#291: How To Mahalo Out Your Spot In The Economy w/ Matt Yahes of Extend Your Team
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people business philippines day linkedin thinks hear pay remote customer service podcast work wife episode shit pivot marketing team real reading
SPEAKERS
Law Smith
0:00
Here we go.
Law Smith
0:02
sweat equity podcast and streaming show the number one business comedy podcast in the world. We're pushing pragmatic entrepreneurial advice with dick jokes. That's how we roll. I'm your host last missing to my right your left on the tube. is Eric reading girlie. Cool, Eric. Whoo.
0:20
Get old ever. Myself. Cool
Law Smith
0:23
if you want to help the show out as we want to stay number one. When you're number one. There's only one way to go down. Yeah, let's say number one. No, share this podcast with a friend, a loved one co worker, someone who's starting a brand, someone who's getting they're saying they don't know how to get going. This is what this podcast is about. You can tell them to listen to it on iTunes, Apple podcast app, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, LinkedIn, and your mom's Walkman. This episode of sweat equity is brought to you by grasshopper. Try grasshopper.com forward slash sweat. Like key sweat. It's a $75
0:59
off an
Law Smith
1:00
annual plan. What's grasshopper you say? It's a business phone line scalable? business phone scalable? Did you want a fan? Do you want a bandit number? Bro? You want one of those numbers like abahani license plate? Like not, don't try and do it. I can't you're gonna try and do one on your own. I should have tried to write down that that's what I get. Tricaster for.com Ford slash sweat. Like my homie Keith Sweat. 75 pounds off an annual plan. Look, business phone lines aren't that expensive. This one you can keep adding you can. You can port numbers you can forward you can get vanity you can. You got a desktop app, you got a mobile app. desktop app is huge. And compartmentalize your life. You say you can get another one via at&t because you got at&t already? Yeah, it gets confusing. After a while you got a Google Voice number. Well, you can't advertise a Google Voice number for your business. on Google's platform, they'll pick it up. And don't ever go to your personal number. Try grasshopper.com forward slash sweat. likey sweat. Third time. Sticking power baby. Sticking power $75 off an annual plan. Let's get this party started.
Law Smith
2:38
Matt, I'm gonna let you do like a because every time I've tried to pre produce everybody's plugs in whatever in their intro. It just I bomb i i bomb Every time so I'm just gonna let every guest from now on at the top of every episode we have with a guest. Just your own wise, let's tell people tell people who you are. Do a little commercial if you want for your brand. But you know, and then we'll get into it because I feel like I forget to give the let them give plugs up top you know. So go ahead. Tell everybody who you are what you do all that jazz.
2
Speaker 2
3:16
Sure. My name is Matthew is CEO of extend your team. We find you better virtual assistants to get you out of the day to day grind as an entrepreneur. I'm a serial entrepreneur didn't start out that way traditional path middle class upbringing. Love to snowboard great at it. Terrible kiteboarding and electron traveler. Okay, what
3:36
other kind of boarding do you do? Yeah,
3:39
not skateboarding. I tried that was a kid. I was terrible.
3:42
However, boarding waterboarding.
3:44
Oh,
Law Smith
3:45
nice.
3:46
No.
3:49
Right answer right answer.
Law Smith
3:50
Uh, and yeah, you. You went to the you got your MBA, Michigan Michigan's graduate program.
3:57
Go Blue.
Law Smith
3:59
That is the one my dad throughout my whole life was like, I want to go to Princeton and get an MBA at Michigan. I have no idea why he was obsessed with me doing that.
4:08
That explains that grunt he makes every time he sees you.
Law Smith
4:10
Yeah. And guess guess what happened? I was a C plus student in high school went right to Albert. Because it was a one pager thing. It was a one pager and I got it. Good. But I've always had a reverence for that business school. I guess I was always told it's kind of the best public university business school my whole life. So Matt's gonna agree for sure. Yeah. But how I'm curious. We connected via LinkedIn. I thought it was one of those spammy LinkedIn messages and it was actually a genuine nice. It was like and I just put it it got cluttered man. It's look LinkedIn is really got to fix this problem. Because yes, I don't know anybody that is kind of worth anything on LinkedIn that doesn't get 10 of these a day or five of them a day of like, just kind of like It's bought in, like, if you had tricked into those, I don't get it, you know?
3
Speaker 3
5:05
So you instantly throw shade on every single one this guy?
Law Smith
5:09
No, look, look, let's see, we don't know, he knows he sent us a nice message. And it has gotten that clutter because I just didn't. I don't people just don't check that inbox. I
5:19
know, I was thinking about it today. And it's the same thing.
Law Smith
5:22
Here's how you can tell it'll be like, you can tell the template because it'll be it looks like you're a badass or whatever that whatever they use, they try to go like you're an expert in your field in marketing and advertising. Okay, that's the, that is the sector they pulled from the profile. It's like, and then it's like, I think we have a lot of things in common. We can help and it just it just like fucking mad libs and filling in. So anyway, kudos to you for writing that. I apologize. But I apologize for the delay on me getting back. But how? How did you find our podcasts? Because I got to do our own leads data around researcher, I'm not doing my own job.
2
Speaker 2
5:58
You're gonna hate my answer. So I can tell you know, what you want to hear? No, you're here know what the truth. All right. I didn't write that message.
Law Smith
6:07
Okay, that's fine.
2
Speaker 2
6:08
That's fine. So here's here's kind of how you say, here's what happened. Oh, you know
Law Smith
6:13
what you did? It was one of those. And what I did start asking people, they mentioned the podcast, and they mentioned when they mentioned the podcasts ago, what episodes you like, Oh, yeah. Go back. You're the You're the only one who's answered me back, though. So
2
Speaker 2
6:30
yeah. So you gotta use automation, and like, you figure it out, and then, you know, then you make a meaningful connection. Right?
Law Smith
6:38
It's not all bad. I'm just saying I, you know, it's saturated, basically,
2
Speaker 2
6:43
saturated. So like, is my perspective, automate connecting with people automatically? I think it's fine. Right. But then after that, you need to have some sort of real conversation, right? Because otherwise, you're sitting there and look for business networking, you're sitting there clicking like, you know, oh, connect, right, a meaningful something Connect, you'll never be able to expand your network. And if you're building a business, it's really tough. So, so there's what I don't like, are the three step and I tested it. Right. And I got it within 30 days, I got such a negative feedback. And it wasn't successful. The three step drip sequence, excuse me drip sequences where they you don't you don't answer the first time, then they hit you up with another. They hit you with another hit you with it? Yeah, that stuff just doesn't work.
Law Smith
7:30
It might. I was like, I think about it. It's got to work or people wouldn't keep doing it. But it has to work on such a, you have to do such a huge volume to make that work, I'm sure. And but here's what they do in the next drip ones. I've noticed this too. This is funny that they'll like they'll call you out the light, right? Oh, they'll blow they'll do like the pickup artists thing. Do you ever hear that? nagging you? Yeah, there'll be Yeah, they'll be like, on the podcast
7:55
sucks.
Law Smith
7:56
Anyways, Hey, are you an insecure, 21 year old girl? I'm gonna treat you like one. They'll be like, Hey, I didn't. I didn't hear back from you. Oh, this is a robot. Yeah. So
2
Speaker 2
8:09
yeah. But you know, the thing is, you both have to realize most people do. So we say drip. How many people know what a drip campaign is? How many people believe there are tools that there's automated sequencing tools that you can do on LinkedIn, and all sorts of automations people just don't know about it? Sure. They people do think that it's could be real. And also you can also, you know, pay people to do this for you manually.
Law Smith
8:33
Yeah, you know what I did? And this will kind of dovetail into how you got your company going in the in the pandy. is,
8:41
you're going to do that now. Is that a new word?
Law Smith
8:44
That's what Andrew Santino Bobby Lee cards I like it sounds cuter.
8:48
Oh, you didn't come up?
Law Smith
8:50
No, I didn't end up stealing it. We've referenced that before. But, uh, what's it called? I was working for a different I was working for an agency. We're b2b and trying to work with manufacturers. And you know, these more, I counted all the unsexy businesses for marketing agency to go after. One thing I did do, and I felt it was similar to your story. And maybe I'm glomming on, but I had to figure out how to get ahold of these guys now. Now, I couldn't have any physical interaction. So I started recording custom videos for this targeted list of like 150 guys I had, or women, few women in there. And I, it felt it felt very lame to record these by myself, but I got the clips app on my phone and record stuff and go, you know, hey, Matt, my name is LA, I'm with blah, blah, blah, I would look them up and I kind of do an under 62nd kind of like, or under 30 seconds. Hey, here's why I'm a real person. And I'd send it to them in LinkedIn, I, I'd make the file small enough, so I could send it to them. And then I did I don't know, why didn't keep doing this. This is my own fault. I was like, 10 for 10. I'm getting meetings. The first 10 I did. And then I did another 40 and probably got, you know, at least like interest in Okay, not right now. But let's talk later. It's like, it sounds like
10:17
a lot of work. That's why I stopped doing it.
Law Smith
10:19
No, I, it was my own just little drama of other stuff getting in clouding my shit going on. So, you know, it's one of those things where I was like, that is a good way to start it. But that's a necessity breeds innovation thing. And I feel like your story is kind of something that's kind of parallel to that, if I'm, if I'm guessing correctly.
2
Speaker 2
10:42
Yeah, I mean, 100% 100%. I mean, first of all, I've tried. So I use a product called dub. And I'll do the same thing. And, you know, very, very results. I think a lot of people I, I've actually what I'll do is I'll email people, user, hey, by the way, you know, thanks for connecting with me on LinkedIn, I'm going to send you an email if that's okay, with an intro video. And I'll email people that I have moderate success as well. You know, it also depends if they need my service. And like, I'm still trying to find to that, but it works. I mean, it's it's personal, right? So like, why did we connect the first connection message or like eff off? Right? Okay, fine, whatever,
Law Smith
11:19
I'll play the game. No, I'll
2
Speaker 2
11:20
play the game. Right. But you hit me up, and then you do something meaningful. Right. And I think that's the second step. Being meaningful, I think, is really what's important, in my opinion, in my opinion, and you don't pitch right, like, like, okay, so it's a podcast, it's a little different. Like, I obviously try to, you know, go on podcast, but like, for business, the first thing is, hey, by the way, pay me money. Yeah, right. Like, it's not, it's not really. Yeah, take
Law Smith
11:48
me out on a date. First, you know, before you try to hook up,
3
Speaker 3
11:51
I know, a little bit like, you want help building your, you need web design, and like, I built that shit, man, like, why are you gonna come here and tell me on it? No,
2
Speaker 2
11:58
I like it. Or try try and starting a virtual assistant agency that does something different than everyone else. All I hear is, I get hammered with people like you just all day on LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm not that like, right. Right. And it's Yeah, LinkedIn really has to solve the problem. I mean, they really do cuz it's also the messaging app is cluttered. Right. And, you know, it's just not helpful for anyone.
Law Smith
12:26
Yeah, we talked about it a lot on the show, just because the targeting is so good. The data is so good compared to any other social. So if you're doing ads or anything like that, and the premium stuff they have available, is kind of legit. In learning. There's a lot of relatives looking at today. Yeah, really? We talked for we talked about it, like years ago.
3
Speaker 3
12:47
Yeah. Probably. Blackout when you talk most of the time.
Law Smith
12:51
Yeah. True. That's fair. that's new to me. Yeah. Yeah. NBC back in the day when they do Seinfeld reruns in the summer they go, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's how my brain works. Good reference. very timely. But yeah, I mean, tell us about what So did you start? extend your team in it? Like in 2020? And then, in May of 20 2022, what took you there? How did you get to there? It's torture how you got to May you don't go too deep or too intimate or anything, but I'm interested in because sometimes you got to find like, Okay, I got to pivot was the most used word in business last year. Uh, but how did you pivot? What made you pivot?
2
Speaker 2
13:41
I want to know, yeah, yeah, sure. So I actually own a, an e commerce portfolio with one of the largest wedding favorite sites on the internet. I know. I look like a guy that helps people with weddings, right. But I actually have
13:56
to film a lot of weddings. Yeah.
Law Smith
13:59
So you got to get those Indian weddings by the way. That's the
14:03
guy. Yeah, like 1000 for like, three days.
Law Smith
14:05
I know. That's all I'll be doing. Then pay for elephants and shit. They got bank man.
2
Speaker 2
14:11
I've got one in India, in India, and they're insane. It's crazy. Yeah.
Law Smith
14:16
Well, buddy, 10. We're at a Tampa which has like one of the biggest Indian populations I think in the US. So the the Hollywood Oscars were here like five years ago, the Bollywood Oscars or whatever. So
14:28
what's the buy friend of the program? Santa Fe's on Oh, yeah,
14:31
I forgot about that.
2
Speaker 2
14:32
Anyways, go ahead. Sorry. So yeah, so I was working. So I acquired it like five years ago, and I just started working like 14 hours a day I bought this business, it was sufficiently large and I was just, you know, for three to five years. I just got murdered. And I thought, you know, I made the mistake thinking that operations is it's important, but to a point, right growth is more important. Focusing on expanding your marketing. I'll just put
Law Smith
14:59
this operation Click away.
2
Speaker 2
15:01
Yeah, no. Oh, by the way, I'm reading I mean, I just finished it. I'm implementing it for the new business. Great, great book.
Law Smith
15:08
Yeah, yeah,
2
Speaker 2
15:09
yeah. Um, so you know, so but through this through attrition, first, it was a US based workforce when I acquired it through attrition. And otherwise it went to I did fully remote. And so at the time, I, you know, this was a year and a half ago, I was, you know, I'll go to a trip trip to China with my wife, and she was with her family. And she suggested in air quotes that I could not work over this trip, because the family vacation, so I don't know if either you're married, but we work and
Law Smith
15:41
we got kids, though. We got you.
2
Speaker 2
15:43
Okay. Yeah. So you both know, not a suggestion. Right. And so I said, Okay, go hire someone that you have all these Filipinos working for you hire someone to run the business? And I said, Hey, I don't think that's possible. She said, Yes, it is. 100 million people in the country. It's possible. spent two months I found someone who was a chief of staff. For 100 person development shop, I convinced him to come on and run my six person company. Right. And I went from working, I went to China. I tried onboarding her for a week, I went to China. I worked an hour day in China. She did everything 80% perfect. With which is better than I could have ever Sure. Sure. Sure. In six weeks, here's the kicker, I went from 14 hours a day to three hours a day. And then within a year, it was three hours a week, like two to three. So the seeds were planted like, wow, everyone thought I was crazy. No one had ever just went up market in the Philippines, because everyone's like, I'm gonna get someone for $5 and whatever. So fast forward to the pandemic. Well, you know, ecommerce is like the best place to be right now. You know, what's not a great place to be, and weddings, wedding. So I, you know, I went down from it was what 4000 orders a month, down to like 1500 1200, or something like that. Right? You can imagine the massive change. So once I figured out how to save the ship, and make sure that the business will run, because I like to say it's, the business isn't out of business. It's just on pause. It's slower. It's still it's still large, but it's not as large. So it's less interesting. I said to Angelica said, What about, we find great people like you, and just create an agency? She said, Can you do it? Absolutely 100% no problem. And so that's where we started. And we're at roughly 50 people since back. And it's the reason I think that it's resonating is where everybody is going, I'm going to get someone cheap five bucks an hour, lots of management time, they can do three things. I'm sitting here saying for 16 to 20 bucks, I'll get you a legit project manager or executive to help you run your business. And you can offload stuff. So imagine 80% of your day, you no longer have to do because you can actually delegate it to someone who can think clearly and do work, who has 1520 years 1010 to 20 years experience, right was legitimate business experience in their own right. And now they're working for your small business. We imagine that the impact that can make, and we're seeing it time and time again, that people just want better people. And for us that price range is well within reason for someone good.
Law Smith
18:33
Yeah. Yeah. You know, what's what I'm thinking about is, you know, we've heard go overseas to get a cheaper, like you're saying, and now what's interesting is, I've probably heard that for 20 years. And so those skills, people are gonna move up to that executive level, it's not just entry or entry level kind of work workers that you're finding. I mean, I'm sure they're always there. But I'm sure as, as more people got into doing more, let's just say digital for the sake of, you know, a broad stroke, but like, some people were gonna move up in that world over there to be able to, you know, be ready for that kind of thing. Like, could you do this 1520 years ago? You know, maybe you could probably find some people but not, not like we have it now, where there's a lot of marketplaces to find people, right.
2
Speaker 2
19:23
And the tools so what also has happened in past 15 or 20 years, the tools have gotten so good. They just think about, like right now. It's great. To 20 years ago, you didn't have this,
19:37
you couldn't do what you're doing now
Law Smith
19:38
without it. I mean, 2019 a lot of people didn't use zoom. Right? Yeah. You know, like, everyone's like actually like zooms and new things like what this has been around for a while, but I always think it's interesting because Skype is taken off. Google meat doesn't take off, zoom took off because of its ease of use. You know, and because we love China, and I own it and run it. We love you. Just kidding.
2
Speaker 2
20:04
I think it was assumed a better product. Frankly, when I use Skype, it just sucks up all my resources on my computer. Zoom doesn't seem to.
Law Smith
20:12
Yeah, yeah. And it's just funny. So tell me about this. It's a, here's something a lot of people are going through right now too, as as there's a lot of kind of remote working, right? Yeah. I always think about management in general management of people. Everybody thinks, kind of, like marketing, and a sense of humor. Everybody thinks they can do that. Everybody thinks they got it. Yeah. innately, right. People think they know how to manage people without ever reading anything about how to manage people or assessing what they're doing themselves. And then you mix this part in, we're being a remote project manager or manager, someone of anything. You know, that's its own kind of skill to write, like, you have to be very consistent. I'm sure you're checking in, you know, I'm gonna check in with you at this time every day, you know, Monday through Friday, to make sure we're on point. And we you've got some, you know, pm system, like Asana or monday.com, or something where you can see it without having to talk to them, you can see the progress. If you wanted to check it later in the day, say, you know, cuz you got a timezone thing going on, is, can you tell us about anything that any tips you have on, on being a better kind of remote manager? Because I talked to people all the time, they're like, this, you know, zoom, don't work, you know, having all this spread out and stuff. I'm like, you better figure that shit out. Yeah. Because it's, it's this, people are gonna find cost savings and not having everybody in an office, and it's not going away. So how do you? How can you How can one, myself included? How can one develop better skills in that kind of remote? management? Do you have any tips?
2
Speaker 2
21:57
Sure. So I've been doing this for a few years now. Because I was always the company I have the e commerce was always remote. It was always people, you know, they were in Minnesota. So huge. First of all, you need to use video conferencing. Right? So that's it. Remember, no one wants to be the recipient of an email or slack message. And that's how they're managed. And that's it, right? They're real people. But they just happen to sit somewhere else, whether that's they're sitting at you know, at their house in the same city or across the world, it doesn't really matter. They're real people. So treat them like that. That is rule number one, two, you have to use tools. I would say like Asana Trello. I like Monday, that's a favorite of mine. But we help clients implement all this. And then three, you have to have some sort of consistency. So one of the things that you talk about scaling up the book, you're reading that. I just literally told my team yesterday, we were going from twice a week meetings for my virtual assistant business to 15 minute a day stand ups. Yep. Where every single day, we're going to talk for 15 minutes, the entire team, you have one minute, tell me what you're doing tomorrow.
Law Smith
23:02
Yeah, we just Oh, wow. We just started doing that. We just implemented that three to three weeks ago. And it's made a huge difference in communication. You know, so yeah, those are huge.
2
Speaker 2
23:13
So I think it's also good to give, you know, people visibility, right? Because they're, they're not a senior. So we're going to so to show, I would also recommend, you know, consistency tools, and just think of them as they're just down the hall from you, but you just don't see them. How would you work? And you know, think of it like, like that you have to just really conceptualize, they are part of your team. I have I've spoken to people said, I said, you know, I'm having problems with virtual assistants, it's alright. How many times a week you speak to them? once a quarter, I'm sorry. So you call the quarter, right? How would you feel? I don't, I wouldn't like that. Okay, like, just because you pay someone less doesn't mean they're any less valuable. It's it's just, it's I think it's a bias that we have in the United States. Definitely. If they're not from the US, they're not as good. They're not as valuable. But the truth is people overseas many times are more talented than us in specific areas. And you're just paying less because that's the market rate in their country. Not a poverty wage. Right. When I pay executives on my team, I'm not paying a poverty wage. I'm paying a legitimate executive salary in the Philippines. Yeah, it's just happens to be less for us. Right, but their cost of living is less.
Law Smith
24:37
Yeah, it probably categorizes emerging market, you know, country, I don't know. But definitely
3
Speaker 3
24:44
comes up a lot in these scenarios in terms of remote workings of the Philippines seems like to be the place to be.
Law Smith
24:51
I think a lot of it's because a lot of them speak English is part of it. Right? And then, you know, I think they're hungry for the work. I think everybody's been guarded on going to India for just going broad strokes on this just because there's been bad experiences with a lot of people trying to do that overseas over there. I for whatever reason, I don't know that's not my wheelhouse. But yeah, Philippines comes up and a buddy of mine told me the place to get programmers is
25:22
somewhere in the Eastern Europe.
25:24
Ukraine is amazing. Ukraine's good.
Law Smith
25:26
I got one better for you. comes from our buddy Fergus is Peru. You saw how I made the I made the opinion after hearing everything. He was telling me about it. I was like, oh, there's the nerds of South America. Cuz he's like, it's I'm like, Oh, I think of Peru is like, kind of like Colombia. It's not even close. No, they're like, Mount there in the mountains. There.
25:50
Well, Colombia has mountains too. But
Law Smith
25:51
I know. But I mean, like, they're, they're just like, it's not as like, it's not as vibrant, let's say as Brazil, or Colombia, what I associate with your mica Yeah. Right. And he was like, that's where you get these good programmers now, for whatever reason, that's that whole market is developed a lot of talented people. And that's, so they give a little tip back for you. I just give tips from smarter people. I'm just a vessel. So
2
Speaker 2
26:19
check it out. I mean, it's, you know, I think, you know, the reason Philippines like you said, is English, they've worked with Americans for a long time. There are a lot of the major US companies are in the Philippines, doing business process outsourcing. So there is a deep bench of talent in Philippines that you may not find in other places specific specifically towards customer service and operations, because they're so used to it. And they have 24 hour centers in Manila. It's crazy. And so you can just as a small business owner, tap into that, and pay competitive wages for prices of, you know, fast food workers here. Right. So, you know, minimum minimum wage in the United States will be $15 an hour. That's where it while it's that's where it seems to be going. So if you look at it like that, so you can pay roughly United States minimum wage and get an executive.
27:13
Yeah. Hello.
27:13
How do you compete with that? Brian? phenomenal.
Law Smith
27:15
That's a chick fil a worker. Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
27:17
And they're, and by the way, they're awesome. And these, the people in the Philippines are incredibly loyal. They're amazing to work with. And they just want to succeed. And because you're a US company, you treat them very well. So they're happy.
Law Smith
27:30
Yeah. Interesting. That's very, it's very good insight. Appreciate that. We were talking a little bit. When I asked you which episode you liked. I'm hoping you actually listened to it, but you probably made it. You could have looked at the headline, but we're talking you were saying how you like the one about, we're talking about customer service? In an episode a couple couple months back? And tell us tell us about that. Because I you know, in an age of no customer service, if you can really set yourself apart as someone who gives a shit. Like, what was the book, you're reading the Zappos? Oh, yeah.
28:06
Delivering Happiness.
Law Smith
28:08
Yeah. That you can really set yourself apart from a lot of these faceless kind of companies that are going big volume. What do you what do you think about kind of that, as far as adding value from a customer service standpoint in this remote kind of working world?
2
Speaker 2
28:25
Oh, my customer service people for my econ business or in the Philippines? Yeah. And, by the way, from major, major corporations and smaller corporations and e commerce in the internet world. I mean, I mean, I couldn't even estimate how many customer service people in the Philippines
Law Smith
28:41
but are they trying to make a connection? Like you're trying to make connections on the kind of business development side? Yeah, you're like your personal kind of call it your tactic of relationship marketing, I'll say, Are you having them become more account based managers, and not just faceless, you know, behind a chatbot of cute, you know, q&a stuff.
2
Speaker 2
29:05
Yeah. So So what So, so all the above and I have to tell you, I was taken back. Really take it back. So this year, about one of my team members, I'll just give you a story. So she wants customer service for me. So the customer service for me is people call in chat and email. And they say they do a really great job of making sure that customers happy. I so I have a gift basket that two decent sized gift basket sites as well. And I said to my head of customer service, I want you to take over corporate order. Now corporate ordering is not $100 corporate orders 1000s she completed I think it was 510 $1,000 orders a few 30,000 order dollar orders and 190 $1,000 she did that on her own. no help for me. Right. I was blown out. Look, I was nervous. I just sat back and watched. I'm not gonna lie. I was very nervous. Obviously a lot of money, but shirt a phenomenal job. So yeah, you can get it. They look, it's about training, if you sell to train people, right doesn't really matter. Like, they're not going to come in and say, Hey, I know everything about your business and your customer service, you have to train people to do customer service your way. And once you do that, and you give them the systems, there's no reason why they can't, you know, you can't have the same results. I have.
Law Smith
30:26
Yeah, we're in a playbook mode similar that let's figure out the playbook. So then we can, you know, start scaling it out a little bit better that we're on the same page, too, and a lot of things. One thing I like asking people like yourself, that's a serial entrepreneur, what's your routine? What's your morning routine, then not you don't have to give us the whole day or week. But I'm always curious because you have to be very self discipline. And some of you can tell us it can be just work. But I always like to hear like, the work life balance stuff. So I get up, I go for a run or whatever it is. And then I check email that I do this. We like the pragmatic shit. We like the small minutia. So hit us with your routine.
2
Speaker 2
31:05
Yeah, so I'll wake up I meditate for about 30 minutes, maybe 40
Law Smith
31:10
What time are we waking up? Curious?
2
Speaker 2
31:12
Ah, well, so I'm in Hawaii right now I've been waking up at like, 530 just gradually. But usually, we could have like, 630 Okay, 630, you know, wake up, you know, just get up, go sit on my couch, meditate for 3040 minutes, then, depending on what I have going on me, you know, they have breakfast with my wife. Right? We may go for a walk may not. Then I just start my day. So if I'm in the mountains, like I'll start my day at 130 I'll go snowboarding, I'll go snowshoeing, with my wife do something. And then I'll then I'll clock in to make sure it really just depends what's going on. clock in to make sure like, you know, I didn't miss anything. But generally speaking my day now because I have a team is talking to podcasters I'm doing marketing, do all sorts of interviews, talking to customers, I'm doing sales, high value things right after this. I'm going to go meet my wife for lunch and we're going to have a two hour lunch, you know, down at one of the hotels are out here. So it's it's really a solid balance. But the real thing that I get to do, honestly, because I have a team is I get to clock out early and not stress out about it or not stressed out as much as I cannot be sad about my business.
Law Smith
32:27
Sure. Yeah, that look, that'll take up a lot of attic space, man.
2
Speaker 2
32:32
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's It's It's not what everyone thinks entrepreneurship is a crazy roller coaster. You could be riding high then look what happened to me. I had a great business that is on pause because COVID something I could do doesn't matter. There's that there's a pivoting Oh, you can pivot to sell wedding favors to pre market it to something else? Yeah, not really cuz saturate. Right. So like, I don't have a unique angle,
Law Smith
32:58
where you pivoted isn't it in a different brand you pivoted you know, in a different mode, I'd say it's still it's still you figure it out on the fly. That's, that's the wider pivot. adaptability is the real kind of key of being a a, you know, successful entrepreneur. And we talked about it look entrepreneurships lonely, your wife, you know, she sounds like she is kind of involved, but not she's not doing everything with you and knows everything you're doing. And even if she was your 5050 partner on it for the business or any of the businesses you do, you still, you know, wouldn't know each other others what the plight either both are going on, right. So we always say it's like, it's a entrepreneurship is a it's like being sometimes on a life raft out in the middle of, of the Gulf here called Gulf of Mexico. But
2
Speaker 2
33:52
yeah, it really is. I mean, look at my wife, we talk about the business, right? But she's not in it day to day, she has jobs she's doing. She's a senior executive.
Law Smith
34:01
So our couple nice. So
2
Speaker 2
34:04
yeah, so she so she's a senior executive, and so like, you know, she can help me, you know, give me advice, but she's not executing. And at this point, you know, the other thing about entrepreneurship, I realized that they made this mistake, my job is not to execute. Right? And that's the critical thing. If anyone could take away is your job as an entrepreneur is not to execute you need to hire that out. It's otherwise it's impossible to grow. There's no entrepreneur who's been successful and it's growing a massive business by doing it all by herself.
Law Smith
34:33
You know, you can't be the generalist and the specialist at the same time. I learned I learned that the hard way for
34:42
PTSD flashbacks right now.
2
Speaker 2
34:44
I spent three and a half years working 14 hours a day for what Yeah, okay, I optimize stuff things may have run better, but I didn't execute on a grander vision and guess what? No, I didn't fail. The business will end up surviving and all this stuff, but I don't have three and a half years of my life back. Right? That's the like, to me. That's the failure. Right now. I you know, yeah, I mean, listen, I am thinking about my business a lot and occupies mindspace of reading books to try to better it and so on and so forth. I'm scaling it quickly. But I at least have a lot more control over my day. And I just say, do this, do this, do this, do this. Let's hire someone to do this. Right. And I probably would have had this foresight, had I not gone through that pain, but I'll tell you that three and a half years of pain was not worth it. I probably should have cut back after like a year and a half a year.
Law Smith
35:37
Tough to know, it's tough to assess it, you know, without being Yeah, the sunk cost fallacy and all that stuff. What? We try to keep these episodes pretty quick, and we will make sure we don't keep your wife waiting. After we're done. We ask everybody. First time they come on, we end the episode this, what advice would you give your 13 year old self?
36:02
Be more academic?
36:03
Okay.
Law Smith
36:04
Wow. That's a new one. We haven't heard that. Yeah, what were you not? You weren't. You weren't a bookworm kind of person.
2
Speaker 2
36:13
So I think what happened to me is like, when I was like 13, for up to 13, I would have said yes, at right around that age, I started slacking off. And it wasn't until years later, I realized what the price is. Right? So right, look, you can be successful without a fancy I went to Michigan, right? I got my way back up there. And but you can be successful out of fancy education, for sure. But it does make it easier. When you're like when you come out of college if that's what you do. When you have better grades you go to a better school. Like I didn't realize the difference until I went to Michigan. I didn't realize that. Yeah, companies just recruit you and like throw money at you just to come work for them. I had no idea because that was not my experience out of undergrad interested. Oh, yeah. You know, I had to work a lot harder.
Law Smith
37:03
Okay, well, hey, we're gonna have you back on at some point. Mm. Yeah. This is Roger, real guy. We find out he's an AI bot. I'm like, holy shit. Well, thanks for coming on and extend your team calm is the site. Right? Yeah, yep, it is. I thought we lost you for a second. Yeah. All right, buddy.
37:30
Really appreciate you.
37:31
Thank you.
