Differentiating Your Business By Doing Things That Don't Scale with Alex Sanfilippo

There it is. Live again. I like to do it live because it brings, like, some immediacy, like, different energy.

Oh, I love it. It takes a real expert be able to do it live, too. So I appreciate you and I like your custom music. I don't know who designed this for you, but whoever did this, this is what you use when you go on stages too, right? You did it yourself.

Bl. Done for me by a guy named Corona. So we're talking about differentiation today. Brilliant. Being different as a precursor pathway to scaling. Right? We're talking with Alex Sanfilippo, Everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of the Scaling up business podcast. Podcast. Our show comes to you every week with something to do with growing, scaling your company right, getting the people right, dialing in the strategy, executing better, optimizing the cash model, and upgrading yourself as a leader. Like, what do you need to do to survive this journey to make it all work? So you'll find our 500 plus shows and more@scalingcoach.com or wherever. You get this right now. Facebook, YouTube, X, Twitter, LinkedIn. We get a lot of LinkedIn viewers, that kind of thing. Like, subscribe, download, turn on your notifications, all that jazz. If you want to know about us, scalingcoach.com that's the place to go. All right, welcome to the show. Alex Sanfilippo.

Bill, thank you so much for having me, man. So excited to be here with you.

Alex joins us from Jacksonville, Florida. We're on two different coasts, probably different weather where you are today. It's. It's a cloudy, rainy, stormy here. Can you see out my window? Not really.

Look at that. Isn't that rare there? Or does that happen a lot?

It's. Well, yeah, it's the time of year.

Okay, I gotcha.

It's the rainy season. We had a power outage last night and messed up our Internets and things like that, so.

Or are you still in Washington state? Or are you back in California now? Where are you at?

Oh, I'm in California. I'm in California.

In my head, I have this picture that California never rains. I don't know why you're in Northern California, though. So I guess it's different, right?

It never rains in Southern California. I'm in Northern California, so rain is plenty this time of year. Hey, for our listeners, viewers, Alex Afilippo is CEO of Pod Pros. He's all about Pod Pros. He's an entrepreneur. He's a SaaS founder. He's a host himself, and he does all kinds of things. We're going to talk specific. I mean, this show is going to be relevant for you whether or not you are a pod pro yourself. But how do we find opportunities? How do we differentiate? How do we stand out and how do we then use that to scale? Sometimes what you would do to scale isn't necessarily the same thing. So again, welcome to the show. Tell us about, like your. How do you even come to be in this business?

Yeah, it's a bit of a story here. It's not what you'd expect because I came from the aerospace industry, bill. I did 15 years in big corporate and real quick. I mean, I think you know about my story, but listeners might not. I wasn't an astronaut, wasn't a skydiver, wasn't a fighter pilot. I always have to give that disclaimer when I talk about my aerospace background because people assume, man, you've jumped out of planes, you've been to space, now we're behind a computer. Like most people in aerospace. Love the career, but at some point I just realized that it was time to move on. And that really is what led me to podcasting ultimately. And the reason it did is. If I can just share the story, Bill. It was my 13th year in the aerospace job. I stayed for 15, but at 13 is when I realized it was time to move on.

What did you do in the. What was your job there?

Yeah, so I, I worked my way up. So, I mean, I started as a part time receiving clerk. Uh, so I broke down box and took out trash, but worked my way up to the executive level. So I was on the C suite and I was overseeing commercial operations for the company. Uh, and so I, I had five different divisions of the company that reported to me. Everything from profit margins and processes were really kind of my bread and butter, if you will. What I focused on.

Awesome. An execution guy. An ops guy, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, you know it. Yeah, through and through. I love that stuff. But, but here's the thing. Like, it was bittersweet the day I left. I want to make sure I mentioned that. But at year 13, the company got bought out and went public and I should say got bought out by a public company. And I'll never, I'll never forget it. I walked into my CEO's office. That's where I poured directly to Right after having a huge quarterly win, one of my division saved a full 10%. It cut cost by 10%, which was just huge at the scale we were at. If you think the company we were the organization part of was just over $2 billion. So it's like, this was. This was. This was good. And so I walk in, and in my head, Bill, I kicked down his office door and, you know, had, like, scotch in my hand. That's not really what happened. But my head. That's what was going on, right? No, I walked in, I told him, like, hey, did you see those numbers? And he goes, yeah, man, I saw him. But, like, I could hear the distress in his voice. And so, like, I kind of leaned in. I'm like, well, we cut that cost. Like, that was savings. He goes, no, I know what happened. And then just got quiet. And I was like, put my hands up. I'm like to say, like, what's wrong? And he goes, man, we didn't tell the shareholders we're going to do that. Like, no one was informed. He goes, man, you can't do that. He's like, you got to stick to the plan. And all I heard was, follow the status quo and don't do anything about it anymore. And here's the thing. Like, all due respect, we hit the goal we were going for. I mean, big public company crushing it every quarter. Just no more above and beyond initiative. And that walk back to my office, which wasn't very far down the hallway, was the longest walk I ever had in that building. And in that moment, so I realized it's. I think it's time for me to leave. And it was. It was a tough day. But again, that was year 13. So, like, year 13 to 15, it's like, okay, well, you didn't leave very quick, right? According to some standards. And the thing is, I started just doing a bunch of side hustles. I did like the job. I just knew it now wasn't gonna be a forever thing because of the shift in the culture and things like that. And just. It's not what I wanted to do. And I tried a bunch of side hustles. And, Bill, I know you get a lot of clients.

Wait for your side hustles. Underscore for our listeners, viewers, because they'll recognize this. There are moments that we've been like that, where we were in something. It might not be a job or a company. It could be, but some pursuit. And we know it was time to move on. And. But remember, there are people on your teams that are like that who. Who were with you at some point through something, and they no longer fit, they're no longer happy, they're not thriving, and it's a disservice to you and to them and to the company to keep them around any longer so you like. And not everybody is so self aware that they're going to act appropriately. Many people just suffer miserably, unhappily in their jobs holding the company and the team back. And the more can like listen and watch for it and then like give people permission. Listen, I don't think you're happy here anymore and I think it's time for you to go do something you love. Like that's a beautiful thing that respects people. Yes, you're going to lay them off but. Or fire them or whatever or encourage them to move on. But you're doing it for them and for the company. But like with a respect for the other person as a human being. And that is never the bad wrong move. Right, right.

Man, it's so smart. And I, I needed you to tell me that like 10 years ago was the first time. Here's the thing, like we, we hire these teams. I've even done this. I think I'm a lot better at this now in my current organization. But before when I was part of this company, I'd hire somebody like they're going to be here forever. It's going to be great. Like it's just gonna be perfect. Right. And the reality is man, everything is just for a season. Even me. Like sure it was a longer season but it's so important and I've, I've actually since now being in Pod Match, my company, I've let a couple people go but with a much more gracious way of realizing. I can tell, I can see the shift in them. They kind of learned what they could with this, enjoyed it for a while. And both people that I most recently let go at different times. I'm not like here just firing everybody, right. But I let them go in a very gracious way where they were. They literally told me this was like they're like you gave me permission to pursue what I really want to do and I'm like that's great. They serve with us for a while and they're able to move on to the next thing. So I love that you shared that.

Honored and like that. So talk about your side hustles.

Yeah, yeah. So here's the thing. I thought what a lot of us think. I've got this big business background. I've done well. I've been through a multi billion dollar acquisition. I was on like the core team of that. Like I got this. And Bill, you're not gonna be surprised to hear this. But every little side hustle I tried failed like miserably. Every single one. And I did that for a full year. And it was like once every couple months I try something or maybe hate it could be anything like that. So I realized I needed help, let's put it that way, to say the least. And you and I know it's about podcasting. Podcasting in many ways is, is free coaching. And my lightning fast mind was like, you know what, I'd already done a couple things in podcasting just for fun before this, but I was like, I'm going to start a business podcast entrepreneurship 1. I'm going to talk to people who successfully left 9 to 5 job to become a full time entrepreneur. I'm going to figure out how they did it. And I don't know if that was brilliant or me just being selfish. I don't know what it was at this point, Bill. I like to think it added a lot of value to people who listened as well. But that's where I finally learned there's a better equation for entrepreneurship. And that's ultimately what caused me to, to leave the 9 to 5 job was just learning from others that have successfully done it instead of just trying all these random things myself.

You know, it's funny, I left a job early on in my career for a big public company and I and I managed the most profitable piece of the business. And I was under 30 and it was, I started this group and I taken it over 550 million and I was really swelled head cocky. And so I go out on my.

Own.

And I can't get anything done and nobody's returning my calls and I'm like, wait a minute, I thought I was awesome. I thought I was the shit. And I turn around and nobody wants to talk to me. And I realize, oh, that's because I represented a multi billion dollar company and with budget and things to spend and they wanted to be a part of, they didn't care about Bill Gallagher. I mean they didn't have anything against me. But maybe some did. But. And all the basic things, like the basic things of, you know, in those days it was important to have a fax machine. And I'm like, wait, I don't have a fax machine. I need to get a fax machine quick. And so like so many things I had to figure out how to do. But the hardest thing of all was how to be relevant, how to actually get people's attention and be of service to people in some way that paid me something. It's hilarious. You also say podcasting is like free coaching. It's funny. In some ways, I think that's true. Maybe that's why I don't make more money, is because I'm coaching for free.

Hey, maybe there's something there. I don't know.

Maybe there's something there. But. But I. I think there's a. Like. Like anytime we do a workshop or whatever, there's a fair amount of entertainment involved, right? If you can't be engaging, if you can't tell stories, if you can't be relatable and present, then your show's gonna suck and nobody's gonna listen and watch, Right? Yeah.

I mean, entertainment is. Is key with value, right? It's a. It's a fine line. But if you just share all value, all facts, I mean, how many.

How.

How many episodes can someone listen to? And actually, Bill, that's one of the reasons I. I've. I've listened to your show for, I don't know, a while now, I guess, and I've always really enjoyed it because you do a good job of getting the best information out of your guest while also talking about things. Talking about things that are just. Just fun, right? Like human things and engraving those stories. I think that you have a very fine line on that. And the fact that you do it live impresses me. By the way, I realized this morning that had not left you an Apple review on your podcast, even though I've listened to it a lot. So I finally went and did that so I could show up here. All the bases checked.

So.

But, yeah, that entertainment portion is very important. And I think that that's actually, like, going back to my story. Part of what wasn't working for me. Inside hustles that I made them so robotic. I tried to build them like a billion dollar business from day one. My operations background, right? And so I tried to, like, okay, my name can't be on it, because at some point I'll scale past my name, it'll have this, and there'd be this and this and this, right? Did everything perfectly right from that standpoint, but it was missing the personality. It was missing some form of, you can call it, quote, unquote, entertainment from Alex. Like, the journey of me doing that, and I really missed the boat on that. And that's one of the reasons everything failed is because, like, what is this? Who is this? Why do I care? Right? And if there's not a human attached to it, most people don't care.

I was in a webinar last week. Well intentioned people, they're probably good at what they do. And I just wanted to reach through the video and shoot them. Like, what is the matter with you? They were so like, buy low, sell high. Like you have to build this thing up and you're gonna, it's gonna take a real commitment and blah. Like you're saying the most obvious things, but there's no picture, there's no thing. And I'm completely not entertained. About 18 years ago, I started doing like leading workshops and webinars. Not webinars, but like workshops and coaching programs and stuff in the evenings and weekends while I was running another company. And I had a coach and a mentor at the time and, and he said, remember, when you do something in these off hours, you're competing with television, food, sex, the Internet, like every other thing that people could be doing right now with their evening, right? Except you. So you better not only like be relevant to their life and their concerns, but you better also be playful and funny and engaging in some way.

That's such a, here's, that's such a good point. Here's why people are going to resonate with you or they're not. And for me, the best thing people to do is realize, hey, this is Alex Sanfilippo as fast as possible so that I can turn the wrong people away and bring the right people in. And without having that involved in what you do, man, you're just another robot out there. I mean, with the rise of AI over the last bit here, right, however long that's been, we, we need humans more than ever, right? Because that really lacks a lot of the personality that we bring the table. And again, some people are like nervous to do that, but it's like, don't you want to have people self select that they either like your personality, they don't like, don't pretend to be somebody you're not because then you have to be that as long as you try to keep that person as a client. Just go ahead and show them who you are now. Yes, you're weird, let's admit, right? Like we're all a little bit weird. But some people are going to like really like that and they're going to mention that later. Like if they give you their evening for 30 minutes, an hour to attend something you're doing, they're going to remember the value added. But more importantly, what they're going to share with somebody else is probably the joke that you told that was like, oh man, someone told a joke, made me Think of you on this webinar, this guy Bill, like, let me tell you what he said, right? Like, that's what's really going to resonate. And I think that in business we.

Include that good and bad, right? Like, I've had people, probably the biggest single value of the show. I mean, look, I started this show however many years ago when I was beginning of being a full time coach and I looked at the other coaches after a couple of years and I'm like, everybody seems to have a book or they do a great blog or whatever, and I don't really want to do either of those things right now. And I had a forum mate, a guy by the name of Jordan Harbinger, who has a popular show and has been around for a little while. And he's like, Bill, you have a background in radio. You were a radio exec, you were on the air, like, have a podcast. That's how I drive. My whole business is with my podcast. And I'm like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. And he said, just if you do it, be consistent. Like if you start a show that's every week, put it out every week, don't like, do it for a couple weeks and then take a three month hiatus and then build an audience of people who want to hear you on the regular. And it was really great advice.

Yeah. Jordan Harbinger is one of my favorite podcasters. He's an absolute legend. So very sound advice. I think that's the single best thing you can tell someone in podcasting is just stick with it. Like, like anything else. Right. You quit too soon.

You have to hone your craft and you have to like, work on things. But, but being consistent is a major, major thing.

Yeah.

So that, that also begged the second part, which is don't produce, don't, don't create one of these really expensive, overproduced shows. I've, I've talked to many friends who are like, well, we're going to go on location, we're going to interview, then we're going to edit stuff. We're going to do it just like NPR does, how I built this. Or I'm like, do you have any idea how expensive that show is? There's no way you can sustain that. You've got to figure out a format and a thing that you can do. And look, this applies not to podcasts, it applies to every business. How are you going to do something in an affordable fashion, economic and highly repeatable fashion, not like this one off, amazing experience that then you can't reproduce again some other place, man.

It's so true. And here's the thing. Npr, their focus is podcasting. If you have a business or something other than podcasting, then don't treat your podcast like the primary. If it's a secondary, do what you can do for a long period of time. One of my favorite questions ask people is they share their whole strategy for their show. And I just asked a simple question. I say, bill, can you do that for the next five years and not miss a release? And you can see everyone's mind go, huh, no, probably not. And it's like, well, maybe you should change it so that you can do it for the next five years straight. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, we're going to spend X thousand dollars per show. Like, okay, good.

Wow, that's, that's a lot.

Yeah, it really says. Or, or we're going to, I'm going to do it myself because I'm good. You're going to sustain that with. While you raise your kids and run your other business and I'll. Yeah, good luck. Like, and that also kind of leads to why, like for me, the immediacy of doing a live show, like, it brings a certain energy, but, but there's also the value in, and the pressure not to over edit, not to overthink it, not to cut out every slip of the tongue or a gaff or like what we do a little bit with the audio release if there's something really obvious. But for the most part, what we do here is what live is what you hear later on Apple podcasts, right?

Yeah. Here's the thing. I tell people, like, if you don't feel like you can do that yet, start with what you can. And, but work live is the ultimate. If you can work your way up to it. Here's the thing, if you have live, you can cut out the video, you can cut out the audio, you can turn it into blog posts, you can turn that into social media posts. You can't go the opposite way. Right. You can't turn a social media post into a full blog post. Right. You can't like move everything up the scale. It's, it's the ultimate. But it does take time to get there. And I tell people, like, get, like you said, stay consistent, get those reps in. And eventually you're like, you know what? I'm ready to make that step. Then make the step to life. At that point you may even have a built in audience because you've grown it over time and it's just the natural evolution of what your brand is. And so, I mean, again, I love that you do this. I think it's smart just to make it who you are. Like if someone has a coaching call with you, they're going to get the same bill that they get here. And I think that people like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just spilled tea on my keyboard. Speaking of gas, the joys of life, you know, joys of life.

I'll keep running with my story here if that's all right. Then I'll go back into the. You clean up and I'll keep on going. Unless you had a follow up question there. So that's a first. So here's the thing I learned when I was starting that podcast. So this was my last year or going into whatever it was, the timeline gets blurry. But my last couple years at that aerospace company and I learned what to me oversimplified. I'll share what entrepreneurship is. At least what I learned. It's find an area of passion that you have, get into the community of that area of passion, find a simple problem that they're struggling with and then offer the fastest possible solution to that problem to see if it actually fixes it. And again, I way oversimplified it. Hundreds of people gave me their time, so I don't mean any disrespect, but that's really what I ultimately learned. And I realized, okay, that's what I'm going to do. That's how I'm going to be able to break free of a corporate job and move into full time entrepreneurship.

I think it's really great. You know the thing that I hear in that is the focus on the problem, right? Picking something you care about is going to allow you to stick with it through some ups and downs and some learning. Picking a community so you're not doing it by yourself, so you're learning from those that have come before and what they're doing also important. But that focus in on what's the problem that's going on here. If I look at the things that, that I so admire. My son's been an entrepreneur, had several different businesses, that kind of thing, and now works with another business that's become huge all around the world. And, and what is the overall? I mean he has certain talents and abilities, but it's his focus on the big problems. He's like, I want to look at world scale problems, which is the same thing like with Singularity University. Let's think about problems that affect a billion people and you don't have to do that. But the bigger the problem, the more widely shared it is. That's the bigger business. Right. If you do something that only affects a thousand people around the world, you got a pretty small addressable market, so.

True. You know what this reminds me of is actually one of your episodes I listened to and I wrote, I wrote down a quote from it, something that you actually said. You said, you can't tell at the service what people are going through on the inside. So you can't tell what they're going through on the surface without, like, knowing the inside of it. And you mentioned that. And I, I, I wish I would have written down the title of the episode. It was on Empathy. It was with someone named Rob Volp or something like that. Rollback. Okay. It was on 7 12, 2023 is when it aired. I encourage people, hey, listen, I call it out because I got a lot from it. You shared vulnerably. He did. But I love that you all said that because it's, you can't really know what people are going through. And so for me, that's why I say get into the community and that you're passionate about and really find out what they're struggling with. You can't just, here's the thing. People find the problem that a billion people are struggling with. It takes somebody usually at that point, like, probably a committee, but if it's a smaller problem, you can be the one to talk to people one on one and really figure out, okay, what's happening inside that's making you struggle with that and getting to the core of it, man, that's, that's how you build something that really does serve people beyond just the face value of, oh, yeah, that's tough, right? It's like, okay, well, why is that? Why do you struggle with that? Is this the person you have to think yourself that I can really serve. Having that empathy is so important when you're identifying the problem that someone might be facing.

What are they going through? What's it like for them? What did you go through? I, you know, there's two ways to interpret that, that, that story in that situation. One of them is, we'll just forget all the, like, body language kinds of things and whatever else because it's wrong. That's one way. The other way is it's a beginning. It's an insight to something. But just because somebody's arms are. My arms are crossed right now. Just because somebody's arms are crossed or they are frowning or their eyes are drooping doesn't mean what you might think. It could mean a million things. It's a clue that something's going on. It could be that the chair's uncomfortable and they need to move the back support, which I just did. And it could mean that they ate something bad for lunch and they really would like you to give them a bathroom break. It could mean a lot of things, right? But it doesn't necessarily mean they're unhappy or that you're failing or that whatever. So body language is good to a point, but it's not like a very literal thing. Even the words we say literally don't always mean what you and I think they mean, right? Like, you could emphasize something, put a comma somewhere differently, and it has a whole different meaning.

You know what's interesting? You bring up such an interesting idea here, and that's that not all. Not all problems are worth solving, because human nature sometimes is even just to complain. An example of this is recently my wife and a bunch of her friends were complaining about how they wanted to mute their phone except for one specific app they wanted that app to make sound like, I wish there was a way you could do that. I was like, actually, there is, in the settings. And I went to YouTube. I'm like, Hey, I just sent you all a video of this. And they're like, oh, we don't really care. And here's the thing. I'm not talking about my wife or any of her friends or anything like that. But it is human nature to complain about things, but not actually want to do anything about it. And you also have to be able to identify that, right? Is like, I don't need to solve this problem because people are just complaining. I got the bell.

That's like, bonus, bonus, bonus insight, right? Like, people love to just talk about stuff. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. I remember my sales team came back from the jewelry company some years ago, and they're all excited. The folks at Nordstrom, or they want us to do a program for them, and we're going to do that. And then they spent weeks, like, working on this program, and they went back to them and it went back to Nordstrom, and they presented this new, you know, product program. And I mean, we did business with Nordstrom for decades, right? And they went, yeah, we don't have any money for that. Like, we were just talking like, we're. You guys spent all that time and you didn't now, I mean, we spent that time because. Although I didn't work on it, like, I Was amused by it. But I also like felt the pain because that was a lot of extra cycles chasing something. Like you got to qualify something. You got to say, well, if we had a program like that, how much budget would you have for it and what would it need to have? Like, you got to let them do some work. Don't just hear something and then run with it. Right?

Yeah. The wallet is key. Let me see your credit card then. Oh, well, you know, oh, well, it's not, not really the right time or not for me, maybe for other people, right. That the truth comes out when you say give me your wallet.

You know, that's true all the time. I say this to people and they think I'm just manipulative. Well, some do, some don't. But I'm like, listen, you've been talking about coaching, you've had a couple conversations with me. Whatever. You want to get it real. Doesn't matter if we start in three months. Give me some money right now. Give me some money right now. Commit yourself. Put some actual money up. I like your money. But more than that, when you actually commit to something, you make it real. And money's pretty real in, in a sense, right? It's, it's also an abstract artificially, but, but things get real. It's like the difference between musing on when we might go to Hawaii, talking about places to go to Hawaii and then and even putting it in my calendar that we're going to Hawaii and buying the tickets. As soon as I bought the tickets to Hawaii, booked the hotel with a non refundable thing, that's when it gets real. Like, okay, now we're going to Hawaii. Until then, there's every chance to say, well, maybe that's the wrong week. Let's move that appointment to another week. Right? Everything's sort of up in the air, but there's that moment where you actually commit yourself to something and often it's signing a contract. Another way is like telling people, right? Like, hey, I'm going to do this thing. The more public you are with something, the more like pain and embarrassment you have to not do it.

Oh, for sure. That's one of my favorite methods. When I think about doing something. I typically am the guy who shares with my friends, family and post it somewhere. Just accountability and I'll be real. Sometimes I don't follow through, but at the very least have somebody like, hey, what about this? I'm like, I didn't do that. Right. I have that little bit of shame, but also the pressure. It Helps me personally a lot. So I like that.

So you went on, you did your first live in person event in 2021. I think a lot of us like, ooh, there was a moment where we saw nobody face to face, and then suddenly we did again. How did. It still seemed like that's an up in the air thing, right?

You, you know, actually it's funny you mentioned that, but in 2020, January, I went to the same event that I did in 2021. And maybe it was. Yeah, it was 2020 is when everything kind of went. It was like a week before the world shut down, let's put that way. And that's actually where I put this into practice, was 2020. So I'll get back to the 2020 event. But yeah, so I went to this event with the intent of I was showing up as a speaker. So again, I found my area of passion, which happened to be podcasting, which is funny, and I started the podcast to learn, but I ended up actually really loving everyone I met through podcasting. And I know, Bill, you're similar with scaling up podcasts has a similar journey. And anyway, so I went to this event as a speaker and there's about 2,000 people there, which I know sounds crazy. This was pre world Shutdown, right? There's 2,000 people there. And I told my wife, when I get off stage, I'm going to identify the problem. This is my passion. This is the community I'm part of. I'm going to identify the problem. And so whether you're a good or bad speaker, people are just kind, especially in podcasting, so they line up to say thank you, right? So I had a pen and paper and I said, you know, well, thank you. I appreciate you. Thanks for listening to me. Hey, what is it that you're struggling with in podcasting? Like, what's the big. The big problem? And I wrote down a lot of things. Everybody said something, I wrote it down. But the common thing I heard was, Alex, I'm having trouble finding the ideal guest for my podcast. Or something along those lines, I don't know who my next guest is going to be. And I wrote it down. And I had at 100, 100 people saying that same thing as when I stopped. I'm like, this is the problem I want to figure out how to solve. And I'll never forget, it was actually March 10, 2020, came back whiteboarded out and basically said, what if we built something like a dating app, but instead of it connecting for dates, it connects people for podcast Interviews. So put a guest and a host together for interview. That's what birth podmatch, which is my company. And. And so that day, we really. Me and business partner, two business partners, me, my wife, and a developer that I've known for most of my adult life. The three of us just started working, and on June 15, 2020, is when we launched into an early beta with the 100 people who told me it was their problem. I kept their information and reached out and said, hey, tell me, does this solve your problem? And we obviously tweaked, adjusted, right? Built a logo, fixed my spelling errors on the website, all those things. But we launched, and we just did what I called started it ugly. We just launch as fast as possible, MVP and got it out there.

Well, so let me also just plug the next show, the next show after. This is about the voice of the customer, assuming no technical breakdowns, that kind of thing. This is the same topic, the same idea. Like, they're your customers and potential customers out there who will tell you what their pain points are, what their problems are, what their aspirations are, and your job is to pick one of those and solve it. And I'll just share with you because you're on topic. So I probably. I get multiple guest pitches every single day, right? And. And I say no to 95% of them that come through. And there are two types. One, there's one type that comes from, like, a podcast, you know, booking service, and there's another type that comes from an individual. And, And. And these mostly have two common elements. They're like, they talk about why they're credible as a guest, like, you know, their credibility. And then they talk about the five or ten topics that they could address. And I'm like, nope, wrong. Bad. Go away. And. And so I used to. I don't know. I'm. I'm very inconsistent with it, that the production team working behind is probably starting to already elevate this thing. But I go back, I'm like, tell me one topic and tell me. Make me care about that topic, right? And then. And also they think that they're exceptional about something that's ordinary, and they miss what's exceptional about their story. Like, you know, overcame odds of being a single parent and started a business to seven figures. I'm like, that's a million potential guests. Like, that's not special, right? Like, that's pretty much the story of every entrepreneur out there that. That gets over a million. We want to know that real unique thing that. Or that that core idea that's transferable to everyone. So, you know, like, I want to talk about how the voice of the customer is magic, or I want to talk about getting in touch with and discovering the market. Right, like that. Focus. Give me one topic, otherwise you just seem like an attention whore. Like, I just need to get my face out in the world.

A great example of this because people love movie references. And I'm blanking on the name of the movie. I think it was called 21 or Blackjack. Do you remember that movie where the college kids went and played?

Yes.

At the beginning of it, he goes to get into this program that he cannot afford and he just shares his credentials. And the person's like, okay, everyone has these credentials. What makes you different at the end? Not, not to spoil, but at the end he comes back with this story of how he was gambling to try to make it there. And guess what I'm imagining that I'll leave the story out. But guess what ended up happening? Because he had a different story than everyone else with the same credentials. And that's what they wanted. They were looking for that story more than anything.

Yes. And right. So that like there are so many places that we're the same and boring and. But what is it that you do that's like unique and different? What's the differentiation? Your special sauce? You know, I'm another straight white, male businessman, middle aged guy. Like, there's a lot in that stereotype in the world and not a lot of interest in more of that, you know, like every panel on the business topic looks like a bunch of guys, you know, like me. So how do you, how do you be different? Like what is your. That, that thing that's unique? Okay, well, you. What's your story? What's that differentiation?

Yeah. So for me, it goes back to now, that 2021 in person event, because up to this point, thankfully the company started doing well, like almost immediately. I was super just thankful for that. So we did solve a problem that was needed and we took off really overnight. And again, beyond thankful, like, it was timing, it was really figuring out the problem. Right. Taking the time to do that and then just so many little things that happen. So I just started build, for lack of a better term, following what I saw other software people doing, which is immediately get yourself out of the business so you can work on the business. Right. Was one of the big things. And I'll never forget I went to that conference when the world opened back up and I didn't realize the impact I was having. Man, and my wife will be the first to tell you this. I'm never like a super emotional guy who just busts out crying. Like it's just, it happens. But it's like I don't like try to fight it or anything like that. It just doesn't, that doesn't naturally come up too often. I cried in front of people this event. I got there and I say this as humbly as I can. So please, anyone who's checking this out, please know my heart behind this. Just to share the story, as soon as I walked in the door, a line of people formed to take pictures with me. I have never in my life had anything like that happen. And I was supposed to speak about three hours later. And so I have this line of people and I'm like, oh sure. And it was story after story, people literally crying, telling me, hey, this changed my life. This is what happened in my business. Two people would walk up together and be like, we met through your service and now we're like able to. We started a business together and just more and more things like this. And I started working my way toward where I was going. And it got to the point where a staff member of this event said, hey, you got to speak in 20 minutes. And they're like, we can tell you're popular so we're going to give you two security guards to escort you to where you're speaking. Here's the thing. I have never had anything like that happen my life. Nor again, that was a one time thing, right? It was years of built up wanting to meet Alex. And again I say as humbly as I can, but I mention it because I got really emotional because I didn't realize what I was doing was actually having impact. And if I fast forward a bit to the next time I was in person still with the same mindset, okay, this is working. I'm just going to keep on doing what everyone says to do. I'm going to not going to be my inbox anymore. I'm not going to be on social media, I'll hire people for all this. And I had seven people around me, more or less the extensions of me. And this fast forwards a full year. But the next year I went to that event, I met somebody and didn't know who he was, but he knew who I was. Used POD match and we took a picture together which was happening all the way through. And right when he walked away members, she goes, he's been on since day one and like just shares about it all the time. And I had no idea. And it broke me in that moment. I was at that event and saying, you know what? I'm doing this in a way. I don't want to do it. This is not how I want to be known as a guy who's unapproachable, untouchable, doesn't know who you are, even though you're one of the biggest proponents of what I do, helping me grow the company. Right. I knew I needed to change and that was a really tough moment for me because I was differentiating in the wrong way and I knew I needed to do something different or I should say, I wasn't differentiating. I was just following what everyone says you do with a software company. But it was time to do something different. And that was really January 2022 was my real awakening moment. Realizing there's something I'm doing wrong, that I need to shift.

You know that like through all of it, right? We're human beings. You talked about feeling and having feelings and letting feelings come out and that kind of thing. And we try in our, in Western business culture, in North American culture to have a lid on most of our feelings. Never cry, never show them your week. But you suppress, ends up suppressing your self expression. It ends up limiting you in some way, making it not great, not awesome. And, and, and there's some value in having all of them not being stuck in anyone. Right? Like you're going to cry, great. But, and, and, but just don't stay there, right? Anguishing and sorrowful and mourning and, but be able to move through all of that and also laugh and also be passionate and also get like the whole range of it. Because the, those emotions, like we're emotional beings, right? Like, and our decisions and our actions are rooted in deeper emotional parts of the brain. So we think and we feel and we drive the action based on that. We rationalize it and organize it with the language centers, the more complex parts of the brain. But it starts there like with the emotion and having some capacity and then being able to connect people and understand. Like, I want to know those customers. I want them to see me, I want to feel them, I want to know them. So powerful and not normal, not typical, right? To have that.

Yeah. And that reminds me, right before, right before I got on with you, about 20 minutes before this, I, I sent a Pod Match member. He's just a normal member, Pod Match. Not paying some special tier. We don't really have anything like that. Normal member of Pod Match. And I happened to see that it was his birthday. So I sent him a quick voice text just through messenger. And that's the type of founder I want to be, is the one that notices, hey, this is somebody who uses my software. This is their. It's their birthday. I'm just going to tell them happy birthday and mention something I'd seen them do or heard. And I made it very personal. And I don't do that for everybody. I don't have, like a system for it. I just happen to see it and going to the whole idea of differentiating your business by doing things that don't scale, that doesn't scale, and maybe you could find a system for it. But in general, just loving people. Well, is the way that I want to run the business. So for me, I happen to see that today. So, yes, I sent a voice message saying, hey, want to let you know you're appreciated. Happy birthday. Hope you're having a great day. And small things like that help me realize that that's more my purpose than even the software side. And it puts me back in the business a little bit. Right. Instead of working on it. But that's where I find that I do my best work.

Yeah. With that kind of, that human side. Well, it's interesting when I'm thinking about a workshop, a coaching experience, a talk on stage, I'm thinking about that. I want, I don't, I don't engineer them all in, but I want to address all of it. I want to address fear and hope. I want to address laughter, sadness, sorrow. I want, I want the whole. I want, I want some play in there, you know, Like, I want the whole range of emotional thing. And then people are left with like, oh, I could see the world in a new way. That's. That's a great experience. Right. To take them through all of it. Right. And not being afraid of any. Well, we can't get dark for a minute. Oh, yeah, you can. You can get real dark.

Yeah, yeah. Being that transparent, I think as a founder or anyone in business, it takes a lot of courage to be able to do that, though. Yeah, I know we kind of already talked a little bit, but being able to hide behind a system, behind a business focusing on the quote, unquote, big tasks, like, that's a lot easier than getting out there and just sharing some of the dark stuff. Right. Or covering all the emotional bases, because it's like, okay, what does this open up between me and other people? Right. And I think a lot of people, even podcasters, are really scared of that. So they put on this mask, when the mic is going, right, when they're hitting record, to kind of hide some of that because they're afraid of what that could potentially lead to.

Well, like, we want to joke, we want to laugh, but some of the best laughter and is about the pain, right? Like, about dealing with that. And then the more you can address people's stress and their fear, but you have to be sensitive to. You have to create an opening for it, right, by being in touch with your own. That's the profit opportunity. That's where people make immediate buying decisions. It's not doing something a little bit better. It's like avoiding the pain and the loss and the stress and the overwhelm. Fix that for. In some area for people. That's a business, right?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that. That's. That's the core of what we've been able to do here is just the, The. The pain. One of finding guests or finding podcasts to be a guest on, which I know your show is, has passed that threshold that you've been through that for a while, right? But most podcasters, again, going back to the whole idea of empathy, are not there. And there's always new podcasts getting started, and there's people that just want to simplify the system because they don't have a team. This is a hobby of theirs. So they also like the fact that what we do simplifies the system. So we've kind of addressed some of the pain points and really done our best to continue on that. And again, going back to what I do with my time now, it's mostly spent talking to our community, being around them. One, because I love that, and I think it's where I have the most value. But two, I'm able to continue to identify the problem because, as you know, problems evolve over time, right? Like, at least here in the United States, where we happen to live, right, we're not worried about, like, how we're going to get water tomorrow. And that was at one point a real problem, right? But the problem has shifted over time. Maybe it's how to pay your bill now, right? But, like, whatever it is, the problem has shifted. And so for me, staying in tune with the culture, if you will, the community of podcasters, guests and hosts at large has helped me understand how do I continue to serve these people as the problems evolve, as things transform.

You know, I had a couple projects that really didn't go well this year, and that cost me a lot of money. And, you know, in some future year, maybe in the year ahead or after that they'll, they'll finally come to fruition. But I spent money, things didn't go well and I was feeling really down on myself and, and, and, but as I, and I started, I'm like talking about it with my wife and so frustrating and I feel like such a dumb ass for doing this kind of thing. And then I stop and I'm like, you know, I'm complaining about this in a premium resort where I'm taking time just before a lovely dinner. These are very first world kinds of problems where I'm going to drink some expensive wine.

You know that perspective is so important though in it to like to actually sit back and think about it. Right. Man. And if there's one thing I know about guys like you and I, we're going to fail far more than we ever succeed. And sorry if that's hard for anyone to hear, but Bill and I both fail more than we succeed. But we're, we've, I can't say mastered the craft myself. Maybe you have. But failing forward and rolling it into the next thing, that's actually going to serve people, actually going to connect, actually going to hit. And I think the better we learn to just celebrate the fact that the failure is going to lead to a success. It can sometimes be the win in of itself.

So one of my business values and a personal value is never finished. And I have this notion like I'll turn 60 this year and I'm like, I just like the idea that I'm learning and growing until I die. And so I have a picture, I've moved it, it's normally over there in my office across from me of Jack lalanne. He was this old fitness guy who like worked out until he keeled over dead in his 80s or 90s or something. And for like his 80th birthday he towed boats across the San Francisco Bay, swimming and with spectators in him. And he was just this total beast of a guy. And I like the idea of always being at work on something and being willing to fail. You look at like SpaceX is a truly revolutionary company and what they've done for getting things into space and our exploration of space and leveraging space is dramatic. It's truly. But what's the key to their mastering this reusable, lower cost rocketry and the pace of their launches is really being willing to fail. Instead of trying to get everything right and dial it on and have launches, they'll be like, we're going to go blow up a bunch of rockets until we get it right. But they try to lure from each one, not just blow them up to burn money, but blow up a rocket. Okay, well, what didn't go right? All right, let's launch another one, like tomorrow.

Man, here's the thing. I love that you have that core value, because at the end of the day, your tombstone one day is not going to read ideas live here or unmet potential. Right? It's not going to be there. Unfortunately, that is most people and most businesses. That's what it is for both sides of that coin. It's person and business, where it's like, man, they had so much potential, man, they had ideas they just never did anything with. And I like the idea like you do, to tactfully leave no stone unturned. Keep on growing, keep on trying, keep on evolving, seeing if it works to serve people better. Again, that's something that doesn't necessarily scale. But for us, for me, man, that has worked so well to be able to build a thriving business that people believe in, that actually helps and serves them.

Growing your business is not easy. It is not at all easy, especially really growing it, right? It gets harder and harder. It never gets any easier until you sell the business, quit or die, right? And that's just the way that it is. So, like, you have to lean into it, but it probably doesn't have to be as easy. So it's hard, it's stressful, and it's lonely. But you don't have to do it alone. You could be a part of a community. You could get a coach, you could get some peers. Lots of different ways that you could do it. There's ways to organize your business. Like, don't stop reinventing everything, like the way that you organize things in the business. There are some standard ways that work, and I've worked in many different industries that work across a range of industries. Radio, telecom, professional services, software, fashion, jewelry. Right. Like, I've done quite. And through all of those, there's some really common elements and common pathways to growing and scaling. Like, you know, I. This is like an infomercial. Unintentionally, I'm just on a rant.

But hire Bill Gallagher, everybody. He is ready for you.

You don't.

You can go.

There are lots of coaches and lots of programs and things like that. But. But surround yourself with an abundance of those and stop being cheap with your time and your money. Like, invest it and. And get some value out of whatever approach you do. I'm. I'm cool with it. We like you Know, we have a lot of folks, and. And we will always have more. And we've been doing this for 10 years. And so I don't need to be selling. So here's a. Here's my big takeaways. Right. Like, you've. We've talked about a lot of things, but we're kind of. We're long in time now. But you got to get to know your audience, your marketplace. Right. And that's. That's not stats. That's actual people having real conversations and then thinking about doing the right thing for them and delivering real value for them. That's what I get out of your stories today.

Yeah.

That's a lot that's valuable.

Yeah. You know, real quick here. I'm totally joking about people like, hiring you, but I will say this. Whether it's Bill or not, whoever's checking this out, having a coach for me is the single biggest needle mover, was having a coach. And yes, it's an investment. But here's the thing. Like, if an investment yields a bigger reward, then isn't the investment worth it? Right. Like, here's the example. If you can grow 1% by yourself or spend an extra 5% and grow 10% next year, like, isn't that worth it? I think a lot of us just don't think that math. And that's my small rant on the value of coaching. But. But success leaves clues, and people like scaling coach have been there, done that. Right. And that helps a lot.

Yeah, I sell coaching. Right. But I am. But I buy coaching. I'm always looking for a new coach. In fact, I'm looking for another one right now. I usually have several coaches in different areas of life. It could be a fitness, a financial, some other aspect of coaching that I'll have. I have a voice coach right now. So I'm always looking for some coaching in some area of life to, like, level up because I've never finished. Right. I think there's an abundance of that. And in fact, I'm looking for a new one right now for a part of our business that needs some special stuff. We're along on time. The company, Alex's company is podmatch.com. so you want to be a guest, you want to find guests. Podmatch.com is a great place to go. And he's got a whole super secret sauce about getting you matched up with the guests you need the shows, you want, that kind of thing and finding that. Right. PodMatch.com is the place to go for that. And then some shout outs. The folks at Storyon who are getting our show, getting this show ready and finding our guests, getting things prepared, producing all the content, and the folks at Podfly who do the audio editing and the show notes. So we have a couple vendors. To my friend and mentor, Vern Harnish, who created the Rockefeller Habits and the scaling up framework that we use throughout all of our coaching work. That's core to all of it. I want to thank you all for watching, for listening. Thanks for joining us today. Like, subscribe, share it with somebody else, right? Spread the love, pass it along to somebody that makes a difference for them, too. Until we talk again, I hope you have a great week ahead, a great holiday season, depending on when you're listening to this or had a great holiday season. And we'll talk to you again next time. Keep scaling.