The Grind Mastermind Episode 5

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh: I think that we are live for episode five. 

[00:00:07] Chris: Ooh. Already five.

[00:00:08] Josh: That’s awesome. We’re rhyming already. It’s only been a few seconds of the Grind Mastermind for March the 17th, 2023. Chris, how the heck are you doing?

[00:00:20] Chris: Before I start, I have to say it, man. Oh boy. Let’s grind it out. I love it.

It’s becoming our sketch.

[00:00:30] Josh: I think it’s your sketch. I

[00:00:32] Chris: love the line sketch.

[00:00:35] Josh: Let’s grind it out. You gotta add the man. Let’s grind it out, man. I like that. Let’s grind it out, man. Awesome. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in episode five. If you’re live with us on YouTube, feel free to chime in in the chat if you’re listening or watching on YouTube or on a podcast after the fact.

Thank you for tuning in. We check in every two. To share our journey, growing our very different businesses, which I think is part of why it’s kind of cool because if we were building like the same. Wouldn’t get the same flavor, you know? But anyways. Exactly. We each spend about 10 minutes doing an update, then we shoot the shit, talking about random resources and books.

So anyways, without further ado, Chris, do you want to, let me pull up our goals for this week? Do you want to give a quick update on how the last two weeks went and the, the goals I have here were learn about and plan strategy for Facebook ads and build the landing page.

[00:01:31] Chris: Yeah. Cool. So just a bit of a background for those folks who don’t know the full context.

So basically I’m aside from my business, I’m also experimenting with kind of a information product side of things. So this is basically for me a test to see whether or not my product idea, which is so far, is just a simple e-book packed with ton of value that I want to try and promote to e-commerce business owners.

I’m basically building the whole funnel that will promote the book and also some other products on the backend, which can be courses or my services. And the way that I’m doing it, I’m actually starting this out by testing the idea. So I still have to build the actual book, but I wrote the outline, the sales page which was one of my goals for today.

Oh, you don’t have the book

[00:02:31] Josh: written yet? That’s funny. I like it. Okay. Because I reviewed the landing. Anyways, we’ll talk about the landing page.

[00:02:38] Chris: Yeah, so I built the whole landing sales page. It’s kind of like a long form sales page, and I’ve been following this whole model called Automatic Clients Model.

If you’ve, if you, if you’re not subscribed or don’t know that check out the Nothing Held Back group on Facebook. They have a lot of staff including this model and So the sales page is done. And next step was to actually try and set up Facebook ads. I’ve never ran Facebook ads, so for me that was totally new.

I just, I was just able to dip my toes in it. I’ve actually set up the Facebook ad like manager platform. I started creating an ad, but I wanted to wait. All the assets and the images and the visuals were ready for the sales page so that I can basically repurpose them. But I also wrote the, the actual Facebook ad that people are gonna see.

So that’s done. Nice. I just need, I just need to basically yeah, finish the actual setup, select the targeting, and to do that, I set some time today and on the weekend to actually learn more about that. I’ll check out some videos on YouTube. There’s a lot of free stuff that I think anyone can learn nowadays without even banging for a course.

So just go on YouTube. You find 40 minute plus videos teaching you how to do that. How,

[00:04:03] Josh: how, how did you find it as, as a first time user for, cuz I’m sure there’s probably some people listening who are thinking about or wanting to get into Facebook ads. Was it tough? Was it, I.

[00:04:15] Chris: No. No, not really. I mean, the, the most technical thing that you have to do is just install it in the Facebook pixel, which is basically just adding some HTML code to your website, but it’s super guided.

I was actually surprised how well Facebook guides you now with this like completely step by step process that they guide you with tutorials and each step it’s backed up by like an explanation. Mm-hmm. So it’s super, super easy, super intuitive. The, the, the only thing that I still have to understand and figure out, it’s there’s a bit of a mess confusion between the Facebook ads manager and then you can access to another page through your.

Facebook page. Hmm. So I still have to understand how that works. Just

[00:05:04] Josh: you use, because I can access, use the Ads manager because I, I think so I haven’t done this in a few years, but what you can run through the Facebook page is basically like a dumb down, basic version and you don’t get the full suite. So I recommend, and I remember reading this again, this was like three years ago maybe two, three years ago.

Always using the Ads Manager, cuz that’s the full feature set.

[00:05:27] Chris: Oh. Yeah. And in any case, like you’ll see as soon as you start looking into this stuff, like for example, I, I watched this YouTube video, which is like six months old, and I went into the platform and things are already changed. So they are constantly testing stuff, changing, moving things around.

So yeah, I mean, you, at some point you kind of have to figure it out on your own. But yeah, as I said, it’s pretty guided, so,

[00:05:54] Josh: okay, not too bad. So let’s put in here. So what would the goal be? Kind of like finish up the ads and Do you want to start running them within the next two weeks? Yes.

[00:06:05] Chris: Yeah. Okay.

I’ll probably run

[00:06:06] Josh: them finish Facebook ads and run First test. We can call it.

[00:06:12] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. First test would be the only parameters that I set for a test would be at least one week to cover. Every day of the week just to cover the patterns and trends. And I gave myself a budget of $500, like a hundred dollars a day.

But I, I would probably start lower, maybe like $20 to see how it goes. Maybe refin the targeting. I,

[00:06:40] Josh: yeah, something I, I wouldn’t start it a hundred a day. I would definitely start at. You can e like, you can technically do 50 cents a day if you want. Right. I would probably do five if you’re, especially, how many ads do you think you’re gonna test?

[00:06:52] Chris: Right now I only have the copy for one. I could, I couldn’t create a shorter one, so I have a longer and shorter version.

[00:06:58] Josh: I would test at least two visuals minimum. Oh, okay. With the visuals. Yeah. You can even keep the same copy and switch to visual. But I, I would test at least three to four ads personally.

Yeah. And like throw five bucks at each per day, you’ll see within two days. That’s the beauty of it, man. Like you’ll see within one one day is probably not long enough, but like you’ll see within two to three days which ads are performing better. Right. Yeah. That’s the crazy

[00:07:28] Chris: thing. As far as far as, as far as visuals, what would you recommend?

Because right now my visual, like from what they recommend on that course that I follow, Their model, they basically just have the cover of the book and kind of the retro of the book. So the cover gives you like the title and everything. The back, the rear of the book is kind of like the description, kind of like a semi persuasive introduction.

What, what would you test otherwise, we’ll test maybe a, a photo of myself pointing at the book or something, or Yeah, I,

[00:07:59] Josh: I would do one of the book one with you in it, especially maybe with the book. That’s a good idea. And then I don’t know, pick something random. Like,

[00:08:10] Chris: like maybe Ah, okay. I could actually test maybe a testimonial.

Yeah, testimonial.

[00:08:16] Josh: Like it’s, it’s an art, right? It’s an art, not a science. With, with, well some of it’s science, but with ads, the visuals are an art. Right. Throw a whole bunch at the wall and see what sticks. Cuz you never know. Right? Right. And, and you even read this from the greats, like the Frank Kerns and stuff who spend millions on.

They all recommend doing heavy testing cuz you have no idea which visual is gonna perform the best or why. Mm-hmm. So I would do, I would probably pick, like if, if I were you, I would probably pick, and this could probably go for most people testing early on on Facebook. I would pick like probably three to four visuals and like two to three market segments and test every combin.

Right? Mm-hmm. And throw five bucks a day, or seven or 10 bucks a day at each, and then after two, three days, just turn off the ones that are performing the worst and or take the ones that are performing the worst and put in a new visual and see how that performs, right? Because you can see all the data, right?

Cpc, cpm, everything. You could also, actually, you know what you should test? You should test a, a video as. You should record a 32nd video, maybe even two. Hey, I’m Chris, if you’re looking to do this, blah. I have this new ebook. It’s only five bucks to learn more. Click here, right? Because videos typically outperform yeah.

Visuals. Well, photos still visuals. Mm-hmm.

[00:09:49] Chris: So that’s what I Do. You have an idea of the, the length of the

[00:09:51] Josh: video Short, like within 60 seconds. Uhhuh probably shorter. Like number one, what’s the problem, right? Hey, are you struggling to get more conversions on your e-comm website? My name is Chris.

I’m a conversion copywriter, and I have this amazing e-book. It’s only $5. And to learn more and help solve problem, you know, big problem, click here to learn more. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:14] Chris: And are the videos typically landscape or

[00:10:18] Josh: iPhone man? Yeah. Use your iPhone. The, the key with Facebook ads, To stop the scroll. Right.

And to stop the scroll. You don’t wanna look like an ad. You wanna look like you’re one of their friends posting on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, and then the other, you could test another one that’s like, Hey, e-commerce people you know, last year I helped this company go from blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, by making a few simple changes.

If you wanna learn more, check out the ebook at the page here. You know, I don’t know, think of like two or three, you know, 32nd script. And there’s a reason we see a lot of those right. On TikTok, on Facebook, on u YouTube shorts, you know, all those ads. Anyways, yeah. All you can do is test a b t. Right.

Always be testing. Cool. Okay. On the landing page side, you got that done?

[00:11:07] Chris: Yep. I actually made that change that you recommended. Oh. So I moved that part under the f fa. So kind of basically just answers a question for, for the people who don’t know. Basically, I went a bit too deep into explaining like the behind the scenes of how the, the e-book works.

Maybe people weren’t expecting some that kind of information, which was additional costs involving implementing the changes. So what basically Josh pointed out and I decided to basically, Put it as a question and answer under the f FAQ section rather than on the, in the copy of the homepage. So it doesn’t surprise people.

It’s just a, like a direct explanation of a question. I think it works better.

[00:11:57] Josh: Yeah. And, and just for background, because obviously nobody here has seen a landing page yet. So Chris sent me the landing page to review and there was one part where you were kind of like price anchoring. So you were talking about the costs of working with a regular contractor, a company, and then the costs of just buying his e-book, but then you were listing a whole bunch of these other like software fees that might apply.

And what I was saying, When I’m signing, you know, when I’m signing up for whether it’s like a free e-book by email or a $5 e-book, I don’t really want to be intimidated by like all these other potential costs. Maybe they actually do apply, but really they’re optional. Right? A lot of them are optional anyways, so I didn’t wanna like scare readers away from thinking, oh, there’s all these other costs.

So anyways, Chris moved it down under, under an faq, which I think makes more sense, so. Okay. So any other on your end? So we have finished Facebook ads and run the first test for at least seven days. Any other goals for the next

[00:13:00] Chris: two weeks? Yeah. I mean, no, apart from goals, this is pretty much it.

Especially because I’m pretty packed right now with client. Just signed four clients, so, and I might sign a new one for May. So it’s going pretty well, but at the same time, I’m super busy. Right. But there’s another thing, and this is why I would actually love to add a new segment into these kind of presentations that we do.

So after we, we talked about the goals, I would say, I would talk about one thing that we are excited. Sure. Going into the next two weeks,

[00:13:34] Josh: we keep adding these segments, man. We’re gonna have to double the show length.

[00:13:38] Chris: It’s gonna be a quick one for me as long as you prepare it or have it in mind before the, for me, because I’m, I have it super fresh right now.

It’s I’ve been starting to use and actually paid for the, the plus version of chat, G p T. Oh, nice. And I’m super excited, man, because it fits exactly into my business model, which has always been like staying lean, staying agile, not hiring huge teams. So right now it’s just me and, and my va. And I’ve started using c g pt, which now the four G PT four came out.

Mm-hmm. But but I’ve started using, using it on client project and it’s amazing. So especially for research stuff, it can cut shortcut the time that you take to collect data and kind of organize it. Summarize it, yeah. So it’s kind of like having a junior. Copywriter basically helping you out and, and I’m saving all the prompts that I give it.

So for next times I’m basically gonna be even faster. Mm-hmm. And yeah, so I’m pretty excited about that and seeing how that develops and how I can implement in, into more of my stuff. Yeah,

[00:14:48] Josh: that, that’s awesome. It’s, it’s so good for businesses, especially ones that are small and trying to stay small and keep costs down.

We, we use it for. For our immigration platform. We integrated with it with three, the api yeah, through the api. Apparently the API for G P T four is not out yet, but we’re on the wait list. So anyways, it, it’s crazy. It’s, it’s changing the world, right? It’s changing the world as we know it, so. Okay, so goals for next week.

Finish Facebook ads and run the test and excited about chat, G B T four. Awesome. Okay, we’re 15 minutes in. I think, I think we need 15 minutes roughly each, and then we’ll spend 10 minutes on the at the end. Yeah. So my goals were continue cold outreach. Finalize the join page on the SG site and pick first growth strategy.

Okay. So first on the cold outreach it’s been pretty good. The only changes just been targeting a different country now, so doing cold outreach instead of inside Canada where I’m based to. So I’ve done a good job, especially in the last week of doing cold outreach. The problem is because of the time zones, I have to wake up early and I’m doing like two to three hours in the morning.

So cold calling in the morning, mostly over WhatsApp, and it’s going pretty well. It’s going pretty well. So I’m, I’m happy to say that that’s going well. In terms of the cold. And continuing to book. Like, the interesting thing about cold calling is I, it still is super powerful, right? If you have a good offer and you’re able to like, quite efficiently get a good list of targets, then it’s a numbers game, right?

And, and, and because there’s so much cold email and phone call, I, I think it actually kind of surprises people a little bit to get cold calls because it’s becoming maybe more rare. And so when you get the right people on the phone, it’s like pretty good, pretty good. So overall good.

[00:16:49] Chris: I’m still sticking with the number of goals that you’ve set for yourself.

[00:16:53] Josh: It’s actually been higher because I think it’s probably a good number. I might up it to like 30 a day because, so what I’ve, what I’ve done now is because so much of my focus is on. I have fewer other things to worry about, which is quite nice. So what I do is I spend two to three hours, pretty much cold calling in the morning and then catch up on email, do my admin, like I’ve shifted my schedule around.

So typically, yeah, what I would do is wake up and, you know, ramp up in the morning. So like maybe do a workout, catch up on email, set my to-do list for the day, start knocking off task. Now what I do is I just wake up and I start cold calling couple hours, and then by like 11 o’clock I’ll kind of wrap that up.

Then I’ll go catch up on emails, set the, set the agenda for the rest of the day, et cetera, et cetera. And then part of that is setting up the contacts in my phone for the next day. So one big takeaway I’ve had from the. Day or two. This is, you know, probably the biggest improvement I’ve made over the last week, week and a half, is it’s so much easier to get into a flow when the numbers are already in my contacts list.

Because what I was doing the first few weeks is I would go through my list, but I’d have to manually input the number each time in between phone calls, which doesn’t take a lot of time, but it kind of interrupts the flow, right? So now what I do is the night. I spend like an hour and it’s, it’s such easy work that I can have like a YouTube video on or whatever on my second screen.

Mm-hmm. And I input like thirty, forty, fifty contacts into my phone. Now there’s a crapload of contacts on my phone, but anyways, that’s not the end of the world.

[00:18:46] Chris: Why? I have a solution, maybe you can use, I don’t know, but. Especially for me when I do interviews with other countries, instead of using my phone, there’s, I mean, I typically use Zoom, but a lot of people might want my preferred phone.

So what I do is I just use Skype, so I just put some credit on Skype As, and it’s super cheap, so you can actually call people from the, from the computer using Skype on the physical phone.

[00:19:14] Josh: Interesting. I might look into that. Yeah. I. The, the markets that we’re selling into, they just use WhatsApp a lot. So it’s, it’s, it’s like pretty good conversion rate, so to speak.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe, yeah. I mean, if it’s not a bad idea, but can you import contacts

[00:19:35] Chris: into Skype? In Skype? I have no idea. I just copy paste the number usually.

[00:19:41] Josh: Right. That’s not a bad. Maybe I’ll look into it. I mean, this system is working pretty well, and because WhatsApp is so popular in these countries, it’s like pretty good conversion rate, right?

Mm-hmm. I don’t know what the Skype number would look like.

[00:19:56] Chris: And then how many, how many of those 30 calls actually pick up?

[00:20:02] Josh: It kind of depends on the day. I’d say on average, like maybe like three to five pick up the. Uhhuh. So let, let’s say it’s a day where I do 30, let’s say a hundred just for easy math.

I’d say I’ll just do by percentages. I’d say maybe like a quarter to a third. So like out of a hundred, maybe like. I dunno, maybe like 20 to 40 will pick up. Mm-hmm. And then another like 20 to four. So what happens if they don’t pick up is then I send them a message on WhatsApp. Right. So, so that’s another reason why I kind of like it cuz it’s so popular for texting.

Cool texting. Yeah. And then another like 20 to 40% will respond to the text and then, you know, another 20 ish percent never hear from. And then, I’ll call them a week or two again later and see if it works. So that’s what I’ve been doing so far. It, it’s another reason why I like the WhatsApp because people are so used to using it for chat.

So for example, I converted one person today, never spoke to them, called them, they didn’t answer, Hey, blah, blah, blah. Hey, is this blah, blah, blah. Little back and forth. Okay. Was able to schedule a demo without ever talking to them on the phone. So that’s kind of. So anyways, that’s it for the cold calling.

So, so the goal there is to continue cold call outreach and I’ll say 30 plus per day. Cuz now that I have a good system, the, the volume can be a little bit higher, which is nice. Finalize the join page on sg. So I finalized the new website. I’m still not happy with the join page, so, and, and I might ask you for some advice too.

So I’m gonna say touch up and improve, join page design, because I don’t know, I, I, I think, I think I probably need to add a little bit more. I think the above the fold is pretty good. Maybe a few copy improvements I can make. I just need to like sit down and review it. And then I think kind of like yours, I think I need more info below if they want to keep scrolling, right?

If they’re not convinced they wanna learn more about me. So I’ll say improve copy above the fold. Add more sections

[00:22:21] Chris: below. Well, it’s a bit weird right now that I’m looking at the joint page is that the email field and the bottom are center line, rather than left a line like the text that looks a bit weirder.

[00:22:34] Josh: Okay, I can, I can fix that. That’s an easy fix. Easy fix.

[00:22:41] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And when you do that, just make sure that the button is not like the full width of the paragraph, because otherwise it would be huge on desktop. So just make sure that it’s narrower, thinner. Sorry, say that again. When you move the button on the left side, just make sure that the width is not the same width of the full paragraph, because otherwise it would be huge.

But you’ll feed that. Okay. Like if the button is like super wide, just got it a bit, a bit narrower.

[00:23:17] Josh: Okay. And then pick first. So my goal is to pick first growth strategy to test. I think I’m gonna do letter growth. I don’t think I want to spend money on swap stack yet until I improve the join page. Like I want the join page to be really good before I spend money.

And then I, so I signed up, I looked up, I looked them both up a little bit. They both look really cool. Like this looks like a, these look like great and great opportunities for growth. Yeah, right. Letter growth also has a cool discord that I joined as well.

[00:23:50] Chris: Yeah, me too. I still have to dig in, but there’s a lot

[00:23:52] Josh: of stuff in there.

It seems pretty good, like there’s a lot of cool people sharing really helpful information. So I joined that. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna give letter growth a try. So I, I got onto the platform. Now I just need to start scoping out people to to do some cross promotions. So that’s pretty much it for me.

What I’m excited for, That’s a good question. You, you got to prepare. Why didn’t you let me know about this new segment ahead of time?

[00:24:21] Chris: I basically just decided like five minutes before starting.

[00:24:25] Josh: Yeah. What am I excited for? I, I’m excited to hopefully have some good demos and, and have them convert. Right?

I mean, that’s the key, right, for Vista right now is we’re just, we wanna get more people using the platform. We have a. And the goal now is to get as many people to try the trial and then, you know, hopefully as many convert to the paid as possible. So I, I, I’m really confident in our product. I think we have a great product.

It’s just a matter of getting it out to as many people as possible. So hopefully in the next call we have, you know, a couple extra clients that converted to paid and I’ll be very excited.

[00:25:02] Chris: Did you see, or did, are you hearing any Any like mess around the, the banking stuff in your sector, your, your in tech cer

[00:25:12] Josh: Certainly in my sector, but not as much in my inner circle because S V B is a US bank.

Thankfully we bank in Canada, all of our funds are in Canada. Canadian banking system is, it’s funny, it’s like pretty slow and not innovative. Which as we just saw over the last two weeks, can actually be a really good thing. Right? Like part part of a lot of people don’t love the Canadian banking sector cuz it’s basically dominated by five or six banks that are highly regulated.

So there’s very little innovation, but it also means they’re very stable. Right. And very, it’s kinda like

[00:25:51] Chris: it’s kinda like the Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger of the banking system. Yeah.

[00:25:56] Josh: Yeah. So, And, and I’ve, I’ve complained a lot. I actually like my bank, but I’ve complained a lot over the last few years.

Oh, these banks are so slow. Even their websites suck, you know, even though they have so much money. But what’s the upside? The upside is like none of them are going under anytime soon. Yeah. So that’s probably worth the lack of innovation. But yeah, I mean, especially last weekend, oh my God, all the news articles.

I’m in some Slack groups that have a. Founders that are based in the US or do business in the US or bank in the us and they were freaking out. It seems, it seems to be that we’re like gonna, like, we’re kind of back to normal and that they’re, they’re, they’re making everybody whole. So I think most people will be fine in terms of getting their money or having access to their money if they choose to.

With the bank, but some people are also saying, and I don’t know what you’re hearing in your neck of the woods, that this could co, you know, there could be a cascading effect, right? Yeah.

[00:26:55] Chris: The contagion.

[00:26:57] Josh: Yeah. So I don’t know. I don’t know enough about the US banking industry or economics to like know if this is gonna have ongoing effects.

It didn’t affect us because we only do business in Canada or overseas. Where SVB is. I, I don’t think based. So anyways, what, what, what about you?

[00:27:15] Chris: I just heard this morning that Hssbc, you know, the, like the huge bank in the uk they bought the SVBs branch. Yeah. In the UK for like one pound. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a couple days ago. Yeah, because HSBC is one of those like huge old school. Highly regulated banks, and they basically just bought this like newly like hipster kind of side of the banking system. So it’s gonna be interesting to see what they do with it. Yeah,

[00:27:47] Josh: no, definitely. And just if, if there’s broader, you know, effects felt right.

I, I don’t know, it’s probably too early, too early to tell. But do you have any US clients right.

[00:28:01] Chris: Yeah. As far as my clients go, I, I didn’t really actually have been getting more and more requests lately, so, oh.

[00:28:11] Josh: So I, I don’t know. I guess their bank accounts are fine. Yeah, because I think that was part of the, part of the huge concern is like in the US.

Most, probably, most, maybe not most, but a good, good portion of these big tech companies are b2b, right? So they all like sell to one another. So if they all go broke, they’re all screwed. Right? Yeah. And or couldn’t make payroll and or whatever. So it was like hysteria for a few days, right? Until they kind of figured it out.

But I, yeah, I, I don’t know enough to, we’ll see I guess over the next few weeks how it plays out. But

[00:28:44] Chris: yeah, it’s always like, even if I, myself, I don’t know anything about like banking system and everything, it’s always kind of interesting to learn and try to go a bit deeper into like how these situations end up happening and how people make decisions and why are they’re not able to prevent these things.

Mm-hmm. It’s always like interesting. Psyche perspective. Understand.

[00:29:07] Josh: Yeah. I, I think it was a combo of factors like, number one, the financial situation in the us, right? So went from a couple years ago, low interest rates, printing money, blah, blah, blah. And then so SVB gave out a lot of money, made not so great investment decisions with that money.

And so, you know, within the last month or two, interest rates go way up. And there were some apparently big names in the US tech scene that got afraid and kind of made a big warning call, which caused a lot of US tech companies to do a bank run, aka you know, dozens or hundreds or I, I don’t know, maybe thousands of tech companies to go take out all their money at the same time, which the bank didn’t have.

So I think that’s kind of what cause. And so there’s concern over like the regulations of banks and you know, some people who made a big fuss and kind of caused the bank run. And if there was no bank run to begin with, maybe that never happened. So anyways, there’s a whole bunch of interesting chatter, half of which I don’t understand, right, because I just don’t know the finance sector well enough, the banking sector.

But yeah, super interesting. So we’ll have to keep an eye on it. We’ll see over the next few. Wanna do a quick book chat before we wrap up? Yeah.

[00:30:32] Chris: So I finished never finished by David Goggins. Oh,

[00:30:36] Josh: second, I’m supposed to get that. I, I swear I’m not copying you, but I’m supposed to get that today in the mail.

Anyways. Nice. Don’t, don’t. No spoilers,

[00:30:45] Chris: please. Yeah, no, it’s really, it’s really good. And did, did you read the first one?

[00:30:50] Josh: Oh yeah, I read the first one. I think for those on YouTube, I can’t see it. It’s somewhere on this shelf behind me. It’s great. I read it. It twice it. That’s what motivated me to run the marathon.

If it wasn’t for that book, I may, I may have never ran the marathon. Yeah.

[00:31:07] Chris: So, and if you get the audio book it’s even better probably because it, it basically adds in kind of like podcast style commentaries. So there’s the, the guy who reads the book, which has same questions and then he replies in between chapters.

So, so that’s really good. But yeah, really good. Probably if I can spoil one lesson, like high level without spoiling actually. It’s it, it’s really good how he talks about the fact that even after all the shit that is done, like with the first book and all the, the records and everything, he started getting complacent.

And then after that he wanted to go back to actually being held accountable and challenging himself even more, even at like 46 years old. So there, there’s also the aspect of getting a bit older while still. Like challenging yourself. So that’s, that’s probably the biggest lesson for me. Hmm. Very cool.

That was good. The other book that I started listening, reading, now, it’s your Next Five Moves by page. Patrick, bat David. Hmm. Which is the guy who runs Value Attainment Oh wow. On YouTube. I gotta be

[00:32:18] Josh: writing these down for the show notes. Hold on a sec. So the first one was what, what is it? Never finished.

Never

[00:32:25] Chris: finished. That’s

[00:32:26] Josh: done. And your next five moves. Your

[00:32:30] Chris: next five moves. By Patrick Bat David, I’ve

[00:32:33] Josh: been seeing him pop up a lot more on like TikTok and YouTube. I don’t know about

[00:32:37] Chris: you. Yeah, it’s a, it is a really good, yeah, I follow him on, on YouTube. He’s got a really huge, like a YouTube channel, but it, this book in particular, it’s a, it’s a good book for like business.

So he goes over like building a team of anything basically business. So Cool, fun, really, really helpful and practical as well. And I wanted to ask you, I don’t remember if it was you or any or someone else, did you read or start reading the book, what it Takes by Steven Schwartzman?

[00:33:10] Josh: Yeah, let’s, right.

Did you finish? Top Left? In fact, I think I’ve read it twice already. Yeah, it’s right. I’m trying to, trying to point for those on YouTube. Oh God. My stupid. There we go. It’s right up there

[00:33:22] Chris: because I’ve, I’ve heard him on a podcast and then I got the book and that’s next on my list. So yeah, maybe you can gimme some quick feedback with us.

Sparing

[00:33:30] Josh: already. I think it’s a great book. I think you should, yeah, just read it. I’ve read it twice. Super successful guy. Really interesting. It. It’s kind of like another, I want to say like Bezos esque story where like he started out as an employee and had like a successful career to begin with and then only became an entrepreneur in his like, I don’t remember, thirties or forties or something.

Mm-hmm. And then built like a frigging huge ass hedge fund. Yeah. The Blackstone. Yeah. Which is like now one of the biggest in the world. But like, again, I don’t wanna spoil anything. I think, I think at the beginning he talks a lot about the struggle of even just getting that first fund off the ground where it could have failed like a hundred times.

So it’s, it’s really interesting. And then you also learn a lot about like different asset classes. Like he talks about when they start their real estate arm and then they’re this arm and they’re that. Yeah. So I think it was I think it was a great book. I think you’ll like it. Ooh, yeah. On my end. How are you?

So I finished the Everything store and about three or four days ago I started Amazon Unbound. Mm-hmm. Which are both great. I’ve read them both once already a couple years ago and it’s just so interesting to read about. I unfortunately can’t really relate to it cause I’ve never worked in a big business before.

But like reading about this company, you know, that was built from nothing. And the numbers, like now I’m at the part where they’re talking about like AWS and how they were trying to hide the revenue numbers for a while. So like Google and, you know, the, the other, like Microsoft, the cloud providers wouldn’t catch on.

And then like in 20 14, 20 15, AWS was making so much money that like they couldn’t hide it on the balance sheet anymore or the, I guess the income statement. And. Yeah, just, just great books. Crazy company. It’s an interesting, it’s interesting how much Bezos, like the conversation about Bezos overlaps with like Jobs and Musk, where it’s like incredible entrepreneur on one hand, borderline abusive personality to staff and employees on the other hand, right?

So like, How do you think about that? Right? Like they even have, I was just reading some quotes from like former employees, right? Like, it was crazy. One of the most, one of the most, you know, productive parts of my career. But what did I get out of it? Did I, you know, did I really get, you know, did I get what I deserved?

All, all the other employees that put in so much time and blah, blah, blah, you know, and, and all they get is overworked and. Blah, blah, blah. So the way they treat, like the way they treat factory workers, is that fair? Yeah. You know, they print so much money, but they can’t put AC in the factories or whatever.

So it’s, it’s an interesting, yeah.

[00:36:30] Chris: Yeah. I, I think it speaks to a big, big idea that like, even, like, it doesn’t really matter what your personality is in business. I, I think this quote from. The guy feels stats. He’s a psycho psychotherapist. There’s a u Netflix documentary about him basically. And he’s got his quote, he’s got his whole method psychotherapeutic me method.

And one of his principle is that the only thing that matter and that, and they’re always gonna be there, are pain, uncertainty, and constant work. When, you know, those three things are always gonna be there, your personality doesn’t really matter as long as you can deal with those three. And, and if you, if you think about, if you listen to those stories, all of these guys are, are able to deal with pain, with the uncertainty and with the constant work, the

[00:37:23] Josh: therapeutic Right.

Require, but, but my argument here is that they are mostly the cause of it. Like you can run a company and not work people as hard as they did or do. Mm-hmm. Right. So like where’s, I mean, listen, sometimes people can always quit.

[00:37:42] Chris: Sometimes that’s branding, so sometimes that’s, that can also be branding. Well,

[00:37:46] Josh: but I, I think about it as like, I think one of the key questions is, would Amazon be the company it is today?

If Jeff was, if Bezos was not like that, and the answer is probably no. Right? Mm-hmm. So, so the way I think about it is, is, is it right or wrong? I don’t know. It, it’s, it’s probably not wrong. It’s probably not right. But any of those employees could quit at any time they want, right? Yeah. There’s a different discussion to be had there, but you know, is that the level?

Intensity and borderline insanity that’s required to build a company of that size. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Amazon, apple, what was the third one? Tesla, SpaceX. You know, like if you don’t have their level of intensity and lack of empathy for other people, you know, you’re pushing them to crazy, crazy lengths, probably not paying them what they deserve.

Can you get to that level? I don’t know.

[00:38:47] Chris: Maybe. Yeah, it’s interesting.

[00:38:50] Josh: Yeah. I don’t know. So, so then I, I, I, I kind of think to myself, and now we’re getting a little esoteric, like, I’m probably never gonna build an Amazon. Most of us won’t, but like, I don’t know if I have that level of borderline insanity to push people like that and get a company to that size.

Right. If that’s what it takes. And that’s okay. But what’s,

[00:39:13] Chris: that’s okay. What’s your, what’s your vision? Is your vision to build an an next

[00:39:18] Josh: Amazon? No, I don’t want a billion dollar company anyways. It sounds like too much work, too much stuff. So

[00:39:22] Chris: you kind of, you, you kind of already answered yourself like, yeah,

[00:39:25] Josh: well that’s why I’m fine with it.

Right. That’s why I’m fine with it. But I, I think it’s an interesting question, right? Which is, yeah. Yeah. Is that level of kind of insanity required

[00:39:36] Chris: to get that baby? Oh. There’s a book that I’m super excited to dive into. Let me find it, because it really, it has to do with this stuff. I saved it on Amazon.

[00:39:49] Josh: It it’ll be interesting too for you to read Schwartzman because it seems like I could take him as an example and say he’s built like a multi, multi-billion dollar hedge fund and. Eons of money, but people seem to like him a little. His staff seem to like him a little bit more, right? Like he doesn’t drive people as insane, but they probably still all work crazy hours, right?

So maybe the hours are required, but like the lack of empathy and taking advan borderline taking advantage of employees is probably not, maybe not required. Yeah, I, I

[00:40:26] Chris: don’t know. You have to filter. But yeah, these, these two books. Speak to this exact topic. So one, it’s called. A first rate madness uncovering the links between leadership and mental illness.

Oh, wow. And the other, and the other one. It’s called the hypomanic Edge, the link between a little craziness and a lot of success

[00:40:50] Josh: in America. How, how do you, is it h. H Y p o Manic, m a n I c. The hypomanic edge. Yeah. Yeah. Geez.

[00:40:59] Chris: Okay. I’m saving those. So this one, this one was recommended in the, in our next five moves with Patrick.

But David, the other one, I just stumbled on it, on Amazon. It’s gonna be pretty interesting.

[00:41:09] Josh: Yeah, I’ll be interested to hear about that. Just writing these down. Amazon Unbound. Okay, cool. Frig. We could do an episode, we could do a podcast just talking about business books every week and probably do 30, 40 minutes book club.

Yeah. Anyways, the entrepreneur book club. All right, so all these will be in the show notes. I’ll update our goals. I’ll update the books and stuff that we recommended. Chris, anything else before we

[00:41:34] Chris: Head out. Nope. The only thing to say is let’s grind it out, man.

[00:41:39] Josh: Thanks everybody for tuning in. If you’re watching on YouTube, please make sure to subscribe.

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