Asking For Help Costs Nothing

Business Brain, the Show for entrepreneurs, episode 497 for Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea or three, we crunch it, we dissect it, we analyze it, we. We use it to tune our business brains together so that we can each keep on living that charmed life here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in sunny California, I'm Shannon Jean. How you doing?

Yeah, I'm cold today. It's like in the 30s, man.

Yeah, in the 60s out here, man. It's pretty rough.

Yeah, that's rough.

Yeah, it's cold. It's cold. Hey, it's all relative.

It is all relative. Yeah. Speaking of relative, back on episode 493, we talked about screen time and we got a couple of opinions about this. Actually, we got more than a couple. We're going to share a couple. We got a lot of opinions into FeedbackusinessBrain show. The first that I want to share comes from Will, who said, you guys are talking about screen time and computer use. And while it's not the same thing exactly, I work in it. He says, it just so happened that today I had conversations with two different clients. Both conversations boiled down to the same thing. Directors of each brought me in to discuss how to use filtering and routers to block sites from their employees or keep their employees from visiting certain sites. Sites they didn't want employees to access during the working hours. As an example, they did not want employees going to Facebook during their working shifts. Basically, they thought the front desk people were not paying attention and wanted me to have the router block access. I said I thought they were going about this all wrong. I could block anything they needed me to on the router, of course. But this was not a technology problem. It was a training and policy problem. I said if I block Facebook on the router, users would just say, oh, it doesn't work here. I'll try over here on my phone. If you set a policy and train on the policy, they will know that they are not supposed to use Facebook. And if you tell them what they should be doing instead, hopefully they will do that. And he said one of his clients, he had 50, 50 success rate with this tact. One of them said, yeah, still go block it on the router. That's how we want to solve this. And the other was said, actually, you make a really good point. So yeah, it's interesting.

I agree that that be great to say, hey, you know, check your Phones on your break or whatever. But some things I think you should block. I mean, we had to wind up blocking any BitTorrent stuff because we had a bunch of technicians that knew how to use BitTorrent.

Okay.

And so I got a couple letters from the.

I don't know, from your isp.

Association of America downloaded this movie at this time. And I was like, oh, man. So we did block that, but that I can see. We didn't block anything else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that. I can see blocking things that are gonna. Certainly. That are gonna cause you problems like that or cause problems with bandwidth. You know, all. All of those kinds of things make sense. But things like Facebook, where people could just go and look at it quickly and. Or not so quickly, depending.

Yes.

Yeah. I feel like there's. It. I'm with Will on this one. It is. And we treated our kids the same way. You know, it's the same kind of thing. Like, do you put the parental filtering? And it's like, well, maybe at some level for the. For the worst, offend, offending stuff. But yeah, otherwise there's a respect. Right. And. And you can. You get to pick how much respect you want to give to your employees or your kids and in return, you know, you. You define how much respect is expected in return. And I just has worked out well for me. I can. You know, I am. I am. I am full of anecdotes from exactly one perspective. So. But. But they are all very successful. Yeah. You know, so I, I think it builds trust. Yeah.

More when you're like, hey, you know, this stuff, doing your break. Great, whatever. And I also think that if you. If people have too much time on their hands and you're not giving them, like, it doesn't matter if they're an admin or at the front desk. We always gave projects to people like, hey, you know, during your down, love to have you check this stuff. Love to have you, you know, teach them how to respond to emails or how to work on your FAQ or your knowledge base. I mean, there's just a ton of stuff to be done and people want work. You know, they don't want to be bored.

No.

And. And there should be always, you know.

We'Ve talked about it here, and they want to feel productive. Like, they want to feel like they're doing something to help the team. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. So. So that I think it's. It is a management and a policy kind of thing. I think that's. If you can.

If you can. Yeah. I mean, there I, I, you know, it's, it's not binary. There, there are going to be times where it's like yes, we need to do this this way, but I would really try to do it with, yeah, with, with management for sure. We also got a note about this same topic from the same episode 493 from Robert said, I liked your segment on Screen Time. It's a subject that's hit home for my family and not in a good way. I have three girls, two college age now and another 16. My older two girls didn't get a smartphone until they were 12 and 14 so social media was on the rise for them but it wasn't as entrenched with their friends back in 2010 like it is now. For sure. Yeah. However, he says my youngest has really struggled with bullies and predators. In eighth grade. I figured since all of her friends had smartphones and since her older sisters weren't impacted too badly that she would be able to handle a phone. In hindsight, he says I got her a smartphone too early. Without going into details, her struggles with self harm have been heartbreaking. Right now she's safe, which is good. Yep. But it's an ongoing challenge where people contact her to this day and make horrible comments. People can be terrible, especially young girls. We definitely dealt with that when, you know, when our, especially our daughter and when she was in middle school and the school didn't know how to deal with it either. They like they were, they were far more clueless than we were in fact what he said and so I'm sorry to hear that Robert. I'm glad things are that she's in a safe place right now. He then shares a couple of other things. He says one thing I've not heard you address on the show is public and or community speaking. One of the things I do to not only promote my business but also to give back to the community is speaking engagements. Over the last decade I've provided educational presentations to local schools, you know, six or seven times a year. Yeah. The whole lunch and learn events. That's interesting. I, yeah, that's great. It's a, that's a great tip. Yeah. Look for those opportunities in your, in your, you know, your local environment. Yeah. Yeah.

And especially if it's great to start in small groups if you're not comfortable, you know, public speaking and you want to just get used to being up in front of people because that's just such a great way to promote your business over time and your own yourself and help and Give back as well. But starting with, you know, little kids or something where you may be more comfortable or high school students and then working your way up, I think it is a great tip.

Yeah, he said, he said that just today. He says, I was asked by score.org to do a presentation in an upcoming month here for on Internet marketing. So, you know, you can. The Score folks are good people to be in with both because they can help coach you. And then, you know, it's a. It's a community of giving. Right? So it's, it goes in, it goes in all directions. You know, when you add it all up. Shannon and I have started over 20 businesses, and through that time, we've learned a lot. Most of it comes in the form of mistakes. And that's okay, right? Because our mistakes are our tuition. One relevant mistake I've made and therefore learned is what I've started calling the busy fallacy. We all know how to be busy. We can all make it look like we're getting stuff done. But we also know that's not necessarily always the case. And that's why a few years back, you might remember, I removed the word busy from my vocabulary and intentionally replaced it with the word productive. This has been a game changer for me, but the game changing didn't happen overnight. I needed to learn how to ensure I was actually being productive and not just saying the word. Shannon and I, we discuss this a lot and have shared many of these tips about it on the show over the years. And while we certainly love it when you go back and revisit our older episodes, we also know how important it is to actually be productive. So we have created our Business Brain productivity course just for you. And you get to try it for free, arriving in your email box every day. Our productivity course shares with you the most important tips and tricks to ensure you stay productive and that you have an easy time doing it. You never have to leave your inbox, and the course is guaranteed to teach you something new each and every day. But like I said, you don't have to take my word for it. Try the first two days completely free at businessbraincourses.com free. And then let us know what you think. Because, hey, giving feedback about the course is feedback for the show, right? Well, if you get it in soon, you'll be entered to win that MacBook Air we're giving away. So businessbraincourses.com free is where you'll start. Go there now. I promise you won't be sorry you'll be productive. All right. We did an episode of macgeekab recently where know we answer people's questions and solve people's problems. And a topic came up that gave us the title for this episode a couple of weeks ago. And the title is the phrase, I need help costs you nothing.

Yeah, that's so true.

And it's something that I have to remind myself of all the time, despite the fact that I have literally built my career on helping other people. Like, I am happy to help. When someone asks me for help, sometimes I try to offer help, even if they don't ask. That's a whole different problem. But when they ask, I'm very happy to help. And that's not unique to me. It's not even rare. It is super common for people to be happy to help. It makes them feel good. It actually allows you to, you know, learn something or get something that you need that you can't do for yourself or you don't already know how to do. And yet I find that I have trouble remembering to ask for help all the time.

Yeah, it's a. It's a really good observation that people do like to help, and they. They also are often flattered or they feel important. Oh, I. There. I'm important enough to ask, right? Everybody loves that. It's like, oh, my. My opinion is valid or is valued. I have certain expertise that people think is great. And. And I think you can do it with, you know, your customers, your business peers, even your suppliers. You know, I can remember asking suppliers, what's the best way to use this thing you're selling? You know, can you train us on it, show us what's going on? Tips and tricks, things we may be missing. And I think one of the biggest aspects from a business perspective could be making your customers feel important. I mean, obviously, they are important, but reaching out to them in a way, when you're not trying to sell them something, to ask them, even a simple question, like one question, what could we improve on? Or what could we have done better? That. Because everybody has a comment like, oh, I love this, this, this, this, and this. It would have been great if your guys showed up earlier or texted me before they came or, you know, I got an email when my product was ready, or whatever. There's. There's always ways and gathering that data so, you know, you don't have to react to every recommendation or comment. But as you build a database of those comments and recommendations, you start to see systemic issues that can help you improve your business. You Know, if everybody complains that your service guys aren't taking their shoes off or they don't wear booties or whatever on their feet, that could be a problem, you know, and different ways to improve it. So it's, and it's free, like you.

Said, and it costs, it costs nothing. And, you know, you don't, it doesn't just have to be asking for something, you know, to improve yourself. You don't have to ask for feedback about you. You can ask for anything. I've gone to our suppliers and asked them their view on industry trends. Like, you know, you, like at Backbeat, right? We, you know, we represent a group of podcasts and some websites, and we manage their sponsorships for them. We see the industry through our lens. Right? But the people that buy from us see the industry through their lens, which sees all of our competitors, too. Right? And, yeah, and they get to see, you know, larger trends than we would. And I'm always asking, like, hey, do you think, like, from what you see over there, do you think, like, this type of thing is better than this type of thing? Is there any difference, you know, with this kind of ad versus that kind of ad? Because we only see what we see. And, you know, that kind of stuff has been super valuable to learn, but it makes them, like you said, feel valuable because they are, they, they are knowledgeable. They have insights, even if they don't realize they have insights. And so this is, and I, you know, I, I, when I ask my, you know, our vendors, this, I ask them because I want to know, but it does make them feel important. And so it's like this, you know, it's, it's not a zero sum game. It's a win, win, win for everybody. I, I get something out of it. They get something out of it. They show, I show them that I respect them and, you know, all of. Because I do. Right? It's, it's, you know, I've gotten to the point where I start thinking, what would I want that person to write a white paper about so that I could learn the thing they know how that they know that they could share. And then if they don't write the white paper, I just ask them, like, hey, what do you see? You know, and I think that, yeah.

Even with your competitors, you know, we used to call it coopetition, because.

Absolutely, you know, if you have a.

Good relationship with your competitors, I recommend you use the power of reciprocity. You give first. Right? So if, if you're talking to a competitor, you met him At a trade show, you emailed somebody or you got connected somehow, you know, offer to help them. Hey, if you guys ever want some tips or, you know, we do this thing this way and be glad to help you guys if you, you know, this kind of thing, I'd like to have a back and forth when you make that offer or just, you just do it and help them out somehow. They're far more likely to help you when you need it. Make sure, you know, they don't talk bad about your business, and you shouldn't obviously be talking bad about your competitors. It's a, it's a losing.

You will never win doing that. No.

Yeah.

No.

So having a decent relation, you don't have to like each other. You have to, you know, but respecting one another and understanding that they're your peers in whatever industry you're in, whether you're.

Yeah, you're all in it together. The whole I, I am, my whole career is about coopetition. Like Rising Tide raises all ships and, And I know that not everyone operates that way. And it, it's like I, I know people who are ruthless competitors who are very successful, arguably, in fact, not even arguably, some wildly more successful than me. But the coopetition thing can really work. And, and it, it just, I don't know, it's a, It's a. I have more fun. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. We don't talk about having. Having fun enough. You know, we have a good time.

And I enjoy what I get to do. Like, you know, that's a huge part of the Charmed life, Shannon. Like, I love it when I, you know, I'm either on the phone or on, like, X or Twitter or Facebook or at a trade show, encountering the people that are technically my competition. I don't even think about them that way most of the time. I mean, sometimes I do, you know, let's be fair. But most of the time, it's just. They're just my friends who are out there doing the same thing as me. I have peers. That's a wonderful thing because running a business can be lonely sometimes. So finding people who are even your competitors doing the same thing, they're probably just as lonely, man.

Yeah, absolutely. So reaching out, asking for help, show them maybe even a little vulnerability or empathy if they're asking you for help. It's just a great way to connect with people, make other people feel important. And, you know, we, we wanted to have this discussion just to remind all of us that it's an important thing to do and it's it's just a, a great hack to help out your business and your charmed life. So we'd like to hear, yeah, how have you done it before? Or did we get this right? Did we get it wrong? Feedbackusbrain show and you know, we're coming up on episode 500. We're gonna get give away that MacBook Air. So love to get some feedback flooding in the email.

Absolutely. You got a couple more episodes. Another week. That's it. That's it. You got one more week. We'll take feedback through episode 500.

There we go.

And then, and then we'll, we'll draw for the MacBook Air after episode 500. So. And hey, we need help. We want you to go check out our course, businessbraincourses.com. you don't have to pay anything. There's no credit card required. None of that stuff. You just go, you sign up, you get the first two lessons in your email box and then reply to it. Let us know what you think. It really means a lot to us and we really want to know. We want to make this course fantastic for all of you. So thanks for hanging out with us. Feedbackusbrain show as I mentioned. And yeah, keep, keep living that charm life, will you? See you again on.