Action - NOW

Business Brain Episode 608 for Wednesday, December 18th answer the telephone like Buddy the Elf Day. What's Your favorite color? 2024 Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas and we crunch them, we dissect them, we use them to help tune our business brains each and every time we get together, which is usually twice a week. Our sponsor for this episode is Vanta.com brain. Vanta automates your compliance for your ISO 27001, your SoC2, your GDPR and you can save 1000 bucks@vanta.com brain we'll talk more about that in a little bit. For now here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and I'm still out here in Northern California. We had tornado out here over the weekend. Kind of crazy.

Amazing. Really?

Yeah. Flipped cars over.

Oh, serious?

Yeah, Serious stuff. Yeah, it was crazy. About a hour from me at Sant down near Santa Cruz. Yep. Which you probably bit in Scotts Valley. I thought that was pretty. Pretty wild. Pretty crazy. Wow. Neither here nor there, but it's kind of interesting.

No tornadoes. We when we lived in Texas, we saw a couple of them. We were there about six years, saw a couple of them. But we moved there in April and when we moved into our house, the only thing that we had, we brought a TV with us. And the only reason I brought a TV in the car and not put it in the moving van was because I knew we were going to get cable hooked up like the day after we moved in and this stuff or the day after we arrived. And I knew that the moving van and also I figured while we're going to be sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags until our stuff gets here, might not be a bad idea to have a tv.

True.

And so there we are laying on the floor of our living room in. In sleeping bags and our TV with cable and watching tornado warnings scroll across the bottom every single night. Yeah. And we didn't know that this was just like, you'll get used to this, buddy. But. But there were a couple and the sky changed color as anybody who's seen a tornado knows. Like I remember driving once and seeing the sky in front of me change color. I was heading to an appointment and I was like, yeah, I'm turning around. Home is behind me.

That's a weird Denver weather is cr.

I've never seen that color in nature before and I'd rather see it in the rearview mirror. Yep.

I've had to pull over with the hail and get under an underpass because it was like so bad one day. I'd never seen it. It's like my car was being pummeled with rocks. I'd never seen it before. It was nuts.

It's not common for you to have these out in California, right?

No. First ever, first ever tornado warning that I've ever seen. In the last two weeks we've had a tsunami warning and a tornado warning.

Yeah, yeah.

Tsunami didn't go anywhere. But they have the automatic if the earthquake happens off the coast, it does it. But I guess it was a different kind of earthquake. But yeah, the tornado definitely happened.

But I got a question for you.

Yes. Yes.

Do you still need, do we all still need business cards with our businesses?

I have so I love business cards, but my take on it is you should design them to be like a multipurpose, like a calling card. That's a little different than just a business card.

Do tell. And I asked this question. I want to know. I want to hear your thoughts because I don't have business cards for this podcast. We've never done them, but I also don't have.

That's my card right there. I'm holding it up for those of you listening in your car.

We're going to describe that in a minute. But I also don't have business cards for giggab. And I am heading in January to a trade show for Gig Gas. And so.

Perfect.

But I want to hear about this calling card versus business card thing.

Yeah, I think the business traditional business card, you know, you have your whatever your phone number, name, all that kind of stuff. But I think the calling card or the, your. I don't know if that encompasses everything I'm going to say. But the way I use the cards. Is it any different way? If you go to go to a trade show, you're promoting your show, your podcast, whatever you're handing that out, it needs to be designed in such a way that it really is useful and adds value to people, not just here's my info and this, my name, whatever. They just throw that stuff away. Gotta be a reason to keep it. And I love cards. You know, making this calling card something you can throw in a box, something you can send in a, as a part of a thank you card, something you can include in a gift. If you're sending this time of year, you're sending out company gifts or whatever. I put my card card in every single one. Yeah. So I designed like mine that I just held up. Mine is a little square. It's not a normal it actually is designed not to really fit in your wallet. Right. Or because who carries a card around like that anymore? That's from a bygone era. Right.

Well, okay, I have an answer. I have an answer for your question, but.

Perfect.

But it's probably an exception, so. Yep.

And then on the back of the card, I don't think it's so tiny. You can't see it.

Doesn't matter. Most people won't be seeing it because they're listening.

That's right.

It's a square. It's a square card that you've got, not a rectangular card.

Yeah. And it is a. A little bigger. Like this is a normal business card. Yeah, it's bigger.

Yeah.

So if you see that. And so I like that.

So it's, it's, it's. It's bigger. It's taller than a normal business card by about 30%. And it is also that same width. It's square.

Correct. So it will not fit in your. In a wallet or purse, you know, that kind of thing. But it's kind of made to, you know, stand out. And my whole thing is I use it to. For just communication. It's like, here's how to find me. Here's how. And I don't have anything on. It just says founder. Okay. That's it. It's. It's vague. But when I want to connect with someone that I'm in person, I want them to remember something. And it's bright yellow and it's gray, and it's kind of. I like the design, and I love that design language, those colors. I use them all over the place. So I like that idea. I like handing them out. Yeah, it's whatever. So my answer, I go in the yes column that we still need them.

Yeah, I go in the yes column as well. But the only time that I hand out business cards is at conferences or trade shows. It's rare that I do otherwise. And when I do, it serves several purposes. So I have. I actually have some. I don't know why. I have a stack of Mac geek gab cards here in my studio. This is not something that one would ever need like in, in this room. I never would need to give a business card in this room.

Why?

I have like a hundred of them here. It's beyond me. But I. I still have them as. As very standard business cards. And these have my contact information and also have my shipping address on them. Well, because when I go to conferences, a lot, not everybody, but a lot of the people that I Meet with are people are vendors with products that I'm interested in that they want to ship to me.

That's awesome.

Right? And I know a lot of people, like when we had Mac observer, people like, well, I don't want to put my address on my business card. And it's like, I get that, like, I understand privacy. I'm like, I'm a freak about that stuff. However, from a convenience standpoint, this changes everything for me because I don't have to like, oh, no, you did you spell that and make sure it's New Hampshire, not North Carolina, because there's a Durham there too, you know. And so the business cards, I often, even if I'm meeting with someone that I already know, I will often offer them a business card and I make a joke about it. I'm like, you want me to give you one of these? I already have everything on there memorized. Right? Like, I don't need it. I already have everything. Because it's true, right? Like, I know my address and all that stuff, but I give it to people and I will often even say, just to remind you that we met here.

That's really good.

And I do the same thing because I'll get a stack of cards and I'll go back to my hotel room or on the plane or the train home or whatever and I will log every one of those cards, hopefully the night of whatever event it was that I met people at. Because I still have a fresh memory. I take notes in my notes app too, but I still have a fresh memory about, oh yeah, we met, we talked about this thing. And I log those notes in my thing and if there's a follow up, I do that right there. So I'm not waiting three weeks to do a follow up on something from a trade show.

So that's nice.

Yeah, I think they're valuable. I think they're useful.

I do too.

And I'm going to have it made up for gig gab too.

Yeah. I have a couple of other ways I've used them. Number one thing I would say is if you're going to get them, get a good quality card that feels good in your hand and that's subjective. It could be a thick paper that feels good. Mine is kind of a glossy or matte finish, but it feels. Feels silly.

I always say they got to have a little bit of a thwack.

Oh, I like that.

That's my card making that.

I like that. That's good.

They gotta have a little thwack.

Yeah, we have as I've mentioned on the show before, we own vacation rentals. And so at each vacation rental we have cards for the other vacation rentals that we also owned. So there's a picture of the other house and on the back there's the logo and there's the link. Here's how you can book our other properties. So we have a little rack of these cards and at each house you have the different ones as well as the house you're staying at. And we find people take them all the time and they'll say, oh, friend of mine gave me this card. They stayed at your house, house. So that works great. The other way I love doing them is make them a coupon card to toss in a box to give people if you're shipping orders. I'm a reseller, I've always shipped everything every day, toss them in the box, they have a 20% off whatever. People hang on to those cards. And the last way we've done it is when I've had salespeople visiting physical locations. One of the things we always tell them to do is get up and ask to use the restroom. And when you go to the restroom, either walk by the break room and they, we have the cards, but they're a magnet. And you go and stick your card on the refrigerator and then you go to the bathroom. Yeah, it's just always a way you've left it and the magnet stays on that fridge and the guys are like, you know, I went back like a year later and it was still there. I'm like, of course it's still there. That they just leave it there. So. So be being creative. It's like everything else, be creative with it. Make them stand out a little different. And I think cards are definitely valuable.

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Yep, that's funny. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great.

That's cool. I want to talk about one of my favorite topics.

What's that?

And that's action.

Oh, I love action.

And yeah, me too. We, we always talk about, but in the context of, you know, we're, we're getting towards the end of the year and I've heard this, I've heard, I've been on a few calls today and yesterday, and I hear, I've heard this on almost every call. Well, we're, we're getting ready to do this next year. We're, it's after the new year. After the new year. No, and I, I try to stop people and say, what, why, why wait? You know, today's the 17th. You've got, you know, days and days and days, and then you've got time in between the holiday and everything else and, oh, I mean, if you're going away or whatever, I get it.

But even if you are going away, think about, like, is, is that a good reason to delay taking whatever action you're about to delay? It might be, but ask yourself that question. I, I, it's so funny you brought this up. I did this to myself yesterday.

Oh, I was, I've done it too.

Yeah, I was, I was like, well, I can, I can wait until tomorrow to do this. That's fine. I was like, no, no, just do it now. It's going to take 10 minutes to start this process here, and who knows what dividends it'll pay by doing it now as opposed to tomorrow. Or am I going to be like derailed tomorrow because I got a doctor's appointment in the morning and like, do it now.

Yeah, do it now. It is. I just run up against it over and over and over. Stop planning and just do something. And, and you don't. That doesn't mean be reckless, but get something to move you forward. It could be, you know, this next thing that's part of your plan or whatever, but stop revising your plan and don't wait until January. Right. Start now, start on the 18th tomorrow night. You know, and, and I, I, I often say on these, these coaching calls, I'm like, hey, you know, your new hobby is making money not watching Netflix or chilling out, you know, tonight in, or if you're going to chill on the couch, it's great. But have your laptop in front of you and you're researching things because this is how you're going to do this. And over and over I find it's.

Funny, you correctly have said to me and anybody who will listen to you for years, if you're looking for extra time to build a business, your first question that you ask somebody is do you watch TV at night? And I love that question because we all know where it's going.

I'll watch tv. Of course.

I just found three hours for you every single day. Like, you know, just Monday through Friday, I got you 54.

It's low hanging fruit.

It's low hanging fruit, right? It's low hanging fruit. I do often, not every night, but I often will watch TV at night and my laptop is next to me. The Apple M series laptops are the first where I actually use it on my lap on the couch. It doesn't get hot.

It does get hot.

Yeah. So, so it's relatively recently, last, you know, five to 10 years that I've been actually having a laptop on the couch. I mean I would always have one around, but I use it a whole lot more. And what I find though is that, that watching TV time with my laptop right there, I'll do something, I'll, you know, have some idea or whatever and do something or have something that I know I need to do and I'll do it and then I'll fold up my laptop and kind of put it down next to me. Yeah, and that time of watching tv, that's what I call it brain percolation time. Right. Where there's stuff happening in the background, kind of like driving or showering or certainly any actively meditating or anything like that. But it's that meditative time where my brain just kind of gets to percolate and every now and then something bubbles up. It's like, oh, yes, right. And I grab my laptop and I do the thing, or at least log a. To do or even just do it to our point here. But like that, that TV time is something that I have learned how to make valuable. But it's be, it's, it's because I have this bias towards action. Like, if I have the idea, I'm going to do it right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The idea of me going downstairs to hang out for a couple hours and, and watch something in the evening, that's great, relax, chill out. But the idea of me walking down there without my computer, I, I, no, I just can't even do it. I'll be like, oh, I gotta go get my, my thing. Because to your point, sometimes ideas or action items, things you need to do, they come at you kind of sideways. Right. And, and you can do this with your phone too, if you're, you know. And I, I depend on my phone as well, of course. But being able to research and, and look for things and, and you just never know where this stuff comes from. So, you know, if, if otherwise, you know, cut it out. Just don't go, don't watch that stuff and get to work and just get to work and work at night. And, you know, we've, we've talked on the show a bunch of times about companies we've started at night and. Oh, you know, most.

I've got most of them.

Most of them, exactly.

That's when you start a company is at night.

Yes.

Like when you're not doing the other companies that you have or your day job or whatever it is. I don't even. This is gonna. So this is a moment of privileged charmed life. I have a computer here in the studio. It's a Mac studio. That's fine. I have a computer downstairs in my office. It's a Mac Mini. It's fine. And then I have my M2 laptop. And that unless I'm traveling, the couch is where that computer lives. So I don't bring my computer to the couch. I go to the couch and there's my computer charging from the night before.

It's perfect.

It's great. Yeah, yeah.

And there, you know, if you, if you want to really, I mean, if you want to live an uncommon life, if you want to have, you know, build wealth and have freedom and flexibility. Being an entrepreneur. Yes. It's brutal sometimes. It's like Chewing glass. But a lot of times, sometimes, yeah, yes, it totally sucks. But if you want to. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes if you want to build that, you have to do uncommon things. And like, you know, every. Almost every night after dinner, I walk back up to my office because I'm like, well, you know, I got. Unless I have something else going on. It's like, I can get another hour, hour and a half in and get some stuff done. I write a lot, I plan my next day. I look at my calendar schedule, and I don't. I love it. I really enjoy it. And I feel, you know, privileged or whatever, blessed that I get an opportunity to do that. And I didn't do that when I had little kids.

Right.

Because you were, you were involved with them.

Right.

But now it's like, okay, I've got some time. I can, I can. You know, you have to carve out that time. Especially if you're, you know, you want to create a side hustle, you want to do something different, but it's, it's action consistent every single day. You should be able to check something off. You know, it doesn't have to be huge. It could be a small, small thing. I researched this. I made this, I wrote this, I wrote one page. You know, every person, every. Every client I talk to, I am like, hey, I encourage you to write one page a day. You did. I talked about it last week. I think, you know, you don't. You write about anything you want. There's only one rule. You have to share it with someone. And so, yeah, you know, that's it. And it just kind of keeps you accountable. And you tell people, I'm going to write one page a day. You can share it with anybody. Share it online. I don't care. Share it with your spouse or whatever. But that' and it's like, you know, you get your gears going, you get your motor running.

Yes.

And that's a lot of. It is not the fact of what you achieve, it's your achieving and you get used to achieving, and that's the road to success.

That's the trick is. Yes. Just making sure you're doing something and inching forward every day.

Yep. Yeah, you got it.

Absolutely.

So, you know, if you have tips on keeping focused and action, let us know. Feedbackusinessbrain show. We'd love to hear from you. Love to have a review. If five people out of the thousands are going to listen to this episode, left us a review, it would be an amazing Christmas present for Dave and.

I. BusinessBrain show slash review. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thank you in advance for reviewing the show. We love us. We love it. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you on Friday.

See ya.