0099: Helping Companies Get S#!t Done with Father , entrepreneur, business coach, Public speaker, baseball player, friend, author & CEO of Extraordinary Advisors Todd Palmer

Ea interviews, episode 99, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Have you ever wanted to be on the Inc 5000? Have you ever wanted to help a lot of people? Do you think that too many people are wasting time? How would you like to help them get done? Well, I'm excited to have Todd Palmer here today, and he's not only achieved Inc 5000 one time, not two times, but six. And he's also recently retired. So he has a very unique perspective from success and how to get to the finish line. And he's going to be sharing it with you right after we thank our sponsor. Winning with Google in 2020. Of course you want to. I'd advise Google search advertising and YouTube specialist Rosh Sillers downlo free winning with Google in 2020 guide@eainterviews.com RoshTips Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Todd Palmer. Todd, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great, Mario. How are you?

I'm feeling great. I'm excited to learn what you know because you're obviously very successful and I like to learn from successful people and bring them to expert authority world. So I want to know, how did you get into this and why did you want to retire early?

Well, you know, I think the main reason I wanted to retire early is I changed my definition of success, give or take, five or six years ago. For me, success was very much about, at one point, about material objects acquiring cool things, all the trappings of being a young entrepreneur. About five or six years ago, I saw a quote from Tony Robbins that really resonated with me and it said, success is doing what you want, when you want, with whom you want to do it as often as you want to go do it. And it really just blew me away because I found that when I was chasing material items and chasing the bright and shiny things of the world, I didn't feel satisfied. But when I changed that idea of what success meant to me, my paradigm shifted around what success looked like. My paradigm shifted around my happiness. And through that process, I decided the best way for me to live a life by design is, is to free up more time and flexibility to go out and do those cool things.

What are some of those cool things you like to do?

Well, let's see. Since I've made that choice, I've been as far south as the Zambia in South Africa, and I got to walk with cheetahs for a day. I was able to Do a baseball clinic for kids in the country of Zambia, which was an amazing experience. I never even had been. I never even heard of it before I got the opportunity. And these people were such an amazing, peaceful country for a country that I think has 70% unemployment. Amazing folks. I still play competitive baseball at the ripe old age of 50, and for me now, it's really just going off. I've been hiking in Peru. I've been out near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It's really just getting out and collecting memories. That's what really gets me excited in the morning.

Well, it sounds like you're having a lot of fun. And what was it? How are you able to get there so quickly? Because I know a lot of people go, I want to retire at 62, 65. Some people make a plan and say, I want to do it by 55, 58, 60, whatever the case may be. But what do you think it really takes to retire? Is it the age or is it the income?

You know, for me, it really was the mindset because I really. I just retired from what I did, and now I'm doing something different.

President, CEO of Diversified Industrial Staffing, the Inc. 5000 company you mentioned earlier. And we made that six times. And the team I had was awesome. But that team, like a lot of teams, like sports teams. Jeter, Rivera, Posada, they've all retired from the Yankees. Some of my employees have moved on. Some of them are doing different things now. And the same group of people wasn't there anymore. So the fun became different for me. I decided really, for me, the thing I really enjoyed most was sticking to my why, which I was really fortunate to discover a guy named Simon Sinek before he wrote his book the Power of why. And I discovered my why is improving lives. And I found my best way to do that was to go out and coach people. I hired my first coach in 2006, and I learned so much from, and I gained so much value, and I grew so much, not only as a leader, but as a man. I thought there was a great opportunity in the marketplace to go help other entrepreneurs do that. I can do it from Peru, I can do it from Antarctica. I can do it from anywhere.

So who do you really help and how are you helping them?

Well, you know, my key areas have really been working with entrepreneurs who want to grow and scale their business. But the biggest challenge I've found is getting them to figure out what do they want. They have such a hard time figuring out really what they want. They can give you the. Well, I want. I want to retire by the time I'm 50. I want to have $10 million in the bank. Those are all fine things. I'm a capitalist. I'm not going to. Not going to knock those at all. But really, what do you want? Those are things. How do you want to feel? How do you want to live? How do you want to behave? How do you want to show up in your life? That's been the biggest challenge, but also their most rewarding challenge. So I really, basically, like your intro said, I help entrepreneurs get their crap together so they can get things done in their business. But it all starts with an entrepreneur inside.

Why do you think it's so difficult for people to figure out their why and what they really want? They have all these possibilities. I want a yacht. I want to fly around. I want a helicopter to go get my mail. You can have whatever you want.

Right? Right.

You know, you want to make 10 million a year, 10 million a month. It's all possible. Everyone knows that. But I found also the same thing is true when you go, well, what do you really want? And they're like, well, I want to be happy. It's like. And you start digging. Why do you think it's so difficult for people to identify what they truly, really want?

Gosh, we could do a whole show just on that. Because it's a very complicated thing. It's getting people to understand that they can have what they want and not in some kind of schlocky infomercial. Take a magic pill. Here's the five tips to get exactly what you want. I don't do that when I first get to.

You don't think there's five steps to it?

No, every step is different.

It's like managing people. The greatest thing I learned from somebody else was the easiest way to manage people is simple. If you have 25 employees, manage them the same manage them 25 different ways. You got to get to know everybody else. Everybody's got a different trigger. Everybody's got a different story. And you know, for me, how I was able to figure it out is I gave up on the word happiness. I traded the word happiness for the word satisfied. And that's my coach. I use a coach. And that's what he really worked a lot with me on is, you know, happiness is really nothing more than a spike of dopamine. So I can go out and have chocolate, I can go out and exercise, whatever that's going to get me. But to be truly satisfied, that's A journey. There's highs and lows and ups and downs and getting people to understand the satisfaction. A life satisfied is much different than a life happy, but it has a longer lasting, bigger ripple. And what kind of wake do you want to leave behind? Your entrepreneurial boat is the biggest thing I get them to try to figure.

Out what are some of the common themes you hear over and over again.

You know, it's something that people really, like I said, they struggle to come up with. It's more of giving themselves that permission to ask for what they seek. A lot of them really come down to they're willing to trade money for freedom and flexibility. They want to maintain a certain lifestyle, which is great, but they want to go do more things. They want to go be more places. And now with technology, I mean, I'm not in your city right now conducting this interview, but we're still seeing each other. We're still working together in a way that people can see that we're having a connection. And now we can take that and go do that anywhere in the world. Couldn't do that 25 years ago when I started. The way people do business now has changed so much, and it's getting people to get out of the worst. So the worst thing they can say to me is, well, I don't, I can't do that because I've never done it that way. I've always done it this way. That's the kiss of death. Always doing something the way you did 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even five years ago. The world has changed significantly. But really, in a nutshell, it's coming down to a lot of entrepreneurs wanting to figure out what kind of legacy they don't want to leave, not only with themselves, but also with their family and friends, with their business, and how can they live a life of abundance versus a life of scarcity? And that comes in a lot of different flavors.

You reminded me of the Helen Keller quote that says something to the effect of the only thing worse than not being able to see is having sight but no vision.

Right? And getting them to have that vision is such. It's almost a painful process for a lot of them because they, they, you know, I basically, they often should all over themselves. I should be this, I should be that. And when I suffer from my bout of imposter syndrome, that I should be all things to all people all the time. I can empathize with where they're coming from and to be able to help them get out of shoulding all over themselves. To a point of like, okay, well, the best way for me to stop that is to think through gratitude, to think through abundance, not scarcity. And then how do I drive my decisions towards that? If people are always thinking that someone's out to get them, my competitors are going to take me out. And they're living in a state of paranoia that's not healthy in today's economy because there are so many different options and so many different ways people can go. It's helping to create that vision, like you said, to where they want to go. And that vision often ties in through what their why is and what do they want.

So the mentality of the pie, if you will, of there's only so much for, you know, only a few of us. If you have a bigger portion than I do, how long do you think that's been outdated for?

Well, I think a lot of it comes down to what industry are you in too? If you're in the automotive industry, well, there's only so much pie to go around. But now with people who are in the tech space in the different areas.

It'S getting them to understand it's not the piece of the pie, it's how they look at that pie. So a lot of the time I spend working with the entrepreneurs is getting them to move off of the revenue number, to move over to the profit number. It really like Michalowitz talks about in his book Profit first, it really is profit first. And I had one client, they said, well, I want to make, I want to double my income. Great. How do you think you're going to do that? Well, I'm just going to sell twice as much. I said, the math doesn't work. What if we can move some numbers, move some costs, adjust some things here, move your margin? And within a year, he was able to grow his revenue by 70% through a lot of different switches and changes. But the most important thing is he changed his profit by a factor of 5x in our work together and that changed. That was a game changer for him.

That is a game changer. How long would you say it takes a normal company to do that? Should they expect three months, six months, a year, two years?

Comes down to the entrepreneur. It comes down to the leader. How quickly are they ready to change? It's almost like when you hear people who go through 12 step programs. How have they really hit bottom? Are they really ready for change? You can do amazing things in six to 12 months if you're really ready. I've got another client who's wanting to make a bunch of changes. And in the process of making those changes, a bunch of his leaders have left the organization because the changes are uncomfortable for them. So he's got a throttle back. But he's more excited and more energized by the business because he's gotten rid of a lot of the dead weight he didn't even realize he had. So it's really about that intention of what you want to accomplish. But don't be so wrapped up in the expectation exactly how you're going to get there.

Would you say that when you were referring to the dead weight that he didn't even realize, would you say that most companies, once they start to decide to go faster, they realize how inefficient what they're actually doing is?

Absolutely. It's crazy. Every time I take on a new engagement, I'll be talking with someone, I say, well, Mario, you do realize that, you know, once we work together, anywhere from 25% to 50% to upwards of 100% of your leadership team may leave. CEOs are like, Whoa, why? I said, well, you're going to call out the pink elephant in the room because probably what you've been existing with is some type of dysfunction, some type of artificial harmony. And we're going to call that out because we want to grow the organization. Because I always say to my clients and the CEOs, I work with the CEOs, but I work for the organization. So if ABC Company needs certain things, I'm going to advocate on their behalf. Now, it's an entity, not a human being, but advocating for the right decisions, done the right way for the most profitable result, well, sometimes it'll shake people up. And you think, well, why would they do that? Well, because they have their little kingdoms, they have their little cliques, and they have their little safe spaces, and they don't want anybody moving their cheese too much. Entrepreneurs, by nature are chaos creators. We want to create chaos. We want to chase the bright and shiny. My job is to help them figure out, well, what's the best bright and shiny path for us to go down and keeping them focused on that without getting distracted by bigger bright and shinies, but also by the people who are stakeholders in outdated thought processes.

There's nothing more comfortable than the status quo. And I love how you threw in the reference to who moved my cheese there. That's a great book.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

So with all the companies you've been able to help, what would you say is the Biggest transformation you've been able to give to one or two of them.

You know, it's interesting because I think.

It'S helping them get the life they want to have as a CEO, and it's not necessarily working less, it's working differently. We've got one CEO. She was really trying to drive her business, and she had a very unique niche. And what she thought to get her niche to drive farther was to go wider. So I'm going to take my product and I'm going to get it into as many big box retailers as possible. And I kept. We kept hammering on the margin. The margin is going to change. The margin is going to change. I want to be bigger. And I kept trying. Finally, I had her tell me, how do we look at bigger, differently? Within six weeks, she was on Amazon, created a sales channel that didn't even exist for her category, and blew it up. So she reached her intention of growing her business, but she wasn't stuck in the expectation of how to do it. Another. Another client of mine said, you know, I have no problem working five days a week. I don't want to work seven anymore. He said, well, tell me why. And he goes, we've got new grandkids, and I want to see my grandkids. And I did, you know, parental guilt. I didn't spend enough time with my kids. I want to spend time with my kids and my grandkids. How can I do that? We came with a plan. So he works five out of seven days, but he takes every half Wednesday off, and it's an appointment he makes with himself, and he's giving himself that permission. So those are the stories that these are legacy plays, these are changing families, these are changing the mindsets of entrepreneurs. And both companies are much more financially successful than before we started. But my thing I'm proudest the most is these people are spending more time with the people they love.

I love hearing that, because that's a big thing for me is family, friends, legacy. And you can't ever get time back. You can easily make 1,000 or $10,000 an hour or more. But if I said, I want all of last week back, what can you do for me?

Right? And it's. It's, you know, I really have to applaud the Millennials. And if someone's gonna listen to this, and I'll be like, oh, no, not the millennials. But they figured out that they are really willing to trade freedom and flexibility for money. They want to live a life more by Design. My son's 28 we, he and I will often talk. He's an accountant and we're trying to help him to create that life by design because he wants to go out west, he wants to travel the world and there's different ways now again with technology that he can do those things. And what they're doing is they're challenging the older generations, the baby boomers, the Gen X's, and saying, you know, have you thought about looking at the world like this? Because time is finite. It is the most non renewable resource we have. We want to spend our time with you. Mom and dad, come spend it with us. Maybe work a little less or work a little differently. And those thought processes really freak people out. But once they can embrace it and see different ways to accomplish things, it's more, more. We can bring more and more families together. I think our fabric is going to be a lot stronger in our country.

I agree. And what you were saying, the companies are more financially sound, you know, you're bringing the families together. Those are all. The focus should be the family. But the byproduct is, yeah, you, we were talking about the inefficiencies and you don't need to work 365 days. One of my favorite quotes is stop the glorification of busy, right? If you can't do it in five days, you're probably not going to pull it off in six or seven. And even if you do, how long can you keep that up for?

You're going to burn out. I burned out. And that's what the great thing about with my clients. I've really discovered that the more I speak from experience, the more I speak from some of the really awful decisions I made and some of the good things we've accomplished. It makes it such a more relatable story than me saying, well, I read in a book you should do it this way. Or I saw a speaker, I saw a TED talk. This is the dumb crazy stuff I did. Don't go seven days, you will burn out. And the reality is, most employers hate it when I say this, but the reality is if you get an employee who's paid for eight hours to actually work five or six of those hours, you've got a great employee. Because nowadays with technology distractions and endless meetings, they're really not working 40 hours a week on your payroll anymore. So why not create a situation where you're getting the best six hours of the day, pay them as such, or come up with a different comp plan, pay them on the work product they create. Again, I'm not looking to cut anybody's wages or anybody's benefits, but work has changed. The gig economy, freelancer nation, all those categories are changing. The way people work. As entrepreneurs, as leaders, we need to pay attention to those things.

I love that you touched upon that. And when you said five or six hours, I'm thinking that's a, that's a bit. Because I know statistically two and a half to three and a half is about what you're going to be getting. So. Absolutely. If you can get someone to do four and a half, five or six, let them go early. Still pay them the same, let them go early.

It's. And people are willing to do it if they're allowed to do it differently. Again, using my son as an accountant, as long as he gets his work product done, you know, if his employer really, they just want the product done. If he does it between 12:12am and 3:00am because he's on the west coast, does it really matter? He's getting the work done. But again, that could be a topic for a different day.

But some of those are the best ways to go about it because when you have people all over the place, you can now wake up and who cares if they did in the middle of the night, you wake up with their stuff ready to skyrocket you through the day and you're not playing email tag for three hours to go. Okay, it's done by end of day.

Yeah, it's.

No, I love getting stuff in the inbox first thing in the morning. Going great. We made progress from yesterday.

Well, if you take a look at it, I mean, we're human animals. We're not just humans being. And humans work in different ways at different times with different natural rhythms. Some people are morning people, some people are evening people. We have to figure out how best they work to get the most out of them so that they will be as productive as we need to be. But also there's an. There's a big value in work, I think, and people who love the work they do are willing to do it really well. Again, if it's a work product result, does it really matter when it gets done?

It doesn't. As long as you get the result and you're making progress, you know, do it on your terms and with the Internet like you're talking about, when the more people that are connected, it only empowers everyone to work more efficiently and communicate quicker.

Exactly. And it's so crazy communications really.

In my coaching practice, I had an issue come up just today. Perfect example. And it was all email back and forth between myself and my accounting team and my client. I said, this is ridiculous. I did a crazy thing. I used this device called a phone and actually called another human being who actually picked up the phone and we had a conversation. And she was so appreciative. Like, wow, yeah, this is getting crazy. This is out of control. I said, yeah, I thought it was just important to talk adult to adult about the. Because it was a real minor thing. But we saw the problem. She's like, I really appreciate you picking up the phone. Nobody calls anymore. So I think there's. There's email and text are great communication methods. You can inform through text and email, but you can only really communicate either through a portal, like we're doing today, or via the telephone. And don't confuse the two.

I'm in full agreement. I remember when I was getting one of my latest phones and they're trying to sell, oh, you can do this. It'll do this. It's got satellite uplink, it'll make your coffee. And for like, 10 minutes, he's talking about all the features. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's incredible. What about this? What about. He's like, yeah, it does all of this. 4G, 5G up a tree, whatever. I'm like, let me ask you something. Can I make a call with it?

Because we have these phones nowadays that are supercomputers, and everyone seems to want everything but what they're intended for. And it's one of the best things you can do.

Well, it's so important that we don't lose sight as entrepreneurs and as leaders of the value of human communication and the value of that human connection. Because at the end of the day, at the end of our days, and this is one of the things I always reference, is there's a study out there of hospice workers, and that study shows that when we're on our last days, the thing our biggest regrets are the relationships we didn't maintain, the conversations we didn't have, and the people we did not maintain a connection with, not did we work more. And so if you can be a great entrepreneur, create a life by design and do the great work you want to do, but also have the great relationship, there's not much more you can really ask for.

Yeah. Inbox zero is not a life goal.

Right?

Let me ask you about your book. How has that helped your business?

You know, the book was really done to help young people. So the book, the job Search process is designed to help someone get their first job out of high school or college in six weeks or less. And it was really written because as an entrepreneur and as a chaos creator, I was very frustrated with the university systems that I was interacting with. I was on a couple of boards. I was finding out from the students when I'd spent time with them that the universities were not preparing them properly to be able to go out into the workplace and find their first jobs. And long story short, I spent some time with the university president, and I said, well, what business is the university really in? He goes, what do you mean? Well, are you in the job readiness business or are you in the education business? And without missing a beat, he goes, oh, we're in the education business. He said, you have a disconnect with your consumer because parents who pay for education think you're in the job readiness business because these kids are here to be able to get a step up in life, to be able to get potentially a better opportunity from a career standpoint. I said, why don't you spend more money and help these students with the job search process? And he's like, that's not what we're here for. Like, okay. So what I found is it's helped me with my current practice at Extraordinary Advisors because it just shows that I am a chief rule breaker. I'm a creator. If I see something that irritates me, I'm going to go after it. And entrepreneurs love the story. But it's the kids and the teachers and the parents who really love the book. Because again, follow the process. Simple, easy, six weeks, you're going to have a job. In today's economy, I had one person get moved from across the country, California to Michigan, filed the process to the T, left California, had five interviews, booked in Michigan, and got five offers. So it worked.

That's fantastic. I love that you want to help people so much because you can be doing anything in the world right now and you're choosing to help people.

Well, for me, I'm so lucky. I am not the sharpest crayon in the box. I am just a lucky guy who hired his first coach. Gosh, 2006, when I was $600,000 in debt, I was two months away from running out of all of my money, losing my house. I was a single parent, and I walk in bad shape, hire this coach, I fire my entire company. And I started over. And I never could have taken that journey to make the inc.5006 times if I hadn't hired that coach and he hadn't helped me.

It's my way to pay it forward and as well as paying it back to help others. That's just how I believe that the world should go.

Looking back over the last 13 years, like you mentioned, what are three key takeaways? You could tell someone if they're in that position or near it or, you know, approaching it. What would you say are the three key things that turned it around for you?

Well, first thing is I did hire a coach. I suffered a lot from imposter syndrome. In my generation, we thought we had to have all the answers. The greatest entrepreneurs were the guys who climbed Mount Everest without a bottle of oxygen, without a Sherpa. We just. We just conquered that world. So it was a generational thing, I think, as well. I just thought I had to have all the answers. And so I isolated myself and I didn't ask for help. So the first thing is, if you're stuck, reach out and ask for help. I mean, there are plenty of resources and people who want to do well by you. Secondarily, for me, it was switching that mindset of revenue first, profit second. As soon as I became more focused on the profit, I started making different decisions. My target, my goal became different. And lastly, I think the thing I had to really figure out is I didn't know what the marketplace wanted. I was competing against in a commodity space, in the staffing space. Kelly's world headquarters is two miles from my office. They've got, you know, vaults full of cash. I've got a credit card and a couple of nickels. We're not equal competitors. So what I had to figure out is, what does the marketplace want? I did this crazy market test. I actually picked up the phone back when people answered the phone and I asked them, what do you want? And they would tell me. And I said, well, if I get that, you know, I'm going to charge you a little bit more for it. He goes, no problem. This is the recession when there's plenty of people, not enough jobs. But there was a gap in the marketplace for high end skilled trades, machinists, welders, these very difficult positions to fill. We figured out if we can fill that, we can do it. So really what we switched the model from being was focused on the client need to focus on how do we get that great candidate and reverse that process. And that changed everything. So we could charge more, got us out of debt, charge more. I was able to pay myself back. We were able to get that hockey stick going to Grow the business. So it really became insatiable curiosity on a day to day basis and really getting comfortable with trying something and having it work. Trying something, having network. So that fail forward mentality, ultimately with the help of the coach just changed everything.

Those are some great expert authority insights and I appreciate you for sharing them with us.

You're welcome. You're welcome.

There are tons of people who I know, they have good hearts, they have good businesses, they might be in a bad spot or whatever the case may be, or something didn't happen. And I think one of the things that really makes a great entrepreneur is that resiliency to go, okay, how do I turn this around and get back going? And the fact that you did, kudos to you.

Well, the interesting thing was because I had the consultant comes in, said, You're 600 grand in debt, I don't see a path out of the woods for you, you should file bankruptcy. And I thought about it and it was an option. But then I thought of a couple things. One, all these people had invested their money in me, from the banks to the vendors who were going to be shorted, everybody else and I'd been, you know, I was a single parent. My son was sitting me across from me at dinner one day and we had to have that conversation. He knew how bad things were and he said, yeah, my buddy's dad said you should just file for bankruptcy. And I said, I can't. I've not done everything yet that resiliency, I've not turned over every stone possible. I said, I can't tell you that you can't quit the football team or I can't tell you you can't do well in a class that you just, if you can't do it, you just quit. Said, I just can't quit until I've done everything. So it was really.

A 10, 11 year old kid who said, I believe in you, I want to learn from you. Model this behavior for me. And that was part of the resiliency process, at least for me.

That's fantastic. That's real fantastic. And I'm glad you can have that as a story and an example, not just for me to inspire all of expert authority world, but your son.

Well, it's funny now, we were hiking in Peru before he graduated college and that was his college graduation gift. And I mean I kind of remembered the story, but he remembered it and he brought it up on the top of a mountain. I'm like, he goes, yeah, you remember that? He goes, now that I'm an accountant. Man, that was crazy. What were you thinking? I'm like, whoa. This is why. He's like, really? I said I have to. I think kids a lot will certainly often, not always, but will often listen to what we say, but they more pay more attention to how we behave and what do we do?

I would have to agree 100% because I remember that phrase, do as I say, say, not as I do. It's like, well, good luck with that.

Right?

And everything is modeled behavior.

Totally. Totally.

All right, well, I got one more question for you before we go to the imperfect action round. And I've been calling it the expert authority roller coaster. And there's fun stuff on there, crazy stuff. And I got one for you. I was thinking about it because.

Here'S why I want to ask you. If you could talk to any CEO that's still living right now, who would it be and why?

You know, I really would, I think, if I could pick one CEO. Well, so my brother was a CEO, so I would definitely talk to him just because I love his stories. But if it wasn't my brother, I would talk to probably Richard Branson because he seems like he's really figured out the work life integration, not the work life balance. I've got some friends who spent time with Richard. He doesn't answer email. He has an assistant that answers him. He does all of it. He does all of his stuff sitting in a hammock, primarily from Necker. And he seems like he just got that. That ability to have this total chill all the time. And that would be just, how do you do that? I'd love to ask him that question.

That's a good one. That's a real good one. And I like him too. He does seem again with that heart. The heart centric piece. He gives back and everything, but he definitely knows how to have fun and no one can argue his business acumen. So great suggestion. All right, we're going to thank our sponsor and come back to the imperfect action round. Winning with Google in 2020. I have no doubt you want to for your business, but who do you trust and where do you start? I'd advise Roche Sillers. Not only was he episode 22's featured VIP guest, but he's also a Google specialist with search advertising and YouTube. And I had him put together this free Winning with Google in 2020 guide for you to get started with right now, go to eainterviews.com rush tips to get your free download. Now, once again, that's eainterviews.com rushtips all right, we are back with the imperfect action round. Todd, are you ready to take imperfect, imperfect action?

I've been imperfect all my life. Let's go.

All right, first question. What is the fastest path to the cash?

Wow. The fascist path to the cash is figure out a niche that no one has exploited, charge appropriately for it and don't apologize.

I like that. Especially the don't apologize. I like that a lot. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it?

I think their biggest problem is they're stuck, they're inactive. They're stuck in a mindset of scarcity and they're struggling to get to a mindset of abundance. And they will slow roll that decision making process. And every day they don't change their mindset and take different action, it's just another day of suffering.

Number three, what's the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

I think it's a matter of how do you create that relationship with that customer? And if you create a great relationship, you can have the value of a lifetime. My experience really, though, it comes down to not when things are going great or not when things are going well, it's when things don't go well. As a leader, do you step up, do you get on the phone, do you stand in front of the client, hat in hand and say, we made these mistakes, here's how we're going to correct them. What can I do to make it right? If more and more people did that versus ducking, hiding, or even going behind PR people, it would change everything.

I like that. I love the ethical side of that, of making it right and not hiding, because so many people do. What is a great book you could recommend?

You know.

My favorite book of last year and I've now listened to it on audio four times, is the book by Mark Manson with the letter F in the title. I'll let people just kind of figure that out because it really gets people to shift their mindset around what success looks like. And Manson's style, I think is really very gritty, very talks a lot from experiences, does a lot of good examples, and I think that it's called the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Blank. Just pay attention to ignore the title, but get the essence of what he talks about so that you can shift your mindset. He does so much good in the world if you can just maybe ignore some of the profanity.

Appreciate the suggestion. Well, you've been a total Rockstar this whole time. I appreciate the insight. I've got a lot out of it myself and I know Expert Authority World has. Where can we find more about you?

Well, you know, you mentioned earlier about my passion to improve lives. And so what I'd like to offer anybody who's listening today or anybody who hears this down the line is reach out to me@ordinary advisors.com, go to the contact us page and I'm happy to give 30 minutes of my time for free to anybody who's struggling with decisions, struggling with their businesses, suffering from imposter syndrome like I was. Even if you're $600,000 in debt, if I was, I'm happy to talk you and give you some ideas on how to restructure that. But that's really the best place to reach me is on my website, extraordinary advisors.com we have to give you 30 minutes for free. Just as really my way of thanking those people who gave to me when I was in need of it the most.

I appreciate that. That's very generous of you and I know people take you up on it has been an absolute pleasure and I thank you.

Thank you for having me on.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. Why every Business Needs a book, including yours. Would you like to save five plus hours with every every prospect, generate more leads and profit in your business? Now visit businessbookchecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today. Hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.