Best and Stupidest

Business brain, episode 607 for Casual Friday, December 13th. Ooh, scary. National Ice Cream Day 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas and crunch them in and use them to help best tune our business brains so that we each have even better shots at leading those charmed lives that we love to lead. Sponsors for this episode include shopify.com businessbrain where you can sign up for a $1 per month trial for you to sell any to anyone and anywhere. And then also incogni.com brain where codebrain gets you 60% off an annual plan to take personal data back. We'll share more details about that in a bit. But really, as I always say, our job is to encourage you to want to learn more about our sponsors, and visiting those links is the way that you can do it. So please check them out for now here on National Ice Cream Day in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

Yeah, I'm Shannon Jean. Out here in Northern California. Why would they have National Ice Cream Day in the middle of December when it's cold?

Does it matter? I eat ice cream. I try to eat ice cream all the time. I love ice cream, Shannon.

I love ice cream as well. I guess it doesn't matter. It's good all the time.

Doesn't matter. It's ice cream.

Got it.

It warms my heart even though it's cold. It's bizarre. It's weird how it works. Another thing that warms my heart is reviews from all of you. And we did get a review from amazing Nahuel Hilal here in the United States. I feel like part of the conversations every week. There is simple wisdom and refreshing openness in every episode. I wish I could have a mini Dave and a mini Shannon on each shoulder when I'm thinking business, I don't know which one is which.

Yeah, I have read on today. So maybe I'm the devil. Yeah, that's funny. That's funny. That's cool. Thank you so much for that review, Dahool. That's wonderful.

Yeah. And if you want to leave a review for us, you can go to Businessbrain Show.

Thank you.

Review. And that will get you as close as we can to where you can type in a review for us in your favorite podcast app. So, yeah, thank you so much. Sweet. Yeah, yeah.

Terrific. Terrific.

Now, this was a heartwarming story. A comment appeared on the YouTube version of episode 307 from, like, three years ago.

Okay, okay.

And the comment. And this was an interview that we did with a guy named Jack Tompkins who was the founder of Pineapple Consulting.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Okay. Right. Somebody named Angry Tom. 22:17. He doesn't seem all that angry to me, but you know, that's who he is on YouTube. Anyway, wrote Great interview. After listening, I hired Jack to help with my data. His service has been a huge help for focusing my business over the past year. What an amazing.

That's sweet. That's the whole idea right there.

That's it.

That's great. Yeah, that's sweet.

I mean, that's the, you know, that's the business brain community that I know exists out there. And I'm trying to figure out how to like put us all together somewhere that we all would be together, you know, online. And I mean, it would be great to all be in a room together. But sure, you know, some where can we. I know this community exists, but I also know that we're all our time for each of us is strapped and so most of us don't have time to just like, you know, sit in a Reddit group forever. Right. And hang out that way. But. But there's value here and that epitomizes it for us. So I agree. I'm thinking about what's the best thing. Should we start a Slack group? Should we start a Discord group? Should we start a LinkedIn group? I don't know, but I think we got to do something and we need to do one thing and bring everybody there.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a. I love the concept. We've talked about this for a long time. I have been involved in some communities. What you don't want is it to just be quiet.

Right.

And you don't want it just to have to be you and I that are commenting all the time. But it doesn't take much to have a few people that ask questions, that post comments that, you know and start getting people helping, helping one another out. Definitely open to it. I would do it in Slack. I would do it in, like I said, a Discord. I don't know anything other than we used to record the show in Discord, but that was. Cause basically you gave me a link or a thing to click and I.

Yeah, because Discord had high audio quality, that was the only reason we chose it.

Yeah, exactly.

Got it.

Yeah, got it. I think, you know, community is great, but it. You have to be. Look, so I. Not to make this about my thing, but I'll just give you some experience. I started the experiment A few months ago on X. $5 a month to subscribe to my content.

X isn't the right community for this, though.

No, no, no.

Okay.

But I'm going to tell you what I learned. Great. Because I didn't know, like, well, nobody's going to subscribe. And then people started subscribing and I was like, well, what do I offer? You know, I post everything. I don't want to do special posts necessarily. So I just created a chat group of subscribers and I've just watched how it's developed. There's like 97 people in there now, or 96. And there are. Out of that, maybe there's 10 to 20 folks that comment, answer questions, provide resources, and it's. It's wonderful.

So I stand corrected. X is the right place for that. Oh, well.

Yeah. Well, it works. I've learned. I've learned so much because at first I thought this isn't going to work because I don't have time to go in there and just be answering questions all day long. But I don't have to.

Right. We started our MacGeek Discord community well, many years too late. But at this point, I think it was about two years ago that we started it and there was about 2,000 people in there. Wonderful.

Yeah, that's great.

I did not. And I'm not proud of this, but I will admit that my. The way my schedule was with everything during the month of November, I didn't visit our Discord community. One.

That's it.

And yet it kept going. There were no flame wars. Nobody yelled at anybody. Everybody's still helping each other. And it's like, my work here is done. It's not.

Yeah, but like, no, no, but, yeah. Dropping in and answering specific questions, offering your take on things to help people along and learning from them, too. That's the thing I've learned.

So that'.

Yeah.

And I mean, that's what we do here, obviously, it's what we do over at MacGeeka. But showing the willingness to be a beginner every single time that we step in front of these microphones, sure. We have advice to share. We have experience. Doesn't mean we know everything. In fact, I guarantee you we don't know everything. We don't know half of everything. But making that part of our whole foundation here is what creates the. It gives other people permission to also not know things and ask and all of that stuff. And it's great. I. Yeah, I love it. So let us know where you think this community could be. Feedbackusinessbrain show we have some ideas, and in the end, we'll need to make a decision and just, like, go with it. I can guarantee, you, almost guarantee that it's not going to be Facebook, because I've tried the Facebook communities.

That's not our. No.

And it just doesn't. It doesn't give us the insulation from the outside world that we would want. And. And I think that's. That's important. So. Yeah, well, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

Absolutely.

All right, folks, Imagine for a moment, if you will, that your personal data is like a prized business pitch and some sneaky data brokers just walked into the boardroom and stole your slides. That's exactly what's happening out there these days. These digital stockpile. They're snatching your name, your email, even your Social Security number and selling it off to the highest bidder or bidders. But fear not, because Incogni is here to save the day. Incogni acts like your personal fixer, telling those data brokers you're fired. They remove your personal data, handle every objection, and keep your info off the market with repeated removal requests. It's like having a cybersecurity team on retainer, but without the price tag of a Fortune 500 IT department. And here's one of my favorite parts. Incogni can even protect up to four friends or family members. Because if you're living a charmed life, why not extend that charm to your loved ones? So why procrastinate? You can protect your data. Now, they'll tell those pesky data brokers to buzz off and handle any pushback with the skill of a top negotiator. And if you've got those VIPs in your life, you can protect up to four of them. Like I said. So take your personal data back with Incogni. Use code brain@incogni.com brain and get 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com incogni.com brain where you use code Brain and get 60% off an annual plan. And our thanks to Incogni for sponsoring this episode. All right, you know what separates a hobby from a thriving business? Well, the tools behind the scenes that make selling seamless and scalable. And that's where our sponsor, Shopify, comes in. I just started using Shopify for all the merch that we sell over at MacGeek, Gab, and other podcasts I do. And it's like upgrading from a clunky push cart to a fully Loaded rocket ship. Shopify is home to the number one checkout on the planet. Their secret weapon, shop pay, which boosts conversions by up to 50%. That means fewer abandoned carts and way more sales. And that's a good sound to hear because that's the sound you hear when you make a sale on Shopify. So whether your customers are scrolling, strolling, or impulse Buying at 2am, Shopify's got you covered. And here's a wild part. With Shopify, you'll be living that charmed life while your store practically runs itself. So if you're ready to level up and upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use with Shopify, sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase go to shopify.com businessbrain to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Shannon, you asked me, well, shared with me two great questions when we were prepping for this show. Would you please share those with our audience?

Yes, yes, yes, please.

And tell me where you found these, too.

Yeah. So there's a company called Fastenal, which is fascinating because they sell nuts, bolts, and screws. Not very exciting, but they're massively successful. Their founder is Bob Kierland. They've been around since 1967. One of their things they've done is they sell things that you wouldn't normally buy inside a vending machine, and they sell nuts and bolts. Or if you have a big business, they'll bring a vending machine to your warehouse and sell things like gloves and safety things and eye protection and stuff so that you don't have to, you know, you give your first set of gloves to your employees, but when they lose those, they go to the vending machine and they can buy them that kind of thing. So one of the things that. Yeah, one of the things that Bob Kierland would tell everybody their management ask. You should go ask every employee this question. Two questions. What is the best idea you have to improve our company? That's question one. And the second question, maybe, maybe even more important, what is the stupidest thing we are doing right now at our company? And wait.

Just let those sink in for a second, folks.

Okay, I'll say it again. I'll say it again.

That is what that is. This is gold.

Yeah. What is the best idea you have that would help our company improve our business? And what is the stupidest thing we are doing right now? And you. The answers you get will be amazing, of course, but it also, it's like an exercise in involving your people, that we want your best and we want to hear the worst. And it really gets that dialogue going. And I love it. I love this concept and I recommend everybody use it. I think it's terrific.

So while we're sitting here, of course, I want to level this up. I want to 10x this, to use a fun term. And so I fed those two questions into our friend chat GPT and I asked it. I said, here are two questions to ask my employees. Give me 10 more just like these are.

Right.

So here's 10 more. And I'll put a link to this little chat in. In the thing so you folks can. What's one thing we should stop doing to free up time and resources?

Oh, that's good.

What's a small change we could make that would have a big impact? If you were the CEO for a day, what's the first thing you would change that's similar to your. What's the stupidest thing we're doing? Right?

Yeah, that's.

What's something you think our customers want that we're not delivering? What's one process or tool you find frustrating to use and how could it be improved? I love that one because.

Say that again. Say that again.

Yeah. What's one process or tool that you find frustrating to use at your job and how could it be improved? I know internally we're guilty, and I think every company is guilty of having something that's just been there forever. And so it's just the way it is. It's just the way it is. Yeah, but no, what's the most rewarding part of your job and how can we amplify that? What's the thing? One thing that would make your workday more efficient or enjoyable if you could reallocate resources from one area of the company to another, where would you move them and why? What's one risk you think we should take that we're currently avoiding?

That's a good one.

And what's a trend or opportunity in our industry that we're not taking full advantage of?

The. The thing. I love all those questions and they're very powerful. And I'm actually going to post those.

Yes, but.

But you better be prepared to take action on them.

That's the thing. Those are very specific and you're getting.

If. If you don't take action, people won't value them. So perhaps when you roll out those kind of questions, or maybe you only ask one or two, whatever you tell people told something like, hey, we're asking everyone and we're going to put all the answers together and choose a couple of things or something.

Yes.

Because you do want to hear from your employees. You don't want to know.

You don't want to. You don't want to reduce morale by saying, yeah, tell me stuff we're never going to do anything with. Well, what if they're setting those expectations?

Yeah. And. And if their idea is no good. It doesn't. Just because you're asking these great questions doesn't mean you're going to get a great answer.

No.

So you've got to be prepared and present them in such a way that when. Because it won't be if. When you don't act on every single thing.

Oh, you definitely won't. Right.

No, no. So it's. I like the idea of.

And I think that's true of the first two questions, too.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. All of them. It's yes.

Yes, all of them. So you, you got to preface it maybe with, oh, hey, we're gathering all stuff. I'm always interested in hearing these things. I can't promise you. I don't say promise, but I can't say we're going to act on everything we get, but we want your feedback because that helps shape things overall in our business. Yep. Something to that effect that and I had.

I asked chat GPT to rephrase each question with the caveats and expectation setting in mind.

Yeah, that's good.

The link is there. Yeah, it's in the show notes. Yep.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. I love that question. I love this business. I love how they've created something massive out of something so boring. Nuts. Literally. Literally nuts and bolts. I love their concept of vending at different people's location and putting things inside them, like gloves and glasses and band aids or whatever you may need at your business and taking that off the plate of the business itself and allocating, maybe you allocate a certain amount that everybody gets to spend and anything over that, hey, you're on your own if you lose your fifth set of gloves or whatever.

Yeah. We can't cover you for that.

I can tell you my warehouse guys, razor, knives and gloves, constant, constantly. I need. I can't find my gloves. I lost my razor knife. You know. Okay. You know, so just go to the machine.

Yeah, yeah. Good news. There's one right over there for you.

Yeah, yeah.

And those kinds of things. When even with responsible people, when they're not on the hook when there is no pain for losing your gloves or your razor blades, small things like that. When there's no pain, there's less incentive to avoid the scenario. Right. You just. People learn pain. And I don't mean that this needs to be overly punitive, but to have to go spend 10 bucks on a pair of gloves like, oh, hey, wait.

A minute, you're gonna take. Oh, you will take him. Yes.

That means that the next 30 minutes or 40 minutes that I work or whatever it is, you know, maybe it's the next 20 minutes that you work. Okay. That I just gave that away because I lost my gloves. I don't want to do that again.

Yeah. If you want to read the story of these things, just go to fastenal.com. you'll see, you know, hit on the thing. And they have some great, you know, case studies of how they put these in these warehouses and how it changes the whole dynamic. And I just. I love stuff like that because it just seems so obvious when someone else does it.

Yes.

But I, you know, it's like, why is it so good? It's just.

Oh, no, I.

You know, I love it.

I was on a call with somebody today, actually. A guy named Brian Barletta. We've talked about his business called Sounds Profitable, which is a trade organization in the podcasting world. And as part of our $500 a month membership in this organization, we get 30 minutes of consulting time with Brian every month and some other things, too. And I use that consulting time I go in with if I need him to introduce me to people or do things for us. I absolutely will do that because he is a fantastic networker. And that's really the value that those trade organizations bring, is that, you know, it's like, oh, we're all part of this. I now can talk to the CEO of that company without having to jump through. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Right? But the other thing I do is I just tell them, like, here's what we're. We're looking at. You know, here's what we wanted. Here's what I want to do. And we're not doing. I, you know, I want to add more shows to Backbeat here or something. And, yeah, like, that was our call today. And he's like, well, you know how to do this. I'm like, no, you have to understand, I'm an idiot. Just because I have succeeded at things doesn't mean I came up with the idea to do it. I'm a good implementer. I have bullheaded persistence, but I don't always see the same big picture that you see. And so tell me, what would you do? And he was like, well, I would just do this, this, and this. And it was like, dude, why am I not doing that?

You need that. Yes. You need that stuff.

Of course, yes.

Different outlook on things. Huge.

Just like the obvious thing from 10ft away is not obvious to me. He's like, well, why aren't you doing this? And it wasn't even why aren't you? I was asking, why aren't you? He was saying, well, you know, you would try this, you would try that, you would do these things that I'm sure you're already doing. It's like, okay, you listed nine things and I've been doing one of them. So, yeah, great. Thanks for your time. I got. I got my marching order. See you next month.

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, I think people stop. People stop experimenting and trying. It's very common. I do it too. You stop. Oh, I could try this new thing of no, because this is the way. Or that didn't work or whatever. But you got to go revisit and try to do things and keep experimenting all the time. Your two week experiment concept. Constantly, you know.

Oh, yeah. But you got to do that to ourselves, too. It's not just. Yeah. What was it? I mean, it's. It's back to that. That it's not a Steve Jobs quote in. I mean, he quoted it, but it was Stuart Brand on the back of the whole Earth catalog, and it was, you know, stay hungry, stay foolish.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

That's it. Yeah.

Yep.

Yep. So that's great. I agree.

Awesome. Very cool. Very good. If you have ideas for us, you know, we'd love to hear from you. Feedback at BusinessBrain show. We would love your review. It is the price of admission to listen to this show. If. If one tenth of you went up and left us a review, it would rock our world and rocket us up the podcast charts.

Yeah.

And this show is not free. Dave and I put a lot of time and effort into it, even though we joke around that we don't. We do Businessbrain show review. Go up and drop a few words there. We would love you for it.

Thanks for hanging out with us, folks. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your reviews, your thoughts, your emails, all those things, and keep living that charmed life. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Later.