Ep 63 Youpreneur Founder Chris Ducker | #MUIYB Mike Up In Your Business Podcast

So dude, why are we doing this interview? Oh, you know, I got notes here.

Um, you built—

dude, you're an expat, so tell me about this.

You know, I'm not an expat anymore. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm an expatriated expat. I'm an ex-expat.

Where were you born? Like, what city?

Sheffield.

Oh, London boy.

London geezer. Fancy guy. Richie, mate, you know, Guy Ritchie would call me up for his next fucking film when he like, you know. Wow.

Yeah. So you leave London to go to where in Asia? The Philippines?

Philippines. What? London, man.

Like, everyone wants to go to London.

Yeah.

Well, why would you leave?

Have we actually— is this actually the beginning of the interview now?

No, the beginning was the fights with our wives.

Oh, brilliant.

Great.

Yeah. That works. Um, okay, so work, work took me out there. I, I, you know, about it, the last 18 months of living in the UK was not pleasant for me. My marriage broke up, my mother passed away, um, the smaller publishing company that I was working for and had been at for about 5 years, kind of almost built my career there fundamentally. Got acquired by a much, much larger publishing company in London. And so it went from kind of like a really easy commute, you know, on the train for like 15 minutes to a 1-hour commute into the city of London. I didn't like the big company feel. I didn't like the new boss. I didn't like what I was really doing, even though was kind of doing the same thing, but it was for a different company, a different, you know, set of publications, etc., etc. Just wasn't into it. Was very kind of disheartened by obviously everything from a personal perspective as well. And I was headhunted and went out and worked for one of the large international banks over there for a couple of years and then set up my own firm consulting firm, which I kind of continued to do a similar type of thing that I was already doing, but for myself and with other clients. A lot of sales training, a lot of leadership training with particularly sales management. And then we opened up the doors to Live2Sell, which is our call center facility, which is still rocking and rolling. And, you know, 400 employees around the clock. And that kind of like, that was the last little bit of kind of like real true blue B2B that I've done. Everything after that has kind of been B2C to a certain degree. 2010 opened up the doors to Virtual Staff Finder. We've now hired over 8,000 VAs for entrepreneurs and biz owners around the world. Which is great. That still rocks and rolls. And then 2015 opened up the doors to the Eupener brand.

Oh, I didn't know that brand was that new.

Yeah. 5 years, 5, almost 6 years, pretty much 6 years now. And so, yeah, you know, membership course, coaching program, live event, bestselling book, all that fun stuff. It's been a busy 5, 6 years with Eupener. And that's kind of what I focus on now. Virtual Staff Finder, runs itself. Live2Sell runs itself. I've got management teams in place for both companies. I spend probably 2 hours a month on both of those companies combined. And the rest of the time I spend time now, really most of what I do now is coaching. I coach other people that want to build profitable businesses around their brands.

So with all that success in the Philippines, you're like, I'm out of here. Why'd you go back to London? Or are you in London again?

No, we're based in Cambridge now. Okay.

Now even fancier.

Yeah, yeah, we went a little fancy, you know. I came back with a little bit more money, Mike. That was what it was. Um, I, I, I, I always kind of figured, you know, I, I would come back to London very regularly, once a year, sometimes twice, sometimes even 3 times a year, depending on what was happening business-wise and whatnot. And it was 2000— I'm gonna say probably 2016 my wife and I, um, I got remarried obviously in 2007, um, my wife and I, we already had one little one at the time, Charlie, um, and, um, we came over to the UK, we were like, let's just do 6 weeks, um, before he kind of like really starts primary properly and all the rest of it, and you've got this, this time we rented a little flat off of Airbnb for 6 weeks in Wimbledon on the old Stomping Grounds where I was born and raised in Wimbledon. And, um, just loved it, you know, just, just loved the ability to be able to go to the theater, to go to these big, big parks and spend real time, real family time, kind of like outside of the house and everything. You see, the Philippines is awesome, Mike. It's an awesome country. Like, everybody should visit the Philippines in their life. I genuinely believe that. Um, the people are the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life, anywhere on the planet. They can't do enough for you if you're a guest in their home, or even if you just stay in a hotel or whatever. Like, I mean, bend over backwards stuff, right? And to start up a business there And to hire hundreds and hundreds of people was honestly one of the biggest privileges of my entire career because they're so eager to learn, they're so hardworking, and they're so family orientated that that actually transfers into the workplace. So they end up being super loyal as employees as well. And so, for example, my middle and upper management in my companies in the Philippines today, the average tenureship is probably 10 years out of those guys. And we're talking like 20, 30 folks, right? Obviously, further, you know, you go down the totem pole a little bit in terms of rank and everything, there's a little bit more turnover here and there. But ultimately, you know, it was a great place to be. But once you've been there for as long as I was there and you've kind of seen everything and you've done everything, there's little things that start to kind of get on your nerves, if I'm to be honest, right?

And those are your 400 employees. I'm just filling in the blanks.

Not those guys, folks. Um, no, not, not those guys at all. Like, little things like the non-stop heat. Like, there's only two seasons— there's hot and there's wet and humid. That's it, right? So, and we're talking like average temperatures of like 35 degrees. I don't know what that is in, in what you guys use.

That's 110.

There you go. All right, so like, it's massive here, crazy, all year round, sometimes a little colder but not much. Um, and just sort of like, I lived there for a long time, dude, and I never acclimatized. Like, I always needed air conditioning everywhere I went. And so it was like little things like that, little things, just like things move very slowly there as well, which in one On one hand is amazing, right? They had that whole kind of like Spanish influence back in the day and the whole mañana, mañana thing, which is amazing. It's amazing when you want it to be like that. But if you want things done, like most entrepreneurs, when you want to rock and roll and things take a month instead of like 3 days, that kind of stuff drives you a little nuts as well. And if I'm to be honest with you, I was lacking a peer group. Over there as well. It wasn't so bad when I first got there and I was just an employee or a consultant, because there's many, uh, foreigners, expats, uh, that are there that are in that kind of role, and you can kind of like socialize relatively easily, right? But once you become a business owner, and particularly once you hire as many people as we hire, you got to, you got to take care of yourself locally. You can't put yourself at any risk and hanging out in bars till all hours and What do you mean, like violence and stuff?

Like people—

you've just, you've just got to be, you've just got to be aware that you've got responsibilities, you know what I'm saying? And it's like also the level of discussion. Once I started traveling internationally more and more, 2010, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, speaking internationally, etc., etc., you just meet a different level of human being. From a business perspective, mindset perspective, you want to hang out with those people more. I know you know what I'm talking about. And so it's like something had to give. And my wife could kind of sense that I was becoming a little, not bored per se, not upset or angry or any of those things. Just I was, I was fidgety. She could say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, when we were in the UK for as long as we were in 2016, We ran a little event, we did lots of sightseeing, we went to the theater a whole bunch of times. Like, there's more stuff to do. Yeah. We were like, if we're going to do it, we need to do it before Charlie hits high school. Right. Right. How old is Charlie? He's almost 13 now. So this is his first year of high school now.

Okay.

Yeah. And so, yeah, we were like, hey, if we're going to do it, we got to do it before he's that age. Then Cassandra came along. She's 3 and a half going on you know, 21 already.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and, and so I get you. And so we, we had to make the call, and, uh, we made the call, and we made— we found a beautiful, um, uh, listed property, uh, here in the countryside in English— in England. Um, and we, uh, completely renovated the entire place, refurbished the entire place, brought it back up to kind of modern standards and whatnot, and I've got my little slice of the English pie now, man. And then we love it and we're all super happy. The wife is super happy. The kids are super happy. I'm super happy. So the move, it was the right time to make the move.

Is your wife from the Philippines?

She is Filipino. Yeah.

Okay. So she's now leaving her family, I presume, behind. So are you doing the reverse now and visiting the Philippines for 6 weeks?

Yeah. I mean, obviously in the last, year we haven't been there. Um, we were both there December 2019, the first time— the last time, rather.

Okay.

Um, for company, uh, annual, uh, Christmas gala. And, um, you know, that was the last time I was kind of in a room with that many people, quite frankly. Um, even though I did a short hop over to the United States in February last year. But yeah, I mean, you know, the plan was always kind of like for her to kind of head over there for 2-3 weeks on her own every year, see all her friends, spend lots of time just her, maybe with, with, you know, with Cassie, with the younger one. Um, and, uh, and then kind of like, you know, for us to all go each, each year as a family as well. It hasn't happened obviously because of being going on this last year, but hopefully, hopefully soon we'll be able to do that again. But yeah, it's interesting because, um Here we are still running these businesses with all these employees and we still got property over there and all that sort of stuff and we're just managing it all from the UK.

That's what I'm super curious about. How do you run a business or manage it from the UK?

You have an incredible executive assistant who's local in the Philippines, in the UK and in the Philippines that talk to each other every single day. My—

do they act like liaisons for both sides, kind of the conduit?

Yeah, yeah. We like to— I like to— I'm really regimented, man. Like, I like to plan out and schedule everything. Like the whole adage of like, if it doesn't get scheduled, it won't get done. Right. And so my EA in the Philippines has been with us for about 7 years. She knows me better, like almost as well as my wife, literally. And so, you know, dude, she's a lifesaver. Yeah. Forget boss. Mother's Day is coming up. Oh, shoot, it is, right?

Yeah.

What, what do I do? What do I do? It's okay. I've ordered flowers and chocolates. You just need to pick up something expensive. Awesome. You know what I mean? She's gold. She's gold, dude. Um, and so, and then, you know, we, we have got an EA here now that's been with us for almost 2 years. Um, she handles kind of everything here. She works with the, you know, Mrs. on all the school stuff. She works with me on all the business stuff. And kind of just managing everything here, everything from, you know, tax returns that need to be filed right the way down to making sure that I've got my favorite, you know, bottle of bourbon on the shelf when I want it.

What is your favorite bottle of bourbon?

Everyday bourbon. Not that I drink it every day, but, you know, of course, every day I would say it used to be Maker's, just a good old-fashioned Maker's on the rocks. Um, but I've kind of switched a little bit recently. Uh, I'm kind of like into Whistlepig now.

Oh, I just got my first Whistlepig. I haven't tried it yet.

And Angel's Envy is phenomenal. Michael Hyatt introduced me to Angel's Envy about 5 or 6 years ago.

So what, he's a booze hound?

Oh, you're uncontrollable.

I really— I hadn't been there with him once. I barely know him.

Yeah, no, he's, he's a really nice guy. But yeah, he, he introduced me to, uh, to Angel's Envy. I was like, oh, this is great. And so I used to sneak them back in my luggage, you know, you wrap them up in, in bubble wrap and put them in the middle.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah. And so, um, yeah, that's kind of my everyday is, is probably Whistle Pig right now, but for the longest time it's been Maker's. Just something about unzipping that little, that little wax seal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like a Maker's. Maker's is nice.

So let me ask you about the EA, because I think some people have hesitancy around this. You said your EA helps, it sounds like with personal stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And it, it, at least for me, there, there's a discomfort. I have an assistant here who helps with all my business scheduling and some personal scheduling, but if I need like a plumber to come to my house or something, there's a certain point where I feel that I'm, I'm putting on that person something that's unfair, almost demeaning. What kind of works do you assign to them and, and how do you navigate?

Do you feel that? Emotion? No, I don't. And to be really honest with you, yeah, I think one of the reasons why— I guess I might have kind of felt like that a little bit years ago, but I certainly don't feel like it now. And I think the reason why is because I've just been delegating so much. Yeah. So many different types of team members for so long now that it just becomes second nature. To a certain degree. And, you know, think like, for example, we had a storm here in the UK about a month ago. Couple of our— we have about a half an acre piece of land here on, on, on the back of the property. And unfortunately, right at the other side of our fence, there's horse paddock. So we got horses at the end of our garden. I don't have to pay for them.

Oh, this is your neighbor's horses?

Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. The kids can feed them carrots and stuff, but we don't have to pay vet bills or anything.

Oh my God, that's the best type of horses not to own.

So there's 3 horses and there's kind of fence paneling that runs kind of along that end of the garden and kind of like adjacent to that. And the storm, a couple of the panels got really blown out of whack and we had to replace a couple of the posts with kind of like cement studs and all this kind of stuff. I was just like, I could get online and I could find someone to come and do it. And, you know, I haven't really needed anything done other than kind of like the grass mode, which, you know, I just inherited the gardener from the old owners of the house, you know, that kind of thing. So I'm just like, okay, what am I— what am I— I could spend time trying to do this myself, but no, I just sent a quick Slack message and, you know, 4 days later someone's taking care of it kind of thing. And here's the thing, I don't look at that as demeaning. I don't think there's a low— like, and I pay my people well. I just want to state that for the record as well. So it's like, you are here predominantly to support me as the leader of the business. As I talk about in a lot of my training, as entrepreneurs, we are visionaries. We need to work on the business. We shouldn't be stuck working in it. Or doing things that stop us from working on the business. And so, you know, it's like you are here to support me within reason, obviously, to help my days become as easy as possible so that I can get as much output done as possible for my paying clients. And that's kind of like— and we have across the board In our group of companies, there's never ever going to be a discussion of that's not my job. Yeah. You're part of a team. If somebody's off sick, somebody's on vacation, and I ask you to do something that you don't usually do day to day in your role, you don't say no. You don't bitch and moan about it. You just get on and do it because we're a team. It's that simple. Everybody works together. And I think that's kind of just, that's just a vision thing, a core value thing that has developed over a number of years, obviously. But it works, man, because we've got a great team. Phenomenal people work for us. Do you—

okay. So is that a thing you have to train people that nothing is below you, we all do this together, we're all a team? Or is that something that's just kind of wired into people and you hire accordingly?

I think it's probably a combination of both, if I'm to be honest with you. We have an onboarding We have an onboarding meeting in the Philippines every week for anybody that's hired that week. And then virtually with the virtual employees, we have an onboarding every month for anybody that's joined the team throughout the course of that month. And I don't run those meetings or those calls or whatever. That's handled by somebody on my management. And, you know, the whole point is like, This is what we do for our clients, and this is what we as a company will do for you as a team member. Uh, we used to follow the whole Starbucks partner thing for a while, but it got a little old and boring after a while. So we just say you're just part of the team. This is what we will do for you. We will pay you fairly. We will give you your money when you're supposed to be getting it. You'll never have to wait for it. We'll pay all your government contributions and your taxes and your, you know, health benefits and yada yada yada yada yada. We'll be a nice bunch of people to work for. We'll never ask you to do anything that you're not uncomfortable or that you feel uncomfortable doing in any way, shape, or form— professionally, personally, whatever. Um, and we'll embrace you no matter who you love, no matter where you come from, no matter what color your skin is. It doesn't matter what— we'll embrace you because it's all one for all and all for one. However, This is what we need you to do for us. And then we see you just go through it. You know, you got to be part of the team. No job is too small, etc., etc., etc. So when I'm back in the Philippines and I see maybe there's some trash that's, you know, the trash bin is overflowing, for example, or the water— just when I was there in the last time, the water cooler had emptied out. I'm the founder and CEO of this multimillion-dollar business. I could quite easily pick up the phone in my tiny little cupboard of an office that I have there now because I'm never there. And I could say, hey, the water cooler has run out. Someone's got to go replace it. I could do that. Or I could walk to the utility area in the office, grab one, and empty that bad boy and put one on top of the water cooler myself, which I did. I looked at some of the employees that had joined us in the last year that had never seen me in person before, and their mouths were like—

Yeah, well, they were shocked because you ripped your shirt off first.

Yeah, well, no, what I did, Mark, for the record, Your Honor, I poured the water over my shirt first. Okay.

It was like a scene out of Flashdance. The music kicks on.

That's right. And then I moonwalked my ass all the way down one of the aisles with the water in hand like this into the, into the fade. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

No wonder you got such a great culture.

Hey dude, you mentioned Slack.

You know, you got 400 employees there. Is that a better communication tool than email? And well, I don't—

obviously I don't communicate with all 400 employees, right? Yeah, I communicate with actually probably only about half a dozen people. On a, on a quote unquote daily basis. The rest of it's all obviously staggered from an organization perspective. I will say though, Slack has pretty much killed email for us as a business. That doesn't mean that I'm not in my inbox for, I probably reckon maybe an hour a day I spend in my inbox, a couple of chunks. Couple of chunks, uh, usually late morning. I do creative work first. I don't get into admin stuff. So late morning, 10:30, 11 o'clock, I will get into email for the first time. And then usually it's the last thing I check before I sign off at around 4:00 PM each day. Um, and that's kind of, that's the way it's been for quite some time, actually, a good few years, a good few years. Um, I think it's just, it's just easier. Plus, hey, can we talk about how amazing Slack's mobile app is.

I don't know anything about Slack, so tell me, dude.

Oh my gosh, it's so easy to use. And unless you're a tight ass and you've got the free version, the search facility on the paid version and the, the fact you can archive everything, files, images, conversations, the whole lot. I mean, it's all right here, literally on your phone all the time.. And it's amazing. It, it just, it makes, honestly, it genuinely makes running, particularly a business where there's a lot of stuff going on online, sales reports via, you know, SamCart, which is our shopping cart guys. You know, we use, who are we using for accounting now? Xero for accounting. You know, it all kind of just like everything kind of integrates with each other. Reports go up in there, daily, weekly, monthly reports. You can bring people that are not in your business into your area of Slack as well. So now you're conversing with suppliers and freelancers and all that kind of stuff as well. And it just works very, very well. And the mobile experience is one of the best I've ever had on a business app. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Hey, tell me about Youpreneur. Again, I didn't realize that you started it so recently in 2015. What does Youpreneur do? How is it working nowadays?

So Youpreneur, I believe, it's a bit of a bold statement, but I've been making it ever since we opened the doors to it in 2015. I believe Youpreneur will ultimately be my life's work. And it all started with actually, and you'll get this as a keynote speaker yourself, I was doing a session in Vegas and my slides went dead just as I was wrapping up I talk, and if I'm honest, guilty as charged, Your Honor, I had not prepped as well for this talk as I should have. Every speaker's been there. My slides go dead, and I've got about 12 or 13 minutes left on my clock.

And I just start dancing.

Yeah. I don't know what to do. Can I get a spotlight up here? And what happened was I think, well, you know, I could wrap early and I could, you know, just find something real quick and just wrap it up early. Or I could, you know, try and feel things out a little bit and ad-lib, which is what I did. And for the first time ever, I uttered the words, "The business of you," and talking about how, as entrepreneurs, regardless of what we do and what field we're in, we are seen as leaders, and leaders have to continue to learn in order to continue to lead. And if you're going to lead in any way whatsoever, holy moly, you should do it in as most of a unapologetic, unique way as possible. And part of the talk was about marketing like a magnet. So you attract the best and you repel the rest, like your whole. Your viable, attractive tribe thing. Right. And so I went back to that in my closing kind of statement, brought that back in again, and I was like, remember the whole market, like a magnet thing, the business of you. And then I ended with, and when you build the business of you, It's 100% original and it can never be copied. Thank you very much. And everyone was like, I got a standing ovation. People, oh, the business of you, the business of you, the business. Forget about the rest of the talk. It was like that last 10 minutes really resonated, dude, really resonated. And so Eupener was born from that. The years, and now what we do is we basically help, are all about and kind of like the people that they want to serve, that's what a Youpreneur is. So my goal, by the time I'm done with a podcast interview or a session on stage or a webinar, whatever it's like, you might not identify with that word the first time you hear it, but by the time I'm done, you will do, and you will start calling yourself a Youpreneur. And so that's where my Build, Market, Monetize framework came about. I just did a Venn diagram, 3 circles. How do you do this? How do you build the business of you? Well, you've got to build the foundations and you've got to market it and spread your message. And then you've got to start making money, build, market, monetize. Boom. Came in like half an hour. And we just built it all out from there. Rise of the Youpreneur, the book came out, done incredibly well. I self-published it. It was the best move I ever made because I made so much money with the book. I did the audiobook. I did the ebook. We've done hardcover copies for special events. We've done paperback on Amazon. The It's phenomenal.

Self-publishing is the way to go. There's a saying that speaking in this industry, when your slides go down, when you don't know what to do next, a Venn is best. You just start Venn diagramming and people are like, oh, genius. Yeah. Do you remember we ruined this? So I think the funniest speech I've ever been involved in is the one that you and I ruined. The first time we met face to face was at Herman's event, Todd's. And there's someone on stage and I walk in and I'm like, it's Chris Stalker. And there's, I don't know, 100, 200 people in the room, like everyone kind of looks over. You're like, it's Mike McCallowich.

Like, what's up?

We do like a slow motion hug.

Yeah.

The entire event, like looking over as we're high-fiving, we're low talking very loudly.

Yes. Yes. At the back of the room.

Todd just texted me from stage.

He's like, can you shut the fuck up? We were those people. I know. I know. It was, it was great. And you know what? That, you know what? You know, we've been, I've been doing this a long time online. We're creating content and all the rest of it.. And there were maybe half a dozen people, yourself included, that I kind of met, discovered, found, connected with. And for me and you, it was all the way back at Toilet Entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Way back, 12 years ago, a long time ago. And I'll never forget, I interviewed you for my podcast at the time. I don't even know what year this was now. It must have been 2011, maybe 2012. I don't know, something like that. And there was just that instant kind of feeling like, this is a dude I want to get to know.

Right.

Totally.

I want to hang out with this guy.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I, like, I want to hang with this guy. I want to, you know, I want to get to know him better. But it's incredible that we never actually, even though we were real close a couple times, we never actually did get to meet in person until like, what was that, 2018?

Well, right before COVID I guess. 2019. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two ships in the night. Um, hey, are we supposed to promote anything for you? Like, do you have anything new or something?

Do we sell anything to our listeners? Just how incredibly robust and sexy my chin is.

Dude, you have a nice chin. You wear that chin well. I cover mine up with this beard. I have a very awkward chin and an awkwardly sized Adam's apple. So I decided to grow this long.

Let's have a look at Adam's apple. Come on, go, go. Look at that.

Look at that.

Oh yeah, it's like an old man's Adam's apple.

It's like a whole human is down in my throat, so I'm trying to cover it. It's like Quasimodo's coming out through my neck.

God.

Yeah. Um, seriously, are we promoting anything of yours?

No, there's nothing really to promote.

Why the fuck do we even do this, Chris?

Yeah, you know, just, uh, just to hang out and talk and stuff. I mean, look, if, if there is anybody, um, that, you know, is interested in finding out a little bit more about how I can help them, they can head over to chrisducker.com. Um, I got a free, uh, little PDF on As Leaders, and leaders have to continue to learn in order to continue to lead. And if you're going to lead in any way whatsoever, holy moly, you should do it in as most of an unapologetic, unique way as possible. And part of the talk was about marketing like a magnet. So you attract the best and you repel the rest. Like your whole your vibe will attract your tribe thing, right? And so I went back to that in my closing kind of statement, brought that back in again, and I was like, remember the whole market, like a magnet thing, the business of you. And then I ended with, and when you build the business of you, it's 100% original and. and it can never be copied. Thank you very much. And everyone was like, I got a standing ovation. People, all the business of you, the business of you, the business. Forget about the rest of the talk. It was like that last 10 minutes really resonated, dude, really resonated. And so UPNEUR was born from that, building the business of you. So ultimately it's morphed and kind of pivoted a little bit over the years. And now what we do is we basically help entrepreneurs, leaders, authors, speakers, coaches, consultants, content creators, anybody really building a business based around them. Yeah. Yeah. Personality, which I know you're all about. And kind of like the people that they want to serve. That's what a Youpreneur is. So my goal, by the time I'm done with a podcast interview or a session on stage or a webinar, whatever it's like, you might not identify with that word the first time you hear it. But by the time I'm done, you will do, and you will start calling yourself a Youpreneur. And so that's where my Build, Market, Monetize framework came about. I just did a Venn diagram, 3 circles. How do you do this? How do you build the business of you? Well, you got to build the foundations, and you got to market it and spread your message. And then you got to start making money. Build, market, monetize. Boom. Came in like half an hour. And we just built it all out from there. Rise of the Youpreneur, The book came out, done incredibly well. I self-published it. It was the best move I ever made because I made so much money with the book. I did the audiobook. I did the ebook. We've done hardcover copies for special events. We've done paperback on Amazon.

It's phenomenal. Self-publishing is the way to go. There's a saying that speaking in this industry, when your slides go down, when you don't know what to do next, a Venn is best. You just start Venn diagramming and people are like, oh, genius.

Yeah.

Do you remember we ruined this? So I think the funniest speech I've ever been involved in is the one that you and I ruined. The first time we met face to face was at Herman's event, Todd's. And there's someone on stage and I walk in, I'm like, it's Chris Stocker. And there's, I don't know, 100, 200 people in the room. Like everyone kind of looks over like, it's Mike McCalloway.

It's like, what's up?

We do a slow motion hug. Yeah. The entire event, they looking over us for high-fiving or low talking very loudly.

Yes. Yes, at the back of the room.

Todd just texted me from stage.

He's like, can you shut the fuck up? We were those people.

I know, I know.

It was, it was great. And you know what, that, you know what, you know, we've been, I've been doing this a long time online with creating content and all the rest of it. And there were, you know, maybe half a dozen people, yourself included, that I kind of met, discovered, found, connected with. And for me and you, it was all the way back to entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Way back. And 12 years ago, a long time ago. And I'll never forget, I interviewed you for my podcast at the time. I don't even know what year this was now. It must have been 2011, maybe 2012. I don't know, something like that. And there was just that instant kind of feeling like, this is a dude I want to get to know. Right. Totally. I want to hang out with this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I, like, I want to hang with this guy. I want to, you know, I want to get to know him better. But it's incredible that we never actually, even though we were real close a couple of times, We never actually did get to meet in person until like, what was that, 2018?

Right before COVID I guess. 2019. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two ships in a night. Hey, are we supposed to promote anything for you? Do you have anything new or something?

Do we sell anything to our listeners? Just how incredibly robust and sexy my chin is.

Dude, you have a nice chin. You wear that chin well. I cover mine up with this beard. I have a very awkward chin. And awkwardly sized Adam's apple. So I decided to grow this long.

Let's have a look at your Adam's apple.

Come on, go, go.

Look at that. Oh yeah, it's like an old man's Adam's apple.

It's like a whole human is down in my throat, so I'm trying to cover it. It's like Quasimodo's coming out through my neck. Yeah, yeah. Um, seriously, are we promoting anything of yours?

No, there's nothing really to promote.

Why the fuck do we even do this, Chris?

Yeah, you know, just, uh, just to hang out and talk and stuff. I mean, Look, if, if there is anybody, um, that, you know, is interested in finding out a little bit more about how I can help them, they can head over to chrisducker.com. Um, I got a, a free, uh, little PDF document on there which is called the Personal Branding Roadmap, and it's kind of like the top 10 high-level steps you need to consider to kind of build a profitable personal brand. They can go check that out, they can follow me on all the socials, @ChrisDucker. But other than that, I'm just happy to be here. Happy to spend time with you, brother, more than anything else.

Likewise. No, this is awesome. These insights were fantastic. And I gotta check out Slack for my own business.

Honestly, you, you genuinely have to. I do. Check it out. Like, I think we're using a thing called Monday.

Monday is, it's meh, to be honest.

It's meh. Yeah. You, you could put it on the same kind of the same sort of pain as Slack, but in terms of like, you know, management of a team and projects and things like that. But there's something about Slack. I've tried a whole, you know, there's like Todoist and Trello. And yeah, yeah, yeah, we tried to— I've tried them all, you know, because I got to try them all. I have to because I want my team to be as productive and as happy doing what they're doing day to day for me as possible. And so we try all these things out, but Slack, by far is, is just, it's come out on top over and over and over again. There's one thing, if there's any like high-up executives from Slack that happen to— they all listen to this conversation.

Yeah, they all listen. That's why I dissed on Monday, because it's only Slack listeners.

That's right. Good. Um, and I want y'all to know at Slack, you have to allow us to record audio messages natively. There's a workaround to do it, but it's a pain in the butt. Oh yeah, just record quick 60-second memos from my team in the Slack app, and we can't do that yet. I'm—

That'll be done within one week of this going live.

That's my commitment to you. Thank you.

All right, Chris Stocker, you're, you're a stud, dude. You're a joy and a stud and an entrepreneur who does pretty well too. Thanks for joining me.

I'm doing all right. I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.