0238 | Creatively Scaling Your Business In The Most Effective Way Possible with Founder and CEO Of Brainbox Kris Nicolaou

Hi, my name is Chris Nikolaof. I'm the owner of Brainbox Labs and you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews. Episode 238, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Web design developments and marketing. Oh my. These are all a few of my favorite things because so many people don't want to talk about them. But guess what, famous, you need to because they're part of your business. They're not going anywhere. And I loved about a decade ago when everyone was going, you know, all this social media is going to take over. Websites are going away. Are you insane? Respectfully, are you insane? Because everything on the Internet is either text, an image, video, encode. Well, it's all code. But.

We look at all the stuff around us and we just think it's this big thing and it's so just break it down to its simplest parts, like earth. It's like dirt, water, air, you know, helium, plasma, all that. If you want to get in the fourth dimension, all that. My point is all of these are needed and I'm super excited to have Chris Nicolau here, CEO and founder of Brainbox. And we're going to be talking about web design, applications development and all the things you may be overlooking and probably are and you shouldn't be if you want to win this next decade. I'm going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Chris Nicolaou. Chris, how you feeling today?

Good. Thank you for having me.

Oh, the pleasure is mine. I think it's so great what you're doing because like I was saying in the intro, so many people overlook this or just kind of kick it with a stick. And I want to know why do you think more people don't care about the design, the marketing, the web design, the app development, all these things that can give them such leverage and such an advantage in their business. How come you think, you know, people just don't care more?

Well, I don't necessarily think that they don't care.

I do think that they don't understand. And like anything that we don't understand, it's one of the things that you put off and you just don't Even know how to approach. I know for myself it's things that I don't know how to do. I mull them over a lot before I get to the point where I'm like, okay, I understand what I need to do here or at least how to approach this before I approach it. So I think it's, it's very much not knowing where to start and.

You know, selfish plug. But this is where we come in as brainbox and you know, clients come to us not knowing anything or how to approach anything in, you know, we start off with discovery and figure out what they actually need, figure out what the pain points are in their business, understanding their business so that we can help essentially.

So for expert Authority world, where would you say is one of the key places they could start that you find most often is, you know, nine times out of ten across the board?

Well, I think the first, the first thing is make sure you have a website, make sure you have a domain, make sure you have a website. If you don't have that, then contact someone immediately. But let's just say you do have a website and you maybe had it for a few years. Look at your competitors and understand what they're doing well and what they're not doing as well. And that's a good starting point to say to yourself, where do I rank in comparison to them? And there's also a bit of a gut check or a bit of an ego check there because some people will look at their site and always think that it's better, you know, always just assume that, you know, what anyone else is doing, they're doing it better. And you know, I think that there comes a point in time where they then realize that the competitors have surpassed them and kind of gone way beyond them where they now they're in the catch up mode rather than, you know, staying kind of neck and neck with their competitors. So I think just evaluating where you are in the landscape in comparison to your competitors. Not saying that you always have to be, you know, chasing or you know, wanting more than your competitors, but just understanding that, hey, there is a, you know, you are in an industry, you have a playing field, so make sure that you're putting your best foot forward.

Now when you're saying stay neck and neck with the competitors, I was going to make a joke about, yeah, I'm sure there are leaps and bounds ahead because they're using a 16 point font versus 14. But you know, aside from the fonts and the colors and all that, what would you say they should be looking for on the competitor's site and their own. You know, should you have video on the main page or, you know, I've heard that slows it down. Should you have an opt in? You know, what are some things that are even worth saying? Should we be doing this or not? Because, you know, you can make jokes about the font and the colors and all that, but that stuff always changes. And also the framework, you know, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla Magento, all these different things. I mean, it's like the Apple and the Mac and PC, you can start an argument about all of this, but if we just flush all that away, what would you say is the most important?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So.

I would start, you know, again, if we're taking a look at your site critically, I would start with.

Again, evaluating competitors first. If you didn't understand the industry, would you be able to understand what they do within the first five seconds of visiting the site? So that's the very first thing. The second thing is do they lead you down a path to something? So normally it's like you said, like there's a form or something that is.

The end goal. So are they doing a good job of leading you down a path? And we normally achieve that through navigation and kind of hinting the user to go down a certain path. But that's, I think that is where the two kind of main things that I would, I would focus on. And when we do discovery, that's what we do focus on. You know, we're doing discovery for a client right now where their site was.

Targeted or their site was positioned to target a certain audience, but it didn't actually work out the way they thought it would. And the audience that they were trying to target didn't really make sense. So what we're doing now is we're taking a look at the site as a site in its entirety. All the content that's on the site, not saying we rewrite the content or do anything, just taking a look at what's there, what you're trying to achieve, and you define that path for them. It's looking at the analytics and all these different things. You then see the trends that users are looking to validate them. They go to the about page, they go to the services page, and then they skip over and contact them. What we wanted to do was craft a navigation that depicted that path. The users went down anyways with a few other pieces in between where they would get contact requests for silly questions. So you know, we introduced an FAQs page in there and this might sound very simplistic, but after looking at the sum of all the parts and understanding what's going on is when we can actually make decisions or good decisions on what the client should do for the new website that we're designing and developing for them.

What I'm hearing in there is it really depends on what's the industry, what's the site that you're doing? Because I have multiple online properties. So, for instance eainterviews.com where your show notes going to be. That's different than MarioFoccini.com because one is me as a two time international best selling author, speaker, consultant and there's a little bit of reference to the show and I'm pretty sure it's hyperlinked because I want that cross traffic. But if you're hearing the show like right now for the first time, you might not know about any of the other stuff and that's fine, I'm not mad at you, you know. And then I have the company IWD now marketing and publishing, which is strictly, I don't want to say strictly because I made sure they're all cross promoting but that's more of the services and stuff that my team and I provide. That again may or may not have anything to do with the show and frankly may or may not have anything to do with me as a speaker consultant. So I found the analytics on there. You know, you gave me the best compliment about the pre video about getting prepped and making sure you have the right lighting and camera and you know, how are you feeling right now? You're looking and sounding great.

The sound great, all the recommendations definitely helped.

Put myself at ease for coming on here because you know, like you said, you want everyone to look and feel their best and you know, I definitely feel good. We did audio checks and things like that and that's that to me shows that you care and they take pride in your work. And you know, those are the types of clients that we work with as well as you know, people that actually take pride in what they do.

So yeah, you don't want someone not caring about what they do. And I noticed on my own analytics that that secret page that only the VIP guests get, it gets traffic and there's been times where I'm doing, you know, I'm months out with the show and there's tons of traffic going to all the hidden pages and I'm like, how do I get more to the front facing ones that the public sees because you know, you can see that with the analytics. But if you're not tracking that stuff is the point. How do you even know where to go? You mentioned that people go to the about page. Where else would you say is a common page that people should be focusing on?

Right. It really does depend on what type of site you have. So you hit the nail on the head there.

Commonly, surprisingly, the about page gets a lot of traffic and people actually want to know who this person is or who this company is or who it's run by. So a lot of people do discredit, I know I did in my earlier career discredit the about page and you know, whatever you throw your vision on there and like, why does anyone read that? But if they're validating and vetting who you are as a company, you know, that may not be the first one. They may go to services and that's where I was leading. They may go to services first.

Sorry. They may go to services first but you know, they'll end up on the about page because you know, does this company offer the services that I need? Yes or no. Okay, great. What about their service? Okay, that all sounds good. Now who, who are they? So it may be the first question they ask and they may go to the about us page first.

Or they may go to the services first, say does this company offer what I need? And then let me see who they are. And then I have some questions that I need answering. So again, an FAQs is in there or maybe some resources or blog or whatever that, whatever that is. And then again to the eventual goal of contacting. And that's a very, you know, generalizing all websites online. But you know, if you're looking at that from a common, as a common structure, it holds true with about 70% of sites, maybe 90% of informational based sites. So where people have, or companies have products and services.

Well, I'm glad you're bringing that up because I personally, especially with guests on the show.

A lot of people can be pre vetted or referred and I'm very thankful for that. But I still go and check out the social, the website and all of this. And as a consumer.

When I'm looking to get something, I mean, frankly there's so many companies that all do the same. I'm just gonna say it the same thing. Even though I know they're all individual, they have vision statements and all this. But realistically, it's not like it's 1923 where there's one company that makes cars, one that makes dishwasher. There's dozens of competitors in every single niche. But the companies that personally are more conscious for me or they have a contribution focus, they have more heart, they're helping people, they're doing something good with the profits. It's not just, you know, we're here transactional based, you can tell. And I will always lean in those same thing with the guest. You know, I'm not going to have someone on the show that's about me, me, me, me, me. So I'm always looking through the about page because the services, it's like, you know, I don't imagine, you know, if we're talking a service based industry, if you're going to a car repair shop, one might be a ousand for repairs, one might be what, 800 or 1200, they're going to be a 10 to 20% delta. It's not going to be 1000 and 6000. Yeah, they're all pretty much the same. And that's why I think it's so important, because I'm smiling, because I am saying everything that you don't want consumers to be saying with, oh, yeah, you're the same as everyone else. What's the difference in price? This, that, the other thing. And that's all the. And I'm doing it to demonstrate that's exactly the conversation in the prospect's head that you have to cut through. So how are some of the ways you cut through it?

I think you were maybe in my head, but I think you were alluding to it. It's, you know, what is we work with a lot of insurance companies, brokerages, let's just say. And.

So, you know, an insurance brokerage is a very classic or traditional business model. And how do you differentiate one from the other? It's very difficult. But each company has their own unique proposition or how do I phrase it? I phrase it or I ask them the question, you know, what makes you unique? And this is normally a question during discovery where they.

The I push back a lot because, you know, if I was to ask you what makes you unique, like what makes your podcast unique? Let's do it together. Let's see if we can.

Yeah. What's going on today? This is, everyone's put me on the spot, go for it.

I'm fine. Yeah. So what makes your podcast unique? What separates you from your competitors?

It's live streamed. A lot of shows don't live stream. It's high quality video and it's recorded. It's not just Audio. I have some of the best guests in the world.

No, that's good. Let's stop there.

Good. Thank you. That's what I lead with. Because I'm just hearing myself going. I'm just hearing the devil's advocate going, yeah, well, I live stream, too. I do video, too. And I also have great guest.

You know what, what makes me unique is my standard of excellence, because I know no one can touch that.

The thing. This is where we get to. And you already got to that. And we had a little conversation before, and this is kind of the banter that we had. But it's true that that to me was your unique selling feature. The quality, how high quality the podcast is, the video, the audio, the attention, your attention to detail. So that's what I would try to pull out. And during those conversations, they're often.

They'll say things exactly. You went through the whole, like, mental motion that I go through with them, but I question them. And it's. It's often a question where we kind of get stuck a little bit, but where they will say, yeah, it's the. I have the, you know, the best guests. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, other podcasts have.

Great. Anyone can say that.

That's exactly. So I. This is exactly what I come back to them was like, the other companies will say the same thing. You know, our products and services are superior. I. Listen, I agree with you.

Compared to who?

Yeah. But your competitors will say the exact same. So what makes you unique? What can we. What can we leverage here? And that's, you know, if you are a company in that, you know, in an industry where it's swarming with competitors, you need to figure out a way to separate yourself from them. And, you know, this is where you got to take a little bit of pride in your work. Like, what are you proud of? And even for myself as a. As a business owner, I don't like to boast. I don't like to talk about my business. And, you know, the purpose of me coming on podcast was to hopefully.

Give up some information, give up some knowledge to help people so that they, you know, they know what to do with their business. And it's. It was not again, because I hate talking about myself. I hate doing that kind of business development portion of. Of the business. And I understand that it's necessary, but I'd rather do something like this where I can. You know, it's almost like people are picking my brain and I can give them valuable information that I couldn't do one on one for every single person you know in the audience that's listening so.

Well.

I think it's great that you are doing it because one of the things that stuck out to me with what you're doing is you're not just web design, you're not just app development. There was something I saw with tell me more about the drawings and the logo and the design and for sure that looked awesome. And I don't know.

There'S one person that stands out that does design and identity and I want to ask you what's the difference between those? But I don't think they take it to the degree you do. I think they're more strictly like logo design, like straight up logo you're making. I don't want to say anything more. Explain the process because you're definitely doing more of it.

Thank you. Yeah, so just in general are, you know, the scope of what we do is end to end products. So imagine you had a product and this online product. So you have something maybe you want to sell or you know, there's something for the user to do online. Again, I do relate it back to insurance companies we work with where they have an auto quoter online, where you can.

Get your auto insurance online rather than speaking to a broker. So just kind of automating those more manual processes that are more traditional again, bringing them over technology and allowing us to automate those. So we build a product like that. It's an example of one product. So we build that product, then we need to brand that product, we need to come up with a name, we need to market that product. So not only is there that product website where you do those things, but we then come up with the brand for it. We design the logo and you know, all the facets of the brand and you know, we create that marketing, you know, that marketing site with landing pages and you know, we do all those things so that we have that end to end product so you can market and sell that product effectively online. And in terms of just if we go to one of the pieces, which is that logo design, our logo design process is very. It's long, it's long and it's detailed. And the reason why is because we start out with, you know, we start out with sketches and we sketch out ideas. Well, we take, there's a design questionnaire and we'll ask you questions about your business and just about how you feel. Like the similar question that I would ask that I asked you previously, you know, what makes you unique and we Build that into the design, the sketches of that. And we show you, like, hand, you know, pencil sketches. We'll say, what do you think about these? And there's about 20, you know, let's just say about five to 10 pages of those. And we distill it down to about 20 ideas. And we present you 20 ideas and we say, what do you think about all these things? You're like, I like this direction. I like this direction. We refine and we show you again and we digitize and we show you and we add color and then we add the fonts. And, you know, in the end you get this beautifully designed logo. But you were the one that led us down that path. We just used your information to kind of create the idea. So. And again, this is why it's. Whatever we do is unique to you. So we do that. And once that's done, we create the whole brand package around that. So this is how your logo is going to be going forward. And anyone else that uses your logo, they have to use it in this way because we don't want to. Your logo, it's so important. We spent all this time with you and this is the essence of your company. Nobody should be allowed to touch it. So, you know, the. And then again, that's the. That's the smallest or simplest part of that end to end process.

Or that seeing what you just covered there with the. No one should be able to touch you. That's the key. Because what you do is vastly different than we're gonna throw up a Drupal Joomla. WordPress site. And, you know, we'll add your logo, add the page. Like, I don't want to demean it because it's truthfully what I started with over a decade ago. Made a lot of companies happy.

Yeah.

But there's a big difference from I can push the buttons and know how to do the work. And frankly, I never did just that. I'm simplifying it. But there's people who. That's all they lead with. And they're doing a little bit more too. But when I saw what you were doing, I was like, there's. I have not seen any other companies doing the full process like you're talking about. And one of the characters, the little bunny just sticks out in my head is the one I was thinking of, right?

Yeah, yeah. That was for an insurance company called Insurance Jack. That was one of the first insurance brokerages that we worked with. And we came up with the name, the brand, everything. So that one's a little dear to my heart. And I loved working on that project.

It was. It was tough. It was tough to kind of put that all together and market that and make that successful. But, you know, in the insurance brokerage industry, that's one of the things I hear often is, oh, my gosh, you were the ones that did insurance. Jack. And I said, yeah, we were the ones. And again, I don't really market it, you know, don't really. We don't really market ourselves in that way. And again, I don't really like boasting.

About anything, but it's not boasting. I mean, you're. The thing I'll give you my perspective on that is there's a lot of people who. They do this or they do very little, but they can run their mouth so they get the attention whether they're good or not. I do give them credit on the. What is it? The. Not consistency, the persistence. Because nothing hurts me more than seeing good people that are doing great things, but they don't want to talk too much, they don't want to say too much, and they just, best case scenario, have a smaller market share.

Yeah.

And so many of them like you. You're doing all this cool stuff, but I don't think it's boasting one bit. Are you open to a reframe?

Of course. I am always open.

I have told clients this forever and I. Especially with profit margins and stuff, I go, you need to. I go, do you really care about your customers? Yeah, of course. Then how come you're not ensuring you'll be around three to five years from now?

Wow.

That'S. Yeah.

You're not bragging. You're ensuring you're there so that other people aren't getting screwed around and that you can provide the best level of customer service for them. Because you are.

I love that. That is. And because I struggle with this and, you know, you hit the nail on the head and it. This is a part of the reason why I never did is because there was the people that really don't know and they talk the most, and it really bothered me. But, you know, I got to get. I got to get over that. I got to get over the fact that, you know, the. The people that are doing it don't often talk about it until they get to a certain point. But you're right. To secure the business for the future and for my current clients.

I want you to send me that word for word, please, after this. That was amazing. I'm not joking. I'M not bigging you up for no reason. That was amazing.

I appreciate that. I'm glad this is not only being live streamed, but recorded. I have an awesome show team that will be taking care of the all, all the transcripts in the show notes. I don't remember verbatim what I said.

You don't have to.

It's so ingrained. I just say stuff sometimes, so ask me anything else. But this will. There's a clip of this and it will definitely be in the show. There's full transcripts of every episode. So I'm glad you. But I always preface it because, you know, I said, are you open to a reframe? Because not everyone is. If you're not, you're not receptive to it. And nothing irritated me more. In addition to that, I've been on that side and I was like, ah, you know, is also when you're giving and I'm sure you've had this where you give someone advice and they're just like in like a week, a month or a year later they come back and.

There'S a thing I've shared on the social media before, it's called Askhole.

It's like you just give them the same advice over and over and it's so thank you for being receptive. But I knew where you're coming from and I was like, you have so much to share. You shouldn't ever feel bad about it. And the cool thing is your personality in your heart is so here that you could do a whole full day training seminar and it would still never come off as boastful or arrogant because it's not who you are at the core.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I try to be my genuine self because who, if somebody meets me like this is who I am. So I want them to know, you know, the person that I am and that also I'm a real person. I'm not just as much as the company succeeded and we have done things, by the way, if anyone doesn't know, like starting the. Starting your own business is the most difficult thing ever. So, you know, we are regular people and you know, we're not, you know, we're not extraordinary or maybe we are in some, some cases or you know, maybe have a little OCD to make sure everything's perfect. But I think in general that people don't understand. It just takes a lot of grit, takes a lot of determination. And that's where, yeah, you know, to your point of when you're saying, are you open To a reframe. This is where I think people don't get it that they put up this ego shield and it's very self serving. So anything that you tell them, they're kind of, you know, they have the ego shield up and they're blocking the information that you're trying to give them.

And it's not good. And you know, as a part of, as a part of our company culture, it's check your ego at the door. It's actually a little bit more aggressive than that in terms of the.

Oh, really? Can you elaborate if.

Would you like me to?

Absolutely. I mean, I know you can. I caught myself. It's like, will you elaborate?

I mean, I will. And if I can, pardon my language, then if that's okay with you.

Okay.

It's our motto. Head free. And the reason why I'm. It's for the shock value. And the reason why I say that is because if they can check their egos and they can leave their ego at the door. And again, like, that's a, it's a big thing for us. It doesn't matter who you are in the company. You could be an intern or a junior or anyone. If your idea is better for the client than mine, your idea wins. I don't, it doesn't. I don't care. It's whatever is best for the client. And if you, if everyone has, or if there are egos there, then we all don't grow. You know, there will be someone who is defending something that's not better than someone else's. We can't get to the point where we need to be if we aren't open to better ideas and just, you know, to someone telling us something we don't want to hear. And that's why I say, Chuck, here you go at the door. Or what I said previously.

I can't agree more. And it's why I love bringing great people on my team. Because I'm not the best at everything. There's frankly a whole lot of stuff I shouldn't be doing or touching.

Right.

Or care about. But it has to get done and they love it.

Yeah. And crazy. Yeah.

I love that. I, you know, I've asked people for years. I was like, you know, because I do what I do in industry daily, but I'm not doing 58 different things in every single niche. I'm aware I've done it at some point and I'm thankful for that. But unless you're doing anything and it doesn't matter, business, personal or whatever, Unless you're doing it daily, you're not going to be on the cutting edge of it. So I love when, you know, instead of being afraid to ask the boss, hey, you know what? Have you thought about this for, let's say, the show? I love it when it's like, hey, there's things going to be changing in next quarter. Maybe we should implement it. Hey, thank you so much for letting me know because that would have been a horrible week to, like, backfill it.

Yeah. And as a, in, as a company, we do monthly retrospectives on the company to, you know, ask everyone. What do you, you know, what are you happy about, what are you sad about, what are you confused about within the company so that we can make those changes on an ongoing basis so that we're not, you know, we're not falling behind technology, we're not doing things in an integrated way, or, you know, we work so hard or work so closely with our clients and work so hard on their projects that we don't get a lot of time to work on ourselves. So this is, this gives us an opportunity to really be critical about ourselves and really make change. And, you know, once I realized that as a business owner that I can't do everything myself and I need these people around me to.

I can't come up with all the ideas either. So I need people around me that are intelligent and I surround myself with those people. People that are willing to maybe cross the line sometimes and say something that, you know, even for myself, I don't want to hear. But, you know, as a leader, I do take time to think about it after the fact and understand what they're trying to say, not what they said. And it often is something of great value for the company and we implement it.

See, and that is so powerful, what you're sharing and just your heart and mindset. Because as leaders, again, for our customers and clients, if we're not around as a company.

We'Re leaving them to other people who don't care. But as CEOs and leaders, if we're not doing what's right for the company and our teams.

There may not be any clients to have a company. And I'm also thinking about not just am I going to be around in three to five years for my clients, but also my team, because they're counting on that.

Absolutely. That's a, That's a really good point, and it's a scary thought. And, you know, as business owners, you work so hard.

Work so hard to make sure that it seems so easy for them. And I want them to come into work every day and not have to deal with anything with, you know, not saying clients. People say there's no bad clients, there isn't any bad clients. But people do have bad days. We're humans. So to think that you're never, you know, every single client is going to be amazing every single time you're lying to yourself. So.

But I welcome to my delusion.

Right. But I make sure I look after those things so that they have to. All they have to do is come in and focus on being great at what they do so they're not distracted by anything. And, you know, again, as business owners, we take on that burden and. But it's, you know, it's also very rewarding. We employ people, they have jobs, you know, they feel valued by the. By what we do with them. So at least I hope they do. You know, I hope they're listening. I hope they do. But, you know, again, with the monthly retros and stuff like that that we do at Brainbox, it's.

Especially in the last year, you know, we've made a lot of positive changes, or in the last couple of years, I should say, a lot of positive changes. More focusing on the team and how they can be better. And we've always had a focus on it, but it wasn't like our primary focus. And it's really shifted and I really see the results. The company's grown significantly by investing in those people. And if you don't think the people are the core of your business, at some point you're going to hit a roadblock or a bump in the road, and those people aren't going to be there to support you because you weren't there to support them.

Yeah, I mean, as efficient as robots can be, you definitely don't want an entire company of them. It's not about the efficiency because I've had client. I've said that I'm thinking of one from over a decade ago where I sent the wrong invoice to the wrong company. And I was freaking out. This was in my early, early days. And I was like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do there gonna fire me and all this. I'm not like running, you know, worst case cliffhanger scenario. And as I was typing the email back to I'm so sorry, I got a phone call and it was like, hey, how's it going? And I thought they were just gonna shoot me out. And it was actually the other secretary who I was nice to When I was there in person, multiple times. Don't worry about it. I already got it. You don't even need to shoot me an email. I go, well, I just finished typing it as you were calling. She goes, I've done it myself. You know what I mean? It's just that, like, yeah, I found that more often than not, most of the businesses out there that are doing good, they do have some forgiveness built into them. And I like to extend it to people, too, because there's plenty of times I've screwed up and it's like, hey, no problem. And there's other times I'm like, kind of dropped the ball, didn't you? And it's like, yeah, it's like, it's cool. You know, it's one time in even a one year. It's not like it's all the time.

But yeah, yeah, you know, the same. I look at every person the same, and regardless of their client or an employee or a friend, you know, if you make a mistake, just own up to it. And I hold myself to that same, that same standard, you know, own up to it. You know, how are we going to make sure this doesn't happen again? And let's move forward together. So it's one of those things, you know, when you're in business or, you know, even in your social life, it's, if you make a mistake, own up to it. It is. It is probably the most valuable thing you can do to keep a relationship positive and healthy. So own up to it. And, you know, how do you proceed past that? How do you. How do you move forward together? And it's, you know, going forward, then, you know, let's do this together. Do you agree? Yes. Great. And everyone feels good leaving that. Even though there's a bump in the road, it's. It's over, it's done with. That constantly happens. Then there's. It's a different story. But I think overall, people are forgiving and if you treat them with respect and, you know, you demand respect as well. Not demand, but, you know, you show them the kind of respect that, that you want and that you expect to give them, I think you can have very healthy relationships with clients, employees, friends, everyone.

What I'm hearing a lot of is the heart and what you carry through to your clients is also what you have on your team. And it's not coming down to some plugin or magic SEO or something like that. You just care at your core.

You definitely do. And that one of the things that separated us from Our competitors or that does separate us from our competitors is the quality of work that we do. And that's, you know, during tough times, we've maintained clients or got new clients because of the quality. And, you know, we have new people come on board every year. And they always ask me, you know, Chris, like, if we just cut down on the quality slightly, we'd be able to ship this thing faster, you know, and use less hours and all these different things. And I said, well, if we did that, then we'd be like everyone else. What would. What would separate us from, you know, and again, during, you know, when there's tough times, it's the quality of work that we do that we're. Our business continues to grow. You know, why are there. While other companies are suffering or struggling.

They understand that. Clients understand that, hey, Brainbox always does quality work. And, you know, they own up to their mistakes, they're honest, they're dedicated, they're going to look after us. And.

Yeah, again, that's. The quality of work speaks for itself.

So I want to ask you, how did you get into this? Take us back to prior to the success and the great company. Where'd you even get the idea?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I want to bring it way back because I think there's some context there. I've spoken about this before. Not, I'll go through it quickly, but, you know, when I was in high school. Oh, my gosh, long time ago when I was in high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did love computers. I was astonished at what you could do and you can make a web page and those things. But also I was, you know, I played basketball for the high school team and then went on to play college basketball. So my head was in, you know, hey, I want to play sports. Not, you know, or I want to be around sports. And I wanted to really be a physiotherapist, not a web developer, own a web development company. I did always want to own my own company. I just didn't know what it would be in. And, you know, as a young person, you're like, I want to do this. And it's just something that you say sometimes. You know, some people, like, really mean it and really know it when they're young. I wanted it, but I did. I had no idea how to get it. So when I was in high school, though, I worked for McDonald's. And I bring this up all the time because. And I worked there for seven years. I was a manager for five of those seven years. But one of the things I appreciate McDonald's so much and that's because they teach you everything before you become a manager. So they teach you all the different parts. So like you said, you know, like, you may not be amazing at all the things, but you know all the parts in your business. So kind of I've carried that through to my company just knowing all the pieces. So. And also McDonald's offers amazing training and I'm plugging McDonald's hard here, but I'm just saying that it was amazing training. And again, they send you to leadership training and courses and how to be a manager and then that hamburger you, right? Hamburger U. Yeah. So they, they really do a great job at that. So when I decided to go to college, I, you know, I was really good at design, but I didn't really know the programming stuff. So went to college, you know, went to an amazing course, three year program. And I fell in love with development as well. So we had the design and development side. You know, I got my first job doing design or so doing development. Then I went to design and I did both of them throughout the industry at a high level. And then I went and did, you know, account management, project management, all those different things before I decided, why am I doing all this stuff to make another company super successful? Why don't I just open my own? And again, I always had that in mind to open up my own company. But there was a really, there was a real aha moment to when I got to that point where I was doing everything and this kind of felt this, it felt similar, it felt similar to McDonald's where I knew all the parts or I knew pretty much how to do all the parts. I just needed to do it to become a manager, to kind of finalize that training. So I gave myself till I was 30. I said, when I turned 30, I'm like, I have to open up my own company. And.

You know, before I believe I was, before my 30th birthday.

I opened up. I ended up opening up Brainbox. So, you know, and not without its struggles. I was kind of incubating a company for a few months before, I would say about six or seven months, just trying to find freelancers and stuff, people that would do good work.

And it was, you know, when you become a business owner, you think to yourself, I'm really good at what I do. So I'm going to be able to, you know, I'm going to be able to run a successful company. But then you quickly realize that you got to do all these other things. And this is where I feel that a lot of business owners or people that want to start their own company, they don't realize that. This is why people say, like, I worked eight hours, and then I worked another eight hours or whatever the case is. Like, I did all the stuff that I need to do during the day to day with clients, and then I had to, after hours, actually do some of the production work or. Or all the production work. It's, you know, you end up doing all the things that you don't want to do and to run the business successfully. So, you know, when I started out, it was a big grueling, you know, for the first few years. And, you know, to be very honest, I paid myself around two grand a month, which, you know, after calculating how many hours I worked, I can't remember how much it was, but it was somewhere around like nine to twelve dollars an hour for owning a business. I paid my employees way more than I paid myself. Didn't pay myself a healthy salary. Like, I was just either. I think it was just below the.

I get EI here, employment insurance. So kind of not being on welfare, but being on employment insurance. So while I was working for my company, a business owner, like, not making very much money and kind of struggling. But as things went on and, you know, you kind of get to the point, after a couple years, you feel a little more secure. And then after five years, you feel, you know, solid, like you have a solid foundation there. And then at that point, I actually started paying myself what I, you know, well, I started paying myself what the.

One of the employees that I was paying the least, I paid myself something to match them. And, you know, at this point, finally, I feel like I pay myself relatively well, but it took a very long time and it's. It's difficult. It's difficult even being someone who was single at the time, you know, not having, you know, a wife or, you know, things to look after. But it's definitely a struggle, and it takes true grit and determination to want to make it work. And there's definitely points where you want to give up, but, you know, if you intelligently stick it out. And I say intelligently because there's some people who just will ride it out and watch that ship crash and burn.

Because they don't know when to give up. But, you know, if you do all the good, you know, do all the healthy things, all the right things, and be honest with yourself, be honest with your clients and, you know, work really hard and.

All those things that people. All the cliche things people tell you, but they're true. You know, you do all those things and you have a chance to be successful. So. And I'm not saying that Brainbox and myself wildly successful, but there's an upward trend, and, you know, those are the times when you need to realize that, you know, you've done good. And again, this is the whole thing of not boasting myself. I think. I think Brainbox and I think myself, I've done. I've done good, but there's more to come.

That's great because you're still aiming down the road for more. You're not just settling where you're at.

Yeah. And it's. It is tough to not be complacent and not to settle in and. But also when you see success and, you know.

Keep going after it, you don't. You don't have to kill yourself, but keep riding that wave, Keep it going and see where it'll take you. I think some people do become exhausted or, you know, fatigued, and they don't want to. But, you know, keep pushing, keep pushing, because if you're. If you're seeing some success, if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll be more successful.

Do you think that some people give up too early?

Yes, I think that some people give up too early, and some people don't give up early enough. So let's talk about the ladders first. So people that don't give up when they should. I think that this is, you know, the determination thing, where they see. They can't see it. They see something's wrong and they see something failing, but maybe they don't know what to do or, you know, again, that ego shield, they. They have an ego up and they just can't.

They don't want to realize that it's failing, you know, when they could just stop what they're doing right there, transition to something else or pivot, and they'd be wildly successful potentially, or they'd be more successful. They just don't know. They keep holding on to something that's. That's falling apart. We see this in life. You know, people in relationships, people in friendships, all those type of things. And I bring it back to life so people can relate. The audience can relate to things if they don't own a business, but it's the same across the board, is that we hold on to things as humans because we want the best for it. Whatever that thing is. Yeah.

It reminds me of this picture that I've actually shared and it's two hands. One is on the top, one is on the bottom and it's. It's a rope. You know, think of rope burn and it says sometimes letting go is. No, sometimes hanging on is actually more dangerous than letting go.

Yeah.

And the one hand is all bloody and jacked up and the other one is just, you know, it's open.

Yeah. It's a really good visual.

It's. It's just always stuck with me. So I'm. I appreciate you for sharing the insight behind the company and how it came to be because, you know, everyone always asks the same, you know, the basic level stuff, but I love learning, you know, what is the mindset? What is the success behind the success that's led to the success, if you will. So thank you again for sharing that with us. I have one more question with. With the wheel of whatever.

Bring it on.

And then we'll thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. Where is it going to stop? Yellow or black?

I have no idea. It's. It's actually on a motor. It's not going to stop. Just kidding.

I was surprised.

That was actually pretty cool. I have never said that. And that would be actually a pretty cool idea. Just I need a stand for it, to be honest with you. That's current. The current iteration. But that would be hilarious if it just started ramping up and faster.

Yeah.

Note to self.

Yeah, right.

And the clicking noise. I want to get some clickers on it for the audio experience.

You hear that? Be great. Yeah.

Again, that detail, it's never ending. Attention. The question is, what is a company you would love to work with that you haven't yet?

Because sports were so ingrained in my life again, I played varsity basketball.

I would love to work with this company. I just don't. I don't know.

I would love to work with, with Nike.

Okay.

And the reason why I say it is I love their brand. I love the things they do. I think they do an excellent job at it. And no relates to sports. I think there's always an underlying positive message to, you know, to be active, to, to engage in team activity, all those things. So I, I think overall it's, it's a very positive brand. The reason why I hesitated was normally when you work for these, those large companies, they're.

I think, you know, they're very demanding. And I say that, you know, honestly that, you know, we settle ourselves in small, medium, sized companies because those larger companies, they kind of consume you and as a business owner, it doesn't.

They're telling you what to do instead of trusting your advice and experience.

In some cases, yeah. And I say some cases so that people don't get offended. But I think you're right, I'll say that.

But, but only in some cases.

Only in some cases. Right. So. And that's, that's the thing is as much as.

As much as you want to do amazing work for larger companies, you know, there's some times where they push back on a decision that you've provided them with all the valid reasons why you should do this. And they still, they just wanted a certain way. And again, this is where I feel that people that work for some companies, larger companies that have huge brand names, they have egos and their ego gets the best of them and the product suffers. So it doesn't matter if you're presenting them with the best idea, if they had something that they kind of really liked or maybe it was their idea that they wanted you to produce, they're going to hold on to that for dear life. So again, you know, I wouldn't say that Nike's like that. I think there are some large companies like that. But the potential is there when you're in a, when you work with a large company. But also from a business perspective, if you depend on one large company for all your revenue, you're not in a good spot in, you know, you know, you're not in a good position and you're also, you know, you're putting yourself in a bad position because if they ever decide to cut back or move with, you know, move forward with another company, whatever it is, that's, you could have a real problem on your hands as a, as a company. You know, again, if you have employees.

Yeah, I always put the employees before my cell phone. I'll always cut down my salary or you know, make my salary non existent before I will any one of them. So I just never want to be put in that situation.

So yeah, again, I can definitely relate to that.

Yeah.

And, but it's good because you know, we got the heart. We're gonna be along, we're gonna be around a long time and just don't back down. It's not boasting.

I'll try my best. I'm going to read that line every day. That's what I'm going to do.

Well, appreciate everything you're sharing. We're going to thank the sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours and it's true. And that's why you should visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

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Unmanageable. John Cody I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go in promoting my books.

Rocio there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

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Than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com to get started now and I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action around. Chris, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I'm ready.

What I have for you is 60 second or less answers. I got three questions, rapid fire. First one, what's the fastest path to the cash?

Build a really good team. Build a team around what your core values are as a person and, well, the company and team around those core values and you'll never feel the company's moving in a direction that you don't want. And if you're honest with yourself, and this sounds very whimsical, if you're honest with yourself, you'll always want to build that thing because it's an extension of you and you always want yourself to be successful. So inherently you want your business to be successful and the people that are around you and that brings success.

Excellent. Number two, what is the biggest problem your prospects are making and the fastest way for them to Fix it.

Not presenting themselves or their services effectively or in the right way online. And for them to change that is to speak about themselves online, not only who they are right now, but, you know, where they want to go. So talk about where your products are and also where the. Where you feel like your products will be in six months. Because it's okay. It's okay to talk about. This is where we're heading. This is where we're going. But it's not okay to have a stale site or, you know, stale marketing that speaks about who you were two years ago.

Makes sense. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

I think honesty is the biggest thing, producing quality work. You have to do good work. So if you do good work, being honest with them, being. Being a professional, and when I say being a professional, delivering on time, sticking to your word, doing those. The little things to make sure that, you know, when they think about you, they think about you as being a solid partner with their company, someone they can depend on. And that's really what they're looking for. They're really looking to depend on you to do the things that they don't know how to do. And, you know, if they trust you, that's because you're honest with them, that your attention goes way up.

Excellent. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World that have made a difference in your life and business?

That's a good one. I'm not a huge. Because of my, I guess my personality type. I'm not a huge reader. However.

I think rework.

Oh, love that one.

Yeah. The people who created Basecamp.

I go back to that every year. And it's funny because I. Again, I don't.

Meetings are toxic.

Yeah. I just, I. As soon as I read it, it was like a breath of fresh air. Like I opened a door to something that, you know, I always thought about or the things that they talk about or are thoughts that I've always had. And they. They really hit those. Those thoughts home. And I really like how they presented it. And it's very easy to read. It's very easy to consume the information and knowledge. So I. I would. It's. I. You put me on the spot. I got scared there for a second. But that's a. Yeah, I would say that.

So real great recommendation. Love them. Love Basecamp. Been using it the last decade plus. So it's how we do stuff efficiently with EA interviews. So thank you for that.

That's great.

Yeah. Meetings are toxic. I'm not going to spoil the whole book, Expert Authority World. Get it. But there's some really great chapters in it. The other one is, I'm not even going to say it, Nevermind. Okay, so where would you like people to learn more?

Yeah, so if they, you know, go to brainbox labs.com labs with an S, that's our main website to learn more about us. If they want to connect with me, you know, personally, they can go to my LinkedIn. So it's Chris with a K, K R I S and you know, hopefully it'll be in the show notes so they can connect with you.

It definitely will be.

Yeah. And you know, if anyone, you know, if your audience is listening and they want to connect with me, by all means just shoot me a message with your connection. I get lots of requests. Send me your neat proposition what makes you different within that message and I.

Will reply I like and couldn't agree more. I feel the same way. I've got hundreds of them just sitting there and I go to the ones with the messages first and if it's a good message, it takes priority and might get accepted. Now there's some that just. I don't know what to do with them. I don't want to delete them right off the bat but I'm also like none of this makes sense. So thank you for that Chris. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time and share with Expert Authority World.

I appreciate it.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's a easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started. Now, once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com 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.