Business RadioX ®

Mark Havenner with Renovata

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Mark-Havenner-Renovata
High Velocity Radio
Mark Havenner with Renovata
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Mark-Havenner-RenovataMark Havenner is a marketing and communications strategist with a specialised focus on brand and executive thought leadership and corporate communications strategies. He has more than 20 years of experience aligning messages with business goals and developing myriad communications vehicles and message strategies for a lengthy roster of clients.

His practice at Renovata is focused on industry leadership communications and marketing providing business leaders with the resources they need to get marketplace visibility. In Mark’s previous role as an executive for a Los Angeles-based integrated marketing and communications agency, he led a bi-coastal team on corporate communications, thought leadership, marketing, and public relations strategies and programs for multiple industries including public companies, professional services, municipalities, deep tech, and large-scale consumer brands.

Mark started his career in graphic design before moving into magazine distribution where he spent several years immersed in retail marketing, publishing, and wholesale distribution. He created a publishing company and published several fiction and non-fiction titles, including his own tabletop games and books, and worked extensively in content marketing as he pivoted into an agency environment.

Mark has served on the Worldcom Public Relations Digital Communications Committee and holds a degree in eBusiness and an MBA in Marketing. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife, a professor and author, and his teenage son.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Today’s environment of uncertainty and how that effects business
  • How business leaders can build resiliency long-term (purpose)
  • The function of communications and marketing in today’s world
  • The role of business leaders in today’s world

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Vvelocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. What a marvelous conversation you are in store for here. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Renovata, Mr. Mark Havenner. How are you, man?

Mark Havenner: [00:00:36] I’m doing. I’m doing swell, as the kids say. I’m doing great.

Stone Payton: [00:00:40] Well, it’s a delight to have you on the show. I got a ton of questions. I know we won’t get to them all, but maybe a good place to start would be to have you articulate for us Mission, purpose. What are what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Mark Havenner: [00:00:58] We we work with business leaders in particular, but businesses in general and organizations about getting them a better position in the marketplace and the way things are these days. A lot of the tactics and strategies that PR and marketing professionals have used over the years are just falling flat. And we believe that’s because audiences and customers and clients and even vendors and partners and everybody in the world has has infinite amount of choices on who they can work with or who they can consume with. And so they tend to go after people that share values or that have a sense of purpose and vision. And so we try to unpack that with business leaders so that they can they can shine, be a beacon of their industry and resonate with people that share their vision.

Stone Payton: [00:01:49] Well, you make such a good point about the the venues available to us to to have conversation and try to reach out to to people. I guess you’ve seen a lot of change in that regard and probably have some pretty definitive opinions about what works, what doesn’t, and maybe even why, huh?

Mark Havenner: [00:02:11] Yeah, it was I was in an integrated marketing PR firm for a lot of years and I started noticing, even at the executive level, just things were not working the same way anymore. And this was before the pandemic even. And I started realizing that a lot of these a lot of these marketing and PR strategies are built on antiquated mindset mindsets. And and we have a situation where we are we’re in a world with infinite possibilities, with without geographical boundaries, and we’re still using 20th century tools and strategies. And so, yeah, I found a lot of things weren’t working and we had to, we had a really disrupt it and look at other things that do work.

Stone Payton: [00:02:54] So in your work, do you find that some organizations and some leaders are just, I don’t know a better way to say it, just more resilient, tougher in that regard than others?

Mark Havenner: [00:03:11] Yeah. I think that resiliency is isn’t necessarily tied to the quality of a person or an organization. It’s really tied into whether what your sense of purpose is. Because if you have a good, clear defined sense of purpose and a vision that’s laid out, then then a lot of the things that get other people down don’t affect you. Let’s say social media blows up at you for some reason. If you’re content and your purpose and your vision, then that’s not going to bother you. And if you’re in a world of uncertainty like we are, really, you need that foundation to to be resilient.

Stone Payton: [00:03:48] Now, why do you suppose or maybe this isn’t your observation? I’m making an assumption here, but my observation is that that even if an organization, an individual starts out with crystal clear sense of purpose, it can get diluted, it can get lost in the translation. It’s a why do you think it’s so tough to to hold on to and reinforce as the organization builds, or is that your experience at all?

Mark Havenner: [00:04:15] Yeah, I think that is my experience. And the reason that the biggest reason I see this happen is because business leaders fall into the trap of running their organization and running their business, and they become managers and they become business operators and they stop becoming they stop being leaders. And what that means is, instead of working on the business or working in it, and so they are just trapped by the minutia of day to day. You have to rise up beyond that. You have to get managers in place that you trust that they can run the organization that way. You have the bandwidth and the freedom to pursue vision, which is really a business development activity and not really an operational one.

Stone Payton: [00:04:58] So I got to know, man, what is the back story? How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work?

Mark Havenner: [00:05:05] I got disillusioned, man. I was I was working. I was working with clients, and I wasn’t moving the needle for them. And I was feeling guilty about it. And I was seeing a lot of turnover and I was seeing clients after client just churned through this agency. And it was wasn’t the agency I mean, the people were really good in. I realized that it’s because we were we were we were doing things that didn’t actually help their business and their bottom line. And the reason we were doing that was because we were taken in by the strategy that the client laid out. And that strategy was not built on purpose, vision or anything else. It was just built on things like profit, revenue, margin and all the things you need to keep the doors open on your business. But when you take it to another level, everything changes. And you can’t really do that with a business partner if you are in an agency role. So I had to break out of that mindset altogether and start working with companies in a much more integrated way so I could help them deliver on their promise. And that’s that’s how I ended up there. I just I just I was sick of things not working.

Stone Payton: [00:06:12] So are you finding that you are gravitating to certain types of companies or industry sectors, or is there any kind of definitive characteristics of, I don’t know, call it your tribe, I guess the folks you’re attracted to and seem to be attracted to, to you and your work?

Mark Havenner: [00:06:30] Yeah, definitely do feel the attraction towards businesses that that that have a vision but also that aren’t commoditized what they’re doing. What I mean by that is it doesn’t really matter what sector you’re in. I have actually a wide range of sectors that I work with, but is that your service or your product isn’t just a service or product, it is something that in some way benefits the world, benefits the community, benefits customers beyond just a commodity. And that’s because it’s really hard to, let’s say, if you’re dealing with something like as mundane as a product that goes into a grocery store, like a food product or something, I mean, you can just be a food product or you can be a food product with a mission that’s actually trying to accomplish something in people’s lives. I would rather work with the latter. So I do get I do attract to I am attracted to companies and organizations that really feel a little more meaningful than ones that are just cranking things out for no reason except money.

Stone Payton: [00:07:29] So you and I had a chance to visit briefly by phone. I don’t know. It’s probably been several weeks now and I heard it then and I hear it in your voice now, and I know our listeners do too. You clearly are having a good time. You’re enjoying your work. What what are you finding the most rewarding about the work at this point in your practice?

Mark Havenner: [00:07:51] I think that I find when when my work is actually having an impact, I get excited about it. There are few things I hate worse than doing something for no reason or doing something that doesn’t move the needle for anybody. I don’t want to waste time. I don’t want to waste my time. I don’t want to waste clients time. And this approach to business allows me to really see an impact every day. Like I know that the things I’m focusing on are actually going to achieve business goals, and that’s just a great place to be. I feel. I feel like I’m actually accomplishing something in a day.

Stone Payton: [00:08:25] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a practice like yours? And I’m asking because you’re arena strikes me from one perspective of being kind of crowded. I mean, how do you have to get out there and shake the trees like the rest of us? Or have you cracked the code in some other way?

Mark Havenner: [00:08:47] Well, I wish I had the secret code. That would be wonderful. But I do believe I have a successful approach, and that’s I don’t focus as much as on on on acquisition or on a sales pipeline as most I think companies and organizations do. I’m more interested in cultivating a strong long term relationship with my existing clients and by an airport. So you’re hearing some rattling, people are taking off. But but anyway, I really am interested in cultivating relationships and being integrated in their business so that it can have a meaningful impact. So I might not have a huge pipeline, but I have very strong tenured clients that stay with me. And that approach of of just doing the right work with the right people means that instead of chasing clients that they come to me. I’m much more of a male attract people that are like minded and business just kind of happens naturally as a result. I think that the years of acquisition and paying for that and years of having a very regimented sales pipeline, it’s just too costly these days to do that. You really have to build up your platform so that you become much more visible and you become a larger part of the conversation so that people come to you rather than you chasing them.

Stone Payton: [00:10:05] Well and doing good work and as you put it, doing the right work with the right people. That’s that’s a pretty strong sales tool. Just doing great work. Right.

Mark Havenner: [00:10:14] Well, your pools can be much smaller, so you don’t have to compete as much. You know, you just show up. That’s a much better place to be than having to outrace everybody.

Stone Payton: [00:10:24] So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors throughout your career and specifically in this kind of second chapter of yours to help you navigate some of this new terrain?

Mark Havenner: [00:10:41] You’d be surprised. Yes, the answer is yes. You’d be surprised who. I’m actually learning far more from the younger generations than I am from more experienced ones, and in particular Gen Z and some of the business leaders that I work with and have the opportunity to work with, they are they are a phenomenal force of nature. And the reason is simple is because they’ve grown up and lived and existed entirely in a world of uncertainty. For them, this is their natural habitat. And I believe that business leaders have a lot to learn from this young generation. They’re already starting businesses, they’re already making waves in the workplace, and I’m learning a great deal from them on places like TikTok. And and it’s just amazing where where the mentors are. The roles have flipped.

Stone Payton: [00:11:29] So let’s talk about the work a little bit. I’m particularly interested in what takes place early in the engagement cycle, but can you kind of walk us through at least the front end of the process when you begin to to start working with with a new client?

Mark Havenner: [00:11:46] And I think this is true what most people in my role. But there really needs to be a period of immersion with the client, fully understand not only what their business is, but what their business goals are. And in fact, I think that more partners and consultants could spend more time on business goals to make sure they understand really what what the business leader is trying to accomplish. And once once that’s clear, then then we find the reason why, you know, first of all, why do you have these goals? Secondly, why do you have this business right? Why are you doing this? And the reason can’t be profit margin, all of those things. I mean, that’s just that’s a given. Why? Why? Above and beyond that. And the reason can’t be about the business or the business leader either. It needs to be about something that they’re trying to fix a problem in the industry with their clients, their partners, their with their community, with their world. Whatever it is, the reason needs to be external. And once we’ve identified that and we understand that that reason is an authentic one, it’s a meaningful one. It’s one that they actually are built to fulfill, then we can create all of the messaging and sales material that go along with propelling that.

Stone Payton: [00:12:58] So I’m sure every situation is unique. There have to be so many idiosyncrasies in your work, and I suspect that you’ve been at it long enough now. You’ve probably come across some pretty consistent patterns where you may not say it out loud, but when you’re initially working with a with a new company, you’re like, yeah, to your at least to yourself, Yeah, I’ve seen this before. Are there some like common mistakes that maybe some of us could just maybe we could reduce the friction and shrink the timeline and just avoid them altogether when it comes to to some of the tactical aspects of what you’re helping your clients do.

Mark Havenner: [00:13:37] Yeah, there are there are common mistakes. I think that one of the big ones is just trying to be everything to everyone. Hmm. I think almost every company can better target their audience and not just in a practical marketing way. Certainly in finding the demographics and the psychographics that work with their product. But but just in the values that you have and the people that you’re that you want to work with. I mean, as a consultant, even working with people that are like minded is way more important than getting a paycheck. So I will turn down business if we’re not aligned. And I think that more companies should do that because then it’s less of a grind. Now you have synergy and that true with the consumer too. If you’re if you’re if you’re trying to reach audiences that could care less about your product or that are completely the wrong generation, then you’re wasting time and money, you know? I think so many companies say, Well, my audience is the world. And it’s not. It’s not. It’s somebody in particular. And really identifying who that person is is is critical.

Stone Payton: [00:14:43] So where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place, but when when you’re running a little bit, when it takes running a little bit low and you need to recharge, where do you go for inspiration to kind of get refueled and ready for the next challenge in opportunity? How do you get your inspiration?

Mark Havenner: [00:15:05] I can answer this in two ways. Just on the day to day, I try to force myself to have 30 minutes with no inputs, and that usually means just going out into the backyard with a cup of coffee and just sitting without the phone, without anything but my thoughts. I think that’s a good idea as a reset because I tend to find clarity of thought. I tend to find problems solved just by sitting there. So I do that on a daily basis. On a weekly basis. Critically important for me to get outside. And so I live by the ocean, so I do paddleboarding or I go to the beach and things like that and just, just completely unplug, get next to the water. And I guess in both cases, the places I find inspiration are silence just being myself and my thoughts. And I really thrive on that.

Stone Payton: [00:16:00] So now that you’ve made all of us insanely jealous about living so close to the to this, I would love to to leave our listeners and candidly myself with a couple of actionable items. I’ll call them Pro Tips. Just a number one pro tip gang is is reach out and have a conversation with Mark or start to tap into his work. But maybe a couple of things we could be reading about, learning about thinking about just so that we can kind of get on on the right track with with some of these topics. Any counsel you’d have on that front would be would be fantastic.

Mark Havenner: [00:16:37] Yeah, I think what the easy thing to do, it’s not as easy as it sounds, but is that relates to all of this is just to write down everything that you do in a day as you do it, and just keep a list throughout the entire day. And at the end of the day, look at that list and go through each item and decide, is this actually helping me achieve my goal? And if it’s not, you need to decide where that task can go. If somebody should do it instead of you, or if it should be rejected altogether. Having that self reflection on a daily basis puts you in the right mindset of really just focusing on the right thing.

Stone Payton: [00:17:15] Well, I’m really glad I asked. I think I’m going to take a swing at that. I got to confess, I haven’t been doing that, But it sounds like it could be well, it could be a little sobering.

Mark Havenner: [00:17:25] But yes, it is. And you do it if you do it frequently enough, you find out you never should stop doing it. It is so hard. You get lost in the weeds.

Stone Payton: [00:17:34] All right, man, Let’s make sure that our listeners do have a way. Let’s make it easy for them to connect, to tap into your to your work, whatever you think is appropriate. Linkedin, email, website. I just want to make it easy as we can for them to to reach out and connect and be able to access some of this thought leadership.

Mark Havenner: [00:17:55] I think the best place to reach me is on LinkedIn and just look for me. Mark Haven and Mark have an E, R, and my website is Nevada Vision and you can find me there as well.

Stone Payton: [00:18:07] Well, Mark, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for investing the time and the energy to share your perspective and your insight. You’re you’re clearly doing important work and we we sure appreciate you, man.

Mark Havenner: [00:18:24] I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Stone Payton: [00:18:26] My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today with Reno, Nevada, Mr. Mark Hainer and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Dennis Geelen with Zero In

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Dennis-Geelen-Zero-In
High Velocity Radio
Dennis Geelen with Zero In
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Dennis-Geelen-Zero-InDennis Geelen, is the Founder and Chief Difference Maker at his solo consulting company, Zero In, that he founded in 2018. Through Zero In, Dennis helps companies ‘solve indifference’ by implementing strategies to build a brand customers love and culture where people are passionate to work.

Author of the best-selling book The Zero In Formula, Mr. Geelen has worked with companies in several industries, spoken at countless events, conferences, workshops, webinars, with dozens of guest appearances on international podcasts.

And now? Dennis also helps other solopreneurs get started. With his latest book, ‘The Accidental Solopreneur’, providing a playbook for success and told through a riveting and relatable parable that is getting rave reviews from entrepreneurs around the globe.

Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Why Dennis started Zero In
  • Some of the mistakes and lessons he encountered early in his journey
  • What made him decide to write The Accidental Solopreneur
  • About the online course, The Solopreneur Playbook
  • Advice for those considering starting their own solopreneur business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast consultant, author and founder of Zero In Mr. Dennis Geelen. How are you, man?

Dennis Geelen: [00:00:37] Hey, I’m good. Thanks for having me on.

Stone Payton: [00:00:39] Stone Yeah, Delighted to have you on the show. Got a ton of questions. Probably won’t get to them all, but maybe a good place to start. Mission. Purpose. What are you really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Dennis Geelen: [00:00:53] Yeah, just really trying to pay forward what other people have done for me, I guess, to wrap it up in a short little boat.

Stone Payton: [00:01:02] So what is the back story? How in the world did you get on this this path and land in this line of work?

Dennis Geelen: [00:01:10] Yeah, that a story here, then. I spent over 20 plus years in the corporate world, always in pretty high profile senior leadership roles and. I thought everything was playing out according to the script. And then at the age of 43, for the first time in my life, I was laid off and threw me for a huge loop. My initial reaction was, I got to jump right back in and keep following the script. The script of get get a post-secondary education, get a full time job, get married, buy a house, and then put a little bit of money away until you’re 65. Right? Well, I wasn’t finished the script yet, so I was supposed to jump back in, but with some great discussions with my wife and and just the interest in scratching my entrepreneurial itch, I decided I’m going to take a year in bed on myself, try and start my own consulting company, and here I am four years later. So.

Stone Payton: [00:02:14] So wasn’t that a little bit? I guess the best word is scary for both you and your wife, for you to just jump off and try something that different from the established pattern.

Dennis Geelen: [00:02:24] Yeah. The only word I would change in your sentence there is a little bit. It was really scary. Yeah. I mean, maybe not at first. At first I think I was way too naive and way too prideful once I realized, Oh, boy, there’s a bunch I don’t know here, and this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was. And I had to humble myself. That’s when it became a little scary.

Stone Payton: [00:02:50] And so as you got things going, I’m sure it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Do you remember some of your early mistakes and what you what you feel like you learned from them?

Dennis Geelen: [00:03:01] Oh, man. Tons of mistakes early on. Well, the first one right off the bat was probably being prideful and naive and just thinking, if I build it, they will come. Then once I started to get a much better understanding of branding and marketing, I started to realize, Man, I have to niche down. I really just announced myself as a business consultant and that doesn’t appeal to anybody. What what business, What industry? What problems do you solve for what types of companies? And at first I just thought, well, I don’t want to narrow myself down. I can do all kinds of different stuff. I get all this experience, but I wasn’t appealing to anybody, so I really had to pick a niche, narrow down and focus my branding and marketing on that. And that’s when things really started to pick up. So probably that pride, that naive and that lack of niching down, Where were my biggest mistakes in the beginning?

Stone Payton: [00:03:54] So yeah, describe your niche if you would, because I really applaud your your commitment to doing that. And I know a lot of small business people solopreneur are reluctant to niche down, but you speak to that a little bit and describe your niche, if you would.

Dennis Geelen: [00:04:09] Yeah, I went through a few iterations. I would say in the beginning with Xero in it was originally, Hey, I could do leadership or I could do project management or I could do leading at your operations. And really what I landed on as my niche was I want to help medium size businesses create a better customer and employee experience. But even then when I set it like that, it wasn’t appealing enough because A there’s a million other consultants that already do that. Now I sound just like them. So I ended up changing the way I say that to. I help companies solve a difference. And that got the eyebrows up. What do you mean by that? Well, you either have a different customers because you haven’t created this great experience. You haven’t created a brand that they love or you have in different employees. You haven’t created a culture where people are passionate to come to work each day for your company. That’s what I help you with. So once I figured out that niche and how to present that, that’s when things really took off.

Stone Payton: [00:05:14] Now, would you describe yourself, your practice as a as a solopreneur? Is that an accurate characterization?

Dennis Geelen: [00:05:21] Yeah, I’m an independent solo consultant. I don’t have any employees. There are times where I might partner with other consultants if I’m taking on a large engagement, but pretty much zero in is a one person show.

Stone Payton: [00:05:33] So does does it get lonely or have you figured out a way to work through that?

Dennis Geelen: [00:05:38] Yeah, I mean, in the beginning it was very exciting to be building your own thing and betting on yourself and doing this all by yourself and wearing many hats. And then once I had started to figure things out, but I needed to get to the next level or I needed to bounce ideas off somebody. And then, especially during the pandemic, it got really lonely. Then it became this. Instead of it being this excitement of wearing all these hats and having all these ideas going through my head, it became this pressure of, I have all this on my own shoulders. So the loneliness definitely can kick in at times.

Stone Payton: [00:06:16] Well, I can hear it in your voice and I know our listeners can as well. You you obviously have a passion, a real fervor for doing this kind of work. What is the most rewarding? What are you enjoying the most about the work at this point?

Dennis Geelen: [00:06:31] It’s really helping others. When I’m working with a business client. Every business has its own unique challenges, so bringing in a different perspective, maybe asking some questions they wouldn’t have thought to ask. Seeing the light bulbs go off and then then leaving them with a roadmap, a plan for here’s how we’re going to get from from A to B, It’s just so satisfying for me to see that after I’m done working with the client.

Stone Payton: [00:06:56] Now, you wrote a best selling book, The Zero in Formula some some time ago, and now you’ve got a new one out called The Accidental Solopreneur.

Dennis Geelen: [00:07:07] Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:07:08] So was it were the experiences different from each other and what was the experience like putting that book to together? Yeah.

Dennis Geelen: [00:07:19] They’re very different. The first book there, The Zero in Formula I wrote when the pandemic first happened, all of a sudden I was given a bunch of time, a bunch of freedom. A bunch of my consulting was put on hold because of this COVID 19. I decided I’m going to write a book. So I just took what I do with my business clients and put it into the form of a book. So it’s a nonfiction business book. Here’s my formula. I do have some stories, some examples in there from clients I’ve worked with or other businesses around the world. But it’s a nonfiction book. This the next book, The Accidental Solopreneur, which I just released, very different in a few ways. One, it’s not a nonfiction book. This is a fictional parable. So I had to learn how to get good at writing fiction, developing characters, developing the story, creating some drama while still inside this book. I give all kinds of tips and strategies for for solopreneur. And that’s the other thing that’s different about this book. The zero in formula is meant for businesses and CEOs and business leaders. The accidental solopreneur was made for people like me who decided I want to bet on myself and do my own thing. If you want to be a solopreneur, here’s a book for you.

Stone Payton: [00:08:43] And you built an online course to complement the book. I’m operating under the impression that that the two tools, the resources work together if you do it properly. Yes. Talk about that a little bit.

Dennis Geelen: [00:08:55] Yeah. So the book, as I mentioned, is a non fiction parable, so it follows the story of a guy that leaves the corporate world and starts his own business. But I didn’t want it to read like a textbook. Yes, the strategies and there’s tactics in there. But if you really want to dive deeper into this and how you might be able to do this yourself, that’s where I decided an online course would be a much better medium for that. So that’s where I take them through a bunch of resources. I give them a workbook to work through. How do you find your niche? How do you package your services? How do you build an audience? What does that look like for you? And I really walk them through that in a bunch of videos.

Stone Payton: [00:09:31] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a practice like yours? Do you find yourself needing to go out there with some discipline and some rigor and some structure to sort of, I don’t know, shake the trees or. Yeah, how does how do you get the new business, man?

Dennis Geelen: [00:09:49] Yeah. The biggest thing that’s been successful for me is leveraging LinkedIn. I mean, social media, just about everybody has it. But LinkedIn is the one that is specific for business. So I decided that’s the one I’m going to double down on. I had to really learn what works on LinkedIn, how do I give away value so people see me as a credible expert? How do I show up consistently? How do I write so that people find my posts engaging and valuable and interesting? So I’ve really taken the time to learn that platform and grow my audience there. And that’s been probably the biggest marketing strategy that I’ve doubled down on since I started Xero IN.

Stone Payton: [00:10:34] So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors as this effort has unfolded for you?

Dennis Geelen: [00:10:42] Yeah, several. Once I humbled myself and realized I don’t know everything, I need help. I started looking at, well, who are some successful people out there? So every time I’m doing something, I make a concerted effort to reach out to some people who’ve been there and done that. People who have grown an audience on LinkedIn, I reach out to them and I and I befriend them and I give value and I and I try and learn as much from them. When I’m writing my books, I reach out to bestselling authors, and you’d be surprised how many authors, well known authors are okay with having a Zoom call and just dropping some knowledge on you. When I’m creating my online courses, I reach out to people that have done it. And you know, I always want to put my own spin on it. I enjoy learning, but I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I want to learn the best practices from people who’ve been there. So tons of mentors I’ve been able to leverage over the years.

Stone Payton: [00:11:42] I mentioned earlier your energy, your obvious passion for for the work. And in the same breath, I mean, I this is not my first rodeo. I know sometimes you got to run out of gas, man. You got to recharge. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place. Where are you going to to get inspiration to sort of recharge those batteries?

Dennis Geelen: [00:12:06] I love to read, so I’m always reading at least 2 to 3 books at a time. Oh, my. I love fiction. I love to read a good John Grisham book, but I’m also wanting to read things that are challenging me. So I’ll read different fiction books. Some of them are business related, and then some of them may be completely unrelated to business. Maybe it’s a historical book, or maybe it’s an autobiography, but it just allows my mind to get away from my own business for a while. But it also injects new ideas, new perspectives, and I find that very refreshing.

Stone Payton: [00:12:47] So what’s next for you, man? Where are you going to be really spending the bulk of your your energy over the next, I don’t know, six to to 12 months in anything really different or new?

Dennis Geelen: [00:13:00] Well, since I released the Accidental Solopreneur, it’s really taken off. I’m getting all kinds of people from around the world messaging me, saying, Wow, I felt like that was my story. This chapter really stood out to me. This felt like you were speaking about my life. And then when they take the online course, it’s, Wow, I can do this, too. So I’ve also started offering coaching calls where if they want to go even further and they just want to spend an hour with me and we dissect their business idea or where they’re stuck, that’s really been taking off. I wasn’t sure that it would. I knew that there was a bit of a market here because people were always asking to pick my brain once they saw zero in taking off. But now I’m just kind of writing this out, saying, Wow, how far can this go? Will helping other Solopreneur actually take over more of my time than my business consulting? And if it does, I’m fine with that. I just love helping people. So just just really watching to see where this solopreneur coaching side of things goes for me over the next year.

Stone Payton: [00:14:04] I’d love to leave our listeners with a couple of actionable, I’ll call them Pro Tips, a couple of things that they ought to be thinking about reading. And look, gang, the number one tip reach out and talk with Dennis. That’s your number one to to tap into the online course, get your hands on the book. But maybe a couple of things that we should be thinking about reading doing not not doing.

Dennis Geelen: [00:14:27] Yeah, a couple of resources that have been very influential on me. If you want to go down the road of starting your own consulting business like I did with Zero in There’s a great book by Patrick Linson called Getting Naked, and it’s told in the form of a parable, but it’s about this small consulting company that just gives, gives, gives. They give free advice, they give free value away. And that’s what attracts customers to them, clients to them. And I really started adopting that philosophy. And it works. I mean, if somebody wants to book a call with me before we even decide it’s going to be a paid engagement, I just start giving away advice immediately. They start seeing me as a credible expert and that’s been huge. So getting naked by Patrick luncheon is great. There’s somebody I follow on LinkedIn, Twitter and subscribe to their newsletter. Her name is Caitlin Bhagwan. She is the CEO of a company called Customer Camp and she has a newsletter called Why We Buy. She is all about customer psychology. Why do customers choose certain things? Why? Why do they have these behaviors? What what makes them want to purchase certain things or decide on this product versus that product? And the insights that she gives is just invaluable. And every newsletter I get from her, I’m like, Man, I need to inject that back into my business. So why we buy has been a huge resource for me. And then on the solopreneur side of things, Justin Welch and his newsletter, The Saturday Solopreneur, has been very influential in my journey as well.

Stone Payton: [00:16:12] I am so glad that I asked.

Dennis Geelen: [00:16:15] There you go.

Stone Payton: [00:16:17] Okay. Let’s make sure that our listeners can reach out, have a conversation with you or whomever is appropriate. I want to make sure they can get their hands on this book and have easy access to this online course. So whatever you feel like is appropriate LinkedIn, you know, website. I just want to make sure they can tap into your work, man.

Dennis Geelen: [00:16:37] Probably the best place for them to go then would just be my my personal website. Guillen got me there. There’s links to the book. There’s links to the online course, there’s links to coaching calls, There’s links to zero in where they can see what I’m doing there. Or the other place people can connect with me directly is on LinkedIn. I love engaging with people there and just getting to know their story and helping them any way that I can.

Stone Payton: [00:17:04] Well, Dennis, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this morning. Thank you for investing the time and the energy to share your perspective and your expertise. This is been an informative, inspiring, marvelous way to to invest a monday morning. Man. Thank you.

Dennis Geelen: [00:17:23] Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on.

Stone Payton: [00:17:25] All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, consultant, author and founder of Zero End, Mr. Dennis Guillen, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Jermaine Massey with Cashflow Diary

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High Velocity Radio
Jermaine Massey with Cashflow Diary
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Jermaine-Massey-Cashflow-DiaryJermaine Massey is the CEO and Founder of Cashflow Diary, a training and development brand for building short-term rental entrepreneurs.

Before Cashflow Diary, J. raised capital and invested in traditional real estate (single-family homes, note brokering and holding, cell phone towers, commercial real estate, and apartment buildings).

Eventually, he built his real estate investing training program to share what he learns continuously through his years of successful, real-world experience owning hundreds of traditional long-term housing units. When one of his students asked him what he knew about the world of short-term rentals, the answer was not very much.

Once J. started learning about short-term rental strategies, he saw a world of opportunity in front of him. He built his very own 34-unit(46 bedrooms)-and-counting short-term rental business from scratch — which he still owns, grows, and operates — and has shifted his Cashflow Diary brand to focus exclusively on building and training short-term rental entrepreneurs.

Now he’s built a community of thousands of like-minded people from 16 countries that he learns from every day and shares his knowledge through his Cashflow Diary podcast, YouTube channel, Facebook groups, and annual Short-Term Rental Summit training events.

Connect with Jermaine on LinkedIn and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • What makes short-term rentals a “gateway drug” for real estate investing?
  • What kinds of business models are best for married couples who want to grow a company together?
  • How can a new short-term rental investor keep up with all the new regulations in this industry?
  • Why is listening to the most important part of becoming a better salesperson?
  • How can someone leverage short-term rentals without owning property

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. What a marvelous conversation this is going to be. You guys are in for such a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast CEO and founder of CashFlow Diary, Mr. Jermaine Massey. Good morning, sir.

Jermaine Massey: [00:00:40] Hey, good morning to yourself. How are you?

Stone Payton: [00:00:43] I am doing well. Really been looking forward to this conversation. Got a ton of questions. Sure we won’t get to them all, but I’m thinking maybe a good place to start is to maybe have you articulate mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there every day trying to do for folks, man.

Jermaine Massey: [00:01:03] Got it. Got it, Got it. Well, hold on. Did you say you were looking forward? Absolutely. Tell me why. What’s that about? I mean, this isn’t your I mean, you do lots of this stuff.

Stone Payton: [00:01:12] Well, I do. I get to do a lot of interviewing and conversations, but I am particularly interested in real estate and learning how to invest and make money in real estate. And so I am all ears and on the edge of my seat to see if I can learn some things, at least what I might begin to start reading, thinking about doing. And so I am particularly interested in this conversation, man.

Jermaine Massey: [00:01:38] Got it. Got it. Totally makes sense. And same for most people. It’s not like you wake up one day and go, Hey, I can’t wait to become a real estate investor. I didn’t do that. But what we do is quite straightforward. I like to say that we create seven figure families. That’s what we do over time. That’s what we do. How do we do that? We start by teaching the principles of having assets, produce your income instead of your labor, which is expressed with short term rentals. So at the end of the day, it’s teaching someone like yourself how to own, build, manage and control assets, in this case a business asset using somebody else’s property at the beginning so that you can produce stable cash flow, but then allows you to purchase your own assets like real estate.

Stone Payton: [00:02:32] I knew this was going to happen. I’ve got already I got to know out of the box because I don’t think I’ve even come across that idea of using someone else’s property. I’ve been operating under the impression I’ve got to go get my own.

Jermaine Massey: [00:02:44] You know that when I first started this particular business model man, seven or eight years ago, I had the same paradigm and I was sitting at Starbucks one day and I can I remember where I was when it happened, and I was just doing the math because having come from, you know, cell phone towers, commercial retail as single family houses and mortgages, a whole bunch of type of different real estate, I have a process that I go through when it comes to due diligence. And I was in escrow on a four bedroom house out here in Southern California. And I was just going through the process, making sure the numbers made sense. And then as as disciplined would have it, I ran my process and asked myself, compared to what that is, by far one of the most important questions I think people could ask themselves, because we will say things like, it’s not a good investment or it’s too expensive or isn’t that cheap. And these are all relative terms compared to what? And because I asked myself that one question, I ended up redoing the numbers to realize the $100,000 that I was going to be putting into this particular property would earn a higher return if I rented other people’s property first, as opposed to buying a particular house. And that set me off in a completely different direction. And well, here we are today.

Stone Payton: [00:04:11] So say a little bit more about your back story. How did you land in this line of work and in general, were you always going to be involved in real estate or were you doing something completely different?

Jermaine Massey: [00:04:23] Sorry, that no, I was I was not always involved in real estate. I well, I got started into real estate, not because I was trying to get into real estate. I needed to eat at the time. My my then wife was pregnant. She when she was pregnant, she has a condition known as hyperemesis. She couldn’t eat or drink. I had a punctured lung because I was playing volleyball and then I landed on a guy’s head. I have a public high school diploma. That is my version of a PhD. And when you combine all those things together, what it comes down to is I needed a way to eat. And many of us say things like, Hey, I have to go to work and we’ve got to be careful about the words that we say or I need a job. No, what you need is a source of income. And that’s what I learned. And I started in the real estate space as a wholesaler, what’s popularly known as a wholesaler, because with a credit score of 398, there was no lender that was going to touch me and. I still needed to eat, so I had to find a way to create value. And that was the key that wholesaling taught me is that the marketplace does not care about my situation or your situation. It cares about my solution. And therefore, if I can bring a solution, they will absolutely compensate you for it. And we ended up doing around 200 or so wholesale transactions earning between 2000 to $26000 each.

Jermaine Massey: [00:05:55] And that’s how I got introduced to the IRS because taxes. So when I learned that they wanted their fair share or you could say unfair share, depending on how you look at that, I said I don’t want that to happen again. So I started collecting houses that and that’s it. My real estate career has been comprised of how do I solve the next problem that I am now experiencing. And that’s exactly how I ended up in short term rentals, is what very few landlords, long term landlords will tell you. It’s a great way landlords owning lots of property is a great way to build wealth. It’s a horrible way to build income. And that’s what I found out, is that I needed a more active today income, not just net worth wealth building because the margins in long term landlords were so thin. So I was looking for a way to take an existing portfolio and make it profitable today while debt was still on the property, which is what I think most of your listeners and most of the people who can hear us are. That’s the situation you’re in. You’re barely your margins are so thin and it’s either deferred maintenance or cash flow. And the short term rentals was a way to make that happen. Or is the way, in my opinion, to make that happen for today’s investor.

Stone Payton: [00:07:16] So for the uneducated, uninformed, at least that’s how I’ll characterize myself. Just the idea of a short term rental. It it sounds like it’s going to be a lot of a lot of work, right? Like whereas a long term thing sounds like, oh, I’m going to go through this one transaction and I’m set for a while. But but maybe there’s some misconception, misinformation, some perspective you can offer on that that.

Jermaine Massey: [00:07:43] Did you say maybe some course. Okay. So well that’s like here’s that that’s like saying I mean literally it’s like saying, you know, when I go to Costco or Sam’s Club or if I own one of those, that’s a that’s, that’s just man, that that’s the ticket. That’s the way to do it. But man, if I was, you know, Target or Wal Mart or Nordstrom, that’s just too much work. That’s what you just said to me, because what a short term rental is, it works on the exact same principle as wholesale to retail or like a vending machine. What we buy is inventory. My inventory is time. I buy 365 days at once from a wholesaler landlord, and then I resell those same days one at a time. Now, is there a difference between my customer and the traditional wholesale? Yes, absolutely. There is some work, but like all work, it can be systematized. And it’s not, especially in the real estate space. It’s not like I’m physically doing the work. Your boy can’t design a doggone thing. Don’t ask me to clean. It’s not going to happen because, yeah, that would be really bad for somebody. But somebody knows how to clean, somebody knows how to design, somebody knows how to run inventory and procurement. Somebody knows those things. I don’t my job as entrepreneurs to use other people’s resources to put them together to productive use and improve the quality of life of someone else with our product or service. So it’s no different. It’s just different work. That’s how I look at it.

Stone Payton: [00:09:30] So so speaking of the work for you, where do you plug in? Do you plug in by educating someone like me, or do you get involved in some of the the execution of the where does your work begin and end in this regard?

Jermaine Massey: [00:09:46] Never. I never end. But at the same time, I do both. We run a portfolio across multiple states and we teach individuals to run their portfolios across multiple states and countries. We’ve had the privilege of working with individuals now in 17 different countries on this particular business model. But on a day to day basis, myself and the team, yeah, we process anywhere. I would say right now we’re probably at 102 hundred reservations a month. Wow. So ourselves and we I’ve forgotten how many people we have helped learn to run portfolios like this as well. And again, that that’s the thing. Some people, when they’re thinking about short term rentals or Airbnb as a popular call it, they’re only thinking about one or two. I’m not the guy for that. I only know how to do this Well, when you want to do ten, 20, 40 are most popular student or successful student got up to 120. They’ve since gone on to own a couple of hotels. They’ve been featured in Conde Nast as well as on Netflix. So it’s stuff like that. That is that’s my game. I don’t know how to do it small. I only know how to do it such that it creates a seven figure family.

Stone Payton: [00:11:07] So so the mechanism the mechanism is is cash flow diary. Is it like a course that you go on online? Is it is it personal interaction with with you or someone on your team? Is it a hybrid of that kind of thing? What’s the mechanism?

Jermaine Massey: [00:11:21] Yeah, no. Well, we tried the we tried the course model like everybody else. We but we do still provide the videos for those who really, really think, oh, we can figure it all out on our own, right. Our experience has taught us that it takes a whole lot more to teach them. One, I mean, about the only background I think could get it halfway decent is someone who comes from the logistics world simply because the amount of moving parts to execute this as cleanly and smoothly and as inexpensively as we do is really it. To me, it feels like a work of art. Or maybe if you ran a cruise ship, if you did something like that that you’re in. But no, it we it’s what I like to call an accountability program. It’s not a there’s not a lack of information. Still. There really isn’t. Right. So the information. Yes. Is it out there now? It’s not organized. So there is some value to that. But and let me just go off the deep end for a second. A couple of weeks back, we had a student say, hey, do you have an SOP? That’s a standard operating procedure for when when a guest dies inside one of your units now. If you go in search today on the Internet, you can’t really find that for a short term rental operator. But we have that right.

Jermaine Massey: [00:12:56] What do I do when XYZ happens now and now that I’ve gone off the deep end, everybody’s mind is coming up. Yeah, but what about this? And this and that and the other? And imagine having documented, vetted processes that anyone could follow in order to execute that so that you, the owner business operator. I tend to find out about things that happen like during our weekly debrief. I don’t find out until the problem is solved, cleaned up and somebody else is already there. That’s where I am today. But at the end of the day, that’s what I’m talking about. You can provide any product, business or service with the proper systems in place at scale without it having to take all of your time. But the truth of the matter is this business is really hard. From 0 to 7 units, it gets easier from 7 to 15, and after 15 we’re talking maybe one hour a day if you have put in the proper systems. But again, most people that I run into can’t fathom what I just said. They are right now having some sort of conniption fit, thinking about like, wait, wait, wait, what? How many did he say? Because they can’t they’ve not seen it. They don’t think it’s possible, but yet it’s what we’ve been doing for a number of years now.

Stone Payton: [00:14:18] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for you guys? And I really mean it on a couple of different fronts. One is getting some critical mass of people wanting to learn these things and get involved from the Cash diary standpoint. And when you’re out there, I don’t know, selling people on on working with you in any perspective, insight, experience on the whole sales and marketing thing, it would be helpful to me personally, but also, you know, our listeners as well, because they’re all so many of them are entrepreneurs out there. They’re having to sell in some way.

Jermaine Massey: [00:14:52] Well, so this is where we have a beginning and unfair advantage. Part of the business model in and of itself revolves around supply and demand economics in every corner of the globe that we have touched so far. Supply is drastically low relative to demand. Therefore, finding guests to stay at, at your locations, that’s that’s a non issue. Let me explain. Most people, when I when they’ve only been thinking about vacations or sunny spots. What most people don’t realize is this is more of a temporary housing business. And there are about 65 different use cases that we’ve identified. Let me give you an example. Today, as you guys are hearing me somewhere in the city right now, somebody’s house flooded. They called their insurance company. That insurance company outsourced the claim to a third party provider. That third party provider has one job find that insured that homeowner a place to stay. That place to stay is a short term rental. And when you understand that, you know, I know that in every city. This is going on all the time. And those are some of the most profitable stays because those are typically 30, 60, 90 day days, simply because of how long it takes to clean up something like a. Pipes bursting or mold. Yeah. But these aren’t things people are thinking about. But also today, when you watch the news or the next time you hear of a hurricane or tornado. Fema gets involved. Those displaced homeowners. Need a place to stay. And guess where they stay. That’s also a short term rental.

Stone Payton: [00:16:52] Hmm.

Jermaine Massey: [00:16:53] Now, let me go one more step further. You’ve heard of this small little country by the name of Ukraine, right?

Stone Payton: [00:17:00] Yes.

Jermaine Massey: [00:17:02] All of those refugees. That came to the United States. Need a place to stay. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Stone Payton: [00:17:11] Yes.

Jermaine Massey: [00:17:13] And so it’s so much bigger than just put your property on Airbnb. And this is how it works. In fact, Airbnb is the low price leader. And don’t get me wrong, you can make some you will make decent money there. And that’s how I started, because I didn’t know any better. I’ve learned a lot since, you know, since we started because I have insight into so many different locations, but it don’t. If you’ve ever watched a movie and you’ve ever seen the internal shot like they’re shooting and it looks like they’re in somebody’s house, it’s because they’re in somebody’s house. They don’t build it all the time. Right. And and you know what that is? That’s also a short term rental. But those are like tens of thousands of dollars per day as a movie set. So there’s so many use cases for what we do that it’s built and then it’s built with the same basic system that undergirds everything. So it’s it’s almost unfair, right? Because like I said, supply is so low that demand is so high. It’s one of those things where you don’t have to be good in order to be present. You just have to be present. Period and you’re you’re wishing or receiving an overwhelming tide flow of people who have demand.

Jermaine Massey: [00:18:35] We’ve got many stories, many examples of when someone’s in the process of bringing new inventory to market. They haven’t even taken photos yet and get reservations simply because, again, there’s a process to it. There’s a way to market and target who it is that you’re looking for so that you don’t just get anybody because there’s still safety screening and security to consider. But once you’ve got those things figured out, like I said, it’s just a matter of bringing more and more inventory to market and having the necessary systems and technology in place to be able to do it. And that’s actually what’s created this opportunity. It’s technology. I mean, technology is slamming into real estate in such a way that many traditional landlords aren’t aware and I’ve been saying this for years, but I’ll say it again, every landlord is going to have to contend with short term rentals, whether you like it or not. You can get mad at me, you can resist, but they’re coming and you’re going to have to find a way to deal with it. Otherwise you’re never going to maintain the occupancy that you need in order to do what you’ve always done because it’s changed.

Stone Payton: [00:19:42] I’m so intrigued with this wholesale model. So to play this out, let’s say that that I bit the bullet with my brother and we bought a little place here in North Georgia to rent out to people who are going to this is a great area for people who like to do the mountain biking and and we did that now could on the other side of the table could we be seeking out people like you to just go ahead and buy those 365 days? There must be a marketplace.

Jermaine Massey: [00:20:09] 100%.

Stone Payton: [00:20:10] Yeah. Never even occurred to me.

Jermaine Massey: [00:20:14] Yeah, 100% that I’ve got people in and we get those emails. All the time.

Stone Payton: [00:20:22] You’re like Gordon Gekko. You’re you look at 100 deals a day.

Jermaine Massey: [00:20:26] It’s it’s a lot. But because, again, we just happened to be the intersection of solving a number of problems. Landlords have vacancy. That’s expensive. That’s a problem. People need a place to stay temporarily that’s clean, safe and affordable. So we just bridge both of those gaps really is was what it comes down to. But and we do so in the while providing jobs to the local market. So I mean the number of people that we have to employ for any one reservation and you start to multiply that out across not only one operator who has two, five, ten, 20 locations, but all the students that we come across, it can be it becomes massive and it’s exciting to be honest.

Stone Payton: [00:21:19] So at this point in your career, what are you finding the most rewarding man? What are you enjoying the most about the work?

Jermaine Massey: [00:21:28] So this. Hmm? You’re trying to make me cry. All right, so I’m not going to do that today. No. What it comes down to is I, myself, I am. I’m autistic, and I have ADHD. And recently, one of my students came to to to me to tell me that his son had recently been diagnosed. Same. And first he said thank you for letting me know because he had no idea what it was. And I had been the only person who he had ever run into who said anything. But then he followed that up with. And thank you for teaching me what you’ve taught me, because I see he’s he’s he was prior in the military and as he was exiting the military, we helped him in his late twenties or early thirties to put himself in a seven figure position so he could transition out of the service into civilian life and has a seven plus figure business now. But what he was grateful for was I have the resources. That’s what he said. He said. I had no idea how expensive this was. But thank you, because I don’t have to worry about being able to provide anything for my son. That’s what I do right there. That’s what I care about. I know. Because when a when when a father has the resources, he will lead his family. I know that. I believe that. And all the way through, up and down.

Jermaine Massey: [00:23:16] And the resources isn’t just the money. It’s also the time because we spend and trade so much time. That’s what we were taught, to take one of our most valuable assets and trade it for something that’s less valuable. But if you learn how to use and leverage assets that you build, build, buy, own and control. To create your income. Now you have both. You have monetary resources, time, resources, and now you get the freedom of choice. And that’s what he’s experiencing him and his wife are experiencing today is that they get to choose how to best take care of their son. And and that’s why we’ve got a collection of stories like that. In fact, we just had our first single black female across seven figures this year. And I’m just like, yes, this is awesome. Right? And notice I have to get so I got to get specific now in order to because of the number of people that we’ve been able to help, it’s like it’s not just the first person to ever. It’s just and that’s what’s rewarding is being able to gift to somebody something that I discovered uncovered by a tragedy. Right. And if but for the my lungs and all this other stuff that happened, I would have never discovered that. And then today I get to give it to other people.

Stone Payton: [00:24:49] Wow. All right, man, where can our listeners go to learn more? Start tapping into your work and maybe even have a conversation with you or someone on your on your team, whatever you think is appropriate. Website, email. I just want to make sure they can tap into your work, man.

Jermaine Massey: [00:25:04] Yeah, we’re at Cash Flow Diary on all socials at Cash Flow Diary right now. The one of the ways to get up to speed really quickly is to get what we call our blueprint. It’s cash flow diary slash blueprint. What I will literally do, we pre made an eight hour training that’ll teach you the beginnings from A to Z. You will be able to get at least one unit with the blueprint and that is absolutely at no additional cost. So just go to cash flow diary dot com for such blueprint download it now don’t just download it, watch it and then do what it says.

Stone Payton: [00:25:45] Well, Jermaine, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this morning. Thanks for investing the time and the energy to share your perspective and your experience. You’re doing tremendous work and we sincerely appreciate you, man.

Jermaine Massey: [00:26:01] I, I appreciate you because I know what it takes to produce content. We’ve been doing it for a while and and you’re doing it and you do it with with joy. So I hope your listeners appreciate it, too, because at the end of the day, us helping each other is how we get it done.

Stone Payton: [00:26:18] Hey, man, absolutely. My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, CEO of Cash Flow Diary, Mr. Jermaine Massey, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Attorney and Author Neal Goldstein

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Cherokee Business Radio
Attorney and Author Neal Goldstein
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Neil-Goldstein-HeadshotAt sixteen, Neal Goldstein dropped out of high school. It was the last in a long line of defeats, and it represented the acceptance of an inevitable fate.

Neal was an underprivileged boy, self-raised in a tumultuous home with an abusive father and a disabled mother who couldn’t earn or fully take care of herself, let alone her three children.

So Neal did the only thing he could think to do: quit dreaming of a future, get a job, and look after his mom as well as he could with his limited life skills.

Once Neal was able to find the genuine relationships he was searching for, he allowed himself to take the courageous steps of getting his high school equivalency diploma. It was only then that Neal felt the need to further his education and subsequently graduated from Queens College with a BA in political science and New York Law School where he earned his Juris Doctorate.

Neal Goldstein is a partner at the law firm of Goldstein and Bashner, a well-known and respected personal injury law firm on Long Island, New York. He has in the past served in a leadership role at the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers and was active with the Lawyers Division of the United Jewish Appeal.

Connect with Neal on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors program. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors dot org. You guys are in for such a real treat. This is going to be a fabulous conversation. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast. Author, Speaker, Attorney. Mr. Neal Goldstein. How are you, man?

Neal Goldstein: [00:00:48] I Stone How are you doing down here in Georgia with you? And I’m doing great.

Stone Payton: [00:00:52] I am so delighted to have you in studio. Neil and I were talking on the phone several weeks ago, and my original intent was to team up for a virtual version of the high velocity radio show, which many of you have tapped into. And he mentioned he was coming to town and suggested that we get together in the studio. And I am so glad that he did. Neal, I got a thousand questions. We’re not going to get to them all. But but I’m thinking a good place maybe to start is could you maybe articulate what you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks at this point in your career and your practice?

Neal Goldstein: [00:01:32] Yes. Stone So, you know, probably about five years ago, I started thinking about writing a book, something I’ve actually wanted to do my whole life. And I felt at some point I wanted to leave my kids a legacy more than just photographs or money or whatever. You know, I wanted them to see what my life was like and some of the lessons that I learned along the way. I grew up in a very, very challenging environment, very difficult. And I said, you know what? I want to do this for my kids. So about two and a half years ago, I started writing, and along the way, some people said to me, you know, some other people might benefit from your book as well. And that’s when I said, You know what, maybe I should do that. If somebody else could get something out of this, I want to do it. And so that’s really what the the whole the initial driving point was my kids. But then I expanded it to everybody who wants to read it. Anybody wants to listen to my book. Read it, whatever they want to do.

Stone Payton: [00:02:40] So in putting the book together and trying to commit your ideas to paper, did you find that some parts of it came together fairly easily? In other parts you struggled with a bit.

Neal Goldstein: [00:02:51] It’s a great question because the answer is not so easy. I’ll try to be as succinct as I can. When you write a book about your life, especially about some very personal moments, life changing moments, some dark moments, those types of things are, on the one hand, easy to write because you know them. They’re in your brain. So it’s easy to put pen to paper. What’s not so easy is. Especially when you’re in the editing process, you say to yourself, Do I really want to let the world know what I did? Or if I want to be honest, shouldn’t I tell them about this also? So yeah, it’s it’s not easy. You’re bringing other people into the book. And some people say to me, well, you know, you think some people are going to get mad at you? The answer is not really, because the hardest I the hardest I was was on myself in the book. So it’s not easy, but it is.

Stone Payton: [00:03:59] So the title is Who’s in the Waiting Room? Yes. Talk to us about the structure of the book and maybe give us some counsel on how to get the most out of it if if we’re reading it individually or maybe there’s even an application to to, to read it as a group and come talk through some of these ideas.

Neal Goldstein: [00:04:17] Yeah, it’s it’s kind of a fusion between a biography and I guess self improvement book or a business book was not easy to do because, you know, a biography you would go in chronological order. And while some of this is in chronological order, there are stories about my life and it’s based on relationships. And that is the the whole intent of the book is to try to let people know that. Genuine and authentic relationships are the keys to being truly successful because I had no genuine and authentic relationships in my early life. I grew up with a mom who had a debilitating case of multiple sclerosis and an abusive father, and I had no real relationships in my life, quite honestly, sucked. When I developed genuine relationships and I go through the stories of how that occurred, my life became very different and I would never have imagined where I am today back then. And so I think if I can if I can basically tell people, if I can explain to people how vital it is to have these relationships, how to unlock them in a in a meaningful way, not in a cunning or underhanded way. This is not when I’m talking about a machiavellian maneuver here. These are true, genuine relationships. I think most people will find that their life gets much, much better.

Stone Payton: [00:05:50] In my experience, at least initially, it seems cleaner, more efficient to just, you know what, I’m going to do this myself. I know exactly what I’m trying to do, how I’m trying to do it, even why. So I’m not going to try to get too many other people involved and maybe I’ll start inviting them into my circle later on during the process. And I got to say, in the same breath, it almost never works out well when I do it that way. Is that your.

Neal Goldstein: [00:06:15] Experience? Well, I’m a big believer in self-reliance and self responsibility. There’s no question about it. Yeah. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be here. That said nothing. Nothing replaces genuine and authentic relationships. We are not we are not born into this world to be alone. And so we should never find ourselves without other people who are truly willing to be there.

Stone Payton: [00:06:44] So I am personally so blessed, particularly so, and maybe more so since Holly and I moved to Woodstock and I’ve really immersed myself in this local community here in Woodstock to have what I would characterize as just fabulous relationships. But I must confess, I, I don’t know that I can take any real credit for it because I did not have any discipline, rigorous structure to, okay, I really want to build a solid relationship with with Sharon Klein, who was here earlier hosting one of our shows. Yet we have a terrific relationship. And I don’t know if it’s because Sharon is really good at building relationships or if I accidentally did some things that maybe you would have coached me to do on purpose.

Neal Goldstein: [00:07:29] Well, well, listen, you know, we were speaking for a bit off mic, and I could tell and I’m not just saying this because I’m here, I could tell that you are open. Let’s start at the beginning. You’re you you acknowledge that that genuine and authentic relationships are needed in your life and you’re willing to embrace it. Now, it doesn’t take a you don’t have to be a casino manager to know that. You don’t have to have that personality to to to be to embrace relationships. You don’t have to have the personality of a movie star. Anybody can say. I think relationships, genuine relationships are important. And I and I embrace them. They’re important in my life. And clearly, when I talk to you, I could see that you have that attitude. So, you know, you may not see it within yourself, but it’s there. And if you have those relationships, at least in part, you’re responsible for that.

Stone Payton: [00:08:32] Well, thanks for the compliment. And I do want to continue to get better and better at not only cultivating the relationships, but holding up my end. Right. In terms of of cultivating new relationships. Are you finding that there are some maybe it’s a little too stringent to say do’s and don’ts, but maybe some things you ought to consider doing and some things you may want to not do?

Neal Goldstein: [00:08:58] Yeah, well, you know, I’ve. I talk about this all the time on my my Instagram, you know, my Instagram channel and certainly in my book that there are things that somehow we were taught when we were younger that many of us have forgotten, things that I’m almost embarrassed to say are really basic. And these are not ideas that were born from me. These are ideas that that circle around humanity. As an example, when you meet somebody, you shake their hand. Right. That makes sense when you meet somebody. And of course, we’re assuming that this is a person you want to have a relationship. You meet somebody, you look at them eye to eye. When you meet somebody, you smile. Why? Why? Those three things that I just said important. Because it sends messages immediately to the other person. It sends messages about trust, about wanting to be where you are at that moment and wanting to engage in a long, genuine and authentic relationship. People have forgotten to do those things, and I know those things sound so simple, but you can only imagine. Stone How many people don’t do those things.

Stone Payton: [00:10:14] I got I got to make another confession. You’re like, you’re like the priest. You’re drawing all this out of me. I read somewhere, you know, like, you know, if you’re going to be a good person and it may have even been good man. One of the things was stand up when you greet someone and shake their hand. And I caught myself at a at a thing called Young Professionals of Woodstock, a gathering. I caught myself sitting down and shaking hands with Randy Beck, but at least I had the self-awareness because I had read that, okay, Stone, don’t do that next time. So comes over here. Even if you’re seated, you’re comfortable, you got your coffee, you’re ready to go. Somebody comes over and sticks their head out. You stand up. Just little things like that can mean a lot, can’t they?

Neal Goldstein: [00:10:56] 100%. And you know, when it comes to building a client base in your life, in business, because all the rules that I’m telling you now, or many of the rules that I talk about and I don’t even want to say their rules, it’s humanity. Many of the things that we talk about when it comes to humanity, well, it makes no difference between business and your personal life. It’s one life. It’s 24 hours a day. That’s it. And so there’s really no no difference. So, for example, I have a client who we resolved her issues maybe about a year ago. And six months ago I found out that her husband passed away. Now she’s not my client anymore. But guess what? I felt this was a this was a good client. She’s a nice person. We got along really good. I went out to visit her. We had a cup of coffee. I sat down in her living room for an hour and a half. Why wouldn’t I do that? She was a decent human being. And you know what? The next day, all of a sudden, I’m seeing on social media, she’s telling everybody, My lawyer went out with me what a nice man he was, and I did not do it for any reason other than, you know what? This is the right thing to do. And sometimes when you do the right thing and you don’t worry about, well, what am I going to get in return? Is this a person that could bring me a business? No. You just do the right thing and it will come your way.

Stone Payton: [00:12:22] Amen. So I can tell. I can hear it in your voice. I can see it in your eyes. You clearly. You really enjoy the work. What are you. What are you finding the most rewarding at this point in the work?

Neal Goldstein: [00:12:37] I think I think the most rewarding for me is honestly is having is talking with young people. Young people really are my forte. And it’s it’s great having young people come up to me and say, you know, what is it that I could do to try and better myself when it comes to business relationships as an example, how do I do it? I have people come to me and say, you know, I’ve been going to this civic organization all the time and I really hate it and I’m not getting any clients there. And I said, You know what I say to them, Don’t do it anymore. Don’t go to civic organizations. Don’t go to a place that you really don’t want to go to because you know why they will see that you’re not you don’t really want to be there. Go to a place that you have a true interest in. So, for example, if your interest is stamp collecting, you may not think that you’re going to get clients there. But if that’s what you’re really interested in, then do it. My mom had multiple sclerosis, so I was very involved with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, not because it was going to bring me work, but because I was passionate about it. And the people that that that were with me, my multiple sclerosis community friends, they knew I was passionate about it and they liked me. And guess what? People want to do business with people that they like. So if they see that you’re passionate about what you’re doing. That’s where you belong. Not in the civic organization. You want to throw away a hundred business cards, go to waste, go to a civic organization meeting. You want to get real long term clients. Find a place. Find your people. In fact, that’s one of the names of the chapters in my book Find Your People.

Stone Payton: [00:14:21] So I got to say, one of the things that that my business partner, Lee Kantor, was able to impress on me pretty early on in our work together. And I think because we had the gift of this platform that is that has helped me continue to learn and relearn the lesson. There is such a distinction between listening and waiting, and now it’s so easy to identify when someone’s really listening to you or they’re just waiting for their turn to talk. Can you speak to that? Is that consistent with your experience?

Neal Goldstein: [00:14:53] Yeah, Well, you’re picking out all the chapters in my book. It’s one of the things that I teach people that you have to do in order to start building a trustful relationship is you have to listen. And most people I forgot who who? It’s not my quote, so I’m not taking credit for this. Most people listen with the intention to talk. When you listen, you have to listen. So my rule of thumb, I’m giving something away here is if you want to try an exercise with another partner, have them talk to you for 2 minutes and after and you don’t say a word. And after the 2 minutes are up, you have to regurgitate everything that they said to you. Listening is important. Listening means eyes focused on the other person. Listening means with your heart and your soul. Listening means wanting to help that person with unconditionally. Unconditionally. It is essential. Essential for a trustful relationship.

Stone Payton: [00:15:48] So the title, what’s the genesis of the of the title is in the waiting room.

Neal Goldstein: [00:15:53] So when I was 16, my brother, who has since passed, was always my tormentor, always teasing me. He threw me in the bushes, split my ear open. And. And I had to go to the hospital. And, you know, in the hospitals always I always had a fear of hospitals. I didn’t go again until I was, you know, a little sometime after that, I had I had a horrible accident in my hand and I needed surgery. So my mom and dad weren’t around and. Then after the surgery the next day, it wasn’t an in-and-out operation like it would be today. Next day Nurse comes into the room and says, Okay, you seem okay, you seem fine. I think we could let you go today. I said, Great. She says, She said, Turn around. Said to me, Who’s in the waiting room? And I said, Nobody. And there was nobody for me there. And she says, Oh, that’s okay. She tried to, you know, brush it off. And back then, we’re talking about a long time ago. They actually released me without anybody. And I remember and I only I only lived about five blocks from away. And I’m walking home and I said to myself, you know, this is crazy. How can I live like this? There’s nobody there for me. And that’s where the title came from, because my my early life has had such an impact on me as a human being today that I wanted to give the title something that made an impression not only on me, but hopefully will make an impression on other people.

Stone Payton: [00:17:38] Yeah, well, I think you did it. So let’s talk about the work a little bit. There’s the book and it’s it’s a more of a precursor, and I think it’ll serve a lot of folks and maybe help them even get more out of out of your work. What does that look like, particularly early in the in the process when you begin to coach, consult a counsel with your clients, what are some of those activities and exchanges? What do they look like?

Neal Goldstein: [00:18:03] Well, I think, you know, what’s important is, you know, when I speak to a client, let’s say somebody asked me for some consultation. What I like to find out, I first get a holistic picture of the person, what are his relationships like? In fact, at the end of each chapter of my book, I go through a list of actions that people should take in order to assess their own level of relationship skills. And so I go through that very carefully with with, you know, with potential clients to see what are the relationships in their life. Who? Who? Who are the most important people in a life? What’s what’s their history been like with relationships? And then we kind of take it from there. What is what is the end game? Why are they coming to me? Are they coming to me Because they want to get more clients. Okay. And then we start breaking down based on the all the items that I talk about in my book and I see, I say to myself, okay, where are they stuck in Which area do they seem to be stuck in? And we start working on and breaking down very carefully in detail. How are you trying to create relationships? As we said before, you’re looking to go to the next neighborhood association and you’re you know, you’re pulling your teeth out because you don’t want to go. That’s not how you’re going to create relationships. If you like to make jewelry, that’s where you go. That’s that’s how you make real relationships. Are you when you meet people, how are you greeting them? Show me how you’re greeting them. We talked about that.

Neal Goldstein: [00:19:47] That’s important. All of these things send messages to people and you want to send messages of of of trust, authenticity. You know, let me let me tell you this one last story. I know I tell a lot of stories. When I was when I was young, I had a dentist. He was very nice guy. I used to go to him all the time when I got married and I moved an hour and a half away. I still went to him. Still drove an hour and a half. Why would I drive an hour and a half to see this dentist? I’ll tell you the answer. The answer is, first of all, that I know if he was the best dentist in the world. No. Do I know if he got an A-plus in pulling teeth? No, I don’t know that. He was obviously somewhat competent. The answer is he made me feel good. So when I used to sit in a chair, he would ask me about my grandmother. He would talk to me about my mother. He he talked to me in a way that made me feel like, hey, you know what? This guy really likes me. And I really believe he did. I don’t think he did it in an underhanded way. And I like him. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s what we have to remember when we’re either, you know, either on a personal level or a business level. You want to be with people. You want to be with people, whether it’s personally or through business, people that you like, people that like you, people that you’re comfortable with, people that you trust.

Stone Payton: [00:21:18] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for someone like you, a practice like yours? Like how do you how do you get the new. The new.

Neal Goldstein: [00:21:29] Clients? Yeah. Well, look, you want to spend $10,000 a month on Google AdWords, $100,000 a month. $1,000,000 a month. Go ahead. You’ll get clients. There’s no question about it. I’m not going to tell you that they’re going to be the most loyal clients because they may just go in the next time around. If they need somebody, they’ll go on the on the Web and do the same thing. And I’m not saying there isn’t a you know, there isn’t a purpose in doing those things, but if you want long term. Genuine and authentic relationships. It requires a longer term investment. It requires investing in human beings. You know, digital is a great way to introduce people. It’s a good way to meet new people, but it’s no way to deepen relationships. And some people get upset when I say that. But that’s really the truth. And that’s okay. If a lot of people have walked away from that type of thinking because I guess it just leaves more clients for me. Right. But but, you know, that’s that’s you know, that’s really what for me as a lawyer and when I used to get clients, that’s what I would do when I would meet a client. You know what? The first thing I would ask them is I’d say to them, Don’t tell me about your case, what you think your case is. We’ll talk about that later. Tell me about you. And they get surprised because I’ll bet.

Stone Payton: [00:22:54] I bet. Yeah.

Neal Goldstein: [00:22:55] Yeah. I said, tell me. They said, What do you mean? I said, I don’t know. Tell me about your family. What do you like to do? You know? And you know what, Stone, I. I swear to you, every time a client talks to me about their life within, I don’t know, within. Within ten sentences, I find something that we have in common, and I’m again, I’m doing it in a genuine way, in a trustful way. I’m doing it because I like the person. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t be there. And so I really try to take a very holistic approach to these things. I have a system to call the system haywire. It’s very simple. How are you? What does that mean? In my office, I don’t wait for a client to call me. Are you kidding me? I call them, and when they get a call from us, they’re surprised. Why? Because lawyers in general have a reputation. Of not calling back their clients ever. Well, what happens when you take when you leverage the weakness in your occupation and you turn it around? And all of a sudden you inject a level of humanity into it. Then all of a sudden a client sees something completely different. My my lawyer calls me. I don’t have to call him. And I think that’s really important. And it absolutely I could tell you it quantifiably has made differences in my practice.

Stone Payton: [00:24:25] I’ll bet it has. The I can’t remember what book or what talk, but. But this idea of the law of contrast and you obviously. Right. Have created that right when you as you say, you capitalize on on a weakness that you’re well aware of in the arena in general and then you turn around and utilize it as.

Neal Goldstein: [00:24:46] I think one of my biggest YouTube videos was when I first started doing video, so there was nothing really unique about the video. It didn’t have a lot of special effects in it. The title of it was Why doesn’t my lawyer call me back?

Stone Payton: [00:25:03] That’s great. I mentioned earlier in the conversation, your passion. It comes through and I knew this when we talked on the phone several weeks ago, and I know our listeners can hear it, and I know that you’re human. You’ve got to, from time to time, run out of gas. The batteries got to run a little bit low. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical location. Where do you go for for for inspiration to to kind of recharge and be ready to to to go after this pursuit again?

Neal Goldstein: [00:25:38] Well, the inspiration is similar to the inspiration for my whole pivoting into helping people create relationships. And that is I go back to my life, the life that I had without any kind of relationships, the life I had when I dropped out of high school, the life I had as a poverty stricken young boy who had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nobody to speak to. And my life is completely changed because I embraced. Relationships. I embraced other people. And so my story is not about me, it’s about other people. And so when I get down and I do, and when I go into that black place and I do, those are the things that I try to think about. Yes. And I think about my kids. And I want them to to understand the lessons that I had to go through. So maybe they don’t have to go through that. Yes, they’ll have to go through their own stuff. And so maybe they can use what I’ve learned to navigate.

Stone Payton: [00:26:48] You have been so transparent, so open and authentic. And I would even venture to say willing to be vulnerable during the course of this conversation. I have every reason to believe that’s the way you conduct yourself In most, if not all, conversations, have you discovered that you actually are deriving a benefit of some sort by sharing your story like you do?

Neal Goldstein: [00:27:13] Yeah, 100%. Because, listen, when I was younger, everybody I remember a lot of kids used to make fun of me because I was a sensitive kid and I was I was always a sensitive kid. I kind of felt like I was the weak guy or whatever. And then at some point after meeting a few people, I realized, wait a second, this sensitivity works. It works, It works. Some people actually like it. And as you get older, obviously more people like it. And yeah, I think my sensitivity has helped me as a lawyer for sure. If I go into a courtroom, a judge sees my passion. I’ve had to have judges tell me, calm down, clients see my passion and they love it. You know, most people I know who know me, they see the passion and I think they know that it’s real. It’s not fake. And of course, you can’t be that way all the time. There are moments you’re less passionate. I don’t want anybody to ever call up and say, Hey, Neal, you really are not a passionate guy. So it absolutely benefits you. And again, find some weakness in your life and turn it around and it becomes your strength.

Stone Payton: [00:28:27] All right. Let’s make sure that our listeners have a very easy path to connect with you if they want to have a substantive conversation with you or someone on your team. I want to make sure that they have easy access to the book. So whatever coordinates you feel like are appropriate website, email, LinkedIn. Let’s see. I just want to make it as easy as possible for our listeners to to connect with you and tap into your work now.

Neal Goldstein: [00:28:53] So yeah, I’m on a few different platforms very easily. On Instagram, it’s Neil Ni a L, a Goldstein one, the whole word. Neal Goldstein. My website is Truth in Success. Truth in Success. You could see where my book is right there. Or if you just want to go on to Amazon, the name of the book is Who’s in the Waiting Room? Who’s in the Waiting Room? And and if you connect with me, let me know that you’re connecting with me somehow. There’s a million ways to do that on my website or Instagram, and I’ll chat with you and we’ll talk.

Stone Payton: [00:29:26] Well, Neal, it has been an absolute delight having you join us on the program and particularly having you in studio. Thank you so much for investing the time and energy to share your insight and perspective. You you’re doing important work, man. And we we sincerely appreciate you.

Neal Goldstein: [00:29:44] Thank you. Stone It’s a pleasure being here.

Stone Payton: [00:29:46] Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Neil Goldstein and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Rome International Film Festival podcast with Brian Campbell, the Director of “Her Name Was Hester”

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Rome International Film Festival
Rome International Film Festival podcast with Brian Campbell, the Director of "Her Name Was Hester"
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Randy Beck with Beckshot

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Fearless Formula
Randy Beck with Beckshot
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Randell-Beck-headshotRandell Beck, Photographer – Cinematographer–and Post-Production at Beckshot

Randell is a former Naval Commander with a background in engineering and special operations. A lifelong outdoorsman and photographer, he also holds an MBA from the University of Texas in Community Planning (joint program between the school of architecture and real estate programs), and extensive experience in logistics and team building.

He applies his business expertise, operational planning background, and award-winning photographic talent to the challenge of producing exquisite marketing materials for his clients. His extensive real estate career spans over 25 years in every aspect of real estate: development, construction, marketing, operations, and design.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of Lutheran Social Services of New York and an accomplished guitarist.

Follow Beckshot Media on Instagram and Facebook

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:08] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:18] And a happy Friday. Fearless formula Friday here at Business RadioX.

Randy Beck: [00:00:22] Is there another kind?

Sharon Cline: [00:00:23] No, there’s not, because Fearless Formula Friday is my happy day. Welcome to Fearless Formula, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I am happy to have a gentleman in my studio who is the owner, creator, director, president of Beckshot. It’s a media company here in Woodstock, but also interestingly in New York. His name is Randy Beck. Thank you for coming in.

Randy Beck: [00:00:52] Hi, Sharon.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:53] Hello, Randy. I appreciate you taking the time to come here because I know you’ve actually were on another business radio show. You’re like in demand. So I appreciate you.

Randy Beck: [00:01:02] I cut a photoshoot short just for you.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:05] Oh, my goodness. Well, I don’t want to keep you, you know. So I wanted to talk to you for a couple of different reasons. One is, I think it’s kind of interesting, your back story. You you have you had a business in New York, which seems like people from Woodstock, Georgia, would almost seem as New York as their destination. But you came from New York to here. How did you do that?

Randy Beck: [00:01:29] It was more of a side hustle in New York. Because I had started doing photo and video for real estate at the companies I worked for. I really didn’t like what I was getting from the photographers or anybody that I worked with up.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:43] There, really.

Randy Beck: [00:01:44] So I kind of adopted the equipment, started doing it myself because I’ve been doing this my whole life. I kind of knew what I wanted and how to get it. And so it was growing into a business. And when COVID and all that mess happened, I was basically looking at what to do next. Right. I interviewed a few E suite type positions here and there, and they had like 800 applicants for the VP jobs. Gosh, it’s crazy. Is lunacy in the job market. You know, the effect on on the commercial real estate up there, which is what I was doing. And so I. In the course of deciding what I wanted to do and making my pro and con list and all that, I figured maybe I could turn this into a career. And then as it turns out, my friend here in Woodstock was retiring. He has health problems, really could not keep working. He was going to close his doors. So I called him and I was like, you know, why don’t you sell me your company? And that’s what we did. I wound up buying it from him and moving down. And, you know, back shot 2.0 is the new venture. Right after I moved down and kind of started making it into my own little game.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:55] So why didn’t you like what they were doing when you were when they were taking videos and photos of real estate up there? What was it that didn’t satisfy you?

Randy Beck: [00:03:06] Ultimately, it was just the the art of it. Real real estate photography is kind of a unique game. And then and I worked in in the commercial world, corporate real estate. So we were building big buildings and operating big portfolios of apartment housing and multi use buildings and land development and all that. So I was working a lot with architects and engineers, and the photography that goes along in that world is very different. If you look at an Mlss photo and then you look at something in, I don’t know, Residential design magazine.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:32] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:03:33] Night and day difference. Right, Right. What I found was that architectural style photography worked really well in the real estate world, really communicated more to people about what it’s like to be in the space, what it looked like and felt like, and what the design part of the equation stuck out. It’s not just standing in the corner, taking that big, wide angle shot, making that that making a closet look like a football field, which happens in real estate. Sure, sure. It’s never a good thing, right? A buyer comes in and sees a small room after seeing something like that. Now he’s mad at the agent and so forth. So there’s other ways to communicate. What’s so about a space? And that’s what I was always into. I just and I couldn’t find it nearly as often as I liked.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:16] So it clearly worked for you getting into this business so far. I’m not jinxing anything by saying that. I’m just saying in New York, you know, you have you were successful this way, so it made sense for you to transfer it down.

Randy Beck: [00:04:29] As soon as I started, people were like, Wow, you really made that look like something special, you know? And people responded, You know, the art of doing this has always been towards the top of my list. You know.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:39] Were you, you know, the shows fearless formula that we talk about fear a little bit. So was it daunting to come down here and start brand new with a brand new market?

Randy Beck: [00:04:49] Terrifying. Terrifying, Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:52] But you did it anyway.

Randy Beck: [00:04:53] Yeah. Which doesn’t really slow me down a lot. It just makes me plan more, you know? So I was a naval officer. I kind of learned how to deal with adrenaline, fear and confusion and frustration in the past and maybe, maybe have some training and resources that a lot of people don’t have. Right. Which makes it easier. But so I can call on that. Right. So for me, sequence and order, right, is the antidote to fear and frustration, right? So I start, I start putting things in sequence and imposing order on chaos and just move forward.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:23] That calms your emotions down.

Randy Beck: [00:05:25] Yeah. To me, that’s the management challenge, is just just imposing order on the chaos. And as you do that, everything calms down. And so now it’s not a fear question, Now it’s a logistics question, it’s facts.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:36] That’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of kind of like you’re saying, putting things in sequence A plus B equals C, You know, it’s like logical. I’m such a non logical person. So it’s I really appreciate that nugget for me to take, you know, because I tend to get overwhelmed with the feelings and the logic. It all kind of shuts down for me. So thinking about it, I’m switching it from right brain brain to left brain. I can imagine that being kind of what you’re talking about.

Randy Beck: [00:06:02] That’s the imposition right there is. It’s a learned skill to pull back from the emotional view. And take the rational view, make that switch right And then but if you can do that, then because there’s order there, then you can develop a plan to deal with yourself essentially.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:23] How did you learn that skill, though? Was it the military?

Randy Beck: [00:06:26] Mainly, yeah. I did some very we did some very complex things in the military. So when I when I you remember in officer and a gentleman, he’s asking them where they’re all from. And that one guy, the little the short Hispanic guy he says Texas Tech University math major. And he was like the only two things come out of Texas is steers and queers. Right. The reason they picked Texas Tech is because there was no ROTC at Texas Tech. And so it’s like there’s a safe school to mention. Eventually, there was one. I was the first officer commissioned out of that ROTC.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:00] Oh, well, congrats.

Randy Beck: [00:07:01] And so I went in the Navy. I started doing the things they make you do. And I was completely you know, I’m a dirt kickin, redneck kid. I did rodeos in high school, and most people are playing football from Texas.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:13] You’re from.

Randy Beck: [00:07:13] Texas? I’m from. Cotton field and oil oil country. Right. And, you know, I didn’t know anything when I got to my initial training up in Rhode Island. I was claustrophobic for three weeks. I was uncomfortable. I couldn’t sit still for three weeks until I finally figured out it’s because all the trees and I couldn’t see see anything. You know, I was used to being able to see for miles.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:31] Oh, interesting, right? Yeah. So the thought landscape would impact someone like that, but it makes sense. I never thought about that.

Randy Beck: [00:07:37] So I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Right. So I’m this green bucket headed, insane, showing up, trying to. Trying to be a leader and. It’s a very methodical plan. Everything on a ship is very thought out and very, very structured. And so for me, it was I was able to take that structure and make it work for me and learn my way along very quickly without having to have somebody hold my hand. So I guess that was the beginning of the process. And then later on we got to be doing very complex things. The ship I was on was the first vessel’s equipped ship, so we were loading. We developed a way to load Tomahawk cruise missiles at sea from a barge. Extremely dangerous, first time ever. But we were able to develop that.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:18] What was the name of your ship?

Randy Beck: [00:08:20] Fife. Fife? Yeah. It’s a reef. It’s a reef now. It’s sunk in in 97, I think.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:27] Oh, how weird.

Randy Beck: [00:08:27] Right? Decommissioned and so on. So that was one of the things that I did was develop that, that at sea load. Right. And so logistics is a thing for me and being able to plan things and put them in sequence. So then later when I was in the SEAL teams, that was an essential skill because you’re dealing with subject matter experts. They don’t need to be told what to do or how to do it. All they need to be shown is what’s the objective, and they’re spread out over the the globe, right? So it’s really a logistical challenge.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:58] So you feel like these things translated so well for you regarding business? Absolutely. Do you think people are too emotional in business?

Randy Beck: [00:09:08] Maybe yes and maybe no. But what they are not is what I see. The biggest shortcoming I see a lot of times is just the ability to put a plan in action and follow all the way through with it in an expedited way. Right. We used to say things like an OC plan put in practice is better than any perfect plan that you never get into into.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:28] Right? You’re just thinking about it and it’s never been executed.

Randy Beck: [00:09:30] So I think some of this is about being able to adjust on the fly too. But ultimately the better planner and the better you can adjust and the better you can put things in action and make them move and move yourself forward faster, I think is a real advantage in the marketplace.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:42] Well, how different is the market? Tell me how different. Woodstock, Georgia or Atlanta is from New York. Is are people’s fundamentals the same? What their needs are are basically the same. It’s just what you’re shooting is different.

Randy Beck: [00:09:57] I say that people pay more and get less up their. Huh? Everybody’s in a hurry all the time. The use of time is insane up there. People schedule down to five minute increments. You know, it’s crazy. 5 minutes down here. Down here. Nobody’s in a hurry.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:11] We need to drink our sweet tea. I don’t know.

Randy Beck: [00:10:15] It’s a much more comfortable lifestyle. And of course, we have space here. We haven’t ruined our cityscape here. Like. Like some areas up there. Ah, which is good.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:28] But are you are you finding. It’s okay. How about this? Is it. Is it. What’s the most satisfying part of your job since you’ve been here with Beck Shot? What’s your. What makes you the happiest?

Randy Beck: [00:10:42] I like to see when when a project goes well and it changes the relationship that a business has with their clients. Because I’m B2B, my job is to help you change the relationship you have with your clients. And so where you used to do advertising and everything was salesy and it was all your your website was an electronic flier, right? Right. Or bulletin board. Now it becomes an interactive and interactive thing. We use video and photos in a way that give people a real sense of connection, and we communicate in ways that generate emotional impact. And so your client now is is having an interaction with you on a personal level. This is all part of content marketing. One of the reasons that advertising model is obsolete now and. And so to watch that transformation and watch, watch people get it. Watch them start nodding. Watch them smile. Watch those emotions hit. Watch that relationship with their client change, you know, where they’re generating loyalty and commitment from their customers to. It’s a really neat thing.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:45] It’s interesting that you’re talking about emotion when you when you need to not talk about emotion in terms of business, but you’re trying to connect with people emotionally with your product, which is must be I mean, that’s a skill you have to be adept, I suppose, at being able to do both.

Randy Beck: [00:12:01] Well, certainly in any creative field, any kind of media field or anything that’s got a creative aspect to it, you really got to be able to go back and forth.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:09] So do you have people here that are sort of a mentor of yours, or do you who are your mentors, who are people that you look to to kind of navigate? As you said, the the advertising model is different, right? So as it’s changed, do you look toward any other kind of company or group that kind of gives you ideas about how to. I’m talking like. Social media even being the advertising, I guess, model.

Randy Beck: [00:12:36] I learn a lot from a lot of people, right? And so like when I bought this company and went into this business, my predecessor Michael, helped me get off off the ground, on my feet, get run in the right way. Right. And things that I needed to know about operating the business and making video and doing the things that where I had not been exposed to it yet, but on a broader scale, on that marketing sense, there’s people that I read or listen to that that make a lot of sense. I’ve been exposed to them from I’m an MBA, I have a graduate degree, so I’ve been exposed to a lot of people. I do a lot of study and a lot of reading, and I’ve found people that resonate with me that I think are really on the right track for future marketing. There’s an architect that I listen to that does podcast, and he’s always talking about how to have a creative type business in this modern environment. I find that very useful.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:32] Who is.

Randy Beck: [00:13:32] He? Simon Sinek is another one. His motivational aspects of marketing, you know, on on why and how and how businesses either do communicate or should communicate is really groundbreaking. One of the reasons he resonates so much is because it pulled a lot of things together that people were observing over the last 20 years and maybe unable to explain. But he did a really good job of putting that in context for people and work enormously from the sign framework.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:00] What are what are things that you think people don’t understand about your industry or that have a misconception about that you would like to clear up?

Randy Beck: [00:14:10] There’s an old joke in music about how many drummers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have machines that do that now. So? So it’s like, Oh, well, I have I have a cell phone. I’ll do video. Good luck with that.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:26] You don’t think it just takes me to my cell phone to. I mean, All right, so you have kick ass equipment.

Randy Beck: [00:14:31] I think you’ll hit the limits of the of the knowledge and experience in equipment very quickly if you try that. Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:38] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:14:39] Well, it’s not that it’s bad to get started. Of course it’s not. You know, I mean, and you can do video that way and but what is your brand? How do you want to show up in the marketplace? You know, what type of messaging are you trying to do? There’s a lot of ways to show up. The periodic table of marketing shows hundreds of combinations of ways to appear in the marketplace in ways to communicate to your market. So. One of the big challenges is tailoring your presentation to fit that. It’s all it’s all part of branding. What is that sum total of experience that your clients. Receive. When they deal with you.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:19] Who’s your ideal client?

Randy Beck: [00:15:21] My ideal client are people that either own businesses or run them high up decision makers that are brand conscious and understand the value of broad based branding. And then what they want to do is communicate directly to their clients and communicate that they have shared values, shared lifestyles and shared goals so that the lifestyle of their client and the purpose of the business resonate with you. This is pure Simon Sinek now. Sure, Aria is the best example. I use this all the time. I, as a company, lives the life that their client base lives and they have from day one. They’re an outdoor equipment maker. They they started off as a group of climbers buying in bulk so they could save themselves money. They were buying the things they actually used on the mountains. The company was run by Jim Whittaker, by a mountaineer who attempted to climb K2, went to Everest, all those all the big stuff. And over the years, they’ve developed this reputation and this presence in the market where if you’re an outdoors person, you know that you’re going to get the best of its kind from area. So number one, if you want to save time, you really don’t want to do all the research. Go to Aria and find out what they’re selling because it’s the best of its kind. Whatever it is, you don’t have to do all that work they’ve done. It takes the guesswork out of it. Plus their pricing is good. They give they give money back if you’re a member, Right. Based on the level of your purchases. So it’s a co-op business. It’s a co-op.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:43] It’s got you.

Randy Beck: [00:16:45] It’s that concept is useful for people who want to belong to something, right? Then they they do all the things you would expect a company in that business to do. They’re involved in conservation efforts. They their customer service is. Beyond anything that you’ll find.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:03] Anywhere better than Nordstrom. Just curious.

Randy Beck: [00:17:06] I think so.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:07] Wow, that’s awesome. I’ve never I’ve never shopped there.

Randy Beck: [00:17:09] Clearly, I don’t. If you weren’t there and you feel like, you know, there’s a need, like I want to teach people how to build, how to clean up the river by using beaver dams. Right. They will make resources available to you to have that class and go help people do that or hold the class in the store or whatever. You can take a leave of absence to go do that. You know, the company walks the walk, right? So their client base knows that and they’re fanatically loyal.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:32] And they so they mark it correctly and effectively.

Randy Beck: [00:17:35] You mean very effectively, Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:38] In coming down here and starting this company, taking over this company, what would you say? You have something that’s your biggest mistake. What’s a mistake that you wish you had or been able to navigate differently?

Randy Beck: [00:17:50] I wish I’d done it five or ten or 20 years sooner. All right. I was too slow.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:59] No, you know, there’s there’s divine timing. Do you agree with that?

Randy Beck: [00:18:02] Yes. Yes. Yes, I do. All right. And apparently managed to hit divine timing this time around, which I’m happy about that. Well, that’s.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:11] Exciting.

Randy Beck: [00:18:13] Mistake.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:15] I can name ten and just 5 seconds really easily.

Randy Beck: [00:18:18] It’s like, where do we start? I know I charged too little. I tried to do things maybe wasn’t quite ready to do. I tried to cover too many too many market segments at first instead of specializing at first.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:30] So you would recommend that I would.

Randy Beck: [00:18:33] Any time. You need to get your name known quickly, it’s better to go deep than to go wide.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:39] Okay, that’s interesting. But you know what? There’s something that I do a lot, which is fake it till you make it. So I mean, I’m still faking it, by the way, in case you’re wondering, I. I do think this like, Well, I’m going to seem like I know what I’m doing and then kind of go back and figure out how to do it before I actually officially do it. In other words, even starting a voiceover company, I didn’t know if I would be successful doing that, but I started it. And then once I got hired, I figured out, Oh my God, now I’ve got to go back and figure out exactly how I’m supposed to sound. And all of the I guess all the back story behind being a successful person. So I didn’t I don’t recommend that, generally speaking. But I do have an energy of, yeah, I’ll try that. Even this radio shows. Sure, I’ll try it. We’ll see what happens.

Randy Beck: [00:19:22] How long have you been doing?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:23] Voiceover Well, I started recording audiobooks in 2017 six. So how many years is that? Six. Six years? Yeah. Five, five years. Six years.

Randy Beck: [00:19:37] Do I remember you telling me you put a booth in?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:39] Yeah, I have a booth in my garage. That’s true.

Randy Beck: [00:19:43] Taken all the right steps, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:44] Yes, but, you know, I guess what I’m asking is, like, would you. You were kind of had that energy. If I’m going to make. I’m going to do what I think is right. I’m going to throw myself out there and see what what sticks and what hits.

Randy Beck: [00:19:55] You know, there’s always a body of knowledge, right? And then there’s always room for a little bit of experimentation or individual expression. And some of the some of the pathways are a little hidden till you get on them. So I would say it’s it’s not a bad idea to just get started, right? I don’t know if fake it till you make it is what I the way I would describe it. But you walk the path that’s laid before you and you’re learning as you’re going, you know, and figuring out what to do, what the next best thing. Yes, you can always backtrack a little and change a decision. You know, very little of this is is permanent.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:24] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:20:24] So if you make a mistake, you can always back up and try again and do something different.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:28] Yes. Is there anything that you wish you could have known that you know now that you wish you could have known when you got started? Besides the don’t go as wide as making your market smaller and making a name for yourself in a smaller way.

Randy Beck: [00:20:44] I wish I had started studying marketing in a deeper way before I did. So I would have more knowledge and more expertise in that field because it turns out that practically everything I do now is marketing based. And so I’m.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:59] Just very much filming.

Randy Beck: [00:21:00] Right? I’m very much in the marketing space. And so the art of building a campaign and how to what makes marketing campaigns work and what makes branding special is all stuff I learn as I go. And I wish I had studied that deeper sooner.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:15] I don’t know. I find that inspiring too, because if I don’t, if I try to get all my ducks in a row and know everything before I actually do something, generally speaking, I’m never going to be ready because I always think there’s something I’m not going to be prepared for.

Randy Beck: [00:21:28] The trap you fall into is that perfectionist trap, right? Like, I can’t I can’t move until I know every detail. It’s all.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:34] Like, you know, me.

Randy Beck: [00:21:35] Nailed down.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:35] Like, you know me. That’s my brain.

Randy Beck: [00:21:37] I have a friend that way back in, back in Texas. And his name, you know, he’s such a perfectionist that he has he has turned down lots of opportunities because he couldn’t lay out the entire plan from the very beginning. And as a result, he just he never has done much. And it’s really kind of heartbreaking to see. He’s a talented guy, but he just can’t get off the starting mark until all the answers are in place and they never are.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:01] So how do you how do you navigate perfectionism then?

Randy Beck: [00:22:04] I don’t have any.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:07] No problem. Me neither. By the way.

Randy Beck: [00:22:10] I don’t even look for perfection.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:12] You look for good enough. I look for good enough.

Randy Beck: [00:22:14] The Navy taught us day one. They said, Listen, good enough is good enough. It’s just pain, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:19] It’s the fix of pain.

Randy Beck: [00:22:20] And they said if the minimum wouldn’t be the minimum if it wasn’t good enough, you know, it’s like, okay, so I don’t I don’t like that mindset. But but there’s a useful lesson there, which is get going.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:30] Just do good.

Randy Beck: [00:22:31] Enough, get going. You’ll improve as you go.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:34] Truth. Truth. Well, so what do you think has been the biggest challenge for you? Besides, I know that you had mentioned not knowing exactly marketing as well as you know now, but is it the biggest challenge is is becoming a starting a business where you don’t really have a huge network like you would have in New York? What was what’s been the biggest challenge for you?

Randy Beck: [00:22:57] I didn’t find I just so this business has a huge component of networking. It’s a it’s a creative business, right? People don’t really know what they’re going to get till the end.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:05] It’s interesting.

Randy Beck: [00:23:05] I have to trust you.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:06] I was going to say, you probably have to show them things, try to make them see things that aren’t tangible yet.

Randy Beck: [00:23:12] Or visual examples. And, you know, so they have to trust you. And so that means a lot of personal contact. So it’s a long sales process and it’s all all based on referral on who? Who knows you? Nobody. Nobody orders this stuff off the web by remote control. It just doesn’t work. So I kind of knew that that networking was going to be a huge part of this coming in, and I just planned to do it that way.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:34] So you do you do networking? Yeah, a lot. What are some of your networking events that you go to.

Randy Beck: [00:23:40] Woodstock Business Club to shout out to the Woodstock Business Club? Hi, Darren. Hi. John Whipple, young professionals of Woodstock. I do, Powercor. I go to some architecture and commercial real estate oriented groups in Atlanta. Things like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:00] How do you market yourself besides networking? Do you do you do any kind of advertising?

Randy Beck: [00:24:06] I do social media work. Social media advertising.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:09] How big is this? Because I talk about social media with every person.

Randy Beck: [00:24:12] So now we’re going into what I do, right, which is content marketing, right? And so the presentation I give all the time is that marketing changed used to be an advertising model. So you had you had three basic channels of reaching out to people, you had print, you had radio, audio broadcast, and you had TV broadcast, right. And. There’s a few others like billboards and stuff like that. But I mean, essentially it was it was broadcast, it was radio or it was print. And so what you would do is competition was fierce for that space. It’s very expensive. And and it’s necessarily generic. So you would develop a slogan, you develop a product, you develop a message, and you make your ad a little bit in the blind. Ad agencies were all about coming up with a creative way to put out what you were saying. And then and then you walk out there on a street corner with a megaphone and you shout it to the world and everybody that goes by, you’re hoping it resonates with some of them, right? And every industry, every type of marketing had its own measures of.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:15] Their analytics.

Randy Beck: [00:25:16] And how many people are going to respond. Right. So along comes the Internet revolution and we get bandwidth and we get social media and we get things like YouTube. And so now you can host high resolution images and video and blog posts, and there are all these ways to communicate directly to somebody if they can find it. And so by pushing out what you’re doing on social media and on and you got social, you’ve got search engines with SEO and all this stuff that they can search out what they want. So now the job is not to shout your megaphone to everybody. The job is give your primary client something to find, right? Because they’re looking for what matters to them. So you give it to them to find. So that’s all about story, That’s all about communication. It’s all about shared values. They’re looking. Simon Sinek again mentioned that people are now choosing companies based on Do they Think Like me? So if you can do that, you give them the information to show that the way you’re thinking and the way they’re thinking. Have a match. Then they like you and they’re doing all the work. They’re finding you. So your job now is putting out good content that illustrates that. So this is all a social media or primarily a social media function in various different channels, and there’s a lot of ways to do it. But this is where that periodic table I was mentioning comes from. How do you want to show up? What’s what’s the format? You can’t be good at everything. So you pick a few ways that you know you can be good at to put that information out there for people to find. And then that’s what you roll with. That’s a that’s a big sea change in the marketing world.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:54] Well, if you’re just joining us, I’m speaking with Randall Beck of Big Shot to Media company here in Woodstock, also Long Island. How do you manage Long Island?

Randy Beck: [00:27:02] So have a. Snowboard house up there. That’s a production facility, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:27:11] Yeah.

Randy Beck: [00:27:11] Got you. Keep some gear there. Keep some equipment. I can travel back and forth. And so if I need to do some work up there, I can base out of that. That’s on. And I have basically the company fits into my grip truck, so it’s a complete inventory of all the gear. I need a minimalist movie set, essentially lights, reflectors, cameras, drones, it’s all there. And so I can carry that with me, either location or anywhere on the road to any location I want to be in and work in a complete and complete way.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:41] So nice.

Randy Beck: [00:27:42] So there’s a facility there where I can sleep, eat and and hang out and do the work as well as here.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:48] You keep those those contacts as well up there. So that’s I mean, it makes sense. I’m sure not everybody has that. So it’s kind of cool that you’ve got two different places.

Randy Beck: [00:27:57] And I could do that in Texas too. I haven’t been, but I can.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:02] Take a.

Randy Beck: [00:28:02] Little place, a little place back there. So yeah. World domination. Pinky. Same thing we do every day.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:07] Pinky Well, you know what you’re talking about content and the quality of content. What do you think of the quality of content that is out there now that people are using? I mean, we we talked briefly before the show started about how people use our phones for everything. I mean, it’s true. I could potentially do a little bit of videoing for myself, but there’s a huge limit to what my phone can do.

Randy Beck: [00:28:30] There is.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:31] But it’s not just.

Randy Beck: [00:28:32] Fits your brand, then, you know it can work, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s not like it’s a useless tool. It’s just got its limitations. It’s not a professional marketing tool, right? But there’s plenty of guys that use their hammer in their PSAs and they build their dog house. Right. And so and their dog is fine in their dog house. So there’s a lot of ways to show up in the market. Basically boils down to what is your brand, Right? And if your brand is kind of DIY, cheap and cheerful, hey.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:56] Listen, cheerful.

Randy Beck: [00:28:57] Enlists cell phone updates, right? Every day I’m going to get on that cell phone. I got to tell you something interesting. Well, that can.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:03] Work, does work.

Randy Beck: [00:29:04] And then there’s and then there’s other industry. But look, there’s a lot of industry that understand the idea about visuals, Right? There’s a reason that that they spend so much money on visual branding, on high quality imagery and video is because that conveys something, emotion about their product, about their brand, and it conveys something to their client, right? So you have to kind of choose where in this spectrum you want to fall. I do a lot of work with like real estate people and real estate people. They need to be both quick and current with information and they need some really high quality material that really sets them up as a as a local expert in their field. So one of my clients does quarterly series of video content that’s produced. We do very high quality work that basically illuminates topics of interest to his market, to his sellers and his buyers. And then in between those times, he’ll jump on the cell phone and be like, here’s something that just happened that you might be interested in, right? So there’s a mix of this legacy content and this casual content, and it’s very effective that way. It keeps him top of mind to all of the people that are interested in working with him.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:14] So someone who would be interested in getting into this industry, do you have some words of wisdom for them?

Randy Beck: [00:30:19] Don’t.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:20] Yeah.

Randy Beck: [00:30:21] I’ve got it all locked up.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:24] Don’t compete with Randy. You might go to a different market. You can’t complain. Oh, good Lord.

Randy Beck: [00:30:29] My my best advice would would literally be to take business courses. I mean, look, it’s easy to learn the cameras. It’s easy to learn the drones. That’s mechanical, right? It’s machinery. I was having this conversation this morning with somebody. It’s easy to learn the tools. What’s hard to learn is judgment messaging, impact the emotional qualities that you’re looking for, what a business is need, what’s the business billing cycle? How does it work? What is what does a business need to do in the marketplace to make to set itself apart? Right. Those are things that the more you can know about that, the better you can be at that, the more value you’re going to deliver to your client. As opposed to their nephew who went out with his drone and captured some content. And now he’s going to try to stitch it together to a story that’s kind of random. And business messaging, at the very least, is not random.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:19] So take some business courses to understand the back side of this. Not only your own business, but the businesses you’re looking to impact. Interesting.

Randy Beck: [00:31:26] I would recommend that. And then and then at the early stage, specialize in a market so that you get very familiar with it. Right? You can you can work deep. You can become a subject matter expert for your chosen clientele. You can branch off from that easily. But if you’re trying to work in every direction at once, all at once. That’s a lower strategy of success.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:48] What’s a project you’re working on right now? I know you had mentioned real estate, that you’ve got something you do quarterly, but I know you’ve done other things and I know you’re working specifically with someone who writes motorcycles, which is exciting.

Randy Beck: [00:31:58] I’m doing a documentary on John’s John Clunes comeback from from his. He used to be a racer, at least semi-pro or professional sponsored racer, and he had a series of I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but has series of health and life challenges that took him off the track for 15 years. And then this past year he made a comeback to racing. So our film is, you know, racing as a metaphor for life, right? Oh, how original. It seems like a lot of people do that, but it’s a it’s a real unique story that I really when I heard him tell it, it resonated with me. And I said, Let’s do this little film about you. And so not to give away the end, but we’ve tracked his progress through this season now and and how he’s doing in his first season back in 15 years.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:48] Well, that’s fun, isn’t it? I mean, that’s I think the goal, like anything that I’m doing, I’m trying to have fun with it, which this is very fun for me. But I just mean being able to follow someone else’s sort of own hero journey is fun, you know, and it’s inspiring for your own self, I think. Or at least.

Randy Beck: [00:33:03] That’s where you find it, right? It’s all around you. Heroes are all around us. All you have to do is be open to the idea and looking for them.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:09] I don’t know. I always look. I just think about myself all the time. I’m not kidding.

Randy Beck: [00:33:13] I’m kidding. No, you. A little bit. I know that’s not true. Not entirely true. Well, mostly not. It might not be true.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:21] I appreciate you giving me a little out there. That was really nice. Well, if anyone wanted to find you and are interested in kind of working with you, what would be the best way?

Randy Beck: [00:33:31] My website is best shot, and I’m on Facebook as best shot. And Instagram is best shot in media and. Those are the best ways.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:43] Well, I can’t thank you enough for spending some time with us. I mean, I know that you’ve been here a good bit, so it feels really nice that you took more time out of your weekend filming to at least give me some tidbits of information that it’s like when whenever I’ve chatted with you in the past, I haven’t really been able to kind of hone in on your story. And that’s kind of what I love about Business RadioX is like, this is an opportunity for us to even kind of know each other better. But but for you to be able to explain a backstory that someone may not know, I feel like that’s everybody’s got their back story. And when you understand someone’s backstory and their journey, it’s almost like you become like you want to root for them a little bit. You know.

Randy Beck: [00:34:20] Like my career story is a long one of error, miscalculation and frustration until all of a sudden you find something that could actually work.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:29] But it’s probably most people listen. That’s very inspiring for anyone who’s listening who’s like, yes, that’s me. But I do think that’s most people, you know, nobody’s career path seems to go in a straight line. No one that I’ve spoken to has been like a, A, plus B, We’ll see.

Randy Beck: [00:34:44] What do they say? Plans are what we make while God laughs.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:47] Well, yeah, I’m just rolling with it too, you know. But how how fun and how inspiring and exciting for you to see how well you’ll do as time goes on. And you, you’ve even got another venture. You’re about to start in radio, right? Do you want to talk about that at all?

Randy Beck: [00:35:01] Well, here on Business RadioX, some of my real estate partners and I have been putting a show together that we may be we may be going ahead with sort of an interview style Joe Rogan style interview based. Podcast, if you will, broadcast for four local community leaders, business leaders and stuff where we can talk a little more about thought leadership, not strictly business. It’s more about community and business and ways for people to talk about their causes and what’s important to them as well as just what they do.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:37] Well, I love that because when you understand someone’s thought process behind why they’re putting a building where they’re putting or why this road is changing or why this initiative is happening, it’s exciting to it almost your emotions get involved in it because you can understand why as opposed to being annoyed that this change is happening. But there’s real thought behind what’s coming. And a lot of times I don’t even know, you know, it’ll just be, Oh, I see that now there’s construction here or there’s a decision that’s been made, but it’s I think that’s awesome because it can it can get people to understand the thought behind. It’s not an inconvenience to your life. It actually has a real big purpose.

Randy Beck: [00:36:13] Right. And we want to deal with topics that that resonate with people like lately. You know, interest rates in the real estate market in Atlanta is all of the rage, right? It’s all of the story. So Robert and Stacy both were in here earlier this week. And we we spent quite a bit of time on the outlook and how people can navigate the interest rate changes and what’s going on and how to make the best decisions. Right now, what it looks like looking out six months, that sort of thing, because those are those are topics that hit us all. Yes. Whether we’re homeowners or renters or whatever living in our community, those things affect us every day. And there’s 150,000 people a year moving into the Atlanta area.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:55] 150,000 a year. I didn’t know that.

Randy Beck: [00:36:58] That’s why the housing is so in short supply and prices have been running up. And, you know, it’s hard to hard to build new housing fast enough for a for in-migration like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:06] And then with the interest rate going the way it’s going, it makes it even a smaller market that can even afford to buy a home, I imagine.

Randy Beck: [00:37:13] Well, it’s like bonds, right? If the interest rates go up, prices have to go down for a for a fixed level of income or I guess we should say, for a fixed level of buying power. And so prices and interest rates are interlocked like that. But then there’s also the supply equation. There’s very low supply of housing right now. They can’t build it fast enough. So even though prices try to come down based on interest rates, they’re being pushed up by demand and by lack of new housing. So it’s very complex.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:44] Well, it is. Well, I have spoken to a couple of different realtors and it’s been a fascinating conversation each time because they all have different I mean, they’re dealing with the same things, but their personalities and how they manage these challenges can be vastly different. But at the same time, the goal is the same for everyone to be able to sell their house well, make a profit, and for your buyer to not have to spend an exorbitant amount.

Randy Beck: [00:38:07] So so those personalities and those different methods of dealing with things is is basically what I mean when I say, how are we going to show up in our marketplace, Right. What is what is their plan that either will work or that they hope will work? It’s not not the same as mine would be or yours would.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:21] Right?

Randy Beck: [00:38:22] But everybody has to find the key that unlocks the way forward.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:27] Well, Randy Beck, thank you for coming in. Beck Scott, thank you for coming into the studio today. I really appreciate it. And again, this is Sharon Klein with Fearless Formula, reminding you that with knowledge, knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day. Thanks, Randy.

Randy Beck: [00:38:43] Thanks.

 

Leonard Scheiner with Geek Haus

by

Leonard-Scheiner-Geek-Haus
High Velocity Radio
Leonard Scheiner with Geek Haus
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Leonard-Scheiner-Geek-HausLeonard Scheiner has been helping law firms, attorneys, and professional service business owners for the past decade with a focus on developing their branding, marketing for new clients, and predictably growing the revenues and online authority for his clients, who have earned millions of dollars worth of new business as a result of Leonard’s frameworks and tactics.

Today, Leonard is the CEO at Geek Haus, a law firm marketing agency based in Los Angeles.

Connect with Leonard on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • The Science and Creativity Behind Creating A Firm Name
  • Defining and Establishing a USP for B2B and B2C Law Firms
  • Pinpointing your Target Client and Ideal Client Avatars (ICA)
  • Visual Brand: What is it, and How it Communicates Constantly Marketing
  • How does a business afford marketing and have profitable campaigns that pay for themselves?
  • How does a law firm get new clients? (corporate clients or individual people)
  • How can a law firm or lawyer get better quality clients more consistently?
  • When do you know it’s time to hire an outside company to handle your marketing?
  • What is branding and why does it matter?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for such a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with guest house. Mr.Leonard Scheiner. How are you, man?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:00:35] Hello, Stone. It’s a pleasure to be here. Doing very well today.

Stone Payton: [00:00:39] I have so been looking forward to this conversation. I’ve got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but maybe a good place to start is if you could articulate for us mission purpose. What what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:00:58] Well, I love that I am able to get up every single day and help people help people. Now, what does that mean? Well, I run a law firm, marketing, Branding and Public Relations Agency, which is Geek Haus. And we help law firms, lawyers, attorneys help people at a higher scale. And what that means is we get them more clients, we get them a better digital presence so that they look awesome online. We get them looking better in all aspects, really.

Stone Payton: [00:01:35] So was that a very early decision or even before launching your organization to focus on that niche of law firms?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:01:45] Well. Stone It kind of evolved pretty organically. So my first internship when I was in undergrad was at a law firm, and I absolutely loved it. I loved that we could make a wrong situation, right? I absolutely loved the professional environment and how everyone was tremendously not just professional, but intelligent. And I loved that culture of working with attorneys and those who had gone to school to help people. And so that was over ten years of my professional career working in-house at law firms in different marketing capacities, from personal injury firms to bankruptcy firms to civil litigation and business divorces and marriage divorces and immigration and pretty much any area of law. I’ve touched it, and so it evolved pretty organically. Having spent so much time in law firms doing their marketing and also having a little bit of hand in the legal work that I really understood who these people are, who who an attorney is, how they operate, how they think about their business. And so it was around 2019 that I looked to begin my own agency, and that is Geek House. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:03:15] So so was it at least just a little bit scary stepping out on your own on this entrepreneurial venture?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:03:24] I think there’s a famous saying that says when you choose to make a decision, go and burn your boats. Right. The analogy is you want to go to an island, go to the island and then burn the boat so you can’t go back. And I’d love to say that I was graciously making that transition, and I did for some time. I was a I had a small consultancy where it was the Leonard show and that was great. I had a few clients, but I really saw that there was an opportunity to serve the legal industry at a much more more a deeper level of expertise in marketing, a deeper level of expertise and PR a deeper level of experience really, when it comes to developing a law firm brand or a solo attorney brand. And so I could only do so much having private clients in my own consultancy. And so when I made that jump, no, it was very scary. It was extremely scary. And just like any good business owner, you ride the crest of the wave and you ride the dip of the wave and you ride the crest of the wave and then the dip of the wave. But hopefully you’re trending upwards. And that’s what we’ve done over the past few years.

Stone Payton: [00:04:46] Now, do you guys sometimes get involved as early as helping a firm create their name or maybe help a more established firm recreate the firm name?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:04:59] In terms of the firm name, it’s interesting you bring that up. I am in consultation. We were just speaking about that a few days ago and they actually are now a coaching client of the agencies and I handle most of the coaching clients of the agency myself directly. And we were going back and forth between a name, a few name options, and there’s a competitor with a similar name in a next door geographic market. And so exactly what you had mentioned, we start with the brand name. That is where we we start the firm name, the brand name, and that could be for someone new. Maybe they’re a seasoned attorney coming from a big firm and they want to branch out on their own. Or maybe they have graduated law school four or five or six years ago, maybe even two or three years ago, and they’re just ready to do their own thing. So if there isn’t one existing, we do start with that. And then to the second half of your question of what about if they are existing, how do we do we help with transitioning a brand name? There was a pretty well known personal injury firm in central California, and I think it’s a generational firm.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:06:14] It’s the dad was was the founder and then the son is is same last name and he’s kind of now the managing attorney and they’ve been in the business for 35, 40 years. And they and I were having a conversation about what is the legacy of this firm look like and does it really make sense to market the firm under the partners names if they might not be there in 15 years? So we do a little bit of that deep dive in terms of the law firm name from the branding aspect, whether it’s new or established, usually the established firms, we like to keep that because they’ve marketed and done a tremendous amount of brand awareness and they’ve got equity with that name. But we also do succession planning in the sense of, Look, is this something that you’re going to keep and die with or is this something that you are looking to sell? And if those are very different conversations. So it’s really driven by the partners or the partner in terms of what they want to do and where they see that going for themselves.

Stone Payton: [00:07:26] Well, I got to say, because of your own focus on a very specific ideal client to work with, you’re probably the perfect person to ask this question. And I’d love to get any insight we could from you on on pinpointing that ideal that that target client. And I think the term you use in your world is an avatar. Yeah. Anything you can help us with on that front.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:07:54] So the ideal avatar for the agency for geek House or for law firms.

Stone Payton: [00:07:59] For law firms or any of us that are out there trying to kind of hone in our focus a little bit. Is there is there some structure, some rigor, some discipline, some approach to really pinpointing?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:08:11] Yeah. So for a law firm that’s going to look very different for every different law firm, right? You could have two P.I. firms. One of them focuses on catastrophic injury where there are limbs that are no longer there or there’s a traumatic brain injury, a TBI. And then you also have other P.I. firms that focus on your everyday fender bender. Right. So you span the gamut, even within the same practice area for a law firm. And that’s something that we dive into with our clients to understand who is your ideal client because we don’t want to talk to everyone. If you’re running ads and you’re talking to everyone, it gets really expensive. Why are we going to waste your ad budget talking to a million people when we could really talk to 100,000 people? Right. And so I gave the example of of personal injury. But even in a practice area like divorce. Right. And most people think, oh, well, there’s regular person divorce and then there’s high net worth individual or high net worth family divorce. And that’s absolutely true. But what about military divorce? What about gay couple? Divorce? What about divorce with adopted children? Right. So there’s all these nuances to any given practice area, and that’s based upon the preference and expertise from the attorney themselves about one, what they feel is the best business decision to be making. So what type of client is is their ideal? What do they have their expertise in? What do they want more of? What do they feel that they’re most comfortable handling? So it really depends on the individual attorney or the individual law firm.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:10:01] And then in terms of house. And the agency and what our ideal type of law firm attorney client is. Typically, we’re working with firms that have three partners down to the solo. Typically, when you have more partners than that, you’ve got an in-house marketing team, so we can still come in and help, but it’s definitely less help that you need from an outside agency if you have inside people handling your marketing. And really when it comes down to it, we’re looking for the people who want to level up, right? If you’ve already got things and a marketing team, you’ve already got your campaigns and things rolling away, that’s well and good. Of course we can come in and optimize and support and create new channels and get more visibility. But the the attorney or partner, two partners that are looking for that outside help to just handle it, I really enjoy and it’s really most beneficial to the firms when I’m able to step in as the fractional CMO for that firm and lay out a strategy, lay out a plan and present the roadmap that’s going to get them from where they are today to where they need to be.

Stone Payton: [00:11:20] All the things you were describing in the work with clients to help them really pinpoint that that ideal client avatar for them, that that’s got to impact how you define and articulate the unique selling proposition for them, whether they’re B to b, b to C, whether they’re in those niches. I mean that’s I mean, now the work’s just getting started, isn’t it?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:11:44] Very much so. Their unique selling proposition or what us in marketing land call USP, it’s going to depend on what sets them apart. And usually we can’t see the label of the jar that we’re in and we all have blind spots. So my expertise is going in there and really teasing out those qualities, those facts, those expertise, the the different levels of expertise or the different aspects of expertise, because, you know, every attorney is an expert, right? They went to school. They they trudged through every single class. They trudged through the bar exam. And now most of them are under the impression most attorneys think I can hang my shingle, People are going to come and then we’re going to create this great practice. And I’m here to tell you that’s just not true. The best attorneys are not the ones that have the biggest practices. The best attorneys are usually the ones that are grinding away, doing the work, giving their time selflessly to organizations and the community or other groups. And so they get to step up and leverage what their unique qualities are. And the right way to do that is to have a market marketing agency, a brand, some type of public relations efforts that are really exploding and shining a spotlight on what that expertise is.

Stone Payton: [00:13:19] So you’ve got the focus, you’ve got the language. But then, I mean, there’s also this whole visual element that is just so important, maybe more so now than than ever before, right? There’s a whole visual aspect to the brand, right?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:13:35] There is. And when we talk about brand, most people think, oh, that’s logo and colors. And while yes, that is very true, it doesn’t stop there. Right? That’s like saying a hamburger is is the meat in the bun. Well, yeah, but how is it cooked? What type of meat is it. What is the bun made of? What are the sauces, What are we putting grilled onions on it or like there’s so much more deeper. And so my response to many attorneys who think that a brand is very simple is we really dive into it is everything you think it is. But I’m looking at the perception because perception is reality. And typically for the consumer firms, consumers are not skilled at hiring attorneys if you’re a business focused firm. So a B2B firm, the person, the client who’s making the buying decision or the hiring decision to retain the firm probably has done this a few times. Right? If they’re hiring an attorney, they’re in business. You’re probably not their first rodeo. But a consumer who has just gotten in a car accident or who has just wanted to file for divorce or who is looking to emigrate, someone in their family or really any of the consumer practice areas. We’re looking for something in that potential attorney that we’re going to hire. And so as an attorney, we need to be cognizant of that perception that we’re giving out.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:15:11] So if our colors don’t match or our messaging doesn’t match, yeah, that’s that’s a part of it, right? We need to have a good logo, good colors, awesome things that match and go together, but even goes down to look at your phone number. Does it end in four random characters or does it end in 5600 or 4200? It needs to look like a business number, right? And if you’re giving a a potential client your business card, which business card is one of the last things of this digital new world that we live in that we actually exchange. Right. And so when we’re giving someone that is the direct dial, say our our main line is 5600 is our direct dial 5610 Great. Now, my perception as a consumer looking to hire this attorney is that they have their stuff together. It all makes sense. But if it’s four random numbers on your main line and then your direct dial has a totally different set of numbers, a different prefix, even sometimes it just looks a little discombobulated. So when they have a choice of choosing attorney A or attorney B, or let’s be real attorney B, C, D, E, and F, we need to stand out as the most best option for that potential client. And so that’s what we help them do with the brand. It goes goes pretty deep into all those aspects of things.

Stone Payton: [00:16:46] I really don’t think I realized until this conversation just how competitive the the attorney landscape that arena must be. I I’d never really thought about I’m operating under the impression that what I would call content marketing where you’re educating your informing would be would be an important in a lot of these processes is that accurate in this so could you speak to that a little bit in how you approach that aspect of things?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:17:19] Stone You’re absolutely right. The content that a law firm puts out speaks a lot about two things one, their expertise and two, their internal processes. So if I see a blog, if I’m a consumer looking to hire an attorney and I see a blog that was updated in 2014, which at the time of this recording is what, eight years ago, I know that we have a problem because they don’t put time into any of those details, right? I know that they don’t have an internal process to regularly produce content, to constantly be a thought leader, to be putting forth what is the new law, What is this new thing that came out a few months ago? What is this new condition about this county or this state? So there’s definitely the the internal process side of it. But then to really what what is striking to most people is the expertise that we can share. Right. I, I always tell clients if you’re going to write a blog post or we produce content for probably 80% of our clients and when we’re doing that, it’s not what to do after a car accident or what to do about your when you’re thinking about divorce, it’s.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:18:34] Not that because that article has been written umpteen trillion of times, but instead we’re thinking about how do you keep your kids safe around Halloween? Right. It’s more pointed and it’s more competitive in the sense that it’s going to resonate with your ideal potential client more than a blog post that is just pretty generic cookie cutter. And so we take the approach that we want it to be educational and also entertaining. So edutainment is what we’re looking for, and our process allows the attorney to streamline that process because we’re mostly producing the content for them. Of course, we present it to them for review because the attorney needs to be aware of what their their firm is communicating. Also, we’re not the subject matter expertise. We need that attorney to lend their eyes and any anecdotal, anecdotal details to that content itself. And so we do that in the form of long form blogs, and we’re able through our process to then parse out different pieces of that content that they’ve already approved that they didn’t have to draft. And then that trickles down into social content on the various platforms.

Stone Payton: [00:19:56] You clearly. I mean, you could just hear it in your voice, find the work incredibly rewarding. What are you enjoying the most right now about the work?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:20:09] I appreciate your compliment and I think if I could do branding all day, every day, that would be my my utmost joy. But I also know that branding is not what grows the firm. I know that branding is not what brings in new clients. I also know that branding doesn’t optimize revenue. And so branding is my true love. I like to think that that’s half the creative, half your brain write, half of it is creative. And so that’s where I love because it is. Some of it is technical. Most of it is. Some of it is technical. Some of it is subjective. But when we can marry those two together and put on the lens or wear the hat of the ideal potential client, things become more clear. But I’m the expert at that. They’re not. And that’s totally okay. But let me take you by the hand and shepherd you through that process. And so the branding is really the most rewarding part of that. But what I know is that branding, if you just do that alone, it will go in a drawer and never be seen again. And it is not shared with clients. It’s not used to its fullest, fullest extent. And a brand really needs to be alive, right? So a few years ago it was Instagram, Facebook, maybe YouTube, and now today we’ve I can’t even tell you how many consultations I’ve had where the the desire for the attorney to be on TikTok is there. Right. And so I’m always like, you’re the captain of the ship. I’m your co captain, you’re the captain of the ship. But at the end of the day, just because you have all these followers on Tik Tok doesn’t mean that that’s going to convert to clients. So I’m always very transparent in the fastest path to cash or the fastest path to clients for the firm, because ultimately their business is a firm is not a charity, and businesses need to be run with the idea of improving the bottom line.

Stone Payton: [00:22:22] Well, let’s stay on that money path for a moment, if we could. Do you have a feel for I don’t know if rule of thumb is the right phrase for what a marketing budget should look like or how we should arrive at a at a marketing budget at a law firm.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:22:39] Yeah. I always encourage the the attorney or the managing attorney, the partners to look at what makes sense. So it’s not as much as an arbitrary number as it is a formula. All marketing is speculative, right? Business. Let’s just take a step back. Business is speculative, right? Facebook didn’t turn a profit until a year ago. Right. And they’ve been having billions of dollars of revenue every single year. So when we think about a marketing budget for a firm, we’re typically looking at what is what are the current finances and whether they choose to share those or not is fine. But what is comfortable in the current finances to. To earmark for marketing. Now, once we’ve come up with that amount, maybe it’s 10,000. Maybe it’s 2000. Maybe it’s 40,000. Maybe it’s 200,000. It’s going to vary. But depending on what that marketing budget is, then that’s our agency’s responsibility to run that as its own pal. So what do I mean by that? If we’ve got a marketing budget and we’re doing, let’s say, Google ads and Facebook ads and some organic marketing. Well, if the Google ads are outperforming our Facebook ads, let’s just say on Facebook, we’re getting a4x return. But our Google ads, we’re getting a 12 X return. Well, then we need to look at that and say, let’s double down on what’s working and reallocate the budget to produce more return on investment. So it’s not really a straight number. It’s more of a formula and it is a strategy. It’s a strategic conversation. When we’re looking at what is it going to be this month, this quarter, this year, and then again, painting that roadmap of what it’s going to look like for them going forward.

Stone Payton: [00:24:47] Well, you bring up an interesting point, and there’s nothing complicated about it, but I think many times those of us who get a little bit distracted by shiny objects from time to time need to keep it in mind. It’s so important that we track the results that we’re getting, that we make the the the shifts. We watch the trends and stay on top of it. If we’re going to invest time, energy, resources, money in these activities, we ought to be paying a lot of attention to the results that are generating and adapt accordingly.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:25:18] Exactly. When I talk to an attorney and they don’t know what their cost per acquisition is, I know that they’re not tracking when I ask them what their marketing budget is and they say they just flat out tell me I don’t have one. When I talk to an attorney and they don’t know how many clients or they usually know how many clients, let me take that back when they don’t know how many leads came in that converted to clients or they don’t know their consultation to client conversion rate or they don’t know their lead to consultation conversion rate. I know that there’s details within their intake process or within their sales process that get to be better defined, and that’s something that we help them with through coaching, through systems, and we make sure that they have good metrics or a good tracking system for metrics to be able to say, okay, we need to pinpoint the problem. We’re not getting enough clients or we want more clients, right? Well, do we need more leads or do we need a better closing attorney or do we need a better intake person or team? Because if the leads are there but they’re not being closed, then we need to we need to know specifically where in the process we get to peer into.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:26:37] Is that the quality of leads? Is it the firm’s ability to close them? Is it that they they churn out and ask for refunds or that they sub out and hire another attorney for their case? Where is it in that process and when we can paint by numbers, really that funnel of this is how many people we we had impressions with. This is how many leads we got, This is how many consultations we had, this is how many fee agreements were sent out. This is how many came back signs. So how many clients, how long do they stay along? What’s our client lifetime value? When we’re looking at that, we can really understand where is the hitting gold within our firm? To give an example, I was speaking with an immigration firm in Texas the other week and. They were oscillating between individual immigration cases or corporate immigration cases. And in our discussions, we we learned together with them that their corporate clients are much, much, much, much, much more lucrative. Why? Because you’ve got to make one connection with the head of h.r. And then they send you ten, 2200 cases. Well, that’s easier because now you don’t have 200 clients, but you have 200 cases.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:28:05] You’ve got one client. That’s the company versus dealing with individual cases. When you’ve got questions and you’re answering the same questions and they’re all individual clients. So we look at the model of the firm as well. And look, there’s nothing wrong with doing individual cases, right? If that was your passion, power to you. But just understand that it is more lucrative to do corporate and if you don’t want to. Fantastic, right? Let’s evaluate that or contrast that rather with doing flat fee versus hourly. If you’re doing flat fee, it needs to be a very well defined scope because there is always going to be a little scope creep. Or what if it’s supposed to take six weeks and it takes six months? You’ve definitely spent more time in communication with that client than you had budgeted for. So then we we want to talk about, okay, maybe it is flat fee or maybe it is hourly or whatever that looks like, but we’re always pretty transparent and attune to how is this going to affect your business and not just the cash collected today, but how is this going to build a sustainable foundation for a firm to grow your firm to grow into the future.

Stone Payton: [00:29:22] The tools and the technology available to us, and some of which we don’t even know about yet, and will keep coming down the pike and having someone with with your experience and expertise in your organization to fully leverage those tools, I got to believe that there are also tools, technology, automation out there that can help us after we land the client to, to, to to make that client experience better and better, which in turn, of course, is going to end up helping us grow the business as well. Do you agree? Have you begun to see some of that, too?

Leonard Scheiner: [00:29:58] Very much so. Oftentimes, an attorney will think that once they have a client and they’ve signed the rep agreement, the fee agreement, and now they’re a client, that they’re going to stick around forever. And that’s just simply not true. So when we look at marketing for a law firm, we’re typically focused on that front end, right, generating new clients for the firm, because that’s usually the first goal. But we also want to think about the full lifecycle of a client. So that’s before they’re a client. That is while they’re a client and that’s after they are a client. So when we talk about lifecycle of a client in a law firm that before they’re a client period is usually what we’re talking about, that’s, that’s 90% of the time we’re talking about a lead came in and they weren’t ready to sign. So let’s do an automated email sequence to them or let’s push our blogs to them. Let’s have something automated where we can continue to nurture that potential client over time in the hopes that they then become a client of the firm. Wonderful. That’s 90% of the conversation. But really, where the missing pieces and many of the puzzles, especially legal marketing puzzle, is while they’re a client. The service that they’re being provided with from who answers your phone, who the reception is, is to who’s their case manager or who’s their paralegal or who’s their attorney.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:31:33] Right. That that process is not usually not automated. But all of that plays into it’s marketing for the firm. It’s the brand of the firm. If everyone’s crabby and not happy at the firm, that’s going to come out, the culture matters. But if everyone’s great, there’s a great team culture. There is open door policies in terms of the paralegals and secretaries being able to ask questions that they have, you know, that is portrayed and it does whether you choose to believe it or not, it does come out in the calls, in the emails, in the client experience. So that’s kind of more the culture, tangible aspect of things and client service. But even while they’re a client, they are already a client. That relationship is the best it’s ever going to get, right? Because you’ve already earned their business and they haven’t left the firm yet. So we want to take the opportunity to inform them about other things that are going on in their life that they might need help with. Right. So. If they have issues, if you’re if they came to you because they’re being sued. I’m thinking about a business who’s being sued by maybe an employee, a wage and hour claim, and they come to the law firm to defend them or to represent them in that case? Well, they probably need help with their employment agreements. They also might need help with their lease negotiation for their office.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:33:06] They might need help with a benefit plan. Right. So there’s all these other ancillary things that are kind of legs that are off of the central issue that they came in for. So as a firm, we want to be marketing, and that could be as simple as sending emails that are informative, write education and entertainment. So we want to put some personality in there because we don’t want it to be another legal document that they have to read. But these edutainment emails, while they’re a client talking about the things that matter to them, that’s golden. So we’ve talked about the front end piece then while they’re a client portion now what about after they’re a client? Most firms think, well, they were a former client. They’re kind of dead to us now, right, for just putting it boldly. But people know people. And if they had a great experience and they were treated well, they likely might become a client again themselves or they could refer someone. And we know that building a firm off of word of mouth and referrals is not great because it puts your. Growth and and bank account in the hands of someone else to do a favor. So I’m not saying that’s a total 100% go all in on that strategy. But if these people have been treated well and you did great work for them and you’ve got great rapport, why not continue to inform them about things that are happening in the firm, things that are happening in the local area, things that are happening nationally that might affect them, things that are happening in the state.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:34:45] What about things that they didn’t even think about? Right. We want to be continuously positioned as an expert in their mind so that whether they need help or their daughter needs help or their coworker needs help or the checker at at the local grocery store needs help, and they’re in conversation, you know, hey, go hire Smith and Smith. You know, Johnny Smith really helped me out and they will advocate for you and your firm. And when we’re talking about referrals, as I mentioned, it’s not a 100% solid strategy, but. A warm referral or a word of mouth referral. The barriers for them to become a client are so much less than when you do any other type of marketing, because we believe what other people say. We believe what those closest to us say. So if my mom or my coworker had great results at that law firm, I’m going to expect that they’re going to treat me the same way and I’m going to get the same results or similar results. Of course, results are never guaranteed for a law firm, but that that that connection cannot be replaced.

Stone Payton: [00:35:57] I am so glad that I asked that question. Okay. Let’s make sure that our listeners have an easy path to connect with you. Maybe have a conversation with you or someone on your team. I just wanted to be able to tap into your work, so whatever you feel like is appropriate, whether it’s LinkedIn, email, website, I just want to make it real easy for these folks to to learn more and and tap into your work, man.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:36:24] Awesome. Thanks so much for the opportunity. So I will give our website and I’ll share the spelling of my name so that they can connect on LinkedIn if they so choose. So our website ah, the agency name is Geek House and the website is Go Geek House. So go. Go geek. G e k and house. We spell h a us. We spell it the German way. So go geek house us dot com and I am on LinkedIn. Have a I’m on LinkedIn probably three times a day in different conversations engaging and supporting the community. So on LinkedIn I’m Leonard Shriner. I’m pretty much Leonard Shriner everywhere, even in person too. So Leonard Leo in a r D and last name Scheiner Se as in Sam c h e i n as a Nancy e. R.

Stone Payton: [00:37:31] Well, Leonard, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you so much for investing the time and the energy to share your experience and perspective. This has been an informative, inspiring conversation, a marvelous way to to invest a Thursday afternoon. Keep up the good work, man, and just know that we that we sincerely appreciate you.

Leonard Scheiner: [00:37:56] It’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Stone Payton: [00:37:58] Stone All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Leonard Shiner with Geckos and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Kevin Kearns with Burn with Kearns

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Kevin-Kearns-headshot
High Velocity Radio
Kevin Kearns with Burn with Kearns
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Sponsored by Business RadioX ® Main Street Warriors

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Kevin-Kearns-headshotCoach Kevin Kearns has been in the fitness and martial arts world for 45 years now. As the self proclaimed ” True karate Kid ” he is no stranger to life’s challenges.

The first when he was just 12 years old and his father died of alcoholism. His tormentors who bullied him for years made it much worse. ( His first book Always Picked Last” ) It was. not until a close uncle talked him into taking karate at age 13 that his life would change.

Martial arts was his first love then came weight training. This led to a degree in exercise physiology and he started Burn With Kearns in 1990 his wellness transformation coaching company. In the early 2000’s he became involved with the world of UFC and ended up as a conditioning coach for 15 UFC fighters.

Life was going great except at home for his marriage was falling apart to his wife’s alcoholism. This led to a very messy divorce in 2018. The divorce coupled with many other challenges led him down the path to depression and attempted suicide 2 x in 2019.

He woke up on Christmas Eve 2019 in a locked down ward at Mclean Hospital. After several ECT treatments he began to see “There’s Light In the Tunnel” ( his second book) and decided to make it his new mission to help people everywhere recover from mental illness through his books, workshops , fitness programming and his eventual TED Talk. He is a man that is he calls it “RELENTLESS”

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the high velocity radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton and Ryan Schlosser are here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Business Radio Main Street Warriors program. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors dot org. Ryan we’re we’re rolling up on the weekend, man. You got anything exciting happening this weekend?

Ryan Schlosser: [00:00:41] Oh, man, everything’s new to me here. Just moved to the area about a month ago, so, you know, Have anything going on?

Stone Payton: [00:00:47] Hey, that’s. And that’s the way I roll, man. Somebody rolls into town, I snatch him up, I put him on the team. I do. We’ve got this cadence fair happening. The Reformation is putting on my wife is painting it art on the spot. And there’s still three interviews between this and my first cadence beer. So this is going to be a lot of fun. Guys, you are in for such a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Burn with Kearns, the man himself, Kevin Kearns. How are you, man?

Kevin Kearns: [00:01:19] Good start. Thanks for having me. And thanks, Ryan. Ryan, I’ll come down and I’ll show you around town to. We’ll just go. Just go smash up the town. How’s that sound?

Ryan Schlosser: [00:01:25] Sounds like a plan. You guys in town checking everything out.

Stone Payton: [00:01:28] So, Kevin, I got 1000 questions. We’re not going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start here would be if you could articulate mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Kevin Kearns: [00:01:44] Brian, I appreciate that question. Stone So, you know, I’m a wellness transformation coach. What that is, is it’s a new level versus personal trainer. So I was involved with the UFC. I was I trained 15 UFC fighters at one point, turn them into a conditioning system, put that on DVD. It went global. And I’ve spent 37 years and one on one now on Zoom to corporate wellness and public speaking as well. So I’ve got two books in the market, one on anti-bullying, because I was literally the kid that excuse the expression, suck at every sport. Father died of alcohol was when I was 12. Got worse. And I am in martial arts and it saved my life. Going into strength training turned around and got my degree in exercise physiology. Never expected to stop with TRANSCOM and it went global, never expected that. And at the same time, during my career taking off, I was at a very difficult place in my marriage. About 12 years ago, she started drinking and became an alcoholic, which ended up ruining my marriage. And then I fell into a deep depression so bad that I try to literally commit suicide in 2019, which is only three years ago. Twice ended up in McLean Hospital, which actually saved my life, and then turned around and wrote another book called This Light in the Tunnel How to Survive and Thrive With Depression. So my big mission now with my company, Burn with Current, is the three pillars, what we call them proper exercise, proper nutrition, proper mindset programing. So I’m on a mission. Wherever and anywhere I can speak to people about colleges, universities, corporations, about mental health and how to combat mental health and come out of that deep abyss of mental health in depression.

Stone Payton: [00:03:20] So I got to ask you a couple of questions about getting a book out there. So many of our listeners, many of our clients here at the Business RadioX Network, I feel like they have a book in them. They feel like they have a book in them, but maybe they’re a little slow to pull the trigger. What was that experience like? Did some parts of the book come together really easily for you and you struggle with others? Tell us a little bit about what that author experience has been like for you.

Kevin Kearns: [00:03:47] You know, it’s a challenging process. My first book always picked last. I went to a ghostwriter, paid her four grand, and she took notes on my chapter and disappeared. So I got completely disenfranchized with that in 2010. Then another ghostwriter through my fulfillment company for my DVDs that my conditioning system, which I’m relaunching, 2.0 version very soon. And she heard my passion and my vision on this whole thing. And she says, I got to do something with this. She literally kicked Birmingham’s her name. She helped me. She interviewed me every night while my wife was at her ex-wife was at her AA meetings. And it was there was some tough times. She interviewed me and the whole process process was, I want to be in your movie. And I want you to come out of the movie and tell me what’s going on. So every time I write anything, that’s basically the way I kind of people perceive it. And then on the second book, what happened is and I can’t tell you how many people have helped me with the book, like Nick, Pete, my my editor for Fighters Only Train Hi fi Easy. I was I was I’m a C minus and I wrote for five magazines at one point, literally. So like the two magazines, but I wrote for five magazines at one point. I don’t know why people want to listen to me. I don’t know why. It’s kind of funny when I see that.

Kevin Kearns: [00:04:57] And now two books. So a friend said to me to put the first book, I always pick class on audio video. So I had his son, who’s from Ireland, read it and then interview me, and I said, Huh? When I got the idea for the second book, There’s Light in the Tunnel How to Survive and Thrive a Depression. I said, I have an idea. I wrote so much of it. I said, But you know, people want audio and audio and video now. That’s where they’re really into. And I said, What if I conceive of the chapters but filmed myself during some tough moments? So what I did is I actually filmed myself because I’m way better speaking. On. Like we’re doing now or in front of an audience versus writing because it takes longer. And then I took that all those videos gave it to somebody to transcribe this for me, and now I had multiple products. Then I can put it up in Audible. So that’s it is a challenge, but it’s easier than they think. And I would tell anybody, any listeners this, if you have a book that’s a dream. That dream was given to you do it right. Like nobody’s going to read the book, doesn’t matter. Just get it out of you, get it out of you. And it’s very cathartic when you’ve gone through something hard to actually put it on paper.

Ryan Schlosser: [00:06:03] Just a few minutes into the conversation here, Kevin, I can tell you one of the most inspired people that I’ve talked to maybe in my life. So where does all this inspiration come from?

Kevin Kearns: [00:06:16] Wow. That’s a very good question. You know, I’m like, I’m the kid that, like I said, sucked at every sport, got picked on every day. I came from a three family home in Everett. My father died when I was 12. Great guy. Just drank too much and we struggled. You know, my mother was from a depression, so I think I get that from my mother and my father because we really struggle trying to keep us keep the family together. How to put myself through college the whole bit. I’m not I’m not the best student. I’m a this is what I say when I go out to universities in schools, I’m at 2.8 95. I’m a little bit I had a scratch and scrape and fight to get a low B and nothing ever came easy to me. And I think when you go through that, it kind of inspires you to say, okay, who else can I help? Like, I can’t tell you how many people or things I’ve read, like Dale Carnegie, Lester Brown, Dr. Wayne Dyer I’ve listened to that have inspired me. And I go, You know what? Anytime I’ve been through something rough, like when I went through the anti the bullying stuff, I said, You know what? I don’t want any kid to go through this again. My whole mission when the first book was If we can save one kid, if we turn one kid around that doesn’t realize he’s worthless, I’ve made it if we’re on Oprah.

Kevin Kearns: [00:07:26] Great. I’ve got two girls. I got to go to college and I got to pay for it. The second book, going through a depression and suicidal ideation and anxiety is rough. It’s just hard and it’s like a cement overcoat. That’s why I’m working on my first TEDTalk, because if I could reach more people, you can change more life because there’s plenty of people that have changed my life over the years with just a word or a saying or a phone call. And, you know, we’re all interconnected, we’re all human, so we’re here to help each other. So I think my inspiration comes from regular people where they’re like, Hey, man, what you said saved me. Well, how does he know? Saved you if it didn’t save me, like today, when I came forward, the Depression and I put a video up on Facebook. We had 2000 views in a day two years ago. And I said, Now I got to write the book and I’ve saved. I’m not trying to be egotistical on this. I’ve saved 23 people from committing suicide just by talking to them. Some I knew, some I didn’t know.

Ryan Schlosser: [00:08:22] Man. That’s that’s a that’s deep stuff. And that’s an impressive way to use the inspiration you clearly have. What’s what’s been the most challenging aspect of this process for you in the last three, three years?

Kevin Kearns: [00:08:39] Going through a very messy and bloody divorce, not seeing your kids full time wife turned their kids, ex-wife turn the kids against me. I don’t really see them that much. Covid trying to come back from attempted suicide to rebuilding the business. And oh, by the way, here’s a here’s a plague is a pandemic across the globe, which shuts down 80% of your business. I have a certification business, too, where I was traveling to teach people my system from aquariums, my fitness trainer system that shut down. I used to be in England at least twice a year. I traveled to Japan, Canada, you name it, shut down, and then clients aren’t seeing you. So that part of my business, the one on one, the corporate, all got shut down overnight. And then then you turn to something else and then now people are trying to do you can’t. There was no fitness conventions. There was no martial art conventions. So it all got shut down. So I think that’s some of the biggest challenges was life had to go on, the bills have to be paid, but you’re making 80% less money. It’s like, how do you rebound after all that? And there’s an article I think I sent it to Stone this morning from the New York Weekly, did a piece on me. Rock bottom’s a good foundation to stand on, which is solid.

Stone Payton: [00:09:50] Well said. So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a business like yours? Do you have a structured process for going out there and getting the new business? How do you get the new the new clients, man?

Kevin Kearns: [00:10:09] That’s a good point. You know, I think I’m going back to old school and you’ll probably appreciate this. Ryan. Sounds like he’s young, but he probably knows this. You really have to network. You really have to get out and do grassroots. You know, the social media, all that stuff is great and that’s all fine and dandy. But if you don’t have a grassroots effort, if you’re not going to Chamber of Commerce meetings, if you’re not going to conventions, if you’re not shaking hands and kissing babies, you’re really kind of screwing yourself. If you’re not going out and publicly speaking, if they don’t have money to do it for free, and then you film whatever you can and post that, you ask for referrals. I really think the attitude of gratitude has to be there where you just give. You know, it’s almost like. Gary Vaynerchuk would say, give, give, give, then ask. So why are you doing it? Like people say to me when I was training all these fighters, why do you still do one on one with clients? And why do you still do this? Why do you still do corporate? I go because it keeps me grounded.

Kevin Kearns: [00:11:02] Because, you know, at the end of the day, I put my pants on one leg at a time. Right. So it doesn’t matter. So I think we’ve lost in the world of social media, we’ve almost lost that personal contact and the world of the pandemic. We’ve lost that personal contact. So I think people want to get back to that. So you go you go to the Chamber of Commerce meeting, you go to the BMI meeting, you go to the the convention. It really is a matter of figuring out. I think at the end of the day, you have to figure out what your target market is and what that niche is and go after it. Like my saying, I think we mentioned this be relentless. Just keep going after it and don’t don’t quit. Dr. Wayne Dyer would say, hold your vision, keep your passion. Well, one of my tattoos says Vision, passion. And the last one is perseverance. If you do not have perseverance, you cannot succeed, whatever it is.

Stone Payton: [00:11:52] So do you feel like there are elements or disciplines or experiences or, gosh, I don’t know, maybe even mentors that have contributed to your ability to to so visibly demonstrate that degree of resilience, that that degree of mental toughness after all this.

Kevin Kearns: [00:12:14] Absolutely. I have to thank my first martial art instructors, Paul Taylor and Charlie McIver, who got me my first black belt. And they taught me something at 17 when I got my first black belt. You’re always white belt. You’re always a beginner. If you don’t think you’re learning, you’re dying. You know, learn and grow what you go through, you grow through. As far as other mentors, you’re talking about Coach Steve Whittier, SPG, East Coast, Mark, Delegate from City Time, one of the best striking coaches in the planet. Dr. David Thomas My my first professor in exercise physiology who told me when I graduated, he said he was proud of me. I’m like, What? You never say that, Dr. Dave. He said, It’s not always the people that get 4.04.0 in grades that do well in life. It’s people like you that have to scratch and scrape and claw to get a B that do well. And I think all along, really what matters is friends along the way, people like Lionel being Craig Rose. You know, you really know who your true friends are when you become vulnerable, who’s going to stick by you? Who’s going to stick by you? I’ve had some of the same friends for 40 years. Other friends. It’s just people that you meet. And I don’t know if you’ve ever explained this, you’re just instantly best friends like Detective Mark Morrissey and his family from Hoboken, from north of New Jersey, where we’ve known each other for years. Nick Pete, my editor, he’s the one that found the first cover for my book, which my first cover was Junk. He designed it, and I’m still friendly with him in the UK all the time. I think, you know, I think to have one mentor, I think you have multiple mentors. It’s like people that you can go to. Definitely people like Dr. Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, All the stuff I’ve read are very, very influential in my life. And then I’m a big yoga person too. So a lot of what I’ve learned from yoga people like Jackie Barnwell all all contributed to my to my world.

Stone Payton: [00:14:05] So let’s talk about the work a little bit, because I get the distinct impression that you have kind of cracked the code on helping people get a handle on nutrition exercise mindset and bring it all together in a way that they can live into as a lifestyle as opposed to, you know, I’m going to do this to get ready for my daughter’s wedding.

Kevin Kearns: [00:14:29] Exactly. Very good. I love that question because it really does have to be know when when, when motivation stops. Okay. Because you can get all motivated. Everybody’s motivated in the New Year, New Year’s, New Year’s resolutions, New Year’s resolution. After that, discipline has to take over. Discipline has to take over. It really does. It really has to take over. So I usually tell clients that we’re going to be one on one. Even corporations give me six months and the first thing they say was all the money. The money. I go, So what? The money? I go, okay, every time you work out is a deposit in your fitness IRA, right? It’s a deposit. The Egyptians figured it out. You can’t take your money with you. So what good is it because you got to stay healthy Now you’re going to stay healthy now. And I think some of the big things we we need to focus on and I work on this daily is instead of focusing on what’s going wrong, focus on what’s going right, you know, you’re either in a problem going to the next problem and coming out of a problem and what is problems, They need to be solved. It’s like math solve the problem. And I think when you’re when you’re really focusing on, okay, when you’ve made up your mind, it’s like Anthony Robbins says, what I must do, I must lose weight, I must be successful, I must be number one in this.

Kevin Kearns: [00:15:42] I must it changes from what you have to to what you must do. Like when I was feeling sick and I got depressed and tried to commit suicide, I literally have a scar on the left side of my neck from trying to slip my own throat. No joke. No joke. And then I found therapy, electroconvulsive therapy. Now, that was a big risk. I knew nothing about it, but I swear my father talks to me and he says, You got to do something different, Kevin. You’ve got to do something different. Usually takes 12 treatments. I started feeling better after three. It was like the sky opens. So I think the way you talk to yourself and the way you talk to other people influences everything. Give an example. If somebody says My bad shoulder, I would say, Your injured shoulder. Why do you say that? When you say bad, it’s a connotation of negativity. When you say injury, injury is temporary. It’s like one of my favorite sayings Pain is inevitable. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.

Stone Payton: [00:16:36] You know what? I think that’s going to be the quote on the on Stone’s next article. I’ll try to remember to credit you.

Kevin Kearns: [00:16:44] It’s not my quote. I heard it from somebody else, to tell you the truth.

Ryan Schlosser: [00:16:47] Yeah, It’s all about what we do with that, with our suffering. Everyone. Everyone’s got problems they got to deal with. And I love what you said, that motivation or discipline replaces motivation. I can tell that that very instilled in you. How about your customers? Do you do you see that you’re able to get that message in their head and have it stick? What’s what’s that retention process look like for you?

Kevin Kearns: [00:17:12] Well, I’ve had some customers, believe it or not, wine for 23 years. Wow. How about that, huh? And I’ve had fans for and I don’t like the term fans, but people that have been following my DVDs for years. And I think if Stone wants to quote me, this is one of my biggest things. We say what’s called column response. We’ll say hustle equals. And their answer has to be Muscle hustle. You hear me on? I think the biggest one I had was like 300 trainers. I’m like, hustle equals muscle coach. I’m like, That’s right. Think like that. And when you think like that, it’s not just just it’s not just physical muscle. It’s mind muscle. What’s the mind muscle take out could of should have would have just do it. Don’t live with regrets. Who wants to live with regrets? I want to ask them out or I want to ask them out or I want to try for the job. I want to try for. I’m afraid of failure. So one of my talks at schools and corporations is if you took the two year old mine and shoved it into the 40 year old body, you wouldn’t worry about anything, right? You wouldn’t worry about failure. Think about how many times you fail. Think about it. How many times did you fall to walk? But it’s inherently in you. You have to do it. It’s inherently in you. You have to be able to feed yourself. It’s inherently in you that you have to learn how to get home from school. And then what happens is ego takes over. And I was like, and as I say, something told me before, ego is not your amigo.

Stone Payton: [00:18:31] Man. I am taking such copious notes over here. But my whole talk is to be like the Kearns methodology. Your TED talk when you do it is going to be fantastic.

Kevin Kearns: [00:18:42] I hope so. I’m working on it.

Stone Payton: [00:18:45] Before we wrap. I’d love it if we could leave our listeners with with a couple of actionable tips. I’ll call them Pro Tips. And look, gang number one tip on any of these topics is reach out to Kevin and his team, tap into these books. But yeah. Kevin if we could leave our listeners with a couple of things, they could begin thinking about reading, practicing. Let’s leave them with a little something to begin acting on as they come out of listening to this conversation.

Kevin Kearns: [00:19:17] Excellent. I appreciate that. Sure. Action. Step one. Number one. Number one. You matter. Remember that you matter. I don’t care what anybody told you. I don’t care what your family said. I don’t care what your ex-girlfriend, your ex-wife. You matter. Remember that you are important. Number two. Somebody always has it worse.

Stone Payton: [00:19:40] Hmm.

Kevin Kearns: [00:19:41] Number three today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present. Number four, if you’re exercising whatever you’re doing, think of it this way we or you get to do this today. What about those people that can’t? What about those people that are hospitalized? Think of it that way. You get to do this that every time I come out of yoga, I got to do this today. Every time I come out of Tong Muay Thai, I got to do this today. Every time I do my own conditioning from a conditioning, I got to do this today. And you got to do this today. Now, number five, forgive yourself and move on. There’s a great quote and I’ve got a ton of I’m sorry from Mark. I think it was Mark Twain. Forgiveness is the fragrance that is shed by the violet on the heel that has crushed it. I’ll say that again. Forgiveness is the fragrance that is shed by the violet on the heel that has crushed it. Number six, one of my biggest foundations. Be relentless. No matter what it is. I don’t care if it’s an education. I don’t care if it’s playing football. I don’t care if it’s swimming. I don’t care if it’s building a house. I don’t care what it is. Whatever your what is Forget about the how, what’s the what’s the why, whatever it is, be relentless in everything you do. And if you need to reach me, real simple. Brian with Kerns dot com. Kevin at burn with current and I’ll be so bold I hope you don’t mind Stone I answer my phone. 508404 8503.

Stone Payton: [00:21:10] Well, Kevin, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this morning. Thank you so much for the time and energy that you’ve invested with us to share your insights, your experience, your perspective. And thanks for the work that you’re doing. Man. It is such important work and we so sincerely appreciate you.

Kevin Kearns: [00:21:30] Ryan, Please send me an email because I know Stone has my Kindle version and I’ll send you both whatever you want.

Ryan Schlosser: [00:21:36] Appreciate that. Yeah. Keep, keep. Keep the word going. I love your message. And clearly you’ve got the inspiration.

Stone Payton: [00:21:44] Nicely done, gentlemen. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for my guest host Ryan Schlosser, and our guest today with Burn with Kearns, Mr. Kevin Kearns, and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Casey Stubbs with Trading Strategy Guides

by

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High Velocity Radio
Casey Stubbs with Trading Strategy Guides
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Casey-Stubbs-Trading-Strategy-GuidesCasey Stubbs is a 9 ½ year United States Army Veteran and married father of nine. He is an entrepreneur, a leader in his local church, and is a successful business owner and trader. That, however, wasn’t always the case.

Casey’s compelling broke-dad to seven-figure trading education business story will captivate and inspire you. He loves to share his failures with others because he believes that is where the most growth and character-building takes place.

Casey is dedicated to helping people from all walks of life fulfill their financial dreams, while also achieving financial freedom. Helping others is at the heart of all that drives Casey on a daily basis.

Connect with Casey on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow Trading Strategy Guides on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How to build a trading mindset
  • How to overcome downturns and obstacles
  • The key to becoming a successful trader
  • How to get free online traffic
  • How to successfully cast vision and grow a team that is loyal and dedicated
  • How to do joint venture projects to boost revenue

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys, this is going to be a marvelous conversation. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with trading strategy guides. Mr. Casey Stubbs. How are you, man?

Casey Stubbs: [00:00:36] I’m good. Stone How are you doing today?

Stone Payton: [00:00:38] I am doing well. Really been looking forward to this conversation and I’ve got a ton of questions. I realize we won’t get to them all, but I think maybe a good place to start is if you could share with us Mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, ma’am?

Casey Stubbs: [00:00:57] So we focus on teaching people how to trade the financial markets. And so our mission is to help traders learn how to make cash flow every week from the markets.

Stone Payton: [00:01:10] How in the world did you get involved? Did you get into this line of work? What’s what’s the back story?

Casey Stubbs: [00:01:19] So it’s a pretty cool back story. And, you know, it started out many, many, many years ago. I I’m not that old. I’m 46. But when I was a kid in the nineties, eighties and nineties, my Aunt Mary, she worked for Intel and she was involved in computers and that was really new back then. And she would bring home computer parts and teach us how to teach me and my brothers and sisters how to build computers, take them apart. And so she taught us a lot about computers, which was really cool because they were all brand new back then. And my dad was a stock guy. He would do investments, but he was older, you know, and older guy. He’s my dad, obviously. And so he didn’t know anything about computers. And he realized that trading and online stock purchases was going online for the very first time ever and he needed to get a computer. And so he asked me to help him get set up. And so I did. I taught him about computers. And in the process he taught me about stocks. And that’s how I got started.

Stone Payton: [00:02:32] So I’ve I guess I’m of the opinion or maybe it’s more fair to say assumption. I’m under the impression that to to to trade and trade effectively, you got to have a little different mindset maybe than the than the average bear. Is that accurate? And if so, could you speak to that a little bit?

Casey Stubbs: [00:02:54] So that’s a really good point. Stone And I think you hit it right on the head when you said a different mindset, and that’s for trading, but it’s also for anything in life, right? Most people don’t hit high performance levels no matter what they do. And so trading is something that really puts people to the test because it puts their money, you know, it involves their money. So they’re going to find out if they have what it takes really quickly. But yeah, you’ve got to have the mindset of. You need to do what it takes to learn how to do this successfully and not just shoot from the hip.

Stone Payton: [00:03:30] And money, I guess, is such an emotionally charged thing for for so many of us. So when you get the the ups and the downs and treating the ups properly and overcoming the the downs and the and the barriers, any insights you can offer to us on that front? I’m sure it would be more than welcome.

Casey Stubbs: [00:03:53] So money is really emotional and we’re human beings are emotional people, and you can’t just stuff it in because if you just stuff in your emotions and. And you hold it in, You hold it in, you hold it in. It’s eventually going to blow up, Right? Have you ever experienced that stone?

Stone Payton: [00:04:10] Uh huh.

Casey Stubbs: [00:04:11] Yes. Yeah, it happens. So we can’t we can’t do that as a trader. Because if we hold in all of our emotions and then all of a sudden it’s going to just come out and that’s going to result in our losing all of our money because we’re just going to act crazy. So we have to learn how to process those. And what I do to do that is I have what I call a daily system for high performance and consistency, because as a human being, we have a lot of different systems. We’ve got a mind spirit, body. We’ve got to take care of all those systems, right? So my I have a seven point system and it starts with a daily routine which involves reading, prayer, meditation, exercise, planning, nutrition and hydration. And that’s just step one before I even get to the charts. But just doing that, I got to take care of my whole body, my whole mind, everything. And so just doing that process helps me stay consistent. So we have to focus on being high performance and also consistent. Not much different than an athlete or anyone that’s doing high performance activities.

Stone Payton: [00:05:14] Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. So are you finding that there are some patterns or some common characteristics among the people who are drawn to your work? Want to tap into what you’re doing, want to learn from you, and pursue this path.

Casey Stubbs: [00:05:31] Oh, man. So. So let me just make sure I’m clarifying the question. So you’re saying is there any certain characteristics that attract people to the financial markets? Is that kind of what you ask?

Stone Payton: [00:05:45] Well, yeah, that and to you and your work specifically, like, you know, like some of us, like in the consulting profession, sometimes we find it, you know, if we just work with redheaded firm and that’s our niche, you know, like as a. Yeah.

Casey Stubbs: [00:05:58] Okay, got it. Yeah. So is there a certain type of person? So the first type of people that are attracted to financial markets and this is not really a good thing, but it’s people that have some financial pain and they want to turn it around quickly. Right? So they like heard about this guy who made a lot of money in the market or they got a hot tip, right? So they’re like, oh, I need money, so I need to go to the markets and try to get money. Well, that kind of person is going to fail ten out of ten times because they have the wrong mindset, right? They’re thinking of solving a financial problem with the markets. And in order to solve a financial problem, you’ve got to work. That’s the secret. You got to solve the problem. And you can’t treat the markets like a slot machine because you’re going to get the same results. So that’s generally a good percentage of the people that come to us. And so I have to set them straight right from day one. It’s like, if that’s you, please don’t continue because you’re not going to make it.

Stone Payton: [00:06:59] I can hear it in your voice. You obviously enjoy the work. It must be incredibly rewarding to help people kind of crack the code on this and have a fulfilling experience doing it. What are you enjoying the most?

Casey Stubbs: [00:07:17] Yeah, So that’s a great question again. Stone Thank you for, for asking. But yeah, I do enjoy seeing people get success. And I think the greatest thing about it is. Letting people understand that this is going to be difficult and not shying away from it. Right. So, yeah, this is going to be really hard, but we’re going to do this and we’re going to see you do it. So I love seeing people do things that are really hard and then have success over that because doing things that are really tough, that’s not what the average person does. And so that’s kind of cool.

Stone Payton: [00:07:54] So so how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you, a practice like yours? Like how do you get the new the new business, the new clients?

Casey Stubbs: [00:08:04] Well, you know, I. I got really fortunate right in the beginning of of this business that I started way back in 2009. I started a website. And usually when you start a website, nothing happens. But in my case, the markets were really down at that point. I was trading stocks, but I was also working. And so it was too out right after 2008 and I was a construction worker and everything went just there was no work. So I got laid off and I had to figure out what to do. So I built a website and then people started reading the content on there and I started getting a lot of traffic. And so that’s kind of how it started as far as getting the leads. I was just teaching people what I knew and people just started coming. And so that system of getting traffic hasn’t changed. I just continue to update my content on my website and people come to learn about trading, learn about what’s happening in the markets.

Stone Payton: [00:09:06] And you have the website. You’ve also written a book, if I remember my show notes, right, The ultimate Harmonic pattern strategy book, if I got that right.

Casey Stubbs: [00:09:17] Yeah, yeah, that’s correct. I have a website and I’ve written a book and you know, that’s all part of putting out good content to help people get educated because you got to get educated to learn how to be successful in the markets.

Stone Payton: [00:09:31] So what was that experience like? Did parts of the book come together really easily and other parts a real struggle or what? Yeah. What was it like getting that thing committed to paper and out there into the marketplace?

Casey Stubbs: [00:09:45] Well. Stone That’s a really cool question. And have you interviewed authors before? I’m sure you have, right?

Stone Payton: [00:09:51] Yeah.

Casey Stubbs: [00:09:52] Yeah. You probably have heard a lot of different stories about how people launch their book. Well, mine is really unique. Maybe not, but for me it was pretty shocking. So I’m a podcast host and one of my guests was very good at writing books. And so he challenges people to do like a 60 day or a 30 day book challenge. And so he’s like, Yeah, I challenge these people to write books really fast. And so I was like, okay, I’m in. And so I was he, you know, I had a conversation with a guy and he motivated me. And so I left and I immediately did it. And the cool thing is I had a lot of the content on my website, and so I just pulled it up, threw it together, and had that book out in like 30 days. Wow.

Stone Payton: [00:10:40] You know, I have heard of that concept. I feel like I’ve even maybe tripped over a website or two that talks about that, but I’ve not interviewed that person or that outfit, so I don’t know, maybe offline you can get me connected with them because I think that would be a fascinating interview to learn how they coach people through that. I can tell you, you know, my business partner, Lee Kantor and I, we’ve been we’ve been doing this for for a while. We I think August was our 18th year and probably for about the last five or six a couple of times a year, we’ll pick up a like a client as like a business consultant or something like that, and they want to get a book out. And we, we have coached them to, to use the, the recording software to sort of talk a book, get it transcribed and then get some help turning that transcript into a manuscript. So that’s that’s a strategy that’s worked for some folks, you know, helping them get something, actually pulling the trigger and getting it out there.

Casey Stubbs: [00:11:38] Yeah, that’s that. So I’m actually doing another one. And this one I’ve been working on for quite some time. It’s going to be release sometime next year, but that’s kind of what I’m doing for this one because the first one was quick. Now I want to make sure I really go into detail and teach everything I know in one book.

Stone Payton: [00:11:56] Wow. So tell us more about this podcast. It sounds like maybe it’s it’s it’s an interview format, or at least that’s one of the ways that you use the the platform. Tell us about this podcast.

Casey Stubbs: [00:12:07] I it’s called How to Trade It How to Trade It podcast by Casey Stubbs and I interview expert traders. And so it’s kind of like just for me to meet amazing people and to. Learn from the best, right? And then at the same time, it’s beneficial to my audience. And I’ve had some amazing experiences through the podcast, like I got a book published, right. And another experience as a guy invited me to a trading conference and paid for my ticket to go, and it was a $10,000 person ticket on the British Virgin Islands at a special resort. And he just invited me and said, Hey, I’ll cover your ticket. I’m like, okay, cool. Plus all the knowledge I get. It’s awesome. Being a podcast host is the best.

Stone Payton: [00:12:59] Oh, you learn a ton and you get to meet so many fascinating people who, you know, almost invariably they’re there, they’re bright, they’re passionate about what they’re doing. And I’m talking lifelong relationships that you forge with people because you’re having these genuine, authentic, substantive conversations about their work and the why behind it and where they’re taking it and what they’ve learned from it. I mean, I know I’m biased because I’m in the business of helping business people create and execute on these things. But man, I just it’s been a marvelous experience for me. I love the just if nothing else, just the relationships that you’re able to cultivate through this platform.

Casey Stubbs: [00:13:41] Yeah, it’s the networking and sometimes you get deals, but I like to do deals with my friends. But you know, I’ve had six, seven figure deals happen through people just who I’ve interviewed. So it’s really awesome.

Stone Payton: [00:13:52] Wow. So have you found that either through the relationships you’re cultivating there or through the education and content marketing or the execution of the work, have you found that that you have come across people and done any kind of like collaboration, joint venture kind of work? You found some ways to work and play together beyond that immediate thing that you’re doing with him.

Casey Stubbs: [00:14:19] So sometimes we’ll get together and then we’ll plan an event together, which if I feel the synergy and we just have a good relationship, sometimes we’ll plan it right then and there, and sometimes it takes a long time to develop. I’m doing a joint training where we’re teaching market principles with someone that I met over ten years ago and we recently reconnected on a podcast interview and now we’re doing a joint training together. And so you never know how long those relationships will develop and how they go. But business of good part of business is number one, to creating a good product and service that solves a problem. And number two, maintaining great relationships with other business people.

Stone Payton: [00:15:05] I saw in my notes that you are a U.S. Army veteran. Have you found that that being a veteran, that experience has had any impact on the way you choose to conduct yourself or the way you choose to recruit and develop and retain team mate team members? Has it had some sort of impact on your professional life?

Casey Stubbs: [00:15:32] Stone. I think that it has a great impact because you’re pretty young when you join. At least I was I was like 18, right? So, yeah, you know, you’re still pretty pretty fresh at that point. And so a lot of the principles and things that I learned there really helped me out in business, like just right from the very beginning and basic training that is really tough and you’ve got to work hard and you’ve got to push yourself to your limit. So great. A great thing is always get out of your comfort zone and always push yourself to your limit. Those are things you learn in basic training and you can go a lot farther than you think. You can just keep moving forward. If you can remember that in anything that you’re doing, it’s going to it’s going to give you positive results.

Stone Payton: [00:16:19] All right, man. Let’s make sure that our listeners have an easy path to tap into your work, maybe connect with you, have a substantive conversation with you or someone on your team. So whatever you feel like is appropriate, whether it’s LinkedIn website, I want to make sure they can get their hands on this book. I want them to be able to access the podcast, so let’s leave them with some coordinates here before we wrap.

Casey Stubbs: [00:16:43] Yeah, that’s great. And I like to connect with with anyone that enjoyed the conversation. If you want to learn some stuff about trading, that’s great. If you’re interested in learning more about business, that’s cool too. Or if you just want to send me a note that’s even cooler. But. But you can find out everything about me at my website. Trading Strategy Guides dot com forward slash podcast. And there I have a special trading guide for people for free if they’re interested in learning some things about trading. That’s trading strategy guides dot com forward slash podcast.

Stone Payton: [00:17:17] Well Casey, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you so much for investing the time and energy to to visit with us and keep up the good work man. You’re doing important work there and we sincerely appreciate you, man.

Casey Stubbs: [00:17:33] Thanks, Don. I appreciate the opportunity. And it was a great interview. Thank you so much.

Stone Payton: [00:17:38] Absolutely. My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today with trading strategy guides Mr. Casey Stubbs and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

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