59:41
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, question, helping, linkedin, website, business, day, dan, manufacturing, nice, awesome, build, talk, goal, year, grow, andrew, jacob, stress relief, change
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Jennifer Wegman, Andrew Deutsch, Troy Neihaus, Ira Bowman, Andrew Cross, Pete Alexander
00:00
Good morning, everybody.
Damon Pistulka 00:10
Good morning everyone. Welcome once again to the eggs your way round table. Thanks for stopping by here. Thanks for stopping by on LinkedIn live. If you’re with us today, maybe we’ll learn a little bit, maybe we’re just going to have some fun and, and just have some fun and meet some people. So happy to see everyone around. You know, I just got to say, whether you’re conservative or liberal, hey, we have a peaceful trans trans. What do you say exchange of power yesterday. Gotta love that. Gotta love that.
Even though here in Seattle, he decided to riot for some reason again. And yeah, but in the capital, we did a good job. So that’s nice. That’s nice. We’ll see what happens after that. But it’s always nice. Thanks for everyone for being here. Today is our networking day of this month, we do it once a month, we try to let people talk about what they’re doing their business, introduce themselves to the group.
And then we’re going to work a little bit on some networking things after this and hopefully get a lot of audience participation in this because we don’t have a, you know, overarching specific topic for today, there’s a couple things that we want to talk about. And we’ll do that. And just looking for a lot of feedback both here and on LinkedIn. And and getting that and seeing what people are are doing in those respects. So we’ll start off with our infamous introductions. And our question of the day. And our question of the day is kind of unique, because you don’t have to answer the question. If you don’t want to.
Ira Bowman 01:53
It’s optional.
Damon Pistulka 01:54
Yeah. Or, or if you can’t, or if you can’t, but I think you should. There’s, and this is really started from a book, I was reading by Jim Rohn. It’s I I should have known the book title right now. But it’s something about the the day that turned your life around, or some darn thing like that, but I’ll get that later and put in the comments.
But he said one thing in there, I said, Make a list of the things that would make your life the most remarkable ever and start doing them. So my question of the day today is kind of a take on that. What is one thing that if you changed in 2020 in your life or business would truly change your trajectory? 2021 2021 Excuse me? Yeah, I’m still there. I was late. 20s over 20 twice. History. 2021 Thanks, Ira. I did that yesterday, too. But oh, Mark’s commenting on Andrews beard. Yes. Andrews beard is epic for the wintertime season.
Andrew Cross 03:02
which hasn’t arrived yet. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 03:04
Yeah. That wintertime there.
03:06
You don’t have it. But you know. So,
Damon Pistulka 03:08
again, the question is, what is one thing that if you changed in 2021, or in your life or business that could truly change your trajectory for your life. So you want to change something in 2021? One thing, and then go ahead and and you can say you cannot say it doesn’t matter. I want you to think about it and write it down. So who we got coming up to the stage, Andrew?
Andrew Cross 03:34
Well, let’s start from the bottom of the list. We work our way up rather than top.
Damon Pistulka 03:39
Yeah, James. James grand off is on LinkedIn. He says diet and consistent exercise. And I think that’s a great one. A lot of people might say that.
Ira Bowman 03:48
I’m doing that, too.
03:49
Yeah. Yeah, boy. Hey, Troy. How you doing? Good. Good
03:53
morning, everyone. How
Damon Pistulka 03:54
are you? Awesome. Hey, the fireplace in the background is is soothing. Yeah,
03:59
I need a little bit of work in the morning. So yeah.
Andrew Cross 04:04
clean shaven.
Troy Neihaus 04:06
I it’s easy because I sit right here with this thing.
Ira Bowman 04:10
He can go he can go top and bottom.
Damon Pistulka 04:14
Take it all get it all done.
04:15
Exactly. It’s easy.
Damon Pistulka 04:18
So tell us who you are. And tell us how you’re helping people try?
Troy Neihaus 04:22
Yeah, thanks a lot. So Troy teahouse, I work at Bernstein. I make money meaningful for very wealthy people. That’s what I do. We are a global investment research and management firm. And I focus my practice working with entrepreneurs and business owners, especially those that are getting ready to come into liquidity that’s helped you in planning around that, and then make that money meaningful for those people out here in Seattle, the Great Pacific Northwest.
And I love the question of the day to improve my life both personally and professionally. I would say I would go out of my way every single day. This year and do doing with a goal to do one thing nice for someone else, whether it’s professionally or personally, if I do that every single day, you know, doing a favor doing something nice. Something nice every single day, I think that would help to change the trajectory.
Damon Pistulka 05:19
Yeah, I think I think you’re right. I think you’re right. I interviewed Jared Tucker yesterday on our live stream, no, Tuesday, excuse me, days round together. But he’s a really good example of that. Just a real humble guy that is always, you know, you just feeling octoman I think that’s, that’s a great thing, right? Yep.
Pete Alexander 05:38
Genuine. It is, you know, and Troy, the easiest way for us to be able to do that is I like to call it random acts of kindness. You just at the beginning of your workday, you pick somebody and you send a one minute email text, just saying either, Hey, thank you for doing this, or I was just thinking about you, hello. But you do it with out the expectation that you’ll get a response most of the time you will, if you put that expectation, then, you know, you set yourself up for disappointment. And so you just do it because you want to do it. And it’s a great feeling.
Damon Pistulka 06:18
Great, great. Great, Pete. So Pete, tell us about yourself. Thanks, Troy. Sure, sure.
Pete Alexander 06:25
Most of you guys know me. I do stress relief work. So I, you know, I’m helping people, you know, protect their health and, and handle challenging situations with grace? It’s a really interesting question. Because I’m actually I’ve been having, so I don’t know if anybody knows, but I’m a diabetic. And I have to wear a pump.
And I’ve been having a lot of problems with, with the pump, just failing. And the company that I’m working with is not being very responsive and stuff. So what is this has caused me to do the positive is it’s caused me to really eat a lot better than I was before. And I my hope is if if everything based on your question goes, Well, I would love to get have no, no need for my diabetes by the end of the 2021. Because that would be a huge thing for me.
Damon Pistulka 07:35
Wow. That would be Yeah, if you can do it with diet, that would be a huge thing. Because I imagine that that’s a that’s a burden is not the right word, but it’s a heck of a thing to have to deal with all the time. It is it is it’s
Pete Alexander 07:49
not fun. So yeah,
Damon Pistulka 07:51
yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks so much for being here, Pete. And if you haven’t, when you get your clubhouse set up, we’re going to talk about that in a minute with your your room. Pete, you got to let everyone know. So want to say hello to Michelle from Texas. Michelle Gunn? Is that how you pronounce your last name? I’ll make sure I pronounced it right. But she’s on LinkedIn to comment. Melissa, great to see you. Awesome that you’re here today. Yeah,
08:20
thanks for Thanks for always having this. It’s always on my calendar. And the only reason I don’t participate is if I have a conflict with a client. So I appreciate that you. So Melissa world for me, leadership coach, so leadership, coaching, leadership and development training. And I really think about the clients I work with. It’s about clarity, it’s about improving, increasing, finding more confidence, and then working towards their goals, whether it’s a big goal or a small goal, all of those little steps equal up to big things.
So that’s what we work on. Whether we meet weekly, twice a month or monthly. Question? That’s a great question. So the thing that came to mind instantly, and this would affect personal and business is learning when to say no, and when to say yes. And making sure that I’m really focusing on the most important things. And it’s just a great reminder, it’s so easy to say yes, because we want to be all things. But every time we’re saying yes, we’re saying no to something else, or vice versa. So that’s going to be my goal for 2021. And it will have a huge impact.
Damon Pistulka 09:24
That’s really cool. Because you’re right, you have to know when to say no. And if you say no at the wrong time, or say yes at the wrong time. It’s detrimental either way. All right. Awesome. Great, Melissa. Thank you.
09:37
Thanks for having this.
Damon Pistulka 09:38
I love the questions because they always he always said here you just makes you think. Right. And I love this part about this event. Mark. awesome to see you, man. Marcy, tell us about mark and what and let’s go from there.
09:54
All right. Yeah, well, I’m marks from MGM in Chicago. I’m a fractional executive. I’m focused on operations right now my background is in e commerce operations, branching out from there doing a lot of marketing work. And a lot of customer experience and product development work. So the question the question is a good one, I, you know, what I’ve been thinking about, I have a background in writing.
And I’ve written all kinds of things, fiction, nonfiction. But I’d like to do more business writing and in applies, you know, some of my experience and get that out there you doing a blog format, or on LinkedIn, and possibly do more podcasting broadcasts, too, as a way of I think I’m in a place now where I feel ready to do more of that. Just to get out there and put and share knowledge with with people. It’s something I enjoy doing. And I think it would be good for me, especially as I build distraction, practice.
Damon Pistulka 10:57
Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Well, it’s, that’s that’s good stuff. Man. You I know, you got a lot of knowledge in there for people. That’s great. Thanks a lot. Sure.
11:09
Steve. Thank you,
Damon Pistulka 11:11
Josh. How are you today?
11:13
I am. Well, how are you?
Damon Pistulka 11:16
I’m good, man. It’s not as cold for us here. As we were talking earlier. You and you and the lovely, Great White north.
11:25
Not lovely.
11:26
We’re here.
11:27
I don’t know. I don’t know why I haven’t moved yet. And when I have moved, I moved to Chicago and Pittsburgh, where it was also cold. So I know what my problem is. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 11:39
Yeah. I tell you, if you ever move to a warmer spot, you’ll realize that you don’t want to live in that spot anymore. And you probably won’t go back.
11:47
Yeah, you know, I was young when I was younger, much younger. We lived in Florida, and I loved it. And we’ve gone back to visit and i would i would move back again.
Damon Pistulka 11:58
Yeah. Good stuff, man. So tell us a little bit about how you’re helping people. And, and, and the question of the day. Yeah,
12:07
so I’m Josh, I’m CEO and partner protocol at we’re an inbound marketing agency. We primarily work with manufacturing companies, usually tier one, tier two, tier three suppliers. So they’re making some little tiny part that most people won’t notice. But they’re making it that goes into something else that goes into something else, you know, an airplane, for example. We do you know, the lead generation and sales consulting for them. The question is hard, but it’s a really hard question. You know, what one thing that I would do to change?
I, you know, and I thought about that, and I think I don’t know that I would necessarily change one thing, but build upon things that maybe I’ve already changed. So you know, from a health and fitness perspective, I was talking to Melissa about cycling.
Last year, I rode 4000 miles this year, you know, my goal is to drive 5000 also. So building on that, and then from a business perspective, one of our goals has been to make sure that we have the right clients and not just clients. Yeah. So just building on that, you know, over the last couple of years, we’ve been doing a better job of that. But instead of saying, yes, maybe saying no to some people and pointing them in a different direction, just building on those things.
Damon Pistulka 13:21
The good stuff, and yeah, I think you’re right, that it building upon What’s the good foundation is is always a smart step. That’s for sure. Good stuff. Good stuff. I can’t believe 5000 miles Dude, that’s a lot of miles.
13:35
It is a lot of miles. But it’s fun. And it’s a stress relief. I think, as Melissa also mentioned, I am much less angry when I can go out and just spend some time on the bike.
Damon Pistulka 13:49
Yeah, that’s for sure. For sure. Yes. Tough, man. awesome to have you here. All right, Jennifer, nice to see you.
Jennifer Wegman 13:59
Good to see you guys. How
Damon Pistulka 14:00
are you? Awesome. Awesome.
Jennifer Wegman 14:02
So I’m Jennifer wegman. And I am a done for you social media and content writer. And I work primarily with entrepreneurs and small businesses, to help them stay visible on social media, so that they can focus on their actual business operations and generating revenue. I think for me, the one thing that would change both personally and in business would be if I if I focus on my mindset, so focus on more of an abundance mindset, more of a positive mindset. Because really, the our minds is what controls everything, right? more abundance, more, prioritizing myself and just, you know, seeing positive and optimistic. So
Damon Pistulka 14:52
yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. I agree wholeheartedly. And you’ll you’ll understand that when I think Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Thank you so much for being here today. And wonderful senior. Wow. Then Jacob Warren, how are you doing? It’s okay. So we got we got the people have commented on Andrews beard.
And then we look at Jacob. And I think because Jacob words are close, we we don’t really appreciate it as much. But I gotta say, we’re gonna have to have a contest one of these days and you guys can the group can figure it out, but can read yours today, man. yourself answer the question, man. All right. Real quick, what was the question again? What is one thing that if you change in your life or business this year, that would truly change your trajectory? So
15:55
awesome.
Damon Pistulka 15:57
Don’t want to you can just write it down. But if you want to tell us you can?
16:03
Okay, well, Jacob
16:08
is performing IT services for companies to help simplify it helps secure your business and help you realize revenue potential out of properly utilizing technology. So that’s first. The second, as far as the question is a real good one. One thing that would change the trajectory other than pronouncing for that
16:34
trajectory, correct.
Damon Pistulka 16:39
For me, the one thing that I’m really working on is it’s time blocking.
16:47
And so there’s a concept
16:50
of, you know, you block out each part of your day into time slots. And so
16:57
properly executing on that or finding the right methodology that will work for me,
17:03
if that will drastically change, because, as everybody knows, and as we all know, is I mean, we’re constantly working with so many different things, and making sure to stay on top of them all that,
17:14
I think is the the thing that will dramatically change throughout this this year. And it’s something I’m actively working on.
Damon Pistulka 17:23
Nice. And I know IRA does that. And I started doing more of it. And yeah, it makes a big difference. That’s for sure.
Ira Bowman 17:32
If you if you do in your personal stuff, and your professional stuff it a guy I now I eat with my family every day, which partly is because I’m here. But also because I put in my schedule. Like it’s time eat, you know what I mean? It seems stupid. But if you don’t do that, you’ll get buried and two hours go by and you’re like, Oh, I miss. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 17:54
And with the auto schedule. Yeah. Now to that you have you know, the calendly or whatever you’re using. You got to remember to do it. Otherwise, you’ll have somebody want to talk to you. So awesome stuff, Jacob. Yeah. Dan, wonderful to see you. From the warm and enjoyable. North East. Now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you got your what’s at what you got your hockey rink setup. You said, You got the ice cleared off, and you’re ready to start playing.
18:28
A personal hockey rink is set up. It’d be nice to watch my boys play a game this year. But we’ll see if that happens.
Damon Pistulka 18:33
Yeah, yeah. So tell us about yourself, Dan. And in can answer the question then.
18:40
My name is Dan Baker. I’m the Director of Sales and Marketing at Chenango Valley technologies in New York. We assist customers in their tooling and manufacturing their plastic injection molded parts. So we work with startup companies all the way up to multi billion dollar corporations. I’m also the founder and one of the founders. So organizer, and host of USA manufacturing our Yes, one of my passions. Actually Jen, who spoke earlier was one of the big people that got us started. But that’s really what I’m passionate about manufacturing.
Damon Pistulka 19:18
Yeah, yeah. Cool. And you guys just got a couple new injection molding?
19:24
Yes, we just, we just landed a actually three big jobs. And we’ve added, I don’t know, six or seven principles last year, and we’re doing an expansion in the spring. So things are trending in the right direction.
Damon Pistulka 19:37
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Great to see you, Dan. So what would the question would you like to answer the question?
19:47
Yeah, the question for me is really been going on for the last 10 years. About 10 years ago, my mother passed away suddenly. And you really realize when something like that happens in your life, that time is precious. So over the last 10 years, I’ve really been Just taking every ad, you know, every opportunity I have not to waste any time. Yeah, so take advantage of every day, take advantage of every minute.
You know, enjoy the small thing, spend the time with your kids. But you really don’t. You don’t appreciate those things until something like that happens. And yeah, I spoke at my mother’s funeral. And a couple people in that were there. I got through to people, and I got notes and letters and how they change relationships with, you know, Father, Son, and things like that. And stuff like that really matters.
Damon Pistulka 20:32
Yeah. That’s a great one, man. Thanks. I don’t think you Yeah, I don’t think you can do that too much. I don’t think. Yeah, good stuff. Brad. Are you again today? You’re coming, honey, Nevada, man. Look at it. He’s got the shirt on. He’s like, Hey, I’m in 80 degree weather.
20:54
It was 47 this morning, but it’ll be 50 something.
Damon Pistulka 20:59
But it comes out of it nicely. I mean, I mean, by the end of January, isn’t it? You’re like in the 70s. Right.
21:06
I think it’s actually the end of February that it hits 70. But you know, who counts right now? I’m capping every day.
Damon Pistulka 21:13
Yeah,
21:13
there we go.
Damon Pistulka 21:15
Good stuff. Good stuff.
Ira Bowman 21:17
Brad, you can confirm this, right? So I grew up in Las Vegas, I live in California, you and I are in the same climate. You’re more sensitive to one or two degrees than most people because we put jackets on at 70. against 47 degrees. We don’t want to go outside. No, after this all you want. But we don’t have to shovel snow. Yeah,
21:35
give me give me you know, give me six inches of snow down here. I’d be blown away.
Ira Bowman 21:39
I would not leave my house one inch in until it’s gone.
21:43
Oh, no, that’s fun. For a guy who was born in Iowa and learn how to drive from an Iowa driver. Yeah, no, I’m good with snow. So I’m Brad Smith, my company is teller insight Inc, I help clients I help my my business owner clients get to their goals and expand beyond their goals, as in an accelerated manner as my job is to shorten the time they get to be a millionaire by a factor of two or three.
That’s my goal. So to answer your question, gaming, I’ve been going round and round and round, one of the things that I have said for years is you cannot grow a company beyond the limitations of the leader. And if you change the character of the leader, which is the foundation of who you are, then you change your trajectory. So I’ve been working on that for 30 years, something like that. But I’m considering there are two things
22:43
that I that I know that most people don’t. And that is character structure and how to change it. And then also how to deepen and develop intuition. And I actually have a question for the group. And I’d like comments. If I come up with a class that overlaps.
23:05
Operations and tactics, strategic planning, and character development has one class would that be of interest to people? And then a deeper class, which includes the character class, one on intuition development, that’s about a two year project project. would people be interested in that? Is there a market for that? So that’s being a thought leader in that area? Is the thing I’m going to change? Thinking?
Damon Pistulka 23:35
Drop the question in the chat. Okay. Pacific questions are hanging out, we’ll get an answer to and that would be cool. But Awesome. Thank you. Yeah.
23:48
All right. Last but not least,
Damon Pistulka 23:51
Andrew. That’s me, the video wizard. Go for her. So
Ira Bowman 23:57
this gotta be a treat to get to like, you know,
24:01
closing end of the line. Yeah.
24:05
We saved the best for last. Yeah,
Andrew Deutsch 24:07
yeah. I tell that lie all the time, too. Yeah, no, fake fangled is a full service, strategy, first marketing and sales, global consultancy. We help our customers grow their business all over the world. And we do it by helping them convert every touch into voracious advocates for their brand.
Damon Pistulka 24:29
Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. And the question of the day, well, if
Andrew Deutsch 24:37
I can get two holes put in this arm, so that I can leave my house, be safe, be healthy, and take some time outside of my neighborhood would certainly change my year.
Damon Pistulka 24:49
That’s for sure. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Cuz I mean, I think most of us do, like I left to go to the bank, and the great grocery store this week just a hex to get the heck out of the house. Because it’s like a Benihana.
Andrew Deutsch 25:07
Yeah, I have enough interest and things that I like to do that I’m perfectly fine staying home. But I certainly would would welcome getting out and being able to take a couple of trips, I want to take and do some of the other things that I’m not willing to risk my health over. So
Damon Pistulka 25:22
yeah, yeah, good stuff. Yeah. Thank you, Andrew, great to see you. And I’m sure we’ll see more video. fantastic things from you. So we’ve got the people that are left on the stage. Let’s start with Andrew Krause. I’m looking at you, man.
25:47
Taking the fifth?
Andrew Cross 25:51
Nah, no. Good. That’s nice. It you know, as far as what we do, I think, you know, most of you know, most of the folks in here, and I’ve heard that before, but you know, for the answer to that, but what I do, what we do an exit your way ties into one of the goals, but I want to help for, at least for business owners exit their businesses, you know, the way they want to exit financially stable and in control and doing what they want to do with their lives.
So in the next year, but that’s, that’s a goal for that the other ones, you know, for personal, just, you know, looking at the smaller things has been, you know, I’ve been doing a lot of that, too. So it’s a lot of reinforcing, but you know, it, I think it’s basically the health and, you know, getting a good sleep, and, for me taking, getting an extra hour of sleep, and good sleep, and really working on the focusing on that getting up a little earlier. I think all those little things will build up into big huge things as the momentum. So
Damon Pistulka 26:59
there you go,
Andrew Cross 27:00
gotta, you know, get
Damon Pistulka 27:05
in the rest in like, you need to appreciate the little things. I mean, I that’s, that’s something I think it’s so easy, because you go, Ah, this, that nigga isn’t really that big a deal. Or, you know, a little
Andrew Cross 27:19
bit with an extra hour do a little more energy, a little more energy every day turns into one of those other five things you can do consistently. And at the end of the year. look back and see what you did. You know what that produced? That’s what it that’s a good return on investment
Damon Pistulka 27:36
for prepaying. That’s for sure. Awesome. Ira. What’s your What? Tell us about what you do, obviously? And then tell us the question, though, you know,
Ira Bowman 27:46
I mean, I’m part of the exit rate team, helping people specifically with their, their marketing, and their social media, you know, I always liken it to the baseball line from that movie Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. And I tell people, that it’s the website, you think, okay, you’re gonna build this website, it’s gonna be beautiful. If people are just gonna automatically flood your website, and it’s gonna be super popular, right? No, it doesn’t, it doesn’t happen. You have to do things to get that audience built up in.
What is that? You probably unless you’re in SEO and website building in social media, you probably have no idea. And so you can try and fumble around and figure it out yourself. And there’s no shame in in learning these things. But you’d be better off sticking with what you do best. And I think somebody like me, and frankly, Jennifer wig, right, you know that? what she does, and what I do are very complimentary. And so, you know, basically, there’s a bunch of experts that do different things. Like I make graphics, she turns a phrase, and together we it’s a beautiful pairing, right?
Damon Pistulka 28:56
Yeah, yeah, no
Ira Bowman 28:57
problem. Jc Jennifer said, thanks
28:58
for the wine and cheese.
Ira Bowman 29:00
Yeah, it’s I tell people all the time. It’s like peanut butter and jelly. You know what I mean. But that’s what Bowman digital media is doing. that’s helping people in exit your way. That’s what I do. But I’ve been telling people lately, it’s like, Look, exit your way. For those of you who don’t know, right, exit your way is not any one particular, like, we focus on one thing, and we help you all of a sudden, miraculously, make your business grow by three that three times or six times, or eight times, or 10 times.
Like it’s not a magic pill, you know what we do? Really, we have a team for just about everything you can think of where that person or that company is an expert in that. And then when we come in, we’re like the concierge. And we help figure out what you need to do to build the value of your business, not in your eyes, but in the eyes of the buyer, because that’s who’s gonna you know, what I mean is it isn’t worth what you think it should be worth. It’s what somebody’s willing to pay for it. That’s what it’s actually worth, right?
So that’s what we do and exit your way and I might Part of that is, you know, the social media and in some marketing stuff, but anyways, personally, it’s this question is funny because I’ve actually been doing a lot of these things to self improve. So if we were going to go back and ask this at the end of November before I did my goal planning for 2021 my answer would be different because I’ve been working on like, I’m not drinking coffee right now I’m drinking water. And if you know me, you know, that’s a big deal. Because I’ve never seen it with water. It’s always, you know, I got my my cup down there, but it’s at arm’s reach, because there’s no coffee in it.
But anyways, you don’t mean like, getting sleep, you reference to Andrew, I’m working on that quality time with the family. These are all important things, but I’ve already got them in place. So if I’m looking introspectively right now, I think the thing and we talked about this before, when you ask the question, for me, it’s, you know, to use my ears more and to listen more I think if I would take more time to actually listen to what people are saying. As opposed to waiting to speak or just showing how smart I am or how smart I think I am really I think that would make a big difference in my personal and professional life. So there’s a wart I need to listen more I’m working on it
Damon Pistulka 31:06
awesome awesome IRA. Good stuff. And it it is an art as Andrew just put in the comments it is an art and and and something that if you practice it it does pay a lot of dividends that’s for sure.
Oh for you enjoyed it online for me okay for me thank you x zero a set it enough you know, help them helping owners really create the legacy they want that’s the way I say it it’s easy make it to and as I said there’s not one thing we work on we really work on Do you have enough sales is that generate enough profit is it is it generate is it running like you want and then is it giving you the money to create legs you want to work on that that high business Hierarchy of Needs Maslow’s pyramid you have the you know that kind of thing.
But we work on those basic things and we go back down and go up as we need to, to get you to the point where you have the legacy you want either it’s selling, succeeding whatever it is. And, and we love it, we we have a ball with it.
We it’s just it’s a blast for us every day to see our clients succeed, man, and it just puts a grin on my face when when we can do that. And helping them help them get there. It’s a lot of fun. So what is one thing that can change your life or business that could truly change your trajectory. And for me, it’s personal development. And I there’s many people came up and said they started working on this last year, I was lucky enough I don’t even know how I think was Jared Weiss, believe it or not, if you know him on LinkedIn recommended watching this video or something with Hal Elrod.
And as like who is this crazy, younger guy that’s talking about the Miracle Morning, and what that would do. And I had started in 2020, reading more and in writing. And that that made a big difference. And when I read the book, and I started doing what he what he was talking about in creating this morning routine that includes meditation and other things and affirmations and exercise, I think exercise is the one thing that was missing out of my routine that really what was missing, and it’s really made a big difference.
But I’m trying to do as Jim Rohn says is get my mind ready for I have to get my personal development where I want to be. So the success will come to me at that point. And I know as as Alison to Ford says once in a while, that’s a little woowoo. And me being an engineer, that was a hard thing for me to get over as the how your mind works and how to train your mind, to get to the point where you are get to that point where you want to be in your mind.
And individually see that because you won’t get there. If you’re where you’re at today. You have to change your mind. And this is in business too. And I as we talk about this, we we we talk with our clients, there’s a lot of people, our advisors, your leadership, people and others. We’re doing it every day, we got to deal with ourselves. We got to get where we want to be. So our life will go there. And our and our success will go there if that’s what we’re willing to do. But that’s what I’m sorry. got along, but I’m pretty passionate about it. I like it. I mean, I wake up at four o’clock in the morning every day now I don’t have an alarm. I go to bed at 930
Ira Bowman 34:36
I don’t know how you do it.
Andrew Cross 34:38
It doesn’t
34:42
work. I got up.
Ira Bowman 34:44
I got up at 4am I’d be here. I’d be here at the start of the networking every week. But as you can see, I’m usually late and there’s a reason because
Andrew Cross 34:52
what what is it in South Dakota that makes you know the church I
Damon Pistulka 34:56
never did that. I never did that. It was only me About 10 years ago that I started getting up earlier and going to bed earlier and, and what I realized it was from reading the books about hey, if you get up earlier, it’s and then I have a year ago or so I read something about Mark Wahlberg man that dudes up like at 330 in the morning every day goes to bed at 830 at night every night. That’s Mark Wahlberg, how many people is he at bothering him every day, you know, figured if he can do that, and he looked at his schedule, and it was full of just what I was saying and connected together. But the amount of are we talking about clubhouse yet?
No, we’re gonna talk about so we’re going to talk about talking about this. So in our networking portion today in the learning portion, a couple things that I wanted to talk about are how are you changing your reach to attract your target audience? What are you doing right now? What are you doing to meet the people you want to meet, or develop the relationship you want to develop? And I really want this to be interaction or a lot of interaction with people in the group, because I know there’s some people doing some really cool things.
I know that Andrew Dubois was talking about some cool stuff this morning, and, and he may or may not want to share and I know other people are doing other things. But I’d like to share some ideas amongst the group, because I think it’s really beneficial. And also, we can talk a little bit about clubhouse. I think it’s a it’s something that a lot of people are working on, and are getting on. And I think there is an opportunity there. Not so much as it’s the panacea, but an opportunity to understand it may be a good, a good way to meet people.
Andrew Cross 36:44
So just for I don’t know, if everybody knows, you know, what clubhouse is? Yeah, I mean, a lot of us started getting on this platform, but you know, about the, you know, the clubhouse stuff, you know, people don’t understand
36:59
this question.
Andrew Cross 36:59
Yeah. You know, about what people are doing now, too. It’s just, it’s another form. Yeah. Go ahead. Maybe if you could give him a little okay.
Damon Pistulka 37:07
background. Um, if you don’t know, clubhouse is an app app right now. A social media platform, I guess you would call it kind of, it’s an app on iOS. You have to get invited to get in there. So they’re creating some exclusivity around it. I don’t know that it’s it’s it’s really in looking at an old guy like me. It’s like a party line telephone. And I know, three chords that people don’t know what it is. But you’re actually on it. You’re on this, your face pops up in here. You can put your Instagram your profile.
And there’s different topics and create rooms, what they say. You can go into this room you can talk about last night, Pete Pete hosted a an office hour about stress relief. And you can go in there and you can talk about and you have experts talking about things. And oh, yeah, there’s Jacob. I knew Jacob made fun of me. He’s, we know each other well enough. He makes fun of me all the time. It’s good. But yeah, the party line thing. But you sit in there, and there’s there’s it’s a free for all, honestly, right now for setting these rooms up and getting and getting people to them.
And there’s some big names. I mean, if you know Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant, Grant, Cardone. And you know, you put there some ecommerce big names in there that I’ve seen. And honestly, there are some higher end business owners in there. I mean, there are they’re trying, there’s people that are searching for real information. And that and then also, I think there’s people that are spewing a lot of garbage. And that’s like anything, you know, free speech is free speech. So we’ll see, here’s some comments from others on that. But Andrew, what are you doing? That’s kind of changing your approach to finding the people that you want to find?
Andrew Deutsch 38:55
Well, we we started doing a little bit of experimenting, because it’s sort of going back to the beginning of it. It’s all as we do projects, we’re always looking for accomplishments and things that we can talk about, because as you know, I’m not really interested in talking about features much I talk about benefits and how it affects folks. But one of the things that we noticed, and I actually recorded an ad this morning, that’s kind of fun.
We were in the business of trying to end the new disease, it’s worse than COVID it’s called the zoom zombie syndrome, which is what happens when someone says share my screen and everyone else becomes a zombie. Yeah, you know, how how are you able How are you able to be present in the room? And and be be there in the room with people when you can’t be in the room? How can you or is our friend alone would say how do you hug the guy in the room and you can’t touch him?
So we started looking at different software different ways of being present in meetings. And and how do you give a presentation without just shutting everybody off? And it led to sort of an experiment and I know people have seen me screwing around with being able to add graphics and do different things. If If I, if I want to go into, for example, a PowerPoint, normally in a PowerPoint in a zoom meeting what happens? I say, Can I share my screen, everybody falls asleep, I disappear, my voice is off in the distance. So what you can do now is shrink down, jump into your PowerPoint presentation, be impactful, be present, and and not create zoom zombies, your your
Damon Pistulka 40:28
zoomy zombies, I love it.
Andrew Deutsch 40:31
They’re fun on an AMC when they’re eating innocent people, but they’re not meeting. So we The reason I’m showing you this is it became part of an experiment, because we’ve had a huge curiosity about how can you grow your business without worrying about SEO, without having to pay per click without having to pay for Facebook ads, and all those kinds of things. So we built this affiliate program.
So the idea is we’ve got this great course that teaches you how to use the software to do these things in meetings. And you know, and again, you can run your press conference, you can do whatever you want, from a simple touch, it engages people, it keeps them interested, and how can you grow that business without any of the SEO stuff out there and spending all of that money?
And the third was how can you create an educational website where you don’t have to pay like, if you go on to me, they’re gonna take 40 50% of your of your money. If you post your videos on Vimeo, they’re you’re going so all of these things were interesting to us. So we build a website that we’ll be launching here in a little bit, that has a built in affiliate program, which I’ll explain, it will sell our course. And it will allow us to post the videos in a place at no cost and protect the codec so people can’t download them and steal them.
Yeah, so what have we done, we’ve got a course to sell, we’ve got an affiliate program we’re testing. And we have a modular website, that we can sell very inexpensively to somebody who could get a website, already designed, already functioning, put their info their images in and have their own training website up and running in a couple of days. It’s not something somebody slapped together. And if they don’t have the tech skills, we’ll use our team, it will put your information in there and create and maintain your site for you. So with the affiliate program, anyone who loves what they saw, will say oh my god, how did you do that?
42:25
No, say well look at the
Andrew Deutsch 42:27
link. If they click on the link to go to our website, sign up, the person who gave them that link will get a commission on the sale. And if they use an affiliate link to go to the website, they get a discounted price. It’s all an experiment to see. Number one, are we going to be able to sell the course and drive enough traffic to it? Number two, will this affiliate marketing program work? Or won’t it? And if not, how do we tweak it make it work? And third, can you sell a frame design website with all the plugins and everything already communicating to get people to market faster? So that’s, that’s kind of
Damon Pistulka 43:03
what we’re like, oh, that’s a cool way to look at it. Because you know, and reach out to people from a business standpoint, you made a couple of good I think it’s a good idea to go and and it’s always been cool watching your video with it using the the virtual the virtual camera and stuff and controlling like you do.
I think what what you said without seeing it in here, though, that that is that was relevant, relevant for many businesses, as you’re trying to increase your reach, without using Pay Per Click without using, you know, writing a bunch of blog posts without doing you know, a lot of the things that are more time consuming, potentially, and, and then make it if that works, you can make it an easy bit easier barrier of entry from others. And understand
Andrew Deutsch 43:48
I’m not demeaning any of those other things. Because eventually with this particular business, we’re going to add all that into it. Yeah. But since we’re starting from zero, we then can experiment with just this and see what kind of an impact it is on its own. And then later, as we focus on SEO and pay and all those other things we can see and actually have a measurable set of accomplishments based on what we did, so that we’re scientific and not just going well, we did all this.
I’ve seen it people that spent a fortune on SEO, and they really had their website booming, and they have a competitor in the same market space did none of that and did better. So the question is, what did they do different? And how can we you know, get through all of the the smoke and mirrors and figure out how it was they were able to do it? Yeah. The goal is I’ve got this great program that I think it’s going to do fantastic. We’ve already got, I think 60 affiliates in 13 countries that want to promote this, this this course. So nice. It’s great. It’s a great tool for us to you know, to be able to do as we say blow people’s minds.
Damon Pistulka 44:56
There you go. Awesome, Andrew. Thanks so much. It’s intriguing to me when the way you thought about this beyond and and really just increase your reach and pull the right people towards you. So, Dan, now this is gonna be awesome, Dan, because you’re a little you’re selling injection molded products assembly and that kind of stuff and, and working with a bit of a different audience. So what are you doing? That’s kind of helping you meet the people you want to meet? Do the things you want to do?
45:28
Um, well, I
45:30
mean, we’re a typical manufacturer, our companies 49, will be 49 years old this year. Yeah. And, you know, we were falling into the same trap that many manufacturers have is they weren’t ready. They weren’t marketing, they weren’t getting out there. They weren’t talking to people. And you’re sitting back and you’re relying on word of mouth and things like that drive people, and it just wasn’t happening. And so when I got here, about two and a half years ago, I just changed all that I, you know, it goes to I got a new website, I got social media, which is, which is doing a lot.
And I’m doing a lot of networking and networking from the fact that, you know, I’m really building a community around myself around manufacturing, and mainly us manufacturing. So that’s where USA manufacturing came in. And reaching out and doing some other things that other you know, most manufacturers aren’t doing, you know, I’m reaching out to a lot of people on LinkedIn, I’ve built up my, my LinkedIn network very well now.
So you know, I have a good reputation out there. And I’m reaching out to a lot of competitors. You know, because manufacturers are so fearful of talking to their competition for like, they’re gonna steal some of your trade secrets, we all do the same thing. You know, we we allow people into our building, they know what we do. You know, what the main thing behind it is? That, you know, although we have competition around us, we do things differently. And we’re sorry about the phone. We do things that other people don’t do. Yeah, you know, they do things that we don’t do. So I have really built up a really nice network of it’s just spam calls.
47:14
Really nice.
47:16
send people to me,
47:19
then they send people to me, because we do things that they don’t do. And I send people to them, because they do things that we don’t do when it’s a nice marriage.
Damon Pistulka 47:26
Yeah. And people don’t often think about that, especially in manufacturing, right. And especially something like molding, someone might come to you with a really big part or in a material that you don’t necessarily want to mess with. And or may need a certain assembly process that you don’t need to do or something like that. There’s a lot of synergy between that.
47:46
Well, it really works for everything. Because you know, everybody, no matter whether you’re a solopreneur manufacturer, whatever you do, everybody has their thing that they either are very, very good at, or they love to do. Yeah, why not stick to what you’re good at? And like I said earlier, you know, farmout, all this stuff that you’re not good at?
Damon Pistulka 48:06
Yeah.
Andrew Cross 48:07
Yeah, that always. Yeah, I always found that really, really interesting. The paranoia level of, you know, business owners is just to manufacturing, although it’s prevalent there. But like you said, yeah, if you’re an injection molder, or you’re a parts manufacturer, this isn’t rocket science. You know, you’re not the grits here. We all know how it’s done. No,
48:28
you’re so simple. It’s, it’s ridiculous. But you know, people aren’t doing it. And it’s a shame.
Damon Pistulka 48:34
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Cross 48:36
So I invited Troy up to, because I was interested to hear too, because he’s got particular challenges in this, you know, with the regulations that in his industry that he falls under, and, as we, you know, had him on as a speaker a couple weeks ago, and had to shut off the LinkedIn stuff, because there’s a lot of talk about that, but it was kind of curious to see where you’re coming from, what’s working for you, and how you connect to because that’s, they don’t make it easy for you.
Troy Neihaus 49:06
You know, it’s not too difficult to connect, I, you know, my days, the thing that’s changed with COVID, in my days is typically where, you know, I’m out and about five meetings a day or more going back and forth. Now, I, I literally sit in front of my computer, from 7am to 6pm, practically every day, and Island go outside. I mean, my daily trip outside might be going to get the mail. And that’s it. And it’s sad. I’m someone who was, you know, always so the compliance piece hasn’t been super restrictive on that.
To be quite honest, it’s just, there are some ways you know, the restrictions they put on us in terms of, you know, doing things live and, and yeah, and stuff like that. And what gets posted what gets sent out? You know, you’re only allowed to send out x number of emails per different type of marketing and stuff like that, but it’s not super restrictive. You know, zoom has just been a wonderful way to be present with everyone a lot more people for me, but yeah, the personal side it’s it’s, I it’s a we’re talking about zoom fatigue earlier, right. I literally, I have zoom fatigue almost every day. It’s crazy.
Damon Pistulka 50:29
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I tell you the exercise for me it’s helped out a ton. Because you get the blood pumping in and it helps that that fatigue I mean, I don’t feel that
Troy Neihaus 50:43
I have that’s helped me to David. I had a I may have mentioned this before I got a peloton came in the second I ordered the first week of May, it came in the second week of May. I’ve got colleagues of mine that are ordering it now. And they didn’t get it for six weeks. Yeah, so luckily, I i’ve been using that. And that helps tremendously. And I’ll be honest, also, I, I had been drinking way too much. 2020 was a crate I probably drank more in 2020 than any other year in my life. And I’ve done dry January. So far, it’s been wonderful. So you know you compliment not drinking and which I love a drink, by the way. supplement that though with with the exercise, and it’s man, it’s been a lifesaver.
Damon Pistulka 51:28
Nice. Nice. Those are great things. Yeah. And we have to talk about your peloton because I was looking at them, but they’re like, 10 plus weeks out now. Wow. And yeah, so that’s, I gotta write that down. Because
Troy Neihaus 51:42
there are some good options that are out there. So one of my colleagues, he had a horrible experience with them, you know, they they’re still a high level of interest. But yeah, they’ll schedule a delivery and then the day of or the day before, they’ll change that say, Sorry, we know, it’s next week or the week after. And that happened him three times. When he eventually said, All right, forget it. I’m done. And he ordered something else. And and it’s already come in. So hopefully they’ll get those issues solved. Because it’s been a great stress reliever for me.
Damon Pistulka 52:11
Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. Well, Jennifer, great to see you. How are you doing? Oh, let’s
Jennifer Wegman 52:20
see, um, I think you share my story with a lot of you guys before, but I was working full time for a year and a half for a different company. And I got laid off in July. So I was doing this business, I took a full time position and then came back to this incarnation of my business. And I think what’s been helping me, you know, just generally speaking, it’s just a network, I realized how strong of a network I had, then combined with the new people that I’ve met, like Dan, and you guys, and everybody here on this call, it’s just helped to kind of just accelerate my growth and my presence in an amazing ways, I’ve been very appreciative of that.
It’s really a testament to the relationships and the importance of relationships and helping you to grow your business through referrals. And, and just through Good, good work, we do good work, you get referred and people are willing to support you collaboration, not competition, as Dan was saying. There’s other people who do what I do, I read does kind of what I did, but not exactly what I do. But I’m happy to refer him to other people. I think for me, I’ve really been leaning into the things that I enjoy doing. So I’ve been loving Twitter. And I’ve grown my audience from like, 500 people to over 1600 in four months. And it’s, you know, engaged followers.
So, I think, leaning into what you enjoy, because people can feel that energy, like you can be on clubhouse, but if you don’t like talking, or you can do a podcast, but if you don’t like doing it like that energy is going to come out and be palpable for other people. So if you can produce content in a way that you enjoy it, and then repurpose it in a way that will reach those other people. That’s an important piece of it. So I’ve been leading Twitter and I also have a Facebook networking group called build your business with networking that I’ve had for about five years. We have about 850 900 people in it, and it’s been a good group of people. So yeah, I just keep getting things I love.
Damon Pistulka 54:35
Good. I think a couple things there. You know, you say focusing on the things you really enjoy. Again, like Dan said, do what you do, do what you do well get others around you that can support you. I respect that as well. I mean, and that’s cool. It really is. I think that when you get to the point that where you talk about niching down or just doing the things that you enjoy, it’s so and it’s It’s rewarding because you’re doing more of the stuff you love. But it’s it’s better because you know, there’s once you get into a certain point, there’s enough work for everyone. And and as as Dan was saying, and you alluded to as well, that’s that’s really cool. That’s really cool.
55:18
Hey, real quick, Jennifer,
Andrew Cross 55:19
what’s your Twitter? Yeah,
Jennifer Wegman 55:20
at the Jen wag? Yeah. Yeah, I need to give a special shout out to Dan because when I started with my other company, somehow I found Dan, I don’t even know how I think I might have been searching, like have manufacturing hashtags. And really, he had this like little community of manufacturers who run a lot of him run the chat now. And he just welcomed me with open arms. And I think that that’s what’s important is finding a community and leveraging it, but in a way that it’s win win for everybody. So really, that’s what’s going to help you grow, is just finding that community and giving as much as you get back.
Damon Pistulka 56:08
We could stop there, honestly, that that’s, that’s great. But Melissa, you’re here, it’s 858. What are you doing? Yeah, so
Jennifer Wegman 56:16
it’s interesting, I was jotting down notes. And much of what everyone said resonated, but for me, it’s, I have a motto of give, ask receive, you got to give First, if you have the opportunity to ask and receive. And I always talk about it in terms of a piggy bank. So if you’re putting deposits into other people’s banks, you have the opportunity to take a withdrawal. You can’t take a withdrawal from a negative bank account that doesn’t have a deposit, right? You’re You’re negative and you’re paying fees. And Jennifer’s talking about give and I heard when when which makes me think of IRA and it’s just a powerful group and the authentic, that really resonates.
And for me, the abundance mentality as a coach, there are millions of coaches, you look on LinkedIn, and there’s like 3.4 million people that have coach in their title. There’s plenty of business for everyone. And when you have that abundance mentality, you don’t there’s no desperation. I always say desperation stinks, no matter who’s wearing it, right, that cologne. And so it’s just being authentic being abundant mentality, I probably connect with three or four different coaches a week talking about what they do. I’m not a life coach. It’s not my wheelhouse.
No one wants me to be their life coach. It’s not that I couldn’t, but it’s not where my expertise lies. And so knowing what you’re good at to many of the comments, we have to focus where our strengths are, be great at what you’re great at, and let other people be great at the things you’re good at. So anyway, I just always appreciate this. Today was fun. I haven’t been on one words just about networking and a long time. So I have literally a W list with a bunch of notes from everyone’s ideas and train is carrying as many people have said in the past. I think that was a Kirstie line that she used to say all the time sharing is caring. And just you know, you got to give first. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 58:01
yeah. That’s That’s awesome. Man, it. That was so great, Melissa, because we’re running up on top of the hour now and you just ended it perfectly. I want to thank everyone for for coming once again today and making it super special. I mean, there’s so many great things that that we talked about today in the answering the questions and the other stuff. And I don’t know if the people on LinkedIn, I hope they enjoyed it half as much as I did. And you guys did because I just in energizes me. When we do these kind of things.
It gets me going and that’s kind of weird, because I’m already that way. But it’s awesome to see you. We will talk about clubhouse again, I think it’s something that we should discuss as a group because it’s it is new, it’s something we should kind of can think of as a group and maybe talk about some strategies around it that might be helpful. And just see what what people are hearing around it. But, Andrew, I just Well, thank you so much for my heart and everyone. take us away, Andrew.
59:06
Now you’re a minute late.
Andrew Cross 59:10
Thanks, everybody. You know, going back to the tables will stick around. We shut it down if you guys want to hang out. Yeah, as always. Good to see all this great stuff. Really good. I love hearing what everybody’s up to IRA. Yeah, hit the music shutter down on LinkedIn. Have a great day, everyone.
Damon Pistulka 59:36
All right, back to the floor.
