Managing Fear & Professional Development – DBA Small Business Show 13

Greetings, folks, and welcome to the DBA podcast, the Small Business podcast, episode number 13 for Wednesday, May 6, 2015 here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and in the earthquake, I don't know if it's the earthquake capital of the world, but we've had about four earthquakes last few days out in sunny San Francisco Bay Area. I'm Shannon Jean.

Yeah, I saw that you were posting this morning that you had two today, right?

Two this morning. Yeah. Right. One, I was still in bed, shook the bed and then as my son came running down the stairs. And then we had another one that I kind of felt it and I looked up in the. And the TV mount on the wall was shaking. And then my. I got another alert from my. My kid who must be connected very well to some. Somehow some sort of thing. But yeah, we had a pretty big one on Sunday that really shook our house. Put us out in the driveway. So we, you know, we all bailed out of the house. Our house is on a hill. So the routine. The routine here is get to the way and. But yeah, it's just, you know, little ones like this are fine, you know, just releasing some pressure.

Well, I guess that's. That's a good way to look at it, right. When you live in an area where that's a. That's a reality. So.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I mean, and it's. They're kind of fun. We just kind of. Oh, there it is. You know, hey, let's go.

So I guess that's the way you have to react.

I mean, if I think so, you can't worry about it all the time or it'll just drive you nuts.

No, that, that's. And that's true. You know, and there's probably a business lesson in there, too. There are a zillion things all day long any of us could worry about e. At. At home, like. Like we're talking about with you or at work, you know, I mean, we can all in our minds and maybe not. Maybe we can have friends tell us about catastrophes that totally would crater your life or your business or.

Or worse.

Right.

But.

Yep, you.

There. There are things you can control and there are things you cannot. And yeah, for those that you cannot. Don't fret about it, man. Just.

Yeah.

You know, if it's going to take you down, it's going to take you down.

Yeah. We talked about compartmentalizing. Right. There it is.

Yeah.

I think one upside and that's really. You got to kind of compartmentalize hey, this is going to happen and we're going to just have to deal with it and you prepare a little bit and just like for your business. I mean if you're save a little.

Money inside, you know, that's about it.

Yeah, that's right.

Good credit line.

Yeah. Try to get some insurance and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And it's the same. Same at work.

Yep. Insurance, that's. That's the way.

Yeah.

Either actual insurance or self insured if you've got a, you know, enough cash.

Yeah.

Stocked away or a credit line or whatever it is. Yep.

Yeah. And I've talked to a lot of people that not. I mean this was just not on the agenda. But we'll cover it for a minute here. You know, I have a number of people that own businesses that really struggle to hire their first employee because of all the what ifs.

Yeah.

And the everything that could, that could go wrong. And you know, I often say, well, you know, some of those things are going to happen and you'll just learn to deal from, you know, deal with them and. But you'll become a better business owner, you know, and a man manage those kinds of things. But not everything is going to happen otherwise you just kind of paralyzed and your business will be just wrapped around your physicality and what you can get done in a day. And you have to have more, create more of you if you will. You know, that can get out there and do things and create something bigger than yourself.

That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember going through this and it. For me, I guess, I don't know, hiring the first employee probably would definitely was hard. Of course it was hard. But I had gotten past that.

Right.

You know.

Yeah.

And, and I'd had several employees, probably, you know, four to six working for me at the time. And so certainly was used to the expense of that and the risk of that and all of that. But I really.

Were they, were they employees or, or.

Contractors at that point in time? Now most of the people that work for me are contract. Are. Are.

Yeah.

Yes, our employees are employees.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. But I have some that are contractors, you know, the irs. I mean that's a whole. I'm going to put that down on a list.

Yeah.

Because you can't get away with as much of that you're a contractor stuff as you used to. But, but yeah, they were employees. But I'll never forget I had to bite off the expense of buying into what turned out to be actually a complete waste of money. But it was a fairly expensive thing. It was about 50 grand to buy a subscription to Comscore for a year. Now they're like the Gestapo out there in the, if you're in the advertising business, which, which we.

Okay.

And they're kind of like the Nielsen ratings for the web. But in order to get your data presented in the right way to people that search for it, like some companies that want to spend money will come into comscore and search for the people with whom they want to spend that money. And if your name doesn't come up on that list, you don't get the phone call. I mean, you don't even get the opportunity to present, let alone interesting.

Right.

And so we had it in our heads that, for years we had it in our heads that, well, you know, we got to maybe this Comscore back and forth, back and forth. Finally I just did it. You know, I'm like, okay, well, let's spend the money and let's see what happens. But it's a lot of money. I mean, that's, you know, a sales reps base of their salary.

Right.

It was, do I hire somebody extra or do I, you know, do I do this? And it turned out I, I definitely should have hired somebody extra. I should not have done this. But, but biting that off, it was such a, a feeling of freedom. The day I signed that contract, you'd think signing something that was, you know, a significant expense for me and for the business at the time would, you know, I would have the fear. Like, the fear would be worse after I signed up because, you know. Right. For the check.

Right.

How am I, how am I going to pay for it?

Right.

Yeah, sure.

It was the biggest feeling of freedom I've potentially ever felt, at least financially. Yeah. Because I thought, well, wait a minute, I know I can do this. I've done it before. I've hired people that cost me this much or more.

Right.

You know, I can, I'm going to make this work. It's, it's, it's a couple of grand here, there, a month. Well, that's more than that. It's like four grand a month. But it's still, you know, I, I can scrape that together somehow if I screwed this up. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It's that worst case scenario, which I always try to think about too. How do we cover this expense? Worst case, you know, where we can come up with that.

Right. And this was something where, you know, it might not bring, ever bring me money, which it turns out was True. And so it wasn't like a sales rep where I say, well, yes, I'm paying them, but they're, they're going to do work for me that I'm pretty sure, you know, I get to manage this process and hopefully get something. And the funny thing was that night was the first time I was ever relaxed about paying for my kids college too. Because I realized it's the same thing. It's just, you know, another 50 grand a year, whatever it turns out to be. Now, hopefully it's not that much.

No, that's right.

But it's the same kind of, you know, thought process of I can make this, I know how to make this work. I've done it before, especially if possible.

Yeah, yeah. If you have a little bit of history of oh, I can make that, I know how to generate that kind of revenue. And I always tell people that, you know, they want to start something and they're, you know, and they're thinking big and we're going to make all this money and we're going for this, this big number. And I, my comment is, you know, and I come from a real bootstrap background. It's like, hey, why don't you start small and just see if you can make a thousand bucks? Because if you can do that with the minimal input or effort and you can make a thousand bucks, well, you can probably make $10,000. And if you can make $10,000, you can probably make 100. And you know, it's, it's not that big of a stretch. And I hearing you explain it like that, I think, which I'm not telling people this, but I think what happens is that you gain a little more confidence. Like, hey, I made some money first. That's the first thing. There is a future in this. I know how to generate some revenue doing this thing. And then how do you tweak it and start putting some more effort or more muscle or like you're talking about some capital behind it to hopefully generate a larger return on the investment than you invested in the case of comscore. Maybe not. But you don't know unless you try it.

No, it's almost like I don't miss that 50 grand because it taught me a lesson. But I still want my 50 grand back.

I know I'm not going to get it. I got you. Yeah, well, and that brings up another good thing. We were going to talk about professional development today on a personal level, but even on a business level you could probably consider that, hey, this is our development of our company, we're going to get, you know, quote, legitimate by being in this database and this kind of thing, and there's all kinds of services and products out there that once you start getting some success, are going to be banging at your door, calling you, emailing you, wanting you to sign up for service X or this. Whether it's, you know, becoming an accredited Better Business Bureau company, whether it's Yelp paying advertising to get more Angie's List, I mean, on and on and on and on. Every industry, I'm sure, has its own set of things. And the. The question I think you have to ask yourself is, is it really, you know, at. Does it. What does it do for me? And in the case of what you're describing, maybe at the time, it really did serve a purpose by getting you that air of, you know, legitimacy, if.

You will, even if only internally in our own mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. And. And I think that's because now I find myself just ignoring all that stuff.

Right.

Like, years. I just totally got it. Of course, I think, you know, we're fine without it. We don't need that.

It's bs.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's bs. It's like, well, show me the real return on investment and show me the analytics. And if they can't really do that, then I'm really not interested. But there was a time, or even not too long ago when we're starting different businesses, your attitude may change and you may think, wow, you know what? We're just getting going. I want, you know, to be accredited on the Better Business Bureau, you know, and it's not that. Certainly not as expensive as, like, the comp score, but it's a monthly fee and it all adds up. And then you want to get listed with this and with that, and that may be helpful at a time, but I think you have to reevaluate it and to where it just doesn't just become, oh, this is just a normal thing, and every year somebody writes a check for X thousands of dollars to belong. You have to question it. Do you still need it?

You do. And just like you need to question your gym membership.

Right.

I mean, it's the same thing.

Well, right.

I mean, this whole monthly recurring revenue model, a lot of businesses are in it and they don't actually provide the value that you pay for, but they keep their price just under whatever your radar is.

Yeah, you don't pay attention.

You don't pay attention. That's right.

Forget. Yeah, yeah. And it is. And especially when you get the point to where you're not paying the bills.

Yes.

When you're, when you have a bookkeeper in your office and they're, you know. Yes. You're. You're kind of looking at things, but typically speaking to my own experience, you're looking at the larger things, the bigger numbers. But then if you really kind of step into it and go, well, what's this $19 a month? What's this $89 a month? It adds up to thousands of dollars of. We have this deep well account in our accounting software called dues and subscriptions. And I'm always, like, digging in there. I'm going, what is this? Who signed up for this? And you really have to question it and see where that use. And ask your customers, you know, how did you find me? If you're, if they're finding you? Like a lot of our companies, you know, we're on Yelp, and we get great referrals from Yelp, but I don't get any more referrals from. And this is not a knock against Yelp, and we can have another conversation about the good and the pros and cons of Yelp as well. Sure, I'm a user, and I, you know, I like it for certain things, but I have personally not seen an increase in customers coming from Yelp while I'm paying for advertising. It just doesn't correspond with, oh, last month we got 300 customers from Yelp, and now we pay the, you know, $800 a month or whatever they want, and we got, you know, an extra hundred customers. It doesn't, it doesn't work that way. And they're at their own analytics. I always bring them up because they constantly call us and, you know, and I can go, look, look at these reports. So you, you just have to look at it a lot and, and think about what's important to your business. If you're in. In some kind of service business and you, you know, you need that sticker on your door, if you're in your car, your truck, or on your business card or on your website, that very well may be. And like, for us, for Tech Restore, I've always felt it was really important to have Apple certified technicians working for us. Okay. And even though we're an independent repair business, we're not associated with Apple at all. And we, we have, we love that. We, you know, we love the Mac and pretty much, you know, most things Apple does and love all their products and we, but we feel we can offer a better experience to the customer by being independent. At that being said, we, we want all our technicians to go through the Apple certification program to learn the basics and the ins and outs and as well just to start something, keep up and, you know, get it done within six months. I mean, if you're a technician and you know, we bring you on, we want you to be certified within the first 12 months. That's kind of part of your, you know, career path with us. And I still do that and we still pay for that. And it's, you know, it's like $400, something like that, but sure. And then after they have to annually renew it and all that kind of stuff and it's great and we talk, tell our customers that. And you know, these guys are Apple certified and I think that makes our customers feel a little bit better about, you know, having some.

Yeah, that's one of those hard things to, to quantify though, right? I mean, because you're probably not willing to test that theory, right. By stopping, you could, well, you could still have Apple certified text and just not advertise that fact for six months.

Right.

And see how your business does. But why bother at that point, right? I mean, if you're not gonna, if you're not gonna stop doing it and there's not a huge financial benefit to even consider it, well then, then, you know, you're locked in. It's all good.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And, and you know, you could do a B testing maybe on your website where you advertised it and didn't or you know, this kind of stuff. But I, like I said it for us, it's, it's a nominal thing to get the text done and, and it's great for the technicians as well.

I was gonna say it, it, it engenders some loyalty. I mean, not only does it give them skills that they hopefully will use for you, but could take somewhere else, right?

Take somewhere else.

Yeah, it engenders some loyalty potentially.

Yeah, I think so. And it's great to get them, you know, moving along some sort of career path, especially in a small company where, you know, you may not have really clear defined levels of movement. Right. Oh, I'm going to go to this department, then I'm going to become a department head. Then I'm going to become this. Well, you know, with a small company under 50 employees, you may not have something so well defined, but you can kind of create your own. And, and this goes back to the kind of the professional development I Was.

Just going to say now we're, now we're sort of heading down, down the path of our, our originally proposed agenda item. Although it seems we have two today and that's okay.

Yeah, sure.

But yeah, yeah, so, so we're talking about professional development and that is, you know, this Apple certified training is definitely falls into that realm. It's professional development for your employees, but that's just as important as professional development for you. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. You, you know, you, you brought it up, you know, a few weeks ago about, you know, trade shows and collaboration and you know, I think your comment was, you know, no one exists in a vacuum and, and even if you're not the best kind of networking person to get out there, there's still just a ton of ways for you to participate and connect with other people.

And I would say especially if you're not the best networker, the best thing you can do for yourself is force yourself into those situations.

Right.

If you're a really good like people person and all that probably sitting at your desk, you can get done, you know, maybe 70% you won't because you're a people person and you'll go out and do these other things.

Right.

But you could do it because you're not afraid to pick up the phone, you're not afraid to shoot somebody an email and just, you know, ask them how their kids are doing and all of that stuff. I've always said there's, and there's, there's many, I mean there's networking and then there's, there's professional development and you can get both done at a conference. I mean networking thing is, is, is its own thing. But, but you know, heading out to a conference or is certainly one way to do it.

Right.

Because you're so.

Yeah, you're meeting.

Yeah. Let's talk about a couple of ways.

So conferences, let's, let's talk about that for a minute. So you know, most conferences are, are, you know, usually bolted together with a trade show with an exhibit hall, that kind of thing. Maybe not all they are.

You know, my feeling on that is that is a dying model in anything so any in many industries, certainly for consumer targeted conferences, it does not make sense for anyone to spend the money at an expo floor.

Right.

Yeah, and that's what I was going to say. I mean I've gone to, to you know, tons and tons of these shows and I find that walking, I mean walking the expo floor, the trade show booth can be, I guess if you have connections there and you Want to meet with them. Great. And I can remember meeting, you know, your guys on the show floor where they would. Yeah, this is where our customers are.

You paid the bill?

I paid the bill, yeah. Right.

That's crazy to me that, you know, I mean. Yeah, and so there's two expensive and it's crazy expensive. It was great for me that you did that, but you know, because I didn't have to, all I had to do was get my guys into town and I got free Expo passes. So. But, you know, thing. Yeah, well, you know, thanks for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and I, and if, you know, I mean, I'm saying thanks to you here and I'm, I mean, sort of tongue in cheek, but not really. I mean, I, I am honestly thankful for that. And I, I at, at many Mac World Expos, especially as it got later in, in its, in its tenure and it was obvious to me that no one that was buying booth space was ever going to recoup that investment. I would personally thank as many of them as I possibly could because I, I meant it. They were, they were providing the glue for the ent.

Correct. That's correct.

That was great. But it's not a sustainable model and, and that's, that's clear now, as we know.

Yeah, yeah, it's clear. It's not sustainable. Yeah.

But I have another problem with, with conferences that are tied together with expos and that is there are going to be a lot of people that want to participate and, and see other people at the conference and, and take advantage of that gravity.

Right.

Of, of the, the fact that all these people are getting together. But if you offer somebody a, let's say thousand dollars conference ticket or a $25 Expo hall ticket, a lot of those people are only going to choose the $25 Expo hall ticket. Whereas if you took that away and everybody had to pay the thousand dollar, you know, cost of entry, you'd certainly lose some of those, those $25 people you might even lose a lot of. But everybody that's there is now on equal footing and in addition to just kind of, you know, rubbing elbows, you, you're going because you spent the grand, but also because it's now available to you, you're going to be incentivized to go and, and go to some of the sessions and learn things. Now some conferences are just sort of rah, rah, you know, I'm going to tell you how great we all are things, and to a degree that's valuable, but others, you're actually going to learn. People are going to give you like, you know, they're going to spend 40 minutes or whatever teaching you a thing that they've learned or, you know, some, some level of expertise that they have, hopefully. And that can be really, really valuable. You know, I've, I've been podcasting. I am one of the. This is crazy. It doesn't even feel right for me to say this because I don't feel like it's true, but it is true that I'm one of the first people that ever did podcasts.

Right.

I'm not, I'm not. To me, I'm not one of the first, but to everybody else, it seems like I am. You know, there's still guys that I look at that started way before me. And by way before, I mean, about four to six months, you know.

Right, right, right.

But I still, I don't see myself as one of the first. But, but even for me, going to these shows, like, like I went to New Media Expo recently and, and I still learned a ton there. And, and I'm happy that that's possible.

Right.

And some of the things, in fact, I would say most of the things I learned, I learned from people that have been doing this for less time than I have. And that's okay.

Yeah, right.

That's.

Sure. And now when you're making these connections and you're going to the conferences, would you say because, Because I've had, I mean, I'm not a stand up in the crowd, ask question guy as much as I am when the, when the panel or the session is over, walking up to the stage to try to, hey, you know, hey, can you answer my question? I've got. Where I want to, I want to meet you and talk to you about.

Yeah, well, that's it. I want to meet you. I'm that guy, too. Yeah. Sometimes I'll ask a question in the room, honestly, and I'm half embarrassed to say this, but it's okay. You know, the, the thing that drives me to ask in the room is do I have a question that I can pose in such a way that A, is relevant to everyone in the room? That's, that's sort of, my first thing is I'm not going to ask, okay. Stupid specific thing because everybody hates that guy.

Yes, they do.

You know, But B, I want, if I'm going to stand up in the room and ask a question, I want to, as part of the question, you know, allow myself to be promoted.

Right.

I mean, that's a good.

Sure.

It's not that it. And it's coming across the wrong way. That's the thing that will drive me to do it in the room, you know, versus just going to the guy afterwards. Like, okay, wait a minute. You know, now, Dave, this is good thing for you. This is a good thing for your pr. Get off your butt. Go do this. You know, it's not like I do it intentionally that way, but that's the thing that gets me out of the chair. Like, okay, I'll do it. Yeah. But I'm not.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah, I understand. And, you know, the. So I would agree with you on the. On the, you know, exhibit hall versus conferences. It's a totally different experience. I mean, I can't tell you. That's.

Right.

Yeah. How many times I've walked the miles and miles through, you know, CES and those kinds of shows where I'm just like, well, this is. I just wasted, you know, half my day. You know, I didn't make any connections. And. But sometimes you can meet somebody on the show floor and you're like, oh, that's kind of an interesting. It depends on what you're looking for, I guess. But it's also just being in the vicinity of those people that are in your industry that you might glean some tidbit of information from or a contact that you can make. And, you know, I used to love going to the ebay live conferences that they used to have just for that. And you'd get there and there'd be, you know, just tons of people, and you're like, I know what you do. You know, we talk and you make those connections at the bar and the, you know, in the hotel for. Those are. Those are some great things that can be very worthwhile.

They are. The best conferences that I have been to are the ones that feel like camp, where everybody is just forced. Almost forced to, you know, the default, rather, is to just be together as much as possible, including during the sessions. But. But especially, like you said, afterwards. That's where the networking comes in. You may or may not learn. You know, I mean. And again, you know, we're blurring the lines between professional development and networking, but.

Right.

But that sort of happens in these situations at conferences. Certainly you should be. You should be there and aware of the fact that you're doing both now.

Yeah.

You know, for just professional development, there's some different stuff.

Right.

I mean, it. Depending on. Depending on what you do, you know, listening to the Right. Podcast might be considered professional development.

Right.

You're learning things. Or like a Lynda.com subscription.

Yeah. Like we use, you know, again, small company. Okay, what are we going to do? How do we move these people up the chain? And even if they wind up leaving at some point, which, you know, inevitably a large amount of them are going to do. Sure. If you've helped them in their career development, you know, they're going to be a better employee, you know, a happier person. And actually they're going to wind up staying with you longer because you've helped them grow. And they're going to feel like, wow, you know, if I stay here, I'm going to continue to grow even if they're in the same position.

Yes.

And maybe they have you give them a little more responsibility. And Lynda.com is a great way to do it. What we found is because you want them to gain these new skills, but you say, okay, you know, we don't have this real organized, you know, methodology of doing it. And so, you know, we said, hey, Let's. I use Lynda.com to find all kinds of stuff. So we got a business, you know, subscription. And, you know, when we sit down and talk with people and we, and we do a review, you know, we meet. I mean, especially younger people, I guess maybe millennials is the term. But what they. What I found is they really want to be coached a lot. Not told how to do their job, but the opportunity to meet with you or to meet with someone to mentor them and to talk about just this kind of thing we're talking about. Right. And bringing them into those kind of meetings where you're doing maybe a quarterly review or even just a weekly meeting. Hey, okay, this is what I'd like you to do next. And if. And you can pull up a Linda course and say, okay, we're doing a lot in whatever name the app. You know, if you have somebody that's just learning Excel, you say, okay, great. I want you to do this, you know, this Intro to Excel course up here. Do this, this, and this, and write up a review of it and talk about it. And then we do things like, okay, go post that review and then in. In our blog and talk about it. It's like, well, that's everything to do with our business. Well, it doesn't matter. You know, we want to share information, and we want to be a resource for people. So we try to use it in, in different ways, and it's worked out really well for us. I love it.

Yeah, that, That's. That's that's awesome. That's. You know, I, I think about Linda. They, they sponsor my Mac Geek Gab podcast, one of the other ones I do.

Oh, cool.

Yep.

And, and so as part of that sponsorship, I've asked our listeners. They've been sponsoring us for a while, I think over a year at this point. And so to keep the, the ad spots fresh, I figured, well, you know, anything I come up with is just going to be driven by me and it's probably going to start to sound the same over and over again. So I, I asked our listeners, tell us what you've, you know, what courses you've taken. And the thing that amazed. Yeah, the thing that amazed me about it, that I totally didn't expect. I figured I'd get things, and frankly, I kind of figured it would be the same things that I recommended. Of course, that wasn't true. You know, then it's very interesting to see the, to hear the courses that people are taking. It makes me realize, oh, actually these people want geekier content than we give them. Some of the time we can, we can go deeper. These people are, you know, digging in and learning, like JavaScript. Like, okay, that's, like, that's pretty deep, you know, for. Yeah, yeah. And so, so it taught me that. But it, that the number of people that have written in and said, hey, you know, I started actually taking Linda courses when you started talking about it a year ago or six ago or whatever. And I've taken these courses and they, they just barf out this laundry list of like 15 courses, sometimes 50. And then they say, and I've, you know, I've had several people that have said, and now I'm in a new job because of what I learned at linda. Like, of course, I've got several people that are now web developers, all be, you know, a year ago, this was not on the radar, or maybe it was, but they didn't know how to get there. And now they do it with Linda. And I didn't mean to turn this into a Linda spot. I mean.

No, no, no. It's just you could probably pick a number of. I mean, it's just an example of.

John McAllister screencasts online, you know, that's correct.

Kind of thing.

Is the same kind of thing. Yep.

You can go in YouTube and sit there and talk. I mean, you know, there's. So learn.

The problem with YouTube that I've found is some stuff is great, but there is no quality filter.

Right.

Whereas with some of these other things and, and These other things that we're talking about are cheap. So there's two that make paying for a subscription. Again, it could be Linda, it could be Don's thing, it could be screencast online. It could be any number of these things. But A, when you pay for it, you're. There is a minimum level of quality consistency that you can come to expect or you stop paying.

Right.

You know, yeah, sure. And then B, if you're paying for it, it's like therapy.

Right.

You are more apt to want to use it and really apply yourself if there's a little bit of a pain point. And Linda, I mean, these aren't much. We're talking, you know, 25 bucks a month. This is not going to break the bank for most people. Certainly if you're able to listen to this podcast, you probably have an extra 25 bucks a month, some in there somewhere, right?

I would think maybe.

Yeah, so, but, you know, that's the kind of thing. And you can learn. We've talked about some technical things, but if you want to learn accounting for your business and you never went and got an mba, like, I never went and got an MBA and I just sort of winged it for years.

Years.

I took a business accounting course on Linda. And yeah, some of most of the stuff I knew, but some stuff it was like, hey, holy cow, I should do that, you know, because I never. Great resource and never learned it from anybody else.

So.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

No, it's good. I think there's another one online, you know, Udemy u d e-m y dot com. Excellent. You know, they had about, what's this, more than 25, 000 courses. And you can post your own courses up there as well, which I think is an interesting model for someone who's got a skill set that they want to share and maybe generate some revenue. Yeah, I like, I like, I like the business model. Another one that I, I kind of stumbled into before, you know, mailchimp came along, which I, I just love those guys. You know, we were using Constant Contact, which is a great service. And they have a bunch of seminars that they do, you know, in person seminars too, which are probably in a city near you, if you're near a decent sized city, as well as online seminars, primarily about, you know, some SEO stuff, but, you know, email marketing, this kind of thing, but also writing and stuff. And what they've done is they've partnered in the last. I don't know when they started it, but they partnered with score and SCORE is the Society of Retired executives. And if you go to score.org, they have a ton of great content that great for your own professional development as well as sharing with your employees and consultants, contractors, whoever you use. And it's, you know, there's no fees involved, but it is high quality content. Now, you know, constant contact is trying to, you know, pitch you their products along the way, of course, which are, which are great products. But, you know, I've just, we just sent one of our guys who I'm bringing along to kind of handle our blog and writing, and they had a great seminar in Sanford and he spent, you know, a half a day and like you said earlier, you know, a lot of the stuff he already knew, but there was some, you know, a few really good things that he picked up and he made a couple of good contacts there. And the SCORE organization as a mentoring thing is, is awesome. And there's, there's no fee involved and there's a ton of stuff on their website and they have events and, you know, I highly, highly recommend it for your, for your developments. Great.

That's awesome. Yeah, man, that's great. I, you know, one other thing I want to mention is itunes, you. Right, which you can get right inside itunes and it's free. And you're getting college courses now, obviously.

Yeah.

You know, you're not getting credit for these, but sure, but that's not the point, right, Necessarily. You know, the point is learn the, learn the material and you can take all kinds of stuff. And again, some of it is, you know, very technical, but others it's, you know, like I said, just general business stuff. You want to, you want to listen to somebody tell you, teach you how to manage your employees. I mean, I, you know, I think like you, Shannon. I like to read a lot of management books at times and things like that, but other times it's nice to just have somebody tell you something. And like you said, you sent your guy off and there were lots of stuff, lots of things he already knew. Well, having someone reinforce your, what you're already doing, that's not a bad thing. It, it's bad if that's all you do all day long, right?

You know, oh, sure. But even, and then like you said, even if the court, going to a seminar is just one thing, but even the whole, hey, I want you to take a day, go to this event, I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to give you a per diem. I'm going to do this. You know, this is a young guy that doesn't have a lot of experience. And he's like, oh, this is great. I'm going to break up my. My week, or whatever. And you are expanding their horizons in ways that you don't even know. And I think that is extremely valuable as an employer to constantly be looking. You focused on increasing your professional development, thinking about how you can help your employees do the same thing will pay back exponentially over the years.

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it, right? There's, there's. And I know we keep crossing and crisscrossing all these things here. There's professional development for you and for your employees, but it's, it's important to remember. And of course, of course, all of this stuff, you got to check with your accountant, which. That's our typical disclaimer. But this stuff is tax deductible for 90, 99 of all of us. You know, I, I have two businesses. Two. Well, two businesses that I file as Schedule Cs. One doesn't anymore because it actually goes through our, you know, backbeat media stuff or whatever. But, but I, I also file as a musician and I treat that as a business.

Right.

Going to concerts and stuff. I write that off because it's awesome. I'm learning.

Right.

You know, you're, of course. What you're experiencing.

Of course.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm also enjoying it. But that's.

Well, but that, that's okay.

Enjoyment.

The IRS is not saying. Yeah, yeah. It's not that. You can only take a ride off if you're miserable. You want to be that enjoyment and then instilling that in yourself. And I would argue that, that professional development for a business owner, for yourself and your team is equally important because they're going to lift you up at the same time you're trying to lift them up. And it's that. I don't know. I don't know, some sort of phrase that I can't remember. I could.

The sum is greater than the parts, and the rising tide raises the ships.

That's right. That was.

We could mix something.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so. But that. That kind of stinky thing has paid off, you know, for me just time and time again to, you know, especially as I see these. These guys that have worked for, you know, me for over 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 years. And I realized that, you know, as they've been, you know, I've been challenging them, they're challenging me, so I have to learn something new or come up with some kind of thing. And it's just a very, very important part of your growth as a, as a small business owner, consultant. Whatever you're going to do is to put this in your playbook and keep focused on it. Putting your laptop on your lap and sitting on the couch. If you want to relax at night, that's great. But you can be doing some more work as well. You can be listening to one of these seminars. There's no question taking that hour a day to expand into something, it will really have a dramatic impact on what you do.

Totally. I think that's a good place to wrap it up, man.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's good.

Yep.

Fun stuff. Good show. Yeah. Folks, if you have any questions, comments, you want to say, you know, you guys are doing great or worst show ever. We want to hear it all. You know, it's feedbackbapodcast.com you can visit our Facebook page at, you know, facebook.com dbapodcasts we would love your feedback. Let us know what you want to hear. We have some interviews coming up with some eclectic group of people that we're going to be mixing in here and as we just keep moving along, moving along.

Thanks for listening, folks and we will talk to you next week.

Take care.