY (37:07):
You know, pension plans actually do exist for small businesses. I think they’re gonna make a comeback here over the next like several years. But not at the big gigantic companies or government or let’s say, you know, municipal type employers. But it’s a powerful tool and, and you have a lot of audience members who you just said that maybe they’re just crushing it with their course sales or their speaking engagements. And this is a 10 person business and the, let’s say the, the couple that run it, they’re usually decade, a couple decades older than the average employee at that business. They could put away a big amount with, for tax benefit for retirement for a guaranteed income stream and shield themselves in current income. Right Now the great thing about making a million dollars in income is you made a million dollars in income. The problem is you’re probably gonna end up netting only 650,000 of that income if you make all 1 million.
RV (38:02):
Right. And the other thing is, a lot of these, if they’re small business, they don’t have tons of employees and tons of you, you know, you might have a couple assistances or whatever. Like it’s not like you have five people on the payroll that make a quarter million dollars a year doing, you know, highly, you know, complex C-level type jobs. So
HY (38:17):
You might have a great core group of eight people, that average income is 70,000 and if you’re, let’s say running the business and taking more and you’re older, you would find that you would be putting away probably a six figure amount for yourself. And you’re still doing it right by those employees.
RV (38:33):
No, you still have to have a lot of cash flow. That’s the problem is that you gotta have the cash flow. Yeah. But you’re either gonna pay it to the government in taxes or you’re gonna pay it to your employees as a benefit to them. Exactly. And and to yourself. So like that money is not gonna stay in your pocket either way. It’s basically how, unless you put it, unless you do this. So if you is a defined benefits plan is like a cash balance plan, is that the same thing as a pension plan?
HY (38:57):
It, yeah, it defined benefit pension plan. Similar cash balance is a type of, of pension plan that is kind of a, it looks a little bit like a 401k, looks a little bit like a defined benefit pension plan and so forth. Like that’s getting a little bit into the weeds. But for people that are your audience, if they say that, you know, I am one of these people, I’m, I’m more highly compensated than the general employee who’s on my team. And I’m also maybe generally older if they look into this, they, they might find that if they can sustain cash flow and of course after they work with you and aj, they surely that’s, that’s that that’s gonna happen right away. In time that they’ll have this great business, they may say to themselves that this is a way to like, you know, really have the benefit down the road because otherwise you’re gonna get taxed very heavily today.
RV (39:45):
Yeah. Well and that’s, you know, the only reason I know defined benefit plan is cuz that’s, that’s come up several time with our, and in some of our like high level mastermind circles with some of our, our, our higher level clients is we’re always, we’re telling them. So I, it’s interesting I didn’t equate that to pension plan, but it’s the same vehicle which is ef it’s effectively a completely legal mechanism by which you can increase the limits, the, the thresholds of what you would normally be able to invest into tax deferred accounts like a 401K or an ira. And you get to provide this awesome benefit for your employees, which is that they, you’re contributing to their retirement in a small business. That’s pretty wild because you go, man, I’m working with a small business, my benefits package is like as good if not better than some of the biggest companies out there. You, you know, it’s really cool thing. I love that.
HY (40:34):
Exactly. Yeah. And, and you know, we were talking, we were introduced by Jason and I was just reading his book, which is basically showing business owners and companies and corporations how they might take advantage of hiring into that Gen Z you know, generation for people younger, if there’s two levers, if they’re younger and they have lower salaries it is something to consider if, if you’re the small business very stable with your business and cash flows, that that’s how you could put away, I mean, we just talked about IRAs allow you to put away six, $7,000 a year 7,000 if you’re over 50 401ks allow you to put away 20,000. This is how people put away 100, 1 50 200,000 and shield it from taxes, which is why it probably comes up in your high level master mastermind groups.
RV (41:18):
Uhhuh,
HY (41:21):
Right? It’ll be a 22,500 next year, but it’s it’s 20,500
RV (41:27):
This year. So, so yeah, that, that’s something to ask about. And it is the kind of thing where it’s like no one ever told us that. And you don’t know to ask about it now, you know, the thing is you gotta be careful is you have to commit to it for a certain number of years, right. So you have to like lock it in. So you need to have stable cash flows. But
HY (41:48):
That is true. That’s a, that’s a good point. And you know what’s funny is I’ve made my entire, I’ve always, I’ve been in this industry for over 20 years and oddly enough, someone asked me this one time, he said, you know, you’ve done it this whole time that you technically never recommend an investment strategy or an investment itself. I said, exactly, I have this belief that people are gonna invest in things, whether it’s in the private markets, to the public markets already. They’re gonna do what, what, you know, is appropriate for them. And all I’m saying is that look, if you think about how you hold that money, whether it’s in an ira, a pension plan, a 401k, that same investment that you are gonna do, if you hold it in a better way, you’ll actually make usually somewhere between 20 to 50% more per year on that investment.
HY (42:34):
You know, whether you invest in the s and p 500, someone likes that someone wants to invest in Tesla, another person wants to invest in real estate, crypto or private businesses. If you hold it the right way and I show you how to do it, you’ll make thir 20, 30, 40, 50% more per year Yeah. On the investment you were already gonna do. That’s not my job to recommend the, the, the investment to you that’s your advisor’s job or your own decision to make. But you sh people don’t pay nearly enough attention to how they hold investments.
RV (43:03):
Yeah. And I think where the magic part of where the magic is, is going, if I take that money as income and I pay taxes on it, I could still invest that money into my friend’s company. I could still invest that money into crypto and if I hold it for longer than a year, I’m still only paying capital gains tax. The the, the magic though is if I do that through the self-directed ira, all of the money that I would be paying in taxes now stays in the investment and it rolls and it rolls and it rolls and it rolls. Right. And that’s like a pretty, like over the course of time, that’s a monumental you know, IM impact. So
HY (43:44):
Exactly. You’re rolling a dollar, you’re, you’re, you’re a hundred cents. The whole dollar, $1 is going in if you do it after maybe 60, 65, 70, 70 5 cents of that dollar. So over time, that holding period, you’re compounding on either 65 cents or you’re compounding on a dollar. There’s a big difference.
RV (44:02):
Yeah. Just by the technicality of how it’s held. Now, the, now the other thing is you don’t have access to the money. So that’s the big thing is like, it’s in here, it’s staying in here, it’s not going anywhere.
HY (44:11):
Well the beauty of private investments is they typically are a liquid anyways. So the reason why there’s a premium there is because they aren’t quite as liquid as being able to buy and sell a hundred times a day or a week, let’s say some public stock. So you actually get compensated for that. So the way economics works, you’re getting a slight you know, premium for the ability not to, to always be a hundred percent liquid, which, you know, right now, maybe it’s been proven that it’s probably a good thing. You know, you read a lot of articles that say that 2022 is the year where you may not want to like overly look at your investment statements, right? Yeah. You’re, you’re probably better off just focusing on your business and, and building your audience and growing your business.
RV (44:49):
Yeah. Reinvesting
HY (44:50):
The investments are a long-term thing, so don’t really worry about what it’s gonna say here at the end of Q4 in 2022.
RV (44:55):
Henry, how do we buy our vacation home? What’s the, what’s like, what’s the smartest way to go about doing that or to think about that?
HY (45:03):
Yeah, well, inside, again, inside of an ira it wouldn’t be a vacation home that you use. So that is one thing that if you, if you just know that there’s this lock solid investment opportunity, but something that you could do with not having on your own then you can use IRA dollars if you wanna buy one on your own. I mean, this is, I I have no association with this company, but I have friends and, and I’ve seen these particular platforms develop, but where you might actually just fractionally own a vacation home. So it’s, it’s a modern digital twist on probably timeshare but only luxury properties. I just think it’s safer cuz for me, I’m a big proponent of how you hold the investment and maybe if at all possible not locking up you know, all the capital at one time and at which point, if you own the entire investment with a lot of locked up capital, you exponentially increased your risk.
HY (45:54):
So maybe you can buy one 32nd of a luxury property through one of these digital platforms instead of you coming up with a 20% down payment and making sure that you tell your tax advisor that you only stayed in the place for less than 21 days a year and tracking everything. That’s, that’s risky to me. I think that I, I do this myself. I think you should actually look at some of these digital platforms where you could just pay y you know, a set like $40,000 for example, and own one 32nd and get your allocation of time to a property. The, the, the one you know, in my mind I think about is park City, Utah. Interesting. And for example, because of 20% down payment on a $900,000, you know, luxury property there, small two-bed, two and a half bath cabin, that’s a lot of capital. We’re talking over a hundred thousand dollars in down payment plus the risk of owning it outright
RV (46:48):
Versus,
HY (46:49):
And I specifically think of Park City because there were wildfires there that severely impacted some of these properties in like a Lake Tahoe or Park City. What if that was yours? And, and you and I are col respectively, 1700 and 1300 miles away from there right
RV (47:04):
Now. Uhhuh
HY (47:23):
And you’re limited from, you know, the amount of time you can actually physically be there. Anyway, in a sense. Yeah. Anyway. And you know, people are, someone sees this as a problem to a certain subset of the population, just like Rocket dull does as well. And you know, you just stick to like very tried and true ones, which is that maybe the outlay of capital is limited, right. And so forth. So that might be a way to do it through one of these platforms. I don’t own a property, you know, in my name fully outside of my primary residence that I’m talking to you from right now, but do take advantage of these platforms because it’s a, it’s a known limited amount of capital known, limited exposure to me. And then everything I can, I consider every investment I do private, public how I hold it, you know, I got eight days here, so I think a lot about you know, where I should sort of dole out different things. Are there some, like other advantages I can take right now before the end of the year?
RV (48:21):
Interesting.
HY (48:21):
I have a very limited skillset, Rory. It’s I think about this, I’ve done this for 22 years. I’m like the I always think about optimization of how you might hold an asset. That’s, that’s sort of how I’ve been trained.
RV (48:34):
And you’re, are you an active, you’re not an active advisor, you’re not really an active advisor anymore, right?
HY (48:40):
No. I sold that practice, you know, prior to the Robo-advisor. You know, so that was back in 2000 14, you know, we had 2.6 billion in assets that we managed on behalf of individuals and, and, and businesses. But I sold my stake and, and it’s a conflict to do that right now. It, it’s actually an impact thing. It’s funny that you just asked that question here kind of as we wind down. I really just thought that by building a FinTech product company, I can actually impact more people than I could ever by just selling some little fractional portion of my business week Yeah. To certain folks. So I really thought about that way. It’s that it’s been successful for me, but the really, the real thinking is that if I create Rocket Dollar the platform, I can work with 1 million people and billions of dollars if I basically just, you know advise people for time, you know, on an assets under management basis I can maybe work with at most 30 families effectively.
RV (49:40):
Yeah. Well, and that, that was part of why, that’s part of why I, I thought to have you on the show, because, you know, we, we have, we have advisors. We love, we trust lots of clients that are advisors. Right. We’ve got lots of advisors. Yeah. But, you know, since you’re not actually, you’re incentivized to like, sell any product other than Rocket Dollar, it was like, Hey, let’s bring Henry on and ask him some of these questions. Of course, again, y’all, if you go to brand builders group.com/rocket, you can learn about this and how to open the accounts, a few hundred bucks, very low monthly fee. And then Henry’s team is taking care of the, the backend. And now you are, you’re free to self-direct your own retirement investments in a tax-deferred way. And there’s some really cool things and, and it does seem like the way the world is shifting in the economy, et cetera. It’s, it’s kind of like an, an, it’s important to at least know that this vehicle exists. And that’s why we wanted to talk about this subject and that’s why we found you, Henry. So you’ve been so generous with your knowledge, your wisdom, your experience. Thank you so much for that time. And man, we look forward to following this journey.
HY (50:47):
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And I’m, I’m glad I was able to share a little bit and explain some of these self-directed IRAs, which will become a big, big thing over the next five to seven years.
RV (50:57):
Ep 361: Sales Enablement for Beginners | Ben Rigsby Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So I was recently having this super insightful conversation with a friend of mine talking about sales enablement. Now I’ve been in sales for a really long time. In fact, at my core, more than any other title, professional title that I hold the one that I really hold the most and the one that I love the most is salesperson. Like. So like, I love sales, I’m into sales. I started in sales. I’m still in sales today, to be honest. But this term sales enablement was like, what is that like, fancy term? And it was so interesting to talk about the, you know, I guess today old school sales process that we’re used to in the offline world, right? So it’s, you know, anything from, you know, the introduction to the questioning and overcoming objections, which apparently people don’t use objections anymore.
AJV (00:58):
Now they’re called reservations and I’m not really a PC person. So a lot of these, I’m like, okay, let’s just call it what it is, right? But objections, reservations, whatever you wanna call it, closing. Apparently people don’t use the term closing anymore. But we’re asking for the business, right? And then we’re asking for referrals. We’ve got the presentation with all these things, but that’s in an offline world. But an online world, this term sales enablement is like a really important term. As we drift further and further into this world and we’re finding our clients somehow in a digital space, right? Even if we meet them offline and you know, the real world, at some point they’re looking at your website, they’re looking at your content, they’re checking you out on social media, they’re going through your LinkedIn profile, and there is this online component that that is an ever present and probably ever-growing.
AJV (01:51):
Part of how we attract, nurture leads into clients, right? And then clients into forever clients is the plan. So I was having this conversation with my friend Ben and I thought there were some really cool takeaways that I would put in a little video and share them with you. So here’s a couple of my takeaways from my conversation with Ben. Number one is that lead captures surprise, surprise are the number one best option for growing your email list. People are no longer interested in just subscribing to something where they might in hopes get good information one day. So the idea of, Hey, you just give me your email, I’ll add you to my list, I’ll add you to my easing. Like, that’s not a thing if you weren’t aware, right? And you actually do wanna collect emails,
AJV (02:58):
I’m just saying at the end of the day, you don’t want people to just follow you on social media. You want to turn those followers on social media into emails that live on your email list that you can actually build real relationships with through your own natural correspondence. Rather through a blog or a podcast or an easing, whatever it is you have them subscribe to. You need possessions of those emails. Cuz if you just have followers on social media, you are, it’s rented real estate, right? Those are not your followers, those are Instagram’s followers. Those are TikTok followers. Those are not yours. So we’ve gotta get ’em off of social and into your email list. And so the best way to do that is to offer a lead capture where it’s enticing enough, it’s valuable enough where you’re going. Yeah, I’m gonna give you my private information, my email address in exchange for whatever promise you hold into this.
AJV (03:59):
Something. It could be a webinar, it could be a P D F, it could be a research study. That’s what we do. It could be some sort of, you know, free call. It could be a variety of things, could be an ebook, the list. We could go on and on and on here. Private interviews. I, I’ll stop with ideas, but what do you have to give someone an exchange for them giving you their email address that is a lead capture that would live on your website. That is something you can promote on social media that can live on, you know, the right hand side of your blog. That can live in a lot of different places. You could advertise that on a podcast. It can live in a lot of different places, but it’s, someone’s going to go to somewhere, click something, give your email address and then you have to be able to deliver them information.
AJV (04:47):
Now in an offline world if you’re going, wow, that sounds like a lot, that, that sounds like a lot of technology cuz it is. In an offline world, let’s just say that you are a speaker or you do presentations. One of the easiest things you can do to have a lead capture is to just say, Hey, if you liked my presentation today and you would like a copy of my slides, bring me your business card and I will email you the slides. Guess what? That too is a form of a lead capture. So let’s change the way we think about it. Yes, it can be through funnels and online correspondence and webinars and all those things. Yes, it can, right? But it can also be really simple in an offline setting to still nurture the sales enablement process where you’re getting leads that you can then, you know, turn into fans and customers for a lifetime. So there’s lots of different ways of doing, but if you’re low tech, which is totally fine, just think about what can I give people just in exchange for their business card. People do have those
AJV (05:57):
Mostly today. And if not, just say hey, and if you, and if people don’t have their business cards, you could again, I’m trying to keep it low tech for the non-techies. Just go, Hey, I have a signup sheet in the back of the room. Just give me your name and your email and I will email you X, y, and Z. So it can be simple, it does not have to be high tech if you are not there yet. There are many ways to do this, but then you still have to have them stored somewhere. And yes, you could just put ’em in your outlook contacts if you want, right? You could just add ’em to your LinkedIn profile if you want. Now there are more advanced ways to do that, but there’s some low tech ways. The most important thing is how are you capturing contact information so that you can stay in touch with people in an online world in the sales enablement process.
AJV (06:44):
So that was the first thing, right? I think that’s really important cuz we talk a lot about it in the online world with e-books and webinars. But I wanted to say there was a way to do it in the offline world too. From stage at a Chamber of commerce meeting and a keynote with thousands of people. You don’t have to go high tech, you can just say, bring me your business card or sign up in the back of the room. Give me your name and email. I will send you this. The most important thing is the this, whatever that is, needs to be something of high value, right? So what information do you have that people want? And that is your need capture in exchange for an email address high level. Okay, we can move on now,
AJV (07:26):
And I actually wrote down this quote and I thought this was so good. And he said, the more that you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours, ma. So good. Such a good reminder. I’m gonna say it again. The more you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So good. So think about it. If you are techy and you have all of the, you know, backend automation set up, think about the things that you’re asking people for. Are you making them answer 5, 10, 15 questions in order to get to the next step? Because again, the more you ask someone to do, the less likely they are to become a customer, right? We know that in terms of the sales enablement process and lead captures online we’re going first name and email.
AJV (08:20):
That’s as much as we’re gonna ask from you. I know plenty of people who don’t even worry about the first name. Just give me your email because the least amount of information is going to get the highest conversion. Now, there is a pro to doing that for lead following, right? So, so for emails, but there’s another process that you really wanna consider if you’re actually having people request a call. Because if you’re going, Hey, just give me an email and I’ll, you can request a free call or you’re getting something free, then you really do wanna have a whole nother conversation with, Hey, you’re not asking for emails. This is no longer a lead capture. What you’re doing now is you have an application and that is a qualifying list. So in the offline world, how I would sit down and go, you know, you know, tell me what you’re looking for.
AJV (09:05):
What are you currently using? What do you like about that? Is there anything you would change about that? Who’s involved in these decisions? That’s an offline application, right? That’s an offline qualifying set of questions. Online. You have applications, which could be called intake surveys, they could be called assessments, you can call ’em whatever you want their applications. And that’s going, Hey, what’s your industry? What’s your title? What was your revenue last year? You know, who are you currently using? What are your goals in the next six months? All of those things, those are qualifying questions, right? This is a sales high level capital word here, sales enablement process. So let’s don’t be confused with what we’re doing in order to actually have someone on the phone to convert them to be a raving fan and customer. So there are marketing, which is you’re just trying to get emails, which is the least amount of information as possible, is gonna give you the highest conversion that’s on the marketing front.
AJV (10:06):
Then you’ve gotta think about sales. And for that, you don’t wanna be getting on the phone with people who aren’t truly good prospects for your service. And I didn’t say good prospects now or later. Just good prospects. You should. And we’ll have plenty of calls with people who aren’t a fit right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a fit in the future, just like offline sales, right? That is the whole process of sales nurturing. It happens offline and online. So we just wanna make sure we have qualifying questions that go, you’re a good fit for what I do and we’re a good fit for what you’re looking for. Let’s talk. Right? So that’s an application completely different than, Hey, give me the least amount of information as possible, which is going to result in the highest conversion, which is first name or email, or just email.
AJV (10:53):
So again, you just kind of have to know what you’re looking for. We even say we have some funnels where we split test of going, Hey, how, how are we doing with just first name and email? And then we go first name, last name, email. And sometimes we even go first name, last name, email, phone number, because if we don’t have a phone number, there’s just so much we can do with email clutter. So there’s all different types of ways of going about it. But in general, one, you’re trying to grow your email list. The other, you’re trying to get qualified emails for marketing and then you’re doing qualified leads for sales. Think about those in three very different categories, right?
AJV (11:41):
Three different things with three different sets of information, sales enablement. Okay, moving along here,
AJV (12:42):
Marketing’s job is to serve up qualified leads for the sales team. So the sales team can have good conversations and find the right fit for the right person and convert them into being hopefully again, a lifelong customer, a raving fan. And that’s a really important job. So if we’re not getting great qualified, you know, leads from the marketing department, sales doesn’t do their job very well. And if sales has been converting, then we gotta look at like where are the leads coming from? Is it a sales problem as a marketing function? They go together, they’re not separate. And marketing and sales are a union. This is a marriage because the whole point of marketing is to provide good qualified leads to help the sales team and sales team job is to do an amazing job and deliver a great service so that the customer goes, yes, that is what I wanna do.
AJV (13:39):
I do wanna buy your services and your products. Here’s my money. Right? So those two things have to work together. So just ask yourself, how often do my sales marketing team talk, collaborate, communicate, brainstorm, and give feedback all? How often are they sta sharing? How often are we doing this together? Because it’s gotta be all the time, right? Just a great reminder. And then one last thing here is that communication. I love this. I thought this was so good cuz we’re all about lifetime value at Brand Builders Group. We’re constantly just looking at how do we create products and services where our customers want to be a part of this for a lifetime, right? It’s not about like, how do we hold you to your contract? It’s not about that, although, right? Those are things a part of business, but it’s like, well, how do we create a program? How do we create a membership, a service where you go, I want to be a part of this, right? That’s lifetime value. That’s how we interpret that, right? It’s a life of the time of a customer who’s with you. And the number one thing that improves lifetime value is communication with your customers. So couple of quick things here. Just really
AJV (14:50):
Quick tips. It’s like during your customer onboarding, just make sure you’re asking what’s their communication preference? Like, what do they actually prefer, right? Do they prefer phone calls, texts, emails, like what’s best for them? And just simply asking that question allows you to cater the communication experience so they actually receive your communication, right? If somebody is not checking emails ever, or you’re just getting spammed, there is no communication even though you’re making a attempts. Same thing. It’s like if you’re blowing someone up in text and they’re like, oh my gosh, just stop. I only use this for personal and they just opt out, right? Or maybe somebody just actually wants to talk to be like, Hey man, I just, I’d love to hear from someone every so often. These are the things that will just make our communication efforts more streamlined, more targeted, thus more successful. And the number one thing to improve lifetime value is communication. Good, healthy communication. So simple tip, during onboarding, ask them what is their number one preference of how they want to receive communication from your company, right? So simple things, important things, they will make a difference. They’re gonna make a difference for you. Hope you enjoy this.
Ep 360: Business Automation: What You Need To Know So You Know What To Automate with Ben Rigsby
AJV (00:02):
Hey y’all, this is AJ Vaden here and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. And y’all, I’m so excited that I get to have such a good close personal friend on the show today. Before I give a formal introduction to Ben Rigsby, Ben and I are an EO together. So if you ever heard of eo, the Entrepreneur’s Organization, so, and I talk about a good post personal friend, I know all his dirty secrets for the most part, at least professionally I know it’s professional, dirty secrets and he knows all of mine. And so that gives us a good, healthy mutual level of accountability with each other. And also we get to see each other on a monthly basis. And so when I talk about like I am bringing in someone who is incredibly skilled at what they do, I say that as a firsthand perspective.
AJV (00:52):
I have also been a client of bins and I have seen him grow and exit a business and grow a new business. And I’m just so honored that he said yes to come on the show today. Probably a little bit of peer pressure made him do that. So grateful for that too. And so lemme formally introduce him. And then we’re gonna kick it off. But before I do a formal introduction, I need to tell you why you wanna stick around. And as I was talking to Ben, I was like, there’s so many things we could talk about, but what should we talk about today? And he’s the one who said, well, here are the three things that we do really, really well. And I was like, yes, those are the things we should talk about. And so here’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
AJV (01:33):
We’re gonna talk about if you are a person or a business who needs help with lead generation, this is an episode for you. If you are someone who is trying to improve your lifetime value of your customers, then this is probably an episode for you. And if you were someone who is trying to speed up the sales process and get people from point A to point Z just a little bit faster, in a more efficient and effective manner, then this is probably an episode that you want to stick around four. So with that said, I will give you some of the formal accolades of my friends, Ben, and then I will tell you something that he left off of this beautiful bio investment bay that I think is the most important of all. So Ben is the founder of Movement marketing.
AJV (02:22):
He serves as the creative, strategic and technical lead for design motion, graphics development and product innovation. I will tell you also, it’s he’s not just someone who leads those things. Ben is that he is certified and all different types of things. It’s like every single time I ask my question, he’s like, oh yeah, I know Domo. Oh yeah, I’m certified in HubSpot. Oh yeah, I do. I was my, I was a photography major. Oh yeah, I can do video editing. Oh yeah, I can build a website. And I’m like, you, and when do you have time to learn all this stuff? So he doesn’t just lead it, he’s the practitioner of it. And I, I, I think that’s a really important part of this. You are also like, not just at movement, but in his former business, they were an award-winning an award winning creative digital agency on tongue tied here.
AJV (03:13):
But I think it’s a really important thing to mention. It’s like when we talk about like how all of these things work together in this digital marketing space. I think digital marketing has a very broad umbrella of things to talk about. And what I love most about Ben is that it really is about how to use digital marketing for business. And I think that’s really important. It’s not just about how to make things pretty, it’s about how do you make them efficient and effective and so that you are improving lifetime value and you are being a more efficient and effective business. And a lot of this comes down to business automation. And I think then you are one of the best people and most robust skills of someone who is well versed in true business automation. And so that’s a huge part of what we’re gonna talk about. And then what he just always so conveniently leaves out of all of his bios is that he’s also got this wicked professional dance backgrounds. And I don’t know why you keep denying this part of your life is my favorite part, but you were on tour with some pretty big people Who’d you go on tour with?
BR (04:20):
We won’t name names, but to your point, yes. I did have a previous life of mine growing up as a male dancer, which is how I met my wife. So thank you for that entire history of my childhood. Yes,
AJV (04:37):
Well you can just go to YouTube and you can assert Ben Rigsby dance videos and I’m sure that you will find some
BR (04:45):
That’s, that is,
AJV (04:48):
And when you say male dancer, just to clarify
BR (04:53):
Professional’s, no polls. No polls, yeah.
AJV (04:59):
Ben, to the show, thank you so much.
BR (05:02):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. That was the most professional opening that I’ve ever seen, so very much appreciate that.
AJV (05:08):
Oh, I’m so excited because I know that you know so much and I also, you’re so humble about it and you never are the first one to go, oh yeah, that’s what we do. Like, you almost never raise your hand and say, I know how to do that. Although that is what you know how to do. And so this is just an amazing opportunity for me to borrow your brain and your expertise for the benefit of our audience today. And so I’m gonna let you pick like out of these three topics that we kind of said, like improving lifetime value increasingly generation and sales enable it and ma enablements with helping speed up the sales process. Like what do you find that most of the companies and most of the clients that you’re working with today, where do you think most people are struggling most right now?
BR (05:55):
Yeah, no, totally. That’s a, that’s a fantastic question. So I would lean in probably in the lead generation area. And it’s, it is not necessarily for the lack of lead generation, but it is purposeful lead generation. So, you know, you look at what’s out there today with social and search and paid and organic email marketing networking. I mean, all of those things are channels and so many more kind of fall into the realm of lead generation. But so often do we walk into situations and the clients don’t have a leads process to begin with. And so understanding, and it’s not like, Hey, we gotta go do six months worth of work. It can take 30 minutes, quite honestly to understand what your leads process is. Because if you are a business owner or you’ve been around business, you have an idea of how you move people throughout the sales cycle. But I do think it begins with documenting and understanding what a leads process looks like. That way as leads start coming in the door, you can automate that, which allows you to scale much, much faster. So I would say leaning in with lead generation is probably where we start. Then we move into how do we actually close those leads faster and then keep those leads longer? Or those customer,
AJV (07:14):
Can you pause right there? Cause I, I don’t wanna skip over this because I know this, but I imagine a lot of people listening are going lead process, leads process mm-hmm.
BR (07:42):
Yeah, absolutely. If you think about an individual and their desire to purchase, they go through all kinds of different phases. They go through some research phases, they go through some qualification phases of are you the right organization, brand, individual that I want to do business with? And then they move into the purchasing process, the procurement cycle. And so if you think about people as they’re introduced to your brand, those people are gonna be some semblance of a lead. They might be the marketing qualified lead. They might have raised their hand and say, Hey, I want to talk to you. I’m interested in your services. We might move them into what we call a sales qualified lead. Then they go into the deal kind of discussion. And those are where we start to understand opportunities. Close one close loss. So like in my world, it usually goes something like a lead to a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead to an opportunity to close one close lost in that situation. And a lot of times we’ll try to move ’em straight from lead into they didn’t close with us. And that is where people start to get frustrated and say, my lead gen isn’t working. And the reality is, it’s not that it’s not working, it’s just that, that we’re missing like three steps in the middle there and we’re wasting a whole bunch of time in that process.
AJV (09:01):
I think that’s most people’s challenge in general is they’re talking to a bunch of people who are never going to buy from them, correct? Right. And so we do something, and I’ll talk about that in a second to help qualify leads, but any best practices and going, all right, you’ve got a lead mm-hmm.
BR (09:27):
A hundred percent. We just worked with an organization on this and, and I should caveat, every organization’s gonna be slightly different, right? So take these examples with a grain of salt. But if you think about your ideal customer a lot of people call that their icp, some people call it their avatar, some people call it their personas. It’s all the same thing. But if you think about who that individual is, what that business is, revenue size, people size, geographic regions, right? There’s probably some common denominators across all of these ideal client profiles that you have. So when you’re thinking about lead captures, and when I say lead capture, that can be online chat, that can be a phone call, that can be a form fill, that can be a gated download, right? There’s so many lead captures. It’s trying to find what are those least common denominators that apply across all your ideal client profiles.
BR (10:18):
And I’ll take revenue as an example, add that question somehow, some way into your lead capture so that you can immediately start to kind of distill down good leads from junk leads from, Hey, these are referral leads that I need to pass out to a partner. So quite simply, if somebody comes in, fills out a form and says, Hey, I’m pre-revenue, maybe that is your sandbox, and that’s what you focus in. So now you know that’s a qualified lead if pre-revenue is not your sandbox or your ideal client profile, you know, to push them to a different resource, right? And so it helps, it’s it’s little tips and tricks like that along the leads process that help hone in your focus to your point and, and saves you time from not talking to individuals that are never gonna do business with you or focusing all of your time on individuals that you truly do have an opportunity to impact. So that’s just a quick example right there.
AJV (11:17):
No, I think that’s really good. And it’s like, you know, a part of I think why this process is really so important for all, especially if you’re selling any sort of high dollar ticket offering. So anything more than a couple of hundred bucks would qualify as a high dollar ticket offering where if somebody can’t click a button and go, I’m gonna buy that, and they’re gonna require conversation, you gotta have some sort of lead qualifying process. And so you know, a form fill, it could be a simple form. We use an application, so we have like a formal application and we went through this process of trial and error which, you know, highs and lows of that. But we recently just got it super tight. So, and I, I would love for you to share some, you know, experiences of what you’ve seen that works on applications and forms and, you know, and one of the things that we discovered, and I I’ve got two comments here that I’d love your insight on for the benefit of everyone who’s listening is one length of forms, length of applications, because we’re so data heavy when we launched our initial application, which was two years ago, so we’ve learned a lot, we’ve come a long way.
AJV (12:27):
It was a 13 minute long application and initially we convinced ourselves that it was like, well, if they’re gonna stick around that long, then they’re super qualified. And what we were finding is about we were getting about a 55% application completion rate, then six months ago we did like a whole revamp of all of our things and reevaluated everything as a more mature place in our business and said, 13 minutes, gosh, why is anyone filling this out? And we reduced it to three minutes. And so now we can fill out this application, it’s about seven questions, three minutes or less, and now we’re at 94% application completion. And that’s a major thing of just going, I wish somebody would’ve said, you’re out of your mind who has 13 minutes to answer a bunch of questions for a stranger so that they can get on a call with a stranger.
AJV (13:25):
And so some best practices around stuff like that I think would be so helpful of what’s a good link, what questions you should ask. Anything like that would be so helpful as we talk about this leads process. And then the second thing I wanna make sure you hit on is you mentioned this is revenue. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:09):
They were really nice and said, but hey, I’m not gonna fill out this application, so I guess I’m never gonna get a call. And so then I was like, well, here’s the direct Kaley link. I’d like for you to schedule a call so you can tell us why not. Because it’s so short and it was so fascinating and the, I thought it was a really interesting thing of, and we’re getting like a 94% completion rate, so it’s a very few people who aren’t completing it, but is there a another route for the people are going, Hey, it’s like, I don’t wanna fill out your application. So it got me wondering what question did they get to that made them go? And most of it is income or revenue. And so it’s kind of like rero. And so when we look at the dropout on our forms, our applications, most of them drop out when we start asking any sort of financially related questions because now pretty educated consumer, they’re going, oh no, I’m getting qualified, right?
AJV (15:07):
It’s good, bad and different, whatever it is. But I think it’s important. It’s like there’s limited resources for all companies to some degree. And so thoughts around all these things, what are the good questions? Dropout rates, questions around money, if you’ve seen any trends or best practices. And then in general, for the very few, now again, I’ve only had one email ever who have said, I won’t fill out your application, so I guess I’m not gonna get a call. But also just any thoughts around that for maybe someone who does have a very sophisticated, busy time limited customer profile where they’re just like, they’re not likely going to fill it out. Any suggestions around that? So I know that’s loaded and that’s a lot.
BR (15:49):
That’s fair. It’s fair. And, and I would caveat with, with this statement, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So you wanna solve for the 80 to 90%, right? There’s gonna be people that fall outside of that, which it sounds like that individual might have. And if that individual turned into a great customer of yours, that’s when you use that example as how should we look at this onboarding experience a little bit differently because we might be missing out on others. So that’s just a, a little pin in that one. But in terms of length, we stick to the rule of thumb, like if it’s a form, less is more. The, the old kind of rule of thumb was six fields or less to get those to get those leads in the door. Now there’s new technologies out there. I just, I was looking at one the other day, clear bit if anybody has looked into that, where it can allow you to accept even less fields and pulls back all the information by looking at aggregate sites like LinkedIn, crunch Base, all that kind of stuff.
BR (16:48):
So we stick to the rule of thumb of less is more, what is the most pertinent information that we’re looking for in that first touch experience? And that might be some qualification questions. Then as time goes on, you can employ something that’s called progressive forms. So as they come back, now that you know that you know their name, you know their email address, you’ve set a little cookie on their computer without them knowing it sounds horrible, but that’s just the way the world works. Now, you can ask them slightly different questions and you can start to build out that customer profile over time without overwhelming them right out of the gate. I think you bring up something that’s really interesting. The more work you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So it is how do you take the friction out of that experience?
BR (17:36):
And that is less is more. And when they fill something out, you wanna make sure that there’s a value add on the other side that’s worth it for them to give you some of that information. I think you, you also bring up a great point. Anything around budgets or dollars on the first date is dicey, right? It’s like as soon as you ask the budget question, you’ve now skipped to the third date and that person is not ready for that situation. So revenue is an easier thing to ask than, what’s your marketing budget? What’s your sales budget? What do you expect to purchase? Another one would be timeline. What’s your timeline on this? Like if you’re looking to transform who you are as an individual, what’s your timeline? Like sense of urgency? So there are, there are less riskier questions to ask. It could be, how large is your company?
BR (18:29):
Is it zero to 10 people? 10 to 20? I get asked that question all the time when I’m signing up for a service. So that feels like that’s just a default one. So there certainly are some riskier questions, budget and revenue, and there’s some lighter questions like size, industry perhaps urgency, timelines, items like that. But we really do stick to this concept of less is more. And that is sometimes a fight with, with a client. And I say a fight, but it’s, it is a good argument to have because again, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So like if you have a very in depth application where you need to know information, well, maybe that’s not the first step. Maybe that is the second step. But the first step is we’re warming them up to, hey, now that you’ve filled this out, here’s how our process unfolds.
BR (19:18):
And we explain that before they’re just launched into that experience. You mentioned something quite beautiful, which is analytics around every single one of those questions. And so you can take the subjectivity out of the mix by saying, Hey, they made it to question eight, but on question nine, that’s where we’re seeing the biggest drop off. Why is that? And so now you can start to ask some introspective questions of, is it the question? That’s the first thing we would change is let’s just change the question, see if they get past eight. Now, if they don’t, then now we’re dealing with length and time invested versus value received. And so those are really important concepts, especially on a first touch conversion. Because those are the ones you want to make super, super easy for that individual to get hooked into that. Now you can nurture some of those, those harder or more time intensive asks down the road. I don’t know if I answered any of your questions,
AJV (20:15):
BR (20:43):
It does
AJV (20:44):
To be easy. And so one other quick question on this because I think this is really good. I wrote down is like clearly less is more, but you said six fields or less mm-hmm.
AJV (21:34):
So that we can try some phone outreach, right? Cause you, you we’re interested enough to fill out this form, we want a little bit more. So I’m curious around any data around what’s it like between just an email, first name and email, first name, last name, email, add in phone number. Like what are the potential drop off opportunities of getting people to fill out your forms for people who are going, all right, I need to start collecting emails, I need to start doing something, but what’s the bare minimum and what should I really be asking for?
BR (22:05):
Totally. And so this is where we, in our minds, this is where it draws directly back to the leads process. So you just mentioned there’s, there’s multiple different ways for an individual to fill out a form diff varying links, right? For entry points into bbg. And so in that situation, what I heard is we’ve got some marketing qualified forms, we’ve got some sales qualified forms. So obviously the ones where people are raising their hand and saying, Hey, I want to talk to you. Those are gonna be some forms that have some additional fields because we need to make sure that we’re the right fit. But they’re willing to do it because they’ve already researched your brand, they’ve looked at your material enough, they’ve seen you speak, whatever it might be, and now they really do want to do business with you. So they’re willing to go the extra mile.
BR (22:52):
Some of those lighter forms are gonna be more on the leads or marketing qualified leads to where I’m just signing up for your email newsletter. Like, I just wanna see some content from you. And those are the individuals that quite honestly, we are probably wasting our time talking to right now. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (24:22):
No, I think that’s really important and insightful for people who are figuring out this digital part of their business in terms of lead generation of going, you gotta have marketing forms and then there’s sales forms and think about those as two completely different things. And on a sales form, you likely want your phone number, right? It’s like
BR (24:43):
A hundred percent like
AJV (24:44):
You, but I think those are just, those are so simple. Often they get bypassed and they’re like, oh, I only need one form on my website. It’s like, not really.
BR (24:55):
No, no, no, no. You
AJV (24:56):
Kinda have multiple points of entry. Some are just for marketing and I love that. Just a very distinction of what are your marketing forms where you’re just trying to get their emails for nurture and then what are your sales forms where it’s like, no, like there’s an opportunity here. We’re going to talk to you, we’re gonna offer a call. Right?
BR (25:12):
That’s exactly right. And, and honestly like we will even choose channels matched to forms. So like if we’re spending dollars, so paid advertising, we wanna drive a little bit higher to that SQL side of the house. Because at the end of the day, what the organization is looking for is revenue growth. And they don’t really care as much about the leads coming in the door. They really care about close one opportunities. And so when we’re spending dollars with Google or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever the channel is, that is when we’re driving more qualified forms, going to very specific landing pages away from the marketing side of the house, more on the organic side, so social seo, search items like that, even email marketing, that is when we start to drive a little bit more of that marketing side of the forms, knowing that we’re gonna nurture them over a longer period of time. So that’s it, it’s, again, there’s exceptions to all of these rules, right? But like, just by default, that’s how we think about it until we get into conversations and unpack something and we, we say, oh, okay, well we need to do something a little bit different here because of this one, one specific thing in this client’s business. So
AJV (26:26):
Yeah, I think that’s really, I think that’s really good. And if for all of you out there, here going, what is he talking about with all these words? So sql, sales qualified lead, right? So paid media, paid traffic, make sure you’re collecting more data because it needs to lead to revenue for your return on investment. This is why I wanted you to come on the show. It’s like you are talking about a really advanced process here with like really creating the dig digital infrastructure for a thriving sales business in a marketing business. And this is a lot of work, right? This is not for the faint of heart.
BR (27:00):
It is. It is. And it, it’s, it’s, it is a process that you can certainly crawl, walk, run into and one that, to your point, we’re saying a lot of acronyms, right? We’re a bunch of geeks that found our cool doing what we’re doing, and we’ve, this is, this is our world, right? And so often and I talking to somebody that is like, what the heck are you talking about? So thank you for breaking that down. And you can certainly start very, very small and grow it over time into, into the behemoth that you know, you want it to become.
AJV (27:32):
That’s good. So, okay, so now we’ve got leads, right? Yeah. Let’s say, okay, now we’ve got leads. So give us some best practices, some highlights of now how do we make this leads process the most efficient and effective that it can be to go, all right, leads in the door, now they’re a customer.
BR (27:50):
Yes. So a lot of times there’s like this magic handoff point of lead came in the door, we’ve qualified that lead and now we’re handing it over to sales. And we talked a little bit about this at the beginning of this conversation. And you know, if you think about any organization, it can be one person in the organization or it can be 5,000 or more people in the organization. Every organization has got some concept of marketing, sales and operations. It can be the solo entrepreneur that’s doing all three that they don’t even know they’re doing all three. But the reality is that persists across every thriving business that exists. And so there is this handoff going from marketing to sales, and usually the, the clientele that we walk into, there is not a defined leads process, which creates some chaos in that situation.
BR (28:40):
And the chaos occurs when leads are coming in the door that are not ready to purchase or perhaps not the right clientele for us. And the sales team or the sales individual is flooding their time, dealing with individuals that are not ready to close. And it creates this frustration that starts to persist across the business. And so when I say we start with a leads process, it is not only to solve the understanding of who we should nurture to why we should nurture to those individuals and growing those leads in pipeline over time, but it’s also to make that handoff more effective going from marketing into sales. And that one experience can speed up the close rate of your pipeline immensely. I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re focused on the buyer that is ready to buy right now, you can close that individual in a day.
BR (29:31):
If you’re focused on the buyer that isn’t gonna buy from you for six months, you’re gonna be spinning your wheels. And so that is a huge element right there. Then you can start to do things very uniquely. Like we’ve all been in this situation where we’ve been part of sales sequences where you get those 13 emails, those 10 emails that are like, you know, they’ve got the bulleted list and then the final one is you either are stuck under a washing machine or you just don’t want to talk to me, right? Like they’re getting more and more and more creative, right? And so one of the things that we have started to see is this power of CRM technologies, right? Whether you’re using a Salesforce or an active campaign or a Dynamics or a HubSpot or something else, right? But being able to track engagement of individuals in your pipeline is hugely important.
BR (30:25):
And the most simple is, Hey, I just sent an email from my Outlook, you know, email program or from G Suite, I need, did the person ghost me? Did they not, did they not see my email? Why aren’t they picking up my phone call? Having insight into when somebody opened or clicked on something or engaged with a piece of content so you can time your sales follow up right? There is also very important. I have found over my tenure that sales is around timing, having good timing, being able to build relationships, but you gotta meet somebody where they are when they’re ready for that purchase cycle. And so from a sales enablement, it is the one to one emails. I have never really found much success with sales sequences. I know others have, and I’m still trying to unpack why that is and why I haven’t been able to do it well.
BR (31:21):
But the reality is, if you can give a sales team good leads coming in that are ready to purchase, that speeds up that process. And if you can equip that sales team with some technology around understanding engagement of content, of email reads, opens, document reads opens, it equips that sales team to time their follow ups a little bit more effectively and close those deals faster. And so we see, this is crazy, but we have seen when the marketing to sales handoff is perfected, that close rate speeds up by some crazy number like 65 to 70%. It is insane when the synergy is happening between those two pillars in the business.
AJV (32:05):
So what is the one thing or one of the top things that you can do to really better improve that synergy from marketing to sales?
BR (32:16):
So I know I’m a broken record right now, but it is working with the seal sales team to understand the leads process. And, and it it, it is, it’s crazy. But like, if you can bring the sales individual or team or think about it because you’re also the salesperson, why are these sales closing? Why are these sales not closing? You’re gonna pick up, up on patterns that are carrying from one deal to the next, from one customer to the next. And there might be one pattern in your business. There might be 20 patterns in your business, but you can design the leads process to cater to the sales team. So one of the first things we do is we ask, what’s a lead to you? Like, what makes a lead a lead? And you know, you’ll hear conversations around, well, it’s it’s this individual, it’s the owner of the business.
BR (33:07):
They’re this age, you know, it’s this size of an organization. We’re like, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, let’s talk about your customers. Why did they become a customer? All right, that’s a good story. Why did this customer become a customer? And we start to unpack that and you start to see patterns. And those patterns are gonna be demographic patterns. They’re gonna be behavioral patterns that now you can gain that system and design an entire marketing program to feed those type of leads to the sales team and take everything else and put it over on the sideline and nurture to those individuals over time trying to get them into this side of the house. And so it really is a coordinated effort. I, I am a firm believer that marketing’s job is to serve up sales leads. Like that is marketing’s job 1 0 1. And yes, it is look, tone, feel, it is brand awareness.
BR (34:00):
It is credibility of the brand. It’s all those things, right? Like we, we have to do that. Like that’s just default stuff that we have to go do. But our true job, the job of are we gonna be fired or not fired? Are we gonna be successful or not successful? Is how many leads did we deliver to a sales team that actually closed? And that is why we start with, let’s talk to the sales team, let’s understand the customers, what are good, what are not good, and how do we get more of the good to you? And that’s where we, that’s where we start.
AJV (34:30):
I think that is so incredibly important for anyone listening to just take a pulse on for a second is the best research, the best data you actually already have access to. It’s your clients. That’s right. It’s your customers. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in gotta have the crm, gotta have this, gotta have that. And it’s like we overlook the obvious, which is I need to take a good look at who has purchased from me, why did they purchase? And how do I find more people just like them?
BR (35:06):
You are spot on. Spot on. And, and honestly, the first time we engage, when we find out that somebody doesn’t have a leads process, we wanna see the last two years of customer data. And, and I say customer data, they’re like, what does that mean? I’m like, I just need to see accounts and I need to talk to an accounts person or a salesperson and understand why some of these individuals closed or d or or why they do business with you. So you are spot on because the historical context of that is what you, is the easiest, most impactful thing that you can move forward in the quickest clip. Versus trying to say, all right, let’s go spin up a search campaign, let’s go spin up a new xyz. It’s like, yes, you can go do that, but you should go do this thing first cuz you’re gonna make more money quicker doing that.
AJV (35:54):
Yeah, I think this is really, I think this is just really important for everyone who is going, well, I don’t really have money to go do X, Y, and Z. And it’s like, yeah, but you do have some time to talk to your customers to really focus in on where did you come from? Why were you attracted, why do you buy? And how can I replicate that process? Even if it’s on a very small scale. It’s like how do I replicate that until it’s a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger? You don’t have to have tons and tons of automation to do some of the basics, which is back to you gotta know who your ideal client is and you gotta get really specific on what made them buy, what attracted them. And it’s like, even as you were talking, I was thinking about in my head like, what are the commonalities that we see, the trends that we see in our sales pipeline?
AJV (36:41):
And you know, this is, you know, we consider ourselves sales professionals way before we consider ourselves marketers. Mm-Hmm.
BR (38:02):
It’s so true. It’s so true. And, and even like if you’re thinking about lead captures, like you just said it right there, form fills, right? Somebody’s ready to move on it. So if you don’t have somebody looking at the forms all day long, every day, you might miss that opportunity. And if that is not a possibility for you, that’s when you might step into something like live chat. Cuz it forces the conversation a little bit differently. A click to call forces the conversation a little bit differently. So again, it, it is assessing what your availability is, what your team makeup is, and what are gonna be the best conversion metrics or conversion, I’m sorry, technologies for you in specific circumstances, but you’re right, you’re absolutely right.
AJV (38:43):
Ok. Right. I have three questions and I’m watching the clock intently. I’ll try to make these quick so these can be rapid fire if you want. Do you think that there is an ideal CRM automation software out there in the market today?
BR (38:58):
Yeah, I am biased. I will say that we work with, we work with them all, but the one we prefer to work with is HubSpot. And, and I’ll tell you why and a very quick clip, it’s because it has the crm, it has all of the marketing automation, email, social, all of that stuff built into it and it has all of the sales enablement built into it as well as long as well as customer success. So the reason we like it is because it’s the self-contained system where you don’t have to spend a bunch of time, money or energy doing integrations from one system to the next. It’s all contained. The teams are all working out of it, operations, sales, customer success, marketing and it’s super intuitive for the customer. It’s like WordPress on steroids for a crm. So that’s the one we work with the most. Now we’re also used to working with Salesforce, which that is, that is a b fee tool. So good luck with that one. And then Dynamics as well as some others. So yeah.
AJV (39:57):
All right. So HubSpot is your personal favorite. Okay, the next question I had is for this like Legion and also the sales enablement process of like converting quicker, are you finding that most people are spending money on paid traffic or is it more organic?
BR (40:16):
So it’s been an interesting shift. It really has over this concept of the deprecation of third party cookies compliance, which would be the gdpr the ccpa, all the regulatory stuff that we are now bound to as marketers. I don’t know that I’ve necessarily seen a shift. I have seen, well I haven’t seen a shift per se from paid media to organic, but what I have seen is an, an acceleration of using that historical data and building your own customer list or email marketing list and using that to push out content much more than I have seen going after similar audiences, custom audiences and items like that. So I guess after saying that, yes I have seen a shift going back towards organic moving a little bit away from paid media. Paid media is kind of a dicey thing right now in the sense of you have to have a very strong content game to be really, really effective from a paid media standpoint. So
AJV (41:18):
Yeah, I think that’s wise. And again, I ask because we’re not paid media users, we’ve haven’t had to be, and it’s like we do a little here and we do a little there, but it’s like, it’s not really our thing and it’s, I would prefer it not to be
BR (41:56):
That? Yeah, so subject lines and preview techs are, are gonna be very important. Also, I would suggest if you’ve got a program, most of ’em have it like I would think Constant Contact MailChimps of the world. Of course any of these more CRM heavy type technologies have this concept of AB testing, which is basically send out, you do two variations of it, send it out and it will pick the ones that’s the most top performing and send that one to the rest of your audience. It sounds like used to be AB testing was this concept that people are like, what? I’m gonna pay you a lot of money for that. That sounds awesome. Now anybody can do it. Quite honestly, now what we talk about internally is subject lines be outlandish. Like think of what are more aggressive things that are just gonna get somebody to be like, what? And do a double take on that’s what we want. If it’s an event and you’re saying something like, Hey, come to my event, like that’s not gonna work at all. Like you’ve got exactly what you’re talking about. Like give the best first, put that thing in the subject line and preview text and be a little bit outlandish. You can always pull it back, but start aggressive, see how that looks and then pull it back from there. That’s what’s
AJV (43:12):
That you a little bit, the more outlandish, the more people are going, what’s in here? What is this? What is this about?
BR (43:17):
It’s a hook. Yes. Yeah. Like we’ve pushed out some wild subject lines and I’m like, I’m gonna get in trouble for this
AJV (43:30):
I think that’s awesome. You know, it’s interesting, again, as I’m just like, as you’re talking thinking through like what, what are some of the things that we’re doing? Many things are just the process of trial and error, but the one subject line in our sales pipeline that gets the most clicks and the most replies is one that is called Meet your Chief Strategy Officer. And it’s been so interesting that out of all the ones that one is the one that people are like, what is who, who is it and what, what do they do for me? Yeah, but it’s your chief strategy officer and it’s like just you got, but again, you only know what to use once you really know who your ideal client is.
BR (44:13):
That that is true. That is absolutely true. And I would highly recommend using some tools that allow you to do some AB testing and there’s plenty of, of, of very cost effective tools out there. But I love that because it just leaves you wanting more. Like what do you mean meet my chief strategy officer? And so you’re looking for a hook, that’s all you’re looking for in a subject line.
AJV (44:34):
Love it. Okay. we only have like three minutes left but I wanna make sure we get to touch on lifetime value just a little bit. So what are some ways that we can help grow this, increase this, give us some, give us what you got, what are the I
BR (44:49):
Love it. So the number one thing that I see where customers start to churn or drop off is by lack of communication. And we kind of talked about it a little bit with the application process, right? Like if you throw somebody into something where they have zero familiarity with the odds of them bugging out are gonna get increasingly higher as those experience start to unfold. So what we have seen is when we close one a deal, now let’s, let’s start up some internal communication. Let’s make sure the teams are aware that hey, we just, we got a new customer, we got a new client, whatever we want to call them, new member whatever that is. But then there is a series of marketing nurtures and funnels that now need to go out to that newly added customer or client, kind of giving them an idea of what they can expect over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, months, whatever that looks like in your process.
BR (45:42):
But we want to foreshadow what the delivery is before the delivery happens, right? And the more communication that we can provide to that individual that feels personal, makes them have an unbelievable experience and people that have an unbelievable experience are gonna talk about it and they’re gonna stay with you for more stuff. And so as we give them that experience, now is our opportunity to introduce some upsell, some cross sell, some other opportunities. We don’t wanna do that right out of the gate cuz that’s just disingenuous and it kind of turns people off. But at the same time, communication, onboarding that client effectively foreshadowing the delivery before the delivery happens. I mean, it’s the simple things in life that can trip us up or make the difference. Like I will tell you in our business at Snapshot, the the first agency that we started it was simply answering the phones.
BR (46:39):
Answering the phones, which is a simple thing. Created an experience that allow clients to come back to us. So it just, communication is everything. Your products are probably awesome, your service is probably awesome. The thing that creates issues in everybody’s world is communication. And so solving that through the customer experience creates happy customers. Happy customers stay with you for a much, much longer period of time. Of course there’s other things you can do, right to extend the lifetime value, but that is where we start is how do we start to automate the onboarding experience for clients?
AJV (47:18):
Oh, that’s good. So alright, same kind of thing. I wanna do rapid fire, best practice for onboarding. Like what, what should happen during the onboarding?
BR (47:26):
So we ask the customer, do you like email, text message or phone call? So let’s dial it into their preference. And we’ve got systems in place that can handle all three of those. So if they’re not an email person and they’re a text message person, all of our communication needs to go through text until it can’t and then it goes through a different channel. So that, that’s where we start is curtailing it to the customer.
AJV (47:52):
Okay, love it. Again, back to the customer, you want good customer experience and you need to ask the customer what you want their, or what they want their experience to be. Mm-Hmm.
BR (48:20):
Late. It is, it is very true. I would tell you if, if once the delivery is fulfilled, like if it’s a product or if it’s on, if it’s an ongoing service, it’s much easier to upsell along that way. But if it is a, a finite, tangible thing, once that thing is in their hands, we might have missed that opportunity. So I usually look at it from the standpoint of just the same as a lead coming in the door to a sales getting closed. There’s, there’s, let’s call it 10 touch points. There’s more, there’s less, right? But once that deal is closed and the product is in hand, there should be touch points along that way. And so once you design what those touchpoints should be, you, it will become clear. This is where we want to introduce similar products, similar experiences, similar services. And what we have found is the more effective communication in that process. You don’t even have to bring it up. The customer brings it up to you and allows you to respond to it as more of a consultant than a salesperson. And when you can start to frame your mindset of sales is just trying to understand the problem that that person is faced with and you have put yourself in a position to offer them a solution, that’s what sales is. And so in that customer onboarding experience, there’s plenty of opportunities to do that as well.
AJV (49:44):
Love that. Okay watching the clock one last question around kind of like lifetime value. What do you think, other than communication and obviously having a good product or service, right? What do you think is the most important thing that companies can do today to increase the tenure of their customer staying with that company?
BR (50:06):
That, that’s a great question. So one of the, one of the big things that we’re constantly looking at, and this is why I don’t believe necessarily that marketing is what it used to be from a marketing, like just events, look, tone, feel, right, brand awareness, all of that. But innovation. So like if you have got a service or a product and you want to keep that customer for longer, you’ve gotta keep innovating that thing, whatever that thing is, and introducing new value. Some of that new value needs to be at a freemium model to keep them engaged. If they’re on a reoccurring revenue model for you, you need to bake that into your process or into your revenue matrix. Some of it is upsell’s opportunity, but I would think outside of communication and outside of building relationships with your customers, it is continuously innovating the products.
BR (51:01):
If you look at any kind of churn that you might be having, the churn is because the problem either is around communication or the person is just either done using your product, has gotten what they needed outta your product and doesn’t need it anymore. So how do you keep that need and that desire there? And that is through introducing new features new concepts, sister products, right? That extend, you know, your your main product even longer. So there’s, there’s things there, but I think in a rapid fire state, I would say innovating on your product,
AJV (51:35):
Ben, this is so good. Like this is so good. Y’all literally just got thousands of dollars of, of free digital marketing advice. And it’s like, I probably took a page and a half of notes and was like, here are three things that our sales and marketing department need to powwow on. This is for new beginners, this is for established companies, this is for companies who are scaling. This information is just so rich. So Ben, if people want to learn more about you and what you do at Movement, where should they go?
BR (52:07):
They should go to make mvmt.com/bbg.
AJV (52:13):
So make movement mvmt.com/bbg and I will put that in the show notes. Y’all check out Ben, his company, his team, they are so awesome. But then also if Ben other than searching you on YouTube or dance videos, if people want to find you and connect with you personally, where should they go?
BR (52:35):
I am avid on Instagram and LinkedIn, so come at me at at ben Rigsby. You’ll find me on both those channels.
AJV (52:45):
Ben. So awesome. Exceeded all expectations. Thank you so much for being so great. Thank and everyone else, stay tuned for the recap of this episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential Personal brand. See you later, y’all.
Ep 359: Developing a Mindset of Persistence | Annie F. Downs Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Some of my favorite interviews on this podcast and show are the ones where we get to hear the story about how a mission-driven messenger or personal brand started in the very beginning. And if you haven’t yet, make sure you go back and listen to the interview that I just did with Annie F Downs, because that’s the story that she tells about how she got started, how she made her first dollars. And I, it’s just so, so inspiring and, um, and actually inspired me. And so I’m gonna share with you some of my, some of my thoughts and highlights from, from the show, uh, from that interview. And then also just kind of like some of the things I want to add to it and, and share with you. Um, the very first thing that I wanna do is something very tactical. I wanna share with you some of the data about podcast advertising dollars, um, because that came up in our conversation.
RV (00:53):
She hosts a podcast and she also runs a podcast network. And so we were talking about monetizing a podcast. Um, and so I asked her in the interview, you know, how much do you charge for the ads? And how much can you really make as a podcaster and when do you start making money, et cetera. Um, and, you know, she, she openly admitted. She’s like, I don’t really like know all of those, those specifics, um, you know, off the top of my head. But, um, you know, she threw out some numbers. And, and then, um, we actually, at Brand Builders Group, we have a course called Podcast Power. And you know, this is where we teach people one, one of, we have 14 courses in our full curriculum, right? So our members who are, uh, paying members of our, of our membership community, they get access to 14 courses.
RV (01:35):
And one of ’em is Podcast Power, and we have a whole section in there on advertising dollars. And so I didn’t know the numbers off the top of my head, but I went ahead and went into the course, grabbed that specific section, and I wanted to share a couple of those with you just since it came up in the, in the, in the interview. Um, and it, it admittedly, you know, making money from podcast ads is, is a little bit of like a gray box because it’s, it’s not like it’s, I guess it’s a free market system, right? Like so many things, um, there, there’s not a, a hard and fast rule of how it has to be. Um, it’s driven by supply and demand, and it’s driven by like how many, what your show is about and how much advertisers want you, and they want access to your audience and how convicted they are that your audience is the right fit for them, et cetera, et cetera.
RV (02:21):
So, um, that’s part of what it comes down to. But, um, I did wanna just share with you these are, these are the numbers that we, we share with our paying clients, right? So, and, and if you are one of our members, you can go into podcast Power in our workbook. It’s on page 42, um, of, uh, that workbook’s 137 pages, which, you know, obviously we’ve got lots and lots of content we’re teaching y’all. But, um, so the number that we were using in that conversation with Annie was if you’ll have a podcast that gets about 10,000 downloads per episode, and I loved what she said, and I would edify what she said, that basically the first week, uh, will be a number. So let’s say like 5,000, whatever the number of downloads you get that first week will probably double over the next nine weeks.
RV (03:08):
So if you get 5,000 on the first week, then you probably will get another 5,000 over the next nine weeks. And that’s, we see that to be, you know, about right, too, just like, you know, using rough numbers. So we’ll use 10,000 downloads per episode. Um, right? So if you’re doing an episode every week, that means you’re getting around like 40,000 downloads a month. So that’s a, you know, that might take a couple years to get to give or take some, depending on what your topic is and your, you know, who you are, et cetera, and, uh, your network. But, um, for a 15 second ad, um, and this is what we did, is we sort of pulled together data from our, uh, clients and we work with, you know, some of the biggest podcasters in the world, our clients of ours. And, um, you know, we got hundreds of of members.
RV (03:53):
So we, we see this, but it’s, you know, this is, again, this isn’t like scientific per se. This is our poll of our community to try to put some real numbers to something that’s kind of an obscure conversation. Um, that for a 15 second ad, um, that, uh, if you, if you did four episodes a month, so we’ll just stay there, we’ll just say, if you had 10,000 downloads an episode and then you were doing four episodes a month, an advertiser might pay you around $720 a month, um, which would be, you know, like for four episodes, like $180 per episode. And if you were doing four episodes a month and they wanted, they wanted all four, if they wanted a spot on all four, then you might make $720 per 15 second ad per advertiser, right? So if, if it goes up to a, if a 60, that’s for a 60, a 15 second ad read, if you were looking for like a 62nd ad read, um, those, uh, uh, come out to approximately like $25 each, like, you know, for like a A C P M, right?
RV (05:02):
And so if you go, all right, if we’re gonna have 10,000 downloads per episode, then you would, you, an advertiser might pay, uh, 250 an episode or a thousand dollars a month to be on all four of your episodes. So, you know, Annie off the top of her head, she said, yeah, if you have a podcast that’s getting 10,000 downloads an episode and you have an episode coming out every single week, then you know, I said, what would that podcast make in a year? And she was, she was reluctant to answer, but she threw out a number that was, uh, I think she said like maybe $40,000 a year is what that podcast would make. Um, and you know, when I went and looked up our data and what, what we actually formally teach, um, so we’re seeing around a thousand dollars a month for one 62nd ad read.
RV (05:53):
So that would be $12,000 a year, but that’s only for one 62nd ad read. So if you had three 62nd ad reads, um, in each episode, that would be $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year. So I actually think she was pretty close. I actually think that’s about right. Um, and for those of you that are podcasters are aspiring podcasters, you know, anyone who’s an experienced podcaster knows that if you start the year with 10,000 downloads an episode, it’s gonna grow. And it, it’s always, it’s one of the beauties of the podcasting medium is it’s constantly growing and, um, it’s just a snowball that builds and builds and builds and it’s a really, really beautiful and wonderful medium in that way. So, um, yeah, so that is, uh, you know, a, a good, a good rule of thumb if you get up to a hundred thousand downloads an episode, you know, you multiply that by 10, now you’re talking about making, you know, $10,000 a month per advertiser, uh, which would be like 400.
RV (06:51):
If you had four of those on each episode, that’d be like $400,000 a month or 5 million bucks a year. Like that would be pretty massive. So it may not scale quite up to that, but that’s, you know, you can make real money over it long term. But in the short term, if you’re podcasting, you’re not gonna make much money from advertisers cuz you’re not in front of that many people, right? They’re paying C P m, which is cost per thousand impressions. So you don’t, if you don’t have thousands of downloads, then you’re not getting, you’re not getting many impressions and they’re not gonna be paying you, uh, much for those, right? So, um, that is a little bit of data there. And if you’re an early podcaster, and even if you’re an experienced podcaster, right? Like our, our podcast gets, you know, well north of, of that number, but we don’t, um, we don’t have ads on our show other than our own ads.
RV (07:39):
And so we offer just people, uh, our various free training and we give them a chance to, um, you know, uh, learn from us or engage with us or request a free call at some point. That’s what we really want you to do, right? We want you to go to free brand call.com/podcast and request a call to say, Hey, we’d love to talk to you about what is your dream, what is your vision, um, to build your personal brand and monetize it, and then talk to you about how we do that and how we help people all the way from the biggest personal brands in the world down to people who are just starting out. And we’ve got stuff for, um, every different budget. So anyways, if that’s you, let this be our ad read, uh, here in this and go to free brand call.com/podcast and request a call with us.
RV (08:19):
So I hope that is, I hope that is helpful for you. That was something I wanted to make sure and look up, um, and give to you the, the, the next thing that I was inspired by listening to that, uh, you know, re-listening to that interview, re going over my notes with, uh, uh, Annie and was just, you know, she said something and it was kind of like quick, but she said, get help before you can afford help get help before you can afford help. And this really reminded me of a concept that is in my second book, which is Procrastinated on Purpose, five Permissions to Multiply Your Time. And in that book, which is also based on the, uh, which my, my, my viral TED talk is based on my, my TED Talk’s called How to Multiply Time. Um, we talk a lot about the concept of getting help in your life, um, like extra hands to help you with things and hiring people to do it.
RV (09:15):
And what people always say is they say, I can’t afford it. Like they say, Rory, I would love to hire someone to help clean my house, do my landscaping, edit my videos, write my copy, do my website, et cetera, et cetera. And they say, well, the problem is, I, I can’t afford it. And so I want to reintroduce or remind you, or if you’ve never read my book, um, that second book, the, I want to introduce to you the concept of mvat, M V O T and m OT stands for the money value of time. Now, the, the concept of the money value of time, first of all, should not be confused with the time value of money. The concept of the time value of money is about knowing what is $1 worth today out in the future based on some assumptions of compounding interest.
RV (10:03):
And that’s a powerful concept also, but not what I’m talking about here, right? That’s the time value of money is basically knowing what, uh, an amount of money will be worth at some point in the future, um, based on, you know, compounding interest. M v OT or money value of time is just a very, very, it’s a much simpler calculation and it’s a much simpler assumption and a much simpler thing. It’s a much simpler thing to explain, which is just that all of us have an hourly rate of pay, all of us do. Now, you might not get paid hourly, right? You might be a salesperson on commission, you might be an owner who’s on profits. Um, you, you, you might be, you know, and, and, and an investor who gets dividends, like, uh, we get paid in different ways, but all of us can figure out what our hourly rate of pay is if you just take the total amount of money you earned, right?
RV (11:02):
Whatever you earned in income, and you divide that by the total amount of hours that you’ve worked for a year. Um, and to do it quickly, you know, rough math here is to use the number 2080 for the number of working hours in a year. So if you just approximately, you know, did you take 200 2080? That’s about what HR professionals use to estimate the number of working hours in a year. And if you take that amount and you divide that, uh, take your total income and divide it by 2080, it’ll give you your hourly rate of pay. And what you’ll find is, let’s just say somebody, if, if somebody makes like $150,000 a year, okay? So if you made a $150,000 a year divided by 2080, then that means you make $72 an hour. Let’s say if you make $75,000 a year and you divide that by 2080, that means you make $36 an hour, right?
RV (12:02):
For the, for the, the, the time that you’re working. So here’s the thing, as people always say, I can’t afford it, I can’t afford to hire somebody else, but the the key insight is to realize you already are affording it. You already are affording it. You are paying somebody to do that work. You are either paying someone else at their rate of pay or you are paying yourself at yours. Because if you are using an hour of your time to, to complete any task, I don’t care what the task is. If, if you are completing a task, then the opportunity cost of your time is equivalent to whatever your mvo is, is to say, if, if instead of mowing the yard for an hour, if I took that hour and I use that hour and reinvested it into work and to income generating things on average, that’s the hourly rate of pay I make.
RV (13:00):
So the way to think about it is to realize, you know, if you make $75,000 a year, every hour that you’re doing something is you’re paying $36 an hour to do that task. It’s like a, it’s like a, a price of admission. You’re saying, oh, I’m gonna pay $36 and I’m hiring my, you know, I’m hiring myself to do this. Whereas if I could hire somebody for less than that rate of pay to do that task for me, then I could reallocate that time and I could reinvest that time into things that generate income or generate more money at that rate of pay my mvo or higher. And what you find is that if you do that over the course of time, then your mbot gets higher and higher and higher because you spend more and more of your time. You spend a higher percentage of your time focused on higher income p earning activities, and you spend a lower and lower percentage of your time on non-income producing activities.
RV (13:58):
And then you are you. But that work still needs to be done. It just doesn’t need to be done by you and you’re able to afford it by reallocating your time into higher profit activities. That is the concept of mbot that is, uh, in the delegate chapter, uh, along with another powerful rule called the 30 x rule. In my second book, procrastinate on Purpose, five permissions to Multiply Your Time. But I bring it up here because this is the conversation that Annie was saying is she was saying, I always by help before I can afford help, and that is how it has been with me too. I’ve never felt like I have extra money around to hire the next person. We don’t, but we know we need the help in order to grow. And so what happens is I’m always trying to minimize my lifestyle expenses, right, in order to create more that I can reinvest into hiring people to help us get things done.
RV (14:56):
When you do that over and over and over again, at some point it catches up and now you have people who are getting things done and making things happen, and now you start to make more money and you’re making money off of the system that you’ve built right off of the network or the infrastructure or the, or the organization or the company, because you’ve got a group of people who are all doing things and they’re, you are paying them. That’s, that is what an entrepreneur, that’s what it means to be an entrepreneur. You’re giving life to, uh, jobs around you. You’re a job creator. And Annie’s story was that she, she talked about how she couldn’t even afford to pay her assistant. She could barely afford to pay her assistant. Um, when she first was getting speaking gigs, most of the money was going to the person who was booking the gigs for her. And I’m not saying that I like it. I’m not saying that that’s how it should be. I’m just saying that’s how it is.
RV (15:56):
And if you’re serious about changing the world, if you’re serious about being a mission-driven messenger, if you’re serious about like wanting to do good work in the world, you are gonna have to make sacrifices and you’re gonna have to make short-term sacrifices in exchange for the long-term payoffs that come, which is money, it’s influence, it’s impact, it’s income, it’s purpose, it’s peace. It’s all the things that are these beautiful rewards that show up from, from doing it. But there’s a price that you have to pay right there. There’s, there is sacrifices required. This comes from my first book, take the Stairs, the Pain Paradox. The Pain Paradox says that one of the key mindsets of UL ultra performers, one of the key distinctions that UL Ultra performers have made is they realize that, that the short-term easy leads to the long-term difficult. Meanwhile, difficult short-term choices lead to easy, long-term consequences.
RV (16:55):
And so you gotta make that choice. And that pulls me right into, you know, the third thing I wanted to share with you about what it takes to make it on this journey as a mission-driven messenger. And at the very end of the interview with Annie, I said, Hey, if there was somebody out there right now who’s in, you know, struggling in that moment, what would you tell? What would you tell them? And effectively what she shared is you have to make a decision that you’re not gonna quit at some point in your career, at some point in your life, you have to resolve, you have to conclude. You, you have to come to a, a summary analysis that says, I will not be stopped. I will not quit. I will not give up. I will not abandon. I will stay, I will fortify, I will edify, I will solidify this commitment.
RV (17:57):
I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me, right? There’s no one in this world who can stop you except you. You are the one ultimately who gives up. You’re the one who ultimately fires yourself. You’re the one who ultimately calls it quits. No one else can do that for you. They can bounce you around from different opportunities and close certain doors, but at the end of the day, you are the one that decides if you’re gonna be successful or not. And you decide and you resolve that you’re gonna keep going even when it’s hard. You, you have to, you have to reach this point in your life. You have to reach this time where you say, I don’t care if it’s difficult, I’m gonna succeed. Even if it’s difficult. I don’t care if it’s inconvenient. I’m gonna succeed even if it’s inconvenient. I don’t care if I’m having a hard time affording it.
RV (18:45):
I don’t care if there’s rejection, I don’t care if there’s fear. I don’t care if I am tired, if I’m exhausted, I don’t care. I am going to rise above that. I am going to succeed in spite of that, I am going to do it anyway. And that is what it takes. That is what it takes to be successful in this industry or any industry. It is that personal resolve that, that discipline, that commitment, that vision and that that persistence to just say, I am going to rise above all that. If the world throws this and that and whatever at me, it doesn’t matter. I will not be stopped. You can’t stop me. I’m going to do everything in my power. Then I’m gonna find a way or I’m gonna die trying. Nobody is gonna wave their wand over you and say, you deserve to be a a messenger.
RV (19:34):
You deserve to be an author. You deserve to be a speaker. Right? You, if you’re waiting for that, you’re gonna wait your whole life. Stop waiting for that and go get it and decide. The only person who waves that wand is you. And you. You wake up and you say, this is what I’m gonna do with my life. I’m gonna inspire people, I’m gonna help people. I’m gonna make a difference. And I will not be stopped. I might get rerouted, I might get tired, I might have setbacks. It might be hard, it might be difficult, inconvenient, uncomfortable, challenging, and it might be scary, but it doesn’t matter. This is the life that I choose for myself. I am in charge and I have a future that I’m pursuing and I am writing my story and I am the author and I decide that this is how it’s going to be. I’m gonna make it. Even if it’s hard, nobody else can do that for you except you.
RV (20:41):
And that is the power that you do have. That power. And, and listening to Annie’s story was just such a great fresh reminder of that to me, right? She was a four-time author, right? She had an agent and four book deals and she could barely, she was barely making it. And now, you know, you see her, she’s on stage in front of thousands of people and she’s got this huge podcast in this amazing network, all these great opportunities. She’s inspiring people, she’s changing lives. Like she’s doing all these wonderful things. And people see and they go, well, I could do that, I could do that. Right? They look at her on stage like, that looks like so much fun. I could do that. Why? How come I can’t do that? Cuz that’s not the job. The job is overcoming the fear. The job is overcoming the inconvenience.
RV (21:28):
The the hard part is all the parts you don’t see. It’s not given up when most people will, right? It’s not accepting someone else’s rejection as, as permanent. It’s realizing it’s just temporary. It’s just a redirection. And you can make that decision right now. And if that’s you and you are ready to make that decision, I would say the first thing you should do is you should come and join us because we are among the very best in the world, if not the best in the world, at helping mission-driven messengers to reach more people and to make this dream come true. We know a lot about it. We’ve done it, we’re doing it. We have several people doing it. We, we, we can help. But you gotta make that decision that you’re not gonna be stopped. So I hope you do that. If you’re ready to make that decision, go to free brand call.com/podcast, request a call with our team.
RV (22:22):
Uh, if not, if you’re not quite at that point, um, just keep tuning in and keep hanging out and keep learning, um, and keep, uh, checking in on these amazing guests and these inspiring stories. We’re so grateful for you that you’re here. Um, share this episode with somebody who needs it. If you would go share, go tell Annie, uh, go find Annie on social media and send her some love. Let her know that you heard her, her on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Um, and just give her a thanks for showing up and being a part of, uh, this amazing community. So, you know, they, these folks do it for free. They come on here because we’re friends and because they wanna help other people just like you. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 358: How to Build a Bestselling Brand in the Christian Market with Annie F. Downs
RV (00:02):
Well, if you have listened to this show for any amount of time, you know that I am a hardcore Bible thump in Jesus freak. It’s true. We are at Vaden villa and our church that we go to in Nashville is called Crosspoint Church. I’ve been on the board there for several years and one of our teaching pastors and leaders of the church has been a friend of mine who I have admired from afar for years. We’ve gotten to know each other a little bit. Her name is Annie F Downs. That is our guest today. You’re going to hear from her. So she is a New York Times bestselling author. She speaks all over the country. She does sermons, she does Christian conferences, a couple business gigs every year. She has an Damazing podcast like the Lineup of People on her podcast.
RV (00:45):
Her podcast is called. That Sounds Fun. And she also has a podcast network called the That Sounds Fun Network of which one of our other one of our clients, Matthew West, who’s like I’ve got major, major man crush on Matthew West
AFD (01:25):
Rory. That was the kindest introduction. You could just make me cry sitting right here. Thank you very much.
RV (01:30):
Well, you’re awesome buddy. And then you also do weddings cuz we saw you at Chris and our, our, some of our best, best friends, Chris and Lexi got married and then we’re like, what
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Annie’s doing this? How did, wait, you know, that, how did this, how
RV (01:43):
Did this happen? So,
AFD (01:44):
Hey, that’s so fun. It’s such a gift. I got started the ordination process through Crosspoint a couple of years ago because two of my friends got engaged on the same weekend and they both asked me to do their weddings. And I was like I can’t do weddings. Let me make a call
RV (02:13):
So tell me a little bit about all the things you’re going on. So like, when you think of like Annie f Downs, just give us a lay of the landscape and, and you know, I think I share with you a little bit like there’s a lot of people who listen to this show. We, we haven’t talked much about how the, the church market and the faith market and just in spirituality conference, you know, in general. Yeah. so tell us like what makes up the landscape of everything, the moving parts of the N E F Downs Empire?
AFD (02:41):
Yeah. I think that’ll help for people to kind of get a picture of what the businesses look like because we are not a ministry, we are a business. Got it. I get to do ministry work, I get to do work that is faith-based, but we want to run really successful businesses. Got it. And I think there’s a different responsibility and a different expectation when someone thinks you’re running a ministry than a business. Maybe it’s just in my own brain. Sure. And so I’m like, oh no, I wanna run a really good business.
AFD (03:24):
And so it’s called Downs Books Incorporated. Inside of Downs Books is all the writing I do. Okay. All the speaking I do. And that, that sounds fun. Podcast and the, let’s read the Gospels podcast. So everything I make and everything my team makes is under the Downs Books co company. Got it. What is also in our office is my manager Kelly Haywood has K c h entertainment here too. So she has, I have five employees at Downs Books. She has four that help kind of run the high level things, right. Like they, when we launched the, let’s read the Gospels podcast, they’re the ones figuring out how do we do the website and how do we do the graphics and how do we, so they’re kind of the behind the scenes machine for a lot of what we do. They do what you hear music managers do or managers for people on tv. It’s, it’s the same relationship. It’s a management relationship.
RV (04:16):
Interesting.
AFD (04:16):
And then across the hall, is that, that sounds fun. Network, a podcast network for our friends listening who don’t know, it really works just like a TV network where all the shows have something in common, but they’re different. And what a network a allows is community and income because we also have a sales team that helps get advertising. So we have 17 shows on the network, although that sounds fun. Network. And we have five employees over there as well. And so we’re helping these 17 shows to help them book guests. Sometimes we help them meet each other so they can be on each other’s shows. We help them find ad partners that are really good fits for their content and their audience. And so that’s what we, we get to do. I’m, I’m a co co-owner and a founder of the Network. Okay. Both of my shows are on the network, but I’m not in the, like, daily running of that company.
RV (05:08):
Got it. Got it. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I didn’t even know that you had that. So Yes. So,
AFD (05:15):
And then I also teach at Crosspoints. I’m also on the T team. That’s
RV (05:18):
And you do weddings. Yeah.
AFD (05:19):
And I do weddings.
RV (05:20):
Right, right. Occasionally. Occasionally. That’s the other part. For close, for close friends. That’s right. And then, so, so let’s talk. So let’s go to Downs Books. Okay. And let’s talk, let’s talk in there. Cause that sounds like that’s sort of the core of like where you’re spending’s righting your, your time. Yes. how did you start, like, and, and how did you make your first dollars? Right? Like Yeah. Go all the way back to the beginning and like mm-hmm.
AFD (05:52):
Yeah. You know what you’re gonna love Roy, I think I may have told you this in our real life before, but I, when my fourth book released, I also applied to teach at the parent teacher store in Green Hills because I didn’t have enough money to pay my assistant. Wow. So, so it has been, I mean, it is not one of those like, and your listeners and friends probably know, like, it’s not one of those, like when you get your book deal, there you go. It’s like, no, the, if your book deal is, if your book’s coming out in a year and you get a $10,000 book deal, I’m just making an easy number. I mean, you’re, after you pay your agent, which you should have an agent and you should pay your agent once they get their percent. And once you pay taxes, you’ve made $5,000 in a year.
RV (06:59):
AFD (07:01):
Then I was like, that
RV (07:01):
Was your first book. That was your first book.
AFD (07:02):
Yes. Yes. Okay. And I thought, this isn’t working. And you know, you, you don’t pay your agent. You the, you know, the agent takes a percent. And so at this point I’m saying to my agent, you’re not making any money and I’m not getting the right books. So what are we doing? So, so we made, I made no money through this until a couple of years later. I mean, I was writing I was writing like for like one of those Groupon kind of websites. Okay. I was writing ads for them. So I was making like a, a small income off of that.
RV (07:37):
But not like your con not your content. You were just doing copywriting for
AFD (07:41):
Something? No, no, no. I did copywriting for probably three years behind the scenes while in front of the scenes. I’m trying to author and travel and speak. Yeah. My book does get picked up by a publisher in 2011. After I self-publish it, I self-publish it. Cause I was like, at this point I’ve written the book. I have an audience of a couple of thousand people who have been with me in this journey. I just want a book that my grandkids can have on their bookshelf that my, that their grandmother wrote one time. Right?
RV (08:09):
Yeah.
AFD (08:10):
When we put it on Amazon in the first quarter, I put it up in quarter four because I wanted to hit holidays. Okay. And it was for teen girls. And we sold about 2,500 in that quarter.
RV (08:21):
Wow.
AFD (08:22):
And when that happened, a publisher said, I’m sorry, we said no to that. We didn’t know you would sell the books. Right. And you sell the books. And so they came back, Zondervan signed me for a book deal in the winter of 11. And the book came out in August of 2012. And my first book deal, my advance was $7,000.
RV (08:45):
Nice.
AFD (08:47):
So I
RV (08:48):
Filling in to go.
AFD (08:49):
Yeah. I seriously thought, here we go.
RV (08:52):
So like that was at least, I can’t believe it, over the course of three or four years. Years, that’s like 65 cents an hour. I mean, some somewhere. It was wild. Somewhere in there.
AFD (08:59):
Yeah. Yes, yes. So what ends up happening though is, and I don’t know this behind the scenes, what I know is I’ve gotten a book deal offer and then I get a phone call from the publisher that says, Hey, would you like to travel and speak on a Teen girl tour? And it’s every other weekend for the school year. And I thought, well, yeah, the here’s I, I thought I wasn’t gonna get to do this anymore. And suddenly I see this job for the next year. And what had happened, Rory, is the publisher had made a deal with a record label here in town that had point of grace on it, the word word record label. And it was a conference called Girls of Grace that was for teen girls. Huh. And the sponsorship deal included a speaking spot. So Zondervan was a sponsor of the tour. Ah. The sponsorship included a bunk on a bus and a 20 minute slot. And I was the only new author that lived in Nashville. Wow. And so I was the only one who could bus out
RV (10:00):
AFD (10:03):
That’s right. I’ll take it. Cause built So was your cause built the whole thing.
RV (10:06):
So that wasn’t until 2013 then?
AFD (10:08):
Yes, 2012 and 2013. The book came out in ap August of 12. And the tour started then. And so what I would do in every city, Rory, is I, we would get there on a Friday. I would have most of Friday free, cuz the conference was on Saturday. So we bused out at midnight on Thursday would go to Columbus, Ohio. Yep. Friday I rent a car or get in an Uber and I drive to every bookstore that will look me in the face and I say, Hey, I’m Annie F Downs, do you have my new book? And if they did, I would sign ’em. And if they didn’t, I would ask them to carry it. So I’d go to three or four bookstores in every city on our first day in the city. The second day when we had our event. When I’m speaking, what’s also happening is all these youth group leaders are there. And so I’m, I have a, this is very in line with what you teach us to do. I have a thing on the screen that I say, Hey, if you want a 30 day devotional for free, here’s all you gotta do. Hit the do this QR code or whatever. And so what ends
RV (11:02):
Up happen, it wasn’t QR codes back then, I don’t think, think QR codes didn’t become popular until Covid. That’s what’re right. Covid left behind in its wake was QR codes for the work. Exactly.
AFD (11:10):
Right. I think it was probably just an a web address. Yeah. I think they just could take a picture of that, of a place on my website. And so what that, what that tour ended up doing is giving me a bunch of emails of teen girls and their leaders Wow. And a bunch of youth pastors who said, can I want her to come back and speak to our youth group or to our college ministry or to our women. So I had it for, and I ended up being on that tour for two years. Wow. So I was in front of thousands and thousands of leaders who then bring in speakers to their own
RV (11:40):
Church. Got it. Okay. And so, and so at that point you’re collecting email addresses, which good on you. Like that’s a game changer to ca to capture all that. But it’s not like millions of email addresses. It’s like no, no, no. A few thousand. You do that for a couple years, you got five or 10,000 emails maybe.
AFD (11:57):
Exactly. I pro I think we ended each year, I think we ended each year with five more. So I think the first year was about 5,000. Second year was about 10.
RV (12:04):
Okay. But now these people have seen you speak and so now they start calling you to come speak at their church. Yes.
AFD (12:11):
Yes. Interesting. So then they say, Hey, we saw you at Girls of Grace in Min Minneapolis. Our church is 30 minutes from there and we have a youth conference that has a thousand students. Will you come speak
RV (12:22):
Uhhuh
AFD (12:26):
Yes, I was paid. I feel like it was a couple of hundred dollars. It wasn’t very much and it was one bunk. So I also was my own merch person. Right. Which is very normal. This was, I was treated Yeah. Very well on this tour. That is, I mean, you know, there’s those big music tours like Winter Jam where you don’t get paid. You’re just glad to be there and you, what you get paid is how much merch you move. Right. Right. And so I, I had one bunk, so I set up my own merch table. I would train merch volunteers. I was counting in merch, I was counting out merch and and I got paid a couple hundred dollars.
RV (13:01):
I mean this is sounds more like a musician start. Like
AFD (13:04):
It totally is. And in fact, so much of what you see shaped in my career is because who we can watch here in town do this is musicians. And so my friends that are musicians, I was watching them and going, wait, you don’t do your own books at the end of an event? Who does that? Wait, you aren’t making this decision? Who does that? And so I really am, I do look as an artist, if you like, looked down from the sky at me and a country artist, we look very similar and how our businesses run versus if you look down me on mine and another author who has as many books out as me, doesn’t have the kind of team I have, doesn’t have the kind of processes I have cuz I look like a musician.
RV (13:46):
Interesting. So then, so, so then these youth leaders start calling and that’s, are you getting a thousand bucks to speak?
AFD (13:52):
No, I’m getting 500 bucks to speak and travel for two people.
RV (13:56):
Wow, okay. Yeah. So not a lot of money still going on.
AFD (14:01):
Right. So we are, that’s why, I mean it took, I put three teen books out 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. And then in 2015, my first adult non-fiction came out. That was a memoir called Let’s All Be Brave. And when that book came out is when I did not have the money to pay my assistant who, because I, I’m a big believer in like get some help before you can actually afford the help. Yeah. Like you be the hustler to make the money so that you can have help because mm-hmm.
RV (14:51):
Uhhuh
AFD (14:51):
RV (15:10):
Yep. And so then so then that book came out. So that was your fourth book. So now you’re starting to get some, some advances that are at least like, you know, more reasonable advance to kind of like build your career. Yes, yes. You have some royalties coming in
AFD (15:24):
Probably. That’s right. So the good news of taking small advances is you do usually get money on the backside. So I have 11 books out and I make money on the backside of nine of ’em. And so I’m getting mailbox money every quarter. We try to treat book money, like foundation money that we don’t touch unless we have to. So we just deposit that. What we’re actually trying to run our budget off of is speaking money and podcasting money. But the podcast didn’t start till 2014 and it didn’t start making money until 2017 probably.
RV (15:55):
Ah-Huh.
AFD (16:14):
That, that was a muddy season, as you can imagine, because I’m still getting these calls for teen girl conferences or for college conferences even. I am, at this point I’m 34 and I am way out of actually living life as a teenager or living with teenagers. And I’m mostly talking to 20 year olds cuz I’m at Crosspoint, I’m volunteering in the college ministry. So my time is spent with people in their mid twenties. So that transition was really hard. I, we had to work really closely with my booking agent and kind of be like, Hey, we, we can’t keep taking these, we have to start setting me up. So the transition looked like if a big church called and said, Hey, we’ve got $2,000. We’d love for Annie to come speak to our college women’s group and there’s 500 girls that’ll come great. Annie would be happy to do that. Could you do a luncheon the next day for the women? Yeah. And invite any women and it won’t cost you any extra, but Annie would love to talk for 20 minutes to women in your church or could she get a meeting with your women’s minister to talk about what y’all are doing for women’s ministry? So the the transition was, if you’re gonna pay me for what I’m known for, will you let me do for free what I’m trying to do?
RV (17:32):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (17:36):
And so it was muddy though. It was not fun that we had to say nos. We didn’t wanna say we had to do things cheaper than I wanted to do, but I, and I also ended up changing publishers because it was really hard to not be considered the the new girl who wrote for teenagers when I was trying to be a peer with my friends who wrote for adults.
RV (17:56):
Right. Yep. And then so then you start speaking at women’s groups and then from there it’s just like you’re speaking and the spinoff starts to come and then you speak at That’s right. So, so what’s do you the like is there’s, they’re speaking at women’s groups and then they’re speaking at like is a women’s group, like a Christian, like a conference, is that primarily then
AFD (18:20):
Probably a conference? Yeah, that’s right. And a lot of churches do their own like women’s retreats and women’s conferences that are for whatever they are. You know, it could be a hundred women in a room or it could be 10,000 women that go to some of these. And the ones that, you know, one of the things that happens a lot is they will end up reading your book or, or going through a Bible study I’ve written and, and, but they don’t have the money to fly me or to bring my assistant or whatever. And so the opportunity is to go like, man, who in your community could do this? There’s people right there. Right. But the transition started happening where people would bring me in Saturday and say, will you stay and speak on Mother’s Day to our Sunday morning? And so then I started being able to, to get invitations that were not just female audiences but we’re men and women together. And that’s when I started doing more Sunday mornings.
RV (19:16):
Do people get paid to speak at a church on a Sunday?
AFD (19:19):
Sometimes, yeah. I mean if, if you are traveling and you’re leaving your normal life, yes. I think it’s, it’s considered an event. So a most ti Sundays, if I’m speaking somewhere else, there is some honorarium attached to it. For me with Crosspoint, that is not, that is not true. Only because that’s my, that is how I serve my local church and I only teach four or five times a year. And so it’s, it’s the way I get to give back to the church that gives me so much. And so there are exceptions to the rule, whereas with a conference, there is no exception for me. Like, if, if you can’t, if you can’t bring me in and and pay me to do my job, then I’m not the right fit for you. That means that God has somebody else for y’all. That’s a little bit different on Sunday mornings to me. I don’t do merch tables on Sunday mornings. There’s just some changes that are not rules that anybody else has to follow, but are rules that are for me that I’ve created that are like, nah, we’re not gonna sell books on a Sunday morning. I just don’t like the way that feels, so I don’t do that.
RV (20:21):
Got it. But so they might, and then, I mean I’m sure it varies, but like when you get, when you get into the Christian market, ultimately you have local churches doing program for their membership. Yes. And they might be bringing somebody in and they’re paying that speaker to come in or maybe doing like a rev share, like a ticket sale kind of a thing. Yes. Or you have conferences where it’s like a regional kind of lots of churches sort of promoting, there’s a promoter, either a church is hosting it and then you have speaking on Sundays and all of those can be paid things in the church world.
AFD (20:58):
Yes, that’s right. And the conferences, that’s, that’s exactly right. Those are the three options. You’re gonna do something local, you’re gonna do something community sized or you’re gonna do Sunday mornings.
RV (21:06):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (21:20):
For some people it’s okay if it’s not for everybody. Yeah. I, it just, it is for me. Yeah.
RV (21:25):
Lots of, I mean lots of authors, lots of Christian authors, that’s what they kind of do. I feel like they do like a, a big church tour of the whole country and that’s, that’s part of how they sell their, they how
AFD (21:34):
They sell. Especially in July and August or June and July when pastors want some time off. I mean that’s why you see so many authors and pastors sharing their stages with other people is they want, they need some weeks off and understandably Uhhuh
RV (21:53):
Tell me about, so let’s talk about the podcast. So I’m b I’m Curious cuz that’s part of like, you have the, that sounds Fun network and then you also have your two, your two podcasts. Yep. So when do you start making money from that and how, how do you make money from the podcast and like, tell us about that a little
AFD (22:09):
Bit. Yeah, so it’s, it’s ad revenue, right? So it’s, it is the same as a TV show. It’s commercials and, and there are multiple ways to do it. There is what’s called a di, which is just a drop in where, where it’s not the voice of the host where it literally is a commercial. So you hear that a lot on some of the shows on other networks. I think Gimlet does it. It’s, it’s not good or bad, it just is. And where they’ll have a read that goes before you start listening to the show you’re listening to. So for me, what we do, we all add host Red Ads for my show and for the That Sounds Fun Network. We do host red ads. Those are the most genuine we believe for what we are making and, and they pay the most. And so for my show I started having advertising partners want to work with us about 2017.
AFD (22:58):
So my producer at the time, Chad Sna from Sound On Sound Off Music or Sound on Sound Off Productions, he had a friend who had done ad sales for a long time. So I hired him for a while, then I joined a network. It was not a great fit, but that’s was the next move is I joined a network. When I left that network is when my manager and I kind of went like, Hey, we can build a better thing than what I’m experiencing Hmm. As a podcaster. And so we got a sales team. So they work with ad partners, they work with like advertising companies that are kind of over multiple different companies that want to advertise. And so they, it literally is a, Hey Annie, I mean it happened this morning. Hey Annie, there’s a brand that wants to be on the podcast. Can they go ahead and send you an example of of their product and you can see if you like it and see if it’s something that you’d like to talk about. And that’s how we do.
RV (23:50):
So how, how does that, like how big of a pod, like how big does a podcast have to be before it can start advertising?
AFD (23:57):
That’s a great question. So it, depending on what kind of money you wanna make, you can start advertising with someone like Anchor that’s run through Spotify. You can do ads for Anchor starting immediately now. You’ll get paid if you have five listeners, you’ll get five pennies or something. You know, like, but there, there is a availability for anyone who starts a podcast to start making advertising money right away when you really make money that can pay for your production and actually help run, run your ministry, your company, your brand. We see that about 10,000 listeners in the first 10 weeks is when advertising partners are really interested in working with you in the
RV (24:38):
First, that’s the, that’s 10 weeks like each,
AFD (24:39):
That’s the number they look at episode. Yep. So you look at an episode that releases on January 1st, you’re gonna what the advertiser partner doesn’t they like the first week that matters to them, but what they actually look at is what’s the arc of the whole show? So how at the end, so when we look at stats every week, you, you know me Rory, I look at stats constantly. It’s like I
RV (24:58):
Love it. I did not know that about you.
AFD (24:59):
Oh you did? Oh listen,
RV (25:00):
I didn’t know that that
AFD (25:01):
Is about you. That is science. Like that will tell, we can say I think everybody loved that episode. Well no they didn’t, nobody listened. So we gotta look at the science. So I love the stats. So every Monday in our staff meeting we look at how did our shows do it one week just cuz we’re interested. But what we really go back and look at is the show that released 10 weeks ago, how many people have listened? And usually we have about double from one week to 10 weeks. So what, what what happens in one week happens again in week two through 10 of listenership. And so that’s what advertising partners look at. So when we’re looking at shows to add to the network that really want, that are hoping it’ll be a financial benefit to that show where the host is like, Hey, I need to make money off of this if I’m gonna put time in. Then we say man, well as soon as you get to 10 thousands when you’ll really start seeing ad partners be interested
RV (25:50):
And how much do they pay? Like how much does it cost? Let’s just use 10,000. Like let’s say it’s, yeah, let’s say you’re at 10,000, which means if I calculate you’re saying you release an episode, you get 5,000 downloads this week and then another 5,000 downloads over the next nine’s weeks’. That’s right On that on that episode. Yep. How do you price it and what do they like, what do they pay kind of thing?
AFD (26:11):
Well this is outta my expertise level because I don’t know any of that. What I know is we do CPM cost per million and, and I know that it actually varies based on the partner. So someone like a Thistle Farms who we really believe in and love and want to talk about, they may not have the same cost or same ability to pay for a show that, that a huge brand like Better Help does. And so we can work with Thistle Farms and say, Hey Annie loves y’all, so here are the, the five ad slots. This one is the one we will get to you at a price that works for your company, but we can’t give you this one because this one is double that cost or whatever. Right. And so, and each show is different. And so it really varies. Our sales team, we have two full-time sales team members here and that’s what they do constantly. And the other thing Roy, is they’re not just doing, do you wanna buy this show? They’re saying, do you wanna buy a year worth? And so that’s the bigger number that they’re looking at is can we find ad partners that believe in us? Like we believe in them enough to go, Hey, for a year let’s make a contract. Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:18):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (27:29):
Watching. It’s per episode. Yeah. Because for example, let’s use Thistle Farms again because we love them. Everyone go shop at Thistle Farms. But if Thistle Farms, you know, if they they don’t actually care how we did this month, they care how we did on the show that they’re on. Right. And so they wanna look at the 10 weeks. It’s cool, you’ll see people do all time. We hit 2 million, we hit 3 million downloads. That’s awesome. We do it for the network, we celebrate with everyone and we celebrate on our show. But what advertising partners really care about. And so therefore what podcasters should really care about is how did each episode do after 10 weeks?
RV (28:01):
And and if you, let’s just say you have a show that does about 10,000 downloads per episode.
AFD (28:08):
Yeah.
RV (28:09):
In a year, like at a high level, how much revenue do you think one show like that? You know, oh boy,
AFD (28:15):
Give or I, I don’t wanna mess this up. I mean I bet if you’re doing weekly shows, I mean this is going to be a guess Rory for real. If you’re doing weekly shows at a 10,000 downloads and you do, let’s say you do 45 shows in a year cuz you take a couple off or whatever, I mean I bet you’re gonna make maybe a thousand bucks a show. I bet you’re making 800 to a thousand bucks a show. So, you know, four $40,000 maybe.
RV (28:42):
Okay,
AFD (28:43):
Interesting. I could be really off about, I think that’s about what, but you know, also the cost to make a show is about $500 per episode. Yes. If you’re hiring outside. And so that’s, that is a thing. People don’t factor. They wanna start a podcast and they want to make advertising money. Well, y you’re gonna be outta pocket for a little bit if you c if you don’t have the skills to make it sound good. Mm-Hmm.
RV (29:08):
You. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting cuz we had, we had a podcast that had millions of downloads that we sold as part of when we sold our last company. But we’ve never run ads on our, the only ads we run on our show are for our services. Yeah. And so that’s, and that’s, you know, because we’re offering people free calls to learn about what we do. And that’s usually when you’re starting out, that’s gonna pay a lot, a lot more money Yes. Than you’ll make from advertisers until you get really, really big.
AFD (29:35):
Absolutely. And we still, I mean still on my show and on shows on the network, we use the opportunity when we have empty ad spots to talk about the products we make. That is a hundred. And one of the things on our network that we really believe in is the community part. And so one at a quarter you’re advertising for another podcast and it’s on the network mm-hmm.
RV (30:07):
Yeah, that’s really cool. I noticed that like Caleb is doing this now where they’ve got, they’ve got Caleb podcasts and you know, people are really doing this Interesting to see how it all happens. Well, yeah. So as we’re wrapping up, like, so tell us a little bit about what you’re working on. So I, I know Carlos Whitaker used to be really he used to be around Crosspoint a lot. I never really got to know him, but I know you, you obviously have your, your podcast. That sounds fun. You’ve got the books, but you and Carlos are teaming up on something exciting in 2023, right? Yeah.
AFD (30:40):
In June we’re going on tour together. It’s called the Here for You Tour. We just kind of wanted, he and I are good friends. We have a lot of the same audience, but also a lot of people who don’t know each other. And, and we thought, man, what we wanna do is let’s just go talk, let’s go meet up where our friends are already at and gathering. And so we’ve got about 12 cities we’re going to in June where we’re gonna get to show up and talk about Jesus and talk about what’s going on in culture and feature some local businesses. Like it’s kind of just gonna be a really fun hang night that we get to do. It’s really exciting. And the other thing we’re working on that I’m really proud of is the let’s read the Gospel’s podcast. And Roy, the idea really was like, what if there’s so many people who want to read the Bible in a year, but but don’t finish.
AFD (31:28):
Yeah. And so can we give some steps that would Enbridge people to a year? So we are gonna read Matthew, mark, Luke, John every month. And so people can start with on January one, February one, March one. And, and so the only commitment you’re making is a monthly commitment. We’re just gonna do it 12 times. So you can do it with us all 12 times or you can do it with us once, or you can do it with us in April. Or if you’ve never listened to Matthew, mark, Luke and Johnny, you don’t even know what they’re about. I’m gonna read the whole thing to you. And so, and
RV (31:56):
You’re reading it, you’re, it’s in your voice.
AFD (31:58):
It’s me. Yeah. We’re reading it 12 times man. It is an interesting year because we are really having to, it takes about 15 hours to read and so, and we have to do, so that’s two or three hours a week. So it’s really changing our rhythms next year. Cause I’m not doing any besides you, you’re my last outside conversation besides my shows until 2024. Nice. Wow. Because we just, my voice, we have to, if I’m gonna tour and travel and do a pot, do that sounds fun twice a week and read the gospels every month, that’s about all my voice can do. Yeah. So it’s changed my availability in a really interesting way. I’ll be very interested to see what happens. What happens when we focus like this next year.
RV (32:44):
Well, one thing that’ll be awesome. So, so we read the, we read the whole Bible this last year, which was the first time we ever made it through. Yeah. We’re in a, we’re in a family bible study. It’s the coolest thing is every Sunday from like three to seven, we found a Bible study. And the thing that that was a game changer was all the families pooled to buy babysitters. And so the kids go off with the babysitters and so then the family can actually like eat and do bible study. And it was, we read the whole Bible and the the thing, which was amazing, super power, powerful experience to read all the way through. But the thing that I’m most craving is you have to go so fast that we didn’t get to spend enough time in the gospels. And I’m like, man, I’m really, I’m really craving more time there in Matthew, mark, Luke and John. So that’s a really cool idea. That’s very, very, very, very powerful. Well Annie, where should people go? I got one last question for you, but before that, where do you want people to go if they wanna like learn more about you and connect up and see what you’re, what you’re up to?
AFD (33:42):
I, you know me Roy, I’m like embarrassingly easy to find. I’m just Annie F Downs everywhere. F is in fancy. So Annie f Downs will get you everything you need. Annie f Downs slash Gospels will get you access to all the resources we have to go along with the podcast. And then the here for You tour is here for you tour.com. So that’s where I’ll be all this year, all those places.
RV (34:02):
I love it. So my last question is just Annie, like thinking back, you know, let’s say somebody’s listening right now who, you know, maybe they are an aspiring author or maybe they’re an aspiring speaker, or maybe they’re in that like transition mode between like, I’m serving one audience, I’m doing one thing in my life, but I really want to be doing something else. Like, you know, those can be long dark seasons and, and Yeah. You know, those can be trying times. Like what would you, what would you say to that person if they’re listening right now?
AFD (34:30):
Yeah. You know, the thing I I, the only thing I would’ve regretted so far is if I would’ve quit. I have made mistakes along the way for sure. I don’t regret my mistakes. We had a, we’ve had some big ones that I’ve done and we have done some massive cleanup around it. I I don’t regret mistakes. I would’ve regretted quitting. And so that’s what I would say is don’t give up and get some people around you to help you because what they can help you do is not even decide whether to quit or not, but help you decide how do you pivot this thing so that it actually works for you. And so that it actually meets the needs that you believe the world has, that you are uniquely gifted to meet. And so ask, ask some, ask for some help and do not give up.
RV (35:13):
I love it. I love it. Well, we’ll link up to annie f downs.com. You can check out the tour, the shows. Thank you so much for such a transparent, open sharing, Annie, of just how all of this works and, and just hearing your story. It’s, it’s super encouraging and you know, we’re praying for you, my friend, and, and we wish you the best.
AFD (35:31):
I love you guys. I’m really glad to be friends with you and your wife, so I’m thankful for y’all and for the work you do, it matters to me.