56:38
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, linkedin, learned, awesome, andrew, year, ira, helped, person, add, clients, day, company, relationships, talk, week, question, business owners, referral
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Andrew Deutsch, Dennis Bolger, Brad Smith, Ron Higgs, Ira Bowman, Michael Gidlewski, Aaron Marberg
Damon Pistulka 00:04
All right, everyone, Welcome once again to the exit your business roundtable. We’ve got with me today here, Ira Bowman. And we’re gonna be doing a little bit of professional networking. So for those of you listening to us live on LinkedIn, jump in the chat, if you want to jump on the My Profile, if you want to get in here into Remo because we have, after this, we are going to be able to get in the table, you’re going to be able to talk to more people, if you want to do direct conversations with people.
It’s always fun to jump on remote, but those listening on LinkedIn right now, if you’re listening, I want you to drop a comment where you’re coming from. And this event is meant to be interactive. So join a drop. Go ahead. Yeah.
00:52
Join us, man.
Ira Bowman 00:53
Come on.
Damon Pistulka 00:54
Let’s Yeah, join us here. Join us on LinkedIn, we’re ready to go but play along, drop in the comments when we’re asking questions and those kinds of things. So this is kind of an interesting deal for us. Andrew is not going to be here today. He’s taking care of some things that he’s got to do. But this an interesting week for us because I look back one year ago, we started doing not the roundtable but we started doing eggs a year away events. So like for Brad, I believe Brad was probably in there and and some others that are in the room right now. We’re in those first events that we had, which was really pretty fun for us. And
01:36
what
Damon Pistulka 01:39
oh, no, okay, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I have I officially hit the wrong button. They did an update to the software and I stopped it there.
Ira Bowman 01:50
It looks it looks different than it used to it was
Damon Pistulka 01:53
it looks a lot different. I was like where is it telling us some things and it didn’t and I hit present off which Yeah, that doesn’t work. Yeah, remote start.
Ira Bowman 02:03
Okay, so full disclosure, everybody. We were talking about extreme weather in India. It was before this started and so we’re still talking about that apparently. Yeah, yet so if you’re trying to figure out why they’re talking about cold weather starting cars, remote remote started cars. That’s that’s the backstory there.
Damon Pistulka 02:19
Yeah. Thanks, Robert. on LinkedIn there for telling me you can hear me because I had my mic muted from earlier. So Mike tick. Yep. So we get some people on LinkedIn going here. Show us where you’re from those kinds of things. Okay. Today is our February networking event.
Like I said before, this is important week for us. One year ago, we started doing these kind of things and and throughout the year, it’s been a just been a blessing for us to be able to meet so many great people. Yeah, on times like this. And I’m excited because you know, like next week we’ve got Holly McCleary, stopping by from protocol lady to talk to us about email automation, not just marketing automation, but making your business better kind of automation stuff. So
Ira Bowman 03:04
it’s going to be fun. And I know a lot of you have questions about that. That’s probably one of the number one topic that I get from people just across the board on LinkedIn and my clients. How do we automate emails? Yeah, come on next week.
03:20
Next week. I’m
Damon Pistulka 03:21
really I’m really excited about that. And then we’ve got a couple others that are going to be interesting coming up as well. I’m pulling some of them up. We got Alison to Ford is going to be she’s going to be guest hosting like, like last week with Andrew Deutschen and David Melville. That was freakin awesome. videos.
03:39
They did a great job.
Damon Pistulka 03:40
Yeah, they did. They did. And if you haven’t, Andrew, if you can drop that link in the chat, that’d be awesome, too. I was thinking about that to your to your class.
Ira Bowman 03:50
I still got to take that course I want to take but then I had I had a crazy week so I didn’t get the ticket yet.
Damon Pistulka 03:55
Yeah, yep. Yep, I think so too. It’s gonna be it’s a great course I know that because I’ve been going I went through part of it with him and it’s really cool. So the other people we got coming up I mean, we’re going to have something in March where we’re going to have someone that’s an expert on clubhouse is going to be talking we’re gonna be talking about at practical SEO for business we got Oh, what the heck else I’m gonna get a futurist on is thinking about that the other day be kind of cool to get a futurist on you know, we’re gonna we’re really gonna push this about.
Ira Bowman 04:28
Yeah, hey, speaking of clubhouse real quick if you guys need it, if you’re in this if you’re in our group, I have three invitations and I don’t you know what I mean? I just got one. But if you need one, let me know because like I said, I got three. I’m happy to send you one.
Damon Pistulka 04:42
Yeah, yeah, just go ahead. And if not, Ira DM me because I’ve got actually got six.
Ira Bowman 04:48
Well, we got nine between the nine between
Damon Pistulka 04:50
us so we can get you into clubhouse. And we’ll talk more about that later. But it’s Yeah, yeah, great point. I’m glad you’re doing it. graduations. Got it up. So what we’re gonna do today is we got we’ve got a few people in the in the group here that we’re going to bring up along with the people that are on LinkedIn. Man, you guys are going we got people from Alaska, we’ve got people from North Carolina on LinkedIn here doing and I think I got Robert, I think I got the the audio fix now. So, man, we’re on there. Well,
Ira Bowman 05:24
I think you’re good. I’m gonna bring Ron,
Damon Pistulka 05:27
I’m gonna bring you on first brother. You bet. So Ron, we’re going to do the introductions today. And one of the things because this is our networking thing, is a networking event for February. We want to know, the ideal person that we could connect you with. And the ideal person that we could connect you with.
And what we want to do is in the comments or comment to Ron directly if you want to, if he if if Ron says, Hey, I want to be connected to this kind of person, if you know something, someone like that. Message him while we’re here. So we can get these things started. What we want to do is get these introductions taking as much of them done while we’re on on to do it today. So, Ron, awesome to see you again. Looking forward the next time we can sit down at Sally, I need to tell you that because they’re open at 25%. Now, man, right.
Ron Higgs 06:21
Yeah. And tell us about yourself. And when you get ready, I will reveal the question of the week. All right. So I will so say so just so you guys know say Alicia is a microbrewery in the city that David lives in. And I’m a microbrewery enthusiast. And so I bounced around. So one day I, I was in the area told daymond he came and met me, we actually get to have a beer in person, which one, there you go.
Anyways, I am rod Higgs located here in Seattle, looking for my next opportunity. I am a clo operations guy looking for a position as a director of operations for a larger company, clo for a smaller company, but pretty much open, right? Look into something where I get looking for something where I get to interface and interact with all the different operating functions of the business to move the company’s mission forward. So most comfortable in aerospace and defense, which is where I came from, but aircraft are highly technical and military aircraft even more so.
So anything in the tech industry would be good, who you can introduce me to somebody get me a job. I mean, somebody’s high enough, who has some authority to get me, you know, past the recruiters or somewhere where I’ve got to get in to, you know, to get a good position. Now, I was an independent consultant worked on my own for a little bit. So the transition back to corporate america might be a little tough, but, you know, I missed working with people and working on teams, which is sort of why I decided to go back. Yeah, there you go. So ready for your question.
Ira Bowman 08:07
And not and not just Seattle, y’all if you know somebody in the Arizona area?
Ron Higgs 08:12
Yes, true. So I do. Yep, Phoenix, Arizona, my wife and I are going to be sort of moving back and forth between those two places. So something ideal or something remote would be ideal, or something that would allow me that’s located in either the Phoenix area or Seattle that would allow me time to move between the two places.
Ira Bowman 08:33
Yeah, Phoenix is like the fourth largest city in the United States. So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of opportunity there.
Ron Higgs 08:39
Yes, a lot of people move in there. I mean, here so Damon knows, and anybody in Seattle knows this or the Northwest, you know, it does get kind of gloomy here. So it’s nice to be able to leave, you know, the, you know, nine months of rain and go someplace where the sun is shining, you know, just to see what it looks like.
Damon Pistulka 08:57
That is for sure. That’s for sure. So the the question of the day is, you know, looking back one year, what’s the one thing you learned in the last year that’s helped you the most personally or professionally?
Ron Higgs 09:12
Wow. So usually, I’ve never been first, I usually get time to think about this. Because you know what, the answer came to me immediately.
09:20
Oh, right.
Ron Higgs 09:21
It’s so building relationships, building relationships, building relationships, right, you know, networking. So meeting all of you, right, it’s cool because I think I looked at the participant list. We got a Yeah, what do we got nine people here today? I know, I think and I’ve had a one on one with every almost everyone but at least I know everyone I didn’t have to put my LinkedIn a I’m sorry, I didn’t have to put a link to my LinkedIn profile in the chat because I’m first level connected with everybody there.
And especially for me in the job search and you know in business, I’m not getting anywhere. not getting anywhere, just blindly applying for jobs online, like you’re supposed to do, right? Everything that I almost everything that I’ve had job wise has come from some kind of referral. Yep. Right. And so not just the jobs, but business and everything right. So the most important part is building relationships 2020. For me, I met more people in 2020 than I did, I think in the in the four years before, right, and made a bunch of meaningful relationships with people who might have yet to meet in person. So for me,
10:35
that’s me,
10:36
the builder, Ira. Everyone here. Right. So
Damon Pistulka 10:39
that’s awesome. So building relationships. That’s a great one. And I think it’s an important one. You know, if 2020 taught us anything, that we can build relationships, anywhere with the technologies available today, and those relationships, whether it’s personal professional will help us.
Ron Higgs 10:56
Absolutely. And thank you guys for this opportunity. It’s great. I look forward to this every Thursday. So
Damon Pistulka 11:02
awesome, Ron. Thanks, Ron. Michael.
Michael Gidlewski 11:05
Hey, how you doin, Damon? How you doing?
Damon Pistulka 11:08
I’m awesome. I’m awesome.
11:09
I still I still
Michael Gidlewski 11:12
get buried with a snowstorm. Yep. But who cares? We have zoom. That’s for
Damon Pistulka 11:18
sure. You’re in the warmth of the home. That’s right.
Michael Gidlewski 11:21
That’s right. That’s right.
Ira Bowman 11:22
You have all those books if you need to for kindling. I’m just kidding.
Michael Gidlewski 11:25
Yeah, right. Right. That will never happen. Right.
Ira Bowman 11:30
wife has got some stuff that can go first, right?
Michael Gidlewski 11:32
That’s right. That’s right.
Damon Pistulka 11:35
Oh, doubt. My house. There’s a big there’s a big group of things that would go before the books. Yep. Yep. You bet. You bet. So Michael, let’s let’s hear about you and and the best, best type of referral or person that you could be connected with today. And let’s be thinking about that in the group here on LinkedIn. And let’s help them out.
Michael Gidlewski 11:57
Sure, sure. So my business is achievement unlimited. And we help businesses small to mid sized businesses develop their leadership team to execute their strategy. And my ideal client is 5 million to 500,000,025 to maybe 500 employees are privately held. They, their psychographics is they’re lifelong learners, they want to grow, they want to develop their people, and they want to scale their business. So we need to grow the people to scale the business. And so for me, a good connection would be someone who’s working with the CEO in another area, right.
And they realize like, wow, they need to develop their people or they want to develop their people. They want to get the right people on the bus in the right seats. So that would be a great referral or a CEO that’s certainly open minded and wants to grow his team and grow his company. That’s it. When I learned the number one learning from this past year, was always talk to my clients about high payoff activities and low payoff activities, right, they need to spend obviously, their time in high payoff activities and see do the low path activities, simplify, eliminate, delegate and outsource them.
But I realized, I always felt like planning and goal setting was a high payoff activity, which it is. But over the year, I realized that I think time is even more important than that. Time to get the pen to the paper, and step away from the business and really think and reflect what really matters most in life, love and leadership. What really matters most, and most people, especially in the western America, we’re doers, man, we make stuff happen and we just like crash through. But really think about like what really matters step back reflect. And there’s a lot of power in that and a lot of generative ideas come out of that and you feel regenerated and renewed.
Damon Pistulka 14:16
Yeah, that’s I think is awesome. Actually, I don’t know if you’ve read my book The Road Less
14:25
Oh my god,
14:26
I love that book. I love that book.
14:27
Got it right next it’s
14:31
stupid.
Michael Gidlewski 14:33
Yeah, love it turn it all my clients on that this this was that. What got me thinking about think time I mean, always thought planning goal setting. You got to think about that. But this guy I don’t know where this guy came from Keith Cunningham. Oh, yeah. Amazing, amazing book. Plus, it’s got all the the ideas in here for you to think about, you know,
Damon Pistulka 14:59
yeah, no. out in their short chapters doesn’t take long to go through them. And then but it’s really cool because he summarizes at the end of some of the stuff you should be doing. And then he says, Go think
Michael Gidlewski 15:10
yes, yes. Yeah, a lot of people 38 chapters
Ira Bowman 15:14
about the activities that help them spark creativity and thought to you know what I mean? Like there’s things that you can do that will help you encourage and and get more out of your thought process time. And if you focus on that you can supercharge your life, like you get so much more out of your life. So
Damon Pistulka 15:33
yeah, no doubt. No doubt. It’s good stuff. It’s good stuff. Well, I apologize. Someone says we got an echo. I think it’s me in here. I don’t have headphones on today, but I will next week. So Michael, awesome talking to you today. And we’ll we will, yeah. Awesome. info.
15:51
marketer up.
15:55
There he is. Here. Good morning, everybody.
Ira Bowman 15:59
Look at that guitar brother. Hello.
16:00
Yeah, it’s a real guitar, not just a prop. Yeah, come on. Now, my playing is not great. But I play it. We won’t we won’t judge it gets some play. Probably not on air right now.
Damon Pistulka 16:12
Yeah. So you are a music instrument person. And you will appreciate this, my sister and her brother in law. Were helping the A mother in law clean out their house. And they found a Gibson Guitar that their grandfather bought that they still had the receipt and an app that was bought like in the late 60s. And this thing is like a $5,000 guitar now, right? And it is absolutely beautiful. And in pristine condition. And they’re they’re just so excited and their son is actually using it to learn how to play
16:49
Oh, good. They’re gonna keep it I was gonna say you could sell that you go on revert and sell it there if you wanted to. But now they’re keeping it and it was just
Damon Pistulka 16:55
awesome story when they said, and they I saw the pictures, and I was incredible.
17:00
That’s really cool. That’s an alien. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 17:03
yeah. So good. Mark, it’s good to have you here today. Let’s let’s do the introduction. Tell us the best type of referral or the idea person you could be connected with?
17:12
Sure. Thanks. So I’m Mark strumenti. I’m a fractional CFO, I’m in Chicago, and I’m deep in snow here. And, you know, I agreed, yeah, three foot icicles hanging from my, my ears right here. So I’m gonna write my right hand man for hire. The bulk of my experience is e commerce operations.
That’s product development, marketing, customer service, systems, processes, people, both strategy and execution, helping people scale for growth and sustainability or sustainable profitability. So my ideal meet person to meet would be visionary CEO who’s looking for a right hand man who can just grab hold of their vision and run with it. Somebody who’s really looking to grow, probably 7.5 million and up, that’s kind of what I figured where I would come into play.
And yeah, so that’s my target. That’s, that’s what we’d like to meet. And in terms of what I what I learned this past year, I think of a lot like Ron, I think cultivating relationships has been a huge theme this year, probably for all of us, since we’re sheltering in place. But also, then, you know, not only cultivating those relationships, but but reaching out to people tapping their expertise, as needed. And that’s a mutual thing. And that’s really helped me, for example, in this this fractional CFO role I have now I’ve been I’ve been reaching out to people with manufacturing experience that I don’t have.
And I’ve been getting lots of valuable information. My IP, lawyer connections have been helping me, you know, discover patents and all kinds of things that we need to look out for as we move into this manufacturing world. So it’s been really fruitful. But and I think the other part of that is just realizing that this working remotely on a fractional basis could be a viable long term option for me, which probably would not have occurred to me before this period, where we’ve just kind of been forced to do it this way.
Damon Pistulka 19:19
Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And I don’t want to just bring up a couple of things about mark that that he didn’t say that I think are relative and important for people that are listening is that you’re one of those those unicorn people that started when companies were pretty when the company was pretty small, like 10 ish million dollars kind of thing.
And, and were with that company until it was over 150, which is which most people that you will meet don’t have that small to larger company experience like that in that whole cycle. Because there’s the the evolution of teams and people and skill sets needed to do that in an organic way. Organizational Structure changed so much, probably four or five times through there. I’m sure you had to do. So when people are listening, that’s a that’s a unique skill set that I think you have marked that, that people should consider as well.
20:16
Thank you. Yeah, I do appreciate, you know, having going through the different stages, you learn a lot at each stage. And you don’t have to reinvent yourself several times
Ira Bowman 20:24
now. And I want to say that mark is good, right brain and left brain, which a lot of people are one or the other. So
20:29
yeah, thank you.
Ira Bowman 20:31
That’s why that’s why that’s why he’s follically challenged that the brain pushed it all out. It just burned it off. Yeah.
20:36
All that. Yeah.
20:39
I can. I can relate a little bit.
20:42
Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Awesome. Mark, thanks for being here today. Good to see you. So,
Ira Bowman 20:48
Ira who we have next is Michael. No, we already did, Michael. It’s Brad.
Damon Pistulka 20:56
Yeah. So I see on LinkedIn, we got Chris row. Webb is is weighing in Robert Murray from Alaska is is putting in awesome comments. Chris is dropping some good gold in there, too. So in LinkedIn, hit it, man. All right.
Ira Bowman 21:11
So if you could turn your camera on will bring Yep, there he is. There we go. Brad,
Brad Smith 21:15
do you have to wait for the button to show up before? Yeah,
Ira Bowman 21:17
sorry about that. I was a little late on the trigger that.
Damon Pistulka 21:23
Oh, Brad, awesome to see you here. Again, today, it was good talking to you before this. And those of you listening on LinkedIn, we actually start this thing at 730. So we go live on LinkedIn at eight o’clock. But if you Sir, if you find my remote link in my post earlier in the week, you can jump on at 730 and talk to these people and build relationships. Up until this we start here. And then after again, we go to the tables and remotes. So with that being said, Brad, awesome to have you. Let’s hear about you.
Brad Smith 21:54
So I like to work with ambitious business owners, like seriously ambitious, they’ve got to be flexible, they’ve got to be curious. And what I have found is I like to take people that are have been patient, and they’ve gotten impatient. And I like to really seriously like to add zeros. I have another client who I just literally this week had a conversation with him and prepared him for the next zero, we were going to add to his business, we’re going to do that in the next 12 to 14 months. Right? It’s like, Okay, if you’re taking home this much money each year, right? How are you going to you will explode when we add, you know, 50% to that.
22:43
Right?
Brad Smith 22:43
So what are you going to do when we add 10? You know, 10 times that much to your annual your personal annual income? Right? Yeah, talk him through that in preparing because the eventual goal is three more zeros. Three, right. To this.
Damon Pistulka 23:02
That’s awesome. I was just as you’re saying that I was thinking is we added a zero to one of the clients this year, or in 2021, we’ll be adding another zero. And it is a special special time for those business owners because they you know, you start to think about generational wealth, you start to think about, you know, legacy that they can leave and and really the impact they can make on the world. You’re the kind of thing so that’s awesome. So for you, who is the best person that you could connect with now or someone could could refer you today?
Brad Smith 23:40
Well, I put it in the chat. And a business owner is curious and ambitious. Period, you know, so curious, man, that that would be a good referral for me. Okay. Yes. And so the jump to the question, right for the day, the biggest thing I learned I learned from that demand in the blue shirt. Not me. Yeah, the other man in a blue shirt here. Yep, there we go. I learned about LinkedIn. I mean, I already had connections on LinkedIn. But I’ve learned how to tune into it. Pay attention to it. And the relationships that I’ve built out of that have been good for me and good for my business.
So literally a magnitude better than my relationship price. And I wasn’t bad at it before. But like he’s helped me it’s like focus on this, do this, add all these things here. So and then what’s that led me what that has led me to is where’s the book doesn’t show up well enough thought leadership. I have things that I that I know that very few others Very few other people know, on this planet. And my plan is to help them go from the quadrant one urgent, important rat race, they live their life and to the deep end of quadrant two, quadrant two builds us into our ability to plan and do things proactively instead of reactively. And that’s what I want to teach people. So I’m going to set a class.
Ira Bowman 25:27
That’s where winners live guys proactive instead of reactive.
Damon Pistulka 25:31
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. And I will tell you, Brad, that I learned a lot from the guy that’s down below in the video here, Ira, because, you know, setting a good example and how to how to treat people, right when you’re when you’re on LinkedIn is something that is universal, and he’s does a really good job at it and teach people every day. So thanks a lot for being here, Brad. It’s always awesome.
Man. I still every time I were talking about adding a zero, I think about that, and the impact that makes in the lives of people. And and how, what they can do and not just the people that own the business, but the people in the business and the opportunities that creates, they just the the propagation of opportunities from those kind of things.
Brad Smith 26:19
So the other thing I’ll add is, if you don’t know enough about LinkedIn, call IRA. Carter. Yeah,
26:25
I will tell you,
Ira Bowman 26:29
right, we got to know each other this year, which has been a blessing to you, and you live in my hometown, which is funny, because I don’t so. I love it. I love it. There we go. Let’s talk my wife and move it back one day.
26:41
How much time?
Ira Bowman 26:43
Yeah, that’s what she said. Maybe?
26:46
That’s for sure. Like,
Ira Bowman 26:47
I like the summer. But where are we live? It’s almost as hot. So I don’t know. Oh, it is it is what it is.
Damon Pistulka 26:54
Yeah, good stuff. Well, who
Ira Bowman 26:57
is Andrew, he’s gonna drop the bomb on us. And he’s gonna have a bright idea. Yep.
27:10
Where are we starting with?
Damon Pistulka 27:13
Well, I can take the best that you know, introduce yourself, but then we’ll talk about who you would like to be connected with or the best type of referral for you.
Andrew Deutsch 27:21
Alright, I’m Andrew, global marketing and sales is what we do. We help our clients convert every touch into voracious advocates for their brand. The best clients for us are companies typically, our our main focus is in the b2b Industrial space. Companies that either are or don’t know that they’re stuck and want to grow. And we help them go back to their core and build a true strategic go to market strategy. Make it happen.
Ira Bowman 27:50
And want to make a better presentation now.
27:53
Yeah.
Ira Bowman 27:55
Live presentations are not easy to master. But Andrew has made it easy to look like you know what you’re doing?
Andrew Deutsch 28:01
Yeah, I forgot that. I forgot. That was my elevator speech. There we go.
Ira Bowman 28:05
I need to take that course. You know what, I’m gonna try to fit that in my schedule today. I could learn it in one day, right? I think so.
Andrew Deutsch 28:12
I think an hour and a half, two hours, you’ll be you’ll be up and running.
28:15
That’s, by the way,
Andrew Deutsch 28:17
I don’t know if you know this IRA. But if you have a challenge with the course I know a guy you can talk to.
Ira Bowman 28:21
Right, right. I’m gonna call you if I you know, it’s funny is I know the program, the base program that you guys are doing it. This is what’s funny. Okay, so I’ve been using this program for years. I know the program, I have no freaking clue how you get it all done. Yes. I’m like, you know, I’m not gonna do it like that. I’m not gonna watch all the YouTube videos and try to figure it out myself. I’m just gonna pay the money. And then guess what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna do your affiliate sales. I’m gonna make my money back.
Andrew Deutsch 28:45
Yep, you will? Yeah, you will. You know, it’s funny. The I’m not big on people that talk cliche all the time. But one that I always use is that you know, eating an elephant only way to do it one piece at a time. The way we built the course is a little step by step by step. And then we tested it on old people. I gave it to my dad who’s in his 80s and others, and they were all up and running in a couple hours.
Ira Bowman 29:05
I have a challenge for you. I have a job. I pay for my mom to do it. If my mom can do it. That’ll be the best commercial because my mom for years she would bring me a USB stick and say, Okay, I need you to put the pictures on here for me. And then she would call me from her office and say okay, now I need to tell you tell me how to get these off of the stick and onto my computer.
Andrew Deutsch 29:23
Yeah, it’s it’s the problem with most learning tech is that everybody wants to learn all of it at once and if you build up a little bit, that’s how many of you remember when WordPress was first came out. It didn’t have all the functionality. So we had the advantage of learning all that basic stuff, all the hand controls and the
Ira Bowman 29:39
commands. So if you guys haven’t seen it, one of the things that’s the most awesome about it is I like Andrew says you get to grow up and be a big boy when you’re when you’re talking to people about something and then shrink down when you’re doing a presentation. That alone to me is worth the money.
Damon Pistulka 29:54
I think that you’re right
Ira Bowman 29:55
that alone. Forget everything else. All the other stuff just that is worth that. money at the time.
Andrew Deutsch 30:01
Yeah. And we added there’s You can also when you’re in a meeting new year.
30:06
Oh yeah,
30:07
cool stuff.
Ira Bowman 30:08
My brother, my brother. So if you need that link wait till later today because I’ll have a link that you can click to get it.
Damon Pistulka 30:18
And I want to say something to about Andrew I mean, man, if you haven’t interactive than him you hadn’t talked to him offline and demos kind of things. You have two things. One, your sense of humor is freakin awesome, dude. I love it. It’s so makes me just roll in Laughter But the The other thing that’s relevant to business people is you have this knack for understanding.
Like you’re talking about creating raving fans and how people should do it and what they should do, man, it is it is really special. So I encourage people that haven’t haven’t talked to you to go ahead and do it if you’ve got some challenges or, or just want to talk to somebody that really knows what the hell they’re doing. And he’s super,
Ira Bowman 31:04
super smart to you. Like he’s racist. Most people even know how to spell for racist because we don’t know what it means. But he uses it out because it’s just another word down.
Andrew Deutsch 31:17
But that was what I loved this year was how to spell voracious. So,
Damon Pistulka 31:25
our question of the day, what did you learn in 20? Oh, I learned or be
Andrew Deutsch 31:28
learned that I’ve got an uncle that the family wasn’t aware of that had traveled in Nigeria and left $5 million in a bank. Nice. So as soon as we get off here, I gotta transfer the funds so I can get paid. anymore.
31:40
Yeah, there you guys wonder
31:42
why you gotta pay you gotta pay to get paid. Well, you gotta you gotta get the transfer through. That’s
Andrew Deutsch 31:45
what that’s what that’s what the it’s odd because the fella on the phone didn’t sound Nigerian. He sounded like for another third world country, but that’s okay. It’s all that seems legit. I’m not supposed to talk about it publicly, though. Because it’s it’s top secret. But, you know, it, it it is what it is.
That’s what I learned No, really, what this this year one of the things that I really learned was the power of using tech and video and things to get to get attention in places and be able to get past gatekeepers and companies and using social media in that in that realm of how it is that you can attract and do that with you know, the inbound marketing inbound connection making in ways that have not been able to do that in the past.
Ira Bowman 32:28
Smart. That’s a great lesson. I’m trying to teach I’m trying to teach some of my clients that same thing right now.
Andrew Deutsch 32:33
Yeah. And and also about my cousin so once I once you know what, when I get it, I’m gonna buy everybody a $5 Starbucks card. That’ll be my when I get my $5 million
32:43
cup of coffee. That’d be good.
32:47
All right. AJ is up next AJ my friend There he is.
32:53
Doing aj
Ira Bowman 32:55
aj, you’re coming to heaven today brother.
Damon Pistulka 32:59
Yeah, you got behind you but but now for for people that don’t don’t know AJ is coming to us from India. So what time is it where you’re at right now
33:09
a typical attempt to
Damon Pistulka 33:13
MBM so you’re a trooper man showing up at night and, and doing this. So thanks for being here today. So tell us a little bit about yourself AJ and, and your best type of referral or person you could be connected with.
33:26
Hey guys, this is AJ. So I just work in IT staffing from so where I help my clients to hire requirements according to their fulfill their requirements according to the skills they are required. So mostly into the IT sector like a DevOps developers admins and all this kind of stuff. So the best refer like, I mean, if anybody wants to give him He says, anybody who in needs of it, who is trying too hard to find the case. Okay,
Ira Bowman 33:54
so are you for like HR folks, are you looking for owners? Or who? What? What kind of what kind of title does the person that hires you have
34:03
a nose as well?
Ira Bowman 34:06
So, so both the owners and HR?
34:09
Yes, exactly.
Ira Bowman 34:11
And just just to clarify for everybody if you didn’t catch it, he is IT staff recruiter for the United States coming to you. Exactly. So he’s not looking to help people in India get a job in India. He’s looking to help your American business. Get it staff. Yes, exactly. Perfect AJ a couple times he’s my friend. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 34:35
So I like about this group. You know, we know we know the people in the group we build relationships and that’s that’s why it’s easy for us to to add like that to it and it’s really powerful together. How we can
Ira Bowman 34:46
go to ask Andrew, this would have been perfect. So the other day, I think it was a wind wind networking event AJ was on and it was really bright like it is now. Got a white shirt on. It looked like he had a floating head. So I just want to see if Andrew can help me Have a floating head because it was like the coolest thing to see. He was kind of moving around a little bit and look like he
35:09
doesn’t Isn’t that good? Because every day,
35:17
there you go, AJ. So
Ira Bowman 35:18
what is one lesson from the last year your biggest lesson learned for 2020 2021 so far?
35:25
See, it’s not about I have learned it. I’m still learning it. So on the other day, we have a chat with you, Ira. So hope you remember. So I just said that. I’m just learning from you guys. Like
Ira Bowman 35:38
he said, You me and who? I’m sorry. I forgot who the third. Third Anderson. That’s
35:43
right.
35:44
Yes, exactly. I’ve been learning from you people how to interact, how to networking and all this kind of stuff.
Ira Bowman 35:54
Yeah, well, we appreciate that. The shout out and the and the props. They’re cool. But you know, I love learning from YouTube. So I it’s one thing people ask me, they’re like, you know, how is it that you get all this stuff? You know what I talked to people, they teach me I teach them and it’s it’s given take I caught when when networking. So I learned from everybody. And that helps me be better person. So I appreciate I appreciate that friendship to AJ, thank you so much, Dan. Awesome. Dennis Bolger was, I think he left for a minute, but he’s back. So Dennis, if you want to turn the camera on, we’ll come to you. And then and then we’ll go to Aaron, who will horse.
Damon Pistulka 36:35
And Dennis is like a mile from me. So I’m probably gonna be up there tomorrow. Cool. love to see you.
Dennis Bolger 36:42
So I’m in the insurance business. And what we do is we actually discover what people’s needs are, and then match that need to a particular company to make sure that they’re protected properly, and then follow up and make sure that they’re, they understand what they just bought. The and then what have I learned from this year of learning? I, I learned every day, if I don’t learn something every day, then I call it kind of a lost day, because I didn’t learn anything.
If I can’t teach somebody something each day, I also call that a lost day. And so I try to give and take all the way along. And that’s my that’s my mantra. I’ve been that way since I was a teenager. But the What have I learned this year, that’s different than last year, I don’t think you need to actually be straight in front of somebody to help them. I think you can do it with zoom, you can do it over the phone. And just asking some questions about, you know, what’s going on in their life, you can help them get through whatever they’re working on. And questions are better than answers sometimes.
38:07
Yeah, point.
Damon Pistulka 38:10
Good point. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome stuff, man. Great to see you soon. And it’s it’s kind of nice that we’re in Washington State, we’re opening up a little bit more. So we’re people are getting around and doing that. So for you, Dennis, what is the best kind of people that we could be referring? Well,
Dennis Bolger 38:31
in the insurance business, we’re all really highly regulated. And we’re also kind of all like dogs. And and, and we have our own territory, so to speak. And, and so our territory is the state of Washington. Now that doesn’t mean we’re not going to expand in the future. But as it stands right now, we’re we’re in the state of Washington and, and helping people around here.
A good a good referral to me is a business owner that really doesn’t understand the insurance side of their business, and art. Because of losses that I’ve had in the past, which is another topic. I’m able to help people understand what they’ve got, and then show them what they really need based on what their businesses and so I’m looking for business owners, and private individuals that don’t understand what they’ve got that we can help become fluid in what they do and protect them properly.
Damon Pistulka 39:38
All right. Cool stuff, man. Good stuff. Thanks, Dennis stuff.
39:43
Yeah,
39:43
thank you. All right, we
Ira Bowman 39:45
have I’m bringing in the floating heads up cuz
39:53
I don’t know how to do it.
39:54
I had to see it.
Ira Bowman 40:02
I know how you did it. Wait, wait, wait, I know how you did it. You have a green, like something and you put it over you right? Actually, I’m
40:10
wearing a green shirt.
40:11
Okay, Pat. Oh
40:12
yeah,
Ira Bowman 40:13
that’s all we could do. Like, you can have a green you can have a green like
40:19
that you could. All right.
40:21
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been
Andrew Deutsch 40:25
I’ve been playing with this for my for my podcast, which, which is this the ability to say subscribe here that’s done with two green screens. I like that. One in front and back so I can reach over it.
Ira Bowman 40:39
I bought a package from a company called video pros. They have all these like animated. Like, subscribe here, click here, but it’s just generic. You know what I mean? You can you can do your own stuff. And yeah,
Andrew Deutsch 40:51
I’m gonna throw I’ll throw a link into another site called videos, which is a British company. I’ve been playing with logos. And it’s I sent jaman one yesterday. Yeah, I did. I did this with it. Yesterday for me. For the fangled cast. I’m not going to use it, but it took me one minute to produce it.
41:11
There you go.
Aaron Marberg 41:12
Yeah, Andrew, I cannot hear a word you’re saying with that floating heads entirely distracting? What’s your point?
Andrew Deutsch 41:22
here to get insulted, I can go pretty much anywhere and get there. Thank you.
41:28
Thank you, Andrew. I hope I
Ira Bowman 41:32
hope his boss comes back. You know what I mean?
Damon Pistulka 41:37
be rough living like that.
41:39
You might want to get
41:41
right.
Damon Pistulka 41:43
Yeah, you might want to get it checked out. So Aaron, glad to see you today. So tell us a little bit about yourself, dude, introduction, man, I love that you’re here. Yeah,
Aaron Marberg 41:51
yeah, no, thank you guys, thank you for hosting these things. They’ve been great. So yeah, no, I’m a financial advisor with Bernstein. You know, for those who aren’t familiar with those, we’re a global firm, I work in a fiduciary capacity solely focused on research and wealth management. You know, the research is really what we’re known for, manifests itself in both helping people invest their capital better, and also plan for their wealth better. So, you know, the ideal introduction would be, you know, Andrew, once he gets his Nigerian prince money, perfect intro.
42:27
But out of here,
Aaron Marberg 42:28
right, so you know, ever gonna make it But no, but in reality, you know, my practice is really focused on working with entrepreneurs.
And I’d say, you know, the ideal intro is to an entrepreneur with, you know, eyes to an exit, typically, you know, our exit, the exits kind of range between five and $250 million, you know, and when you say eyes, do an exit, you know, that could be a month, it could be three, four or five years there, there’s a lot of levers that an owner can pull from a planning standpoint, that can actually add value to the deal so long as they plan in advance, and that’s where I think we can really actually flex a lot of our muscle and add a lot of value. And then to the question of the day, I mean, what have you learned what have we learned over the course of the past year?
You know, it’s time management. And what I mean by that is that, you know, I think the forced application of technology has brought this realization of a lot of time saving so like, I think now about the idea of, you know, sitting in traffic community office and don’t get me wrong, I’ll be back in my office and I certainly missed seeing people in person but the idea of sitting in traffic just seems like a colossal waste of time right now. And I just think that the way that I’ll be approaching my days even when things get back to normal is gonna be completely different after this
Damon Pistulka 43:51
Yeah, that is especially here in the Seattle area where we live you know, we can waste waste three four hours a day pretty easy just driving around going to you know, across the water to Bellevue and back and you know, from work to belly and back and yeah, and and i think others will will be cognizant of that as well to be receptive to these kind of meetings with with a more infrequent in person meeting just because it saves everybody the the the waste all agree.
Yep. Yeah, good stuff, man. awesome to have you here again today. And for those of you that haven’t checked out Aaron mean, Aaron’s done some cool stuff up here. He’s climbed Rainier, I think more than once or something like that. He did a 50 mile walk here a few months ago last fall. Free, outdoor crazy, man.
Aaron Marberg 44:43
Put yourself around. Well, you’re up next brother. You
44:45
got a marathon in a year.
Damon Pistulka 44:48
I know but just make sure I’ll get across across lines. Thanks for you guys. Looking forward, we got to get to the diamond not have a severe
45:06
Alright, damn it Oh,
Ira Bowman 45:07
it’s you and me brother can’t forget, we can’t forget you. Okay, well, the perfect introduction for me, I work mostly with small medium business owners. They don’t have a marketing department or maybe they have one person who marketing is more of a traditional marketing and not digital marketing. So those are the people that I help, what do I do, I build website traffic, I build social media traffic, I help you monetize your digital efforts.
And if you want me to, I can run at all. So you don’t even have to think about it, you can just run your business and I can build your your web traffic and your social media traffic. That’s what I do. At Bowman digital media at exit your way, I do pretty much the same stuff for our clients, when they when we’re working with a client who needs help in that digital space, I can help bring eyeballs to the table. And that obviously, can be a game changer and adding value to a client, which obviously affects how much the company is worth.
So who am I looking to be introduced to small business owners who are overwhelmed or have no interest in making their head float? Right? So if you if you got that person who’s good at making their head float, I’m probably not the ideal person to work with them. But if you have someone that’s more likely my mom, who doesn’t know how to put photos on a USB stick still does would be good for me. So how about how about you, Damon? What I mean, we we work for exit your way together, obviously. But
Damon Pistulka 46:38
yeah, yeah. So what did you learn in the last year that you think has been the thing that’s really helped you the most,
Ira Bowman 46:45
you know, I, I’m gonna take this to a personal a personal thing, because it’s been more for me, 2020 and 2021, I’ve had a lot of growth. But the one thing is that if you prioritize your family time, it’s amazing how well, your life will run. And through all the catastrophes that have happened to our family personally, in 2021, and 2020. You know, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my family.
Most days, you know, that has been a blessing. Now part of that time has come from not having to commute anymore. We just talked about that. But setting that time and being present in the family has made a huge difference in my overall life. So that’s the thing I’ve learned is not to let that part go to sacrifice the family time to be successful in business. You’ve got to you’ve got to do both.
Damon Pistulka 47:40
Yeah, that’s awesome, man. It’s up. And I think a lot of people realize that with the, you know, being bns, as some people call it being stuck at home, I think being in being blessed by being at home. And, and yeah, you can drive each other crazy once a while your kids crazy once in a while. But overall, that time with people is is really been a blessing. Well, I’m
Ira Bowman 48:01
2020 to 2021, I’ve only been to places in the last year, the last, you know, 12 months, I went to Utah to visit my mom’s side of the family. And right now we’re in Saratoga visiting my wife’s family, you know, like that. That’s the sacrifice that we’re making is to visit with family. So even when we’re not home, we’re with family. So there you go. Yeah. All right. How about how about for you? So I don’t want to skip you.
Damon Pistulka 48:29
Oh, all right. Well, most people know me, Damon, the co founder of eggs, your way, you know, I had a crazy idea when I was when I was in my 30s and running businesses for for investment owners that one day, I wanted to have a business where I would help business owners grow value and sell their businesses so they could create really generational or legacy wealth for themselves and their families.
And I was lucky enough to get the experience to be able to run businesses. And then Andrew and I partnered up about five years ago and and I’ve learned from a lot of, you know, really intelligent people, Jeff Graham and Ira and many other people that are here on the call, and found people that can really help us do that. But what I do is I create, I create legacy or generational wealth with owners and businesses and I show them how to run their businesses to do that.
And it’s not that I’m the technical guy doing it. I’m the guy that that helps them identify what’s next. What is the next thing that we should be working on Michael, get loose key talked about that you know about what? figuring out how to delegate and do some different things or someone today said that I think that’s one of the most important things that we can do as business owners is figure out how do I continually increase the value I can make in my business by delegating the right things having other people do the things or restructuring My organization to be able to grow faster.
And it’s been it’s real, real blessing to be able to help people create these legacies and do what they need to do. So the best type of referral for me or person to connect with is somebody that is not happy with the performance of their business and just needs, wants someone to talk to you first of all, because we’d love talking to people, and if I can help them, I want to get them to some people that can help them and and do that.
But if it’s us, we will jump in headfirst and put our backs into it. And we love doing that love creating that those kinds of things. successes for people. And as you all know, it’s not it’s not easy. Question a day, what’s the one thing you learned in the last year that’s helped you the most? Well, for me, it’s a couple things. One is put yourself out there. I should think that people would be you know, I didn’t want to get in front of camera. I didn’t want to do video.
51:05
Does that go for you?
Damon Pistulka 51:08
Yeah, I do it. And it doesn’t bother
51:12
me.
Damon Pistulka 51:14
It’s kind of getting that way. But because I love I love I love sharing people’s stories. I mean, all the people today, I’m just I just, man, it just makes me feel so good. You know, I look at people like Chris Webb and these, Robert and these other people that are interacting on LinkedIn. And we’re able to share this stuff with people and their stories and, and help them I mean, it just gives me You’re also really good at it.
Ira Bowman 51:35
I just want to take one hit the pause button and just let you know, like, even when you started, like a lot of people are awkward at first you have a natural, like you belong in this space for sure. So
Damon Pistulka 51:48
well, thank you. I take that back to the fact when I was running businesses, I always remember this because it’s the biggest horror story right, I get up in front of about 150 people, because I’m doing this kind of like the State of the Union of the company, right? So, and I got board members there, and I got everybody else and I got the big screen behind me blah, blah, blah, I do this.
And I’ll be damned if I didn’t walk. For some reason I put my hand down I all. But you know what, after after that, I just, I just turned it sorry, everyone I turn did the zip up again, did everybody handle and that I think that that horror story. And going through it helped me for today because I just got to go for it and have fun. But I just I’m so blessed by being able to to provide and facilitate others meeting people and doing better in their lives and businesses.
The one thing that will be on that I’m just blessing that. But the second thing that I really think and I encourage everyone to explore this is personal development, there is no way that I would be sitting here talking like I am right now and doing the things that that I’m doing today, if I hadn’t developed the mindset of I have to up my level of personal development to increase the the value that I provide to the world. Because to get the value I want from the world and create the impact I want to do.
And I’m telling you I I just I cannot stress that enough to take the initiative to find what you want, whether it’s you know, I need to you know, get a coach, I need to do whatever I got to do. But to get that personal development up, read whatever you need to do, because it is so powerful. I can’t believe it. You know, I’ve got now I spent about an hour to an hour and a half every day in personal development before I start my day, my days and so much better because of that. I can’t wait to
Ira Bowman 53:58
start that that’s the way you finish.
Damon Pistulka 54:01
That’s for sure. That’s for sure. But those are the things that I’ve I’ve, I’ve learned and I appreciate appreciate everyone I get to interact with and get to affect so thanks. Thanks so much.
Ira Bowman 54:14
We’re on time now got Andrew yelling at us.
Damon Pistulka 54:17
Yeah, we’re on time too, because I was planning on doing a couple other things. But you know what, this is awesome. We ended up this way and it’s really good. I love these networking events. A couple things like I said next week we got Holly mcclurg coming on to talk about email automation. If someone out there has a clubhouse specialists that they would like to recommend for for a future time. And that really great because Mendoza You know, I’m thinking about that I was thinking about Jordan.
Ira Bowman 54:49
He’s one of the guys that I know, you know what I mean? Like that’s, that’s what would make that book but he’s and he launched his own business just the last I think month ago. So he’s officially in entrepreneur full time.
Damon Pistulka 55:03
Yeah, yeah, that’s good stuff with Jordan there. So that’s one to consider. Like I said, we’re gonna have a futurist, we’re gonna have other people that are going to come that are kind of come on with with a bunch of different topics, we’re gonna keep this thing rolling and reach out to your friends and neighbors and anyone else you think that would benefit from it and have them come along and have some fun. So we’re gonna shut her down for now go to tables, you’re
Ira Bowman 55:29
watching us on LinkedIn, and you want to continue with us the tables and do the networking, just click on that link, and it’ll bring it over to the remote side. And then you can you can do the one on Well, it’s really six people to a table. So it’s like you have a conversation with five other people in video. And it’s a lot of fun. Actually, some of the best business I’ve done all year has been at the remote tables. So you know, don’t miss that opportunity here on live because once we go to tables, it sets the live part down.
Damon Pistulka 55:58
Yes, it does. Yes, it does. And I have john doe on on LinkedIn is asking how does he unsubscribe for it? So john, I’ll look I gotta tell you I send the invite out my myself every week, if you want to be added are taken off of it, let me know. Because I will do that. It’s not a bot that does it. It’s me. I do it on Saturday or Sunday and send it out to everyone. So thanks for letting me know. You can always find us here on on a remote or LinkedIn and grab my profile, but we’re gonna shut it down on LinkedIn right now and go back to
Ira Bowman 56:29
joining us on LinkedIn everybody.
56:32
Thanks a lot.
Damon Pistulka 56:33
Alright, we’re done. There.
