0428 | Karla Dembik

Hi, I'm Carla Dembik, CEO of Phoenix Pay Pros. And you're listening to EA Interviews, EA.

Interviews, episode 428, inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority effect interview. Expert Authority World. I know you got a business and I know you want it to do well, but have you ever thought about what's actually happening with your finances? I think this is a good thing to talk about and think about, like all the time because I see a lot of people going, oh, we need to do this marketing or that marketing. And they go. They. They're just going in a million different directions. And one of the easiest ways to increase your profit is to just look at your finances and go, where can we put a little bit more profit margin with what we're already doing? And that's why I'm bringing to you Carla Dembeck on today's episode. She's the founder of Phoenix Payment Processing, and she has one of the coolest backgrounds I've seen in a while. She started off in the Marines, became an army intelligence officer and flew Blackhawks. I don't know a lot more about it. We didn't dive into it yet, but you better believe I'm going to once we start this thing off. And that is why she is here to teach you if and experience what she's went through from protecting your freedom to protecting your finances. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.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 eapublishingmethodbook.com.

Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Carla Dembeck. Carla, how are you feeling?

I'm great, Mario. How are you?

I'm doing good. I'm excited to hear what you have to say because you're just all around awesome and I know you can help people on so many different fronts, and I want to ask you about it. So tell us why Phoenix Payment Processing after having such a cool career in the military.

Yeah, so my career in the military was awesome, but I knew that there was a lot more in me, and I took serving in the military and serving others into a whole new light. And so I decided to create Phoenix Pay Pro. So I can continue that service and continue helping business owners save even more money, streamline their payments, and put a lot more value back into their pocket for them.

What do you find most business owners are doing when it comes to the payments? Because like I was saying early on, and I see this all the time, it's like they spend all this money on advertising, marketing, and most of them don't even have the communication and the wording right, but that's a whole other thing. And then, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like they go, oh, we need some sort of payment deal. Let's go with, you know, spin the wheel. Click. This one seems good. I've heard of it.

Yeah. What I see most of the time with business owners is that they just pick whatever they need. You know, when you're trying to start a business and do it real quickly, you just need to know that you have to get paid. So you just go with what you know without really taking a look into kind of the financial side of it in what it's going to really mean for your profit margin. So they just need something that, hey, I need to start making money. It integrates with my website. Let's just roll with it. And they said it and they forget it.

So you're telling me the largest companies on earth don't Funnel everything through PayPal?

No, but they still use some pretty archaic systems because it's, you know, was set up probably 20 plus years ago and that's all they know. And why, why change it, you know.

If it's not broke? Right?

Yeah, exactly.

So if someone's taking notes right now, which they should be, what are the top three things you would say to them? Here's what we go through. Here's what you should be evaluating for your payment processing needs.

I would say the first thing to do is look at your merchant account and look at how much money that you're spending to just even accept a credit card, because you will be shocked by the numbers. And if you're not a good numbers person, that's fine. You can shoot it over to me and I will be happy to do a financial health assessment at no cost for you to show you where you're at and what I can do for your business to put that money back into your pocket.

And I think the other thing that you really want to look at is how. Where's all of your payment stuff? Most of the time now we're either online or if you have a brick and mortar you want to bring it online too. So. So are you using one system or do you have multiple systems that you're paying for that is charging you ridiculous fees? And a lot of the time what I see is really significant mortgage payments being paid out just to accept a credit card. And, you know, correlating the money that people spend.

What's the most amount of systems you've seen?

Over five.

I was gonna guess five or six.

Yeah.

Now, I want to be clear for everyone listening, that doesn't mean you might have, like when I'm selling my books, I have pretty much everything on the planet. Because if someone goes, do you accept this, this, this, this in the little card readers, it's like, okay, that's one thing when I'm in an audience and it's like, yeah, whatever. But what we're talking about is your mainstay for business day in, day out. So I get that you might be set up on different ones, but the active use of it, you know, I, I've seen, I, I've helped hundreds and thousands of people over the years and I, when I'm coaching and consulting with people, I'm like, you're doing what? Like, I don't specialize in the, the business side of this, but when we're going through the marketing systems and going, okay, where's this go? Where's this go? And it's just like I'm trying to unscramble how does the website interact with the marketing and advertising? And it's like.

How the heck are you pulling this off? I'm like, this is crazy. So what do you advise for someone who has, let's say, more than even two or three as the main system, Is it always worth consolidating?

Sometimes it is, sometimes it's worth it because there's no point. It's. Maybe they set it up because early on in their business they needed, let's say, invoicing, and now they move to more online payments. Well, why are you keeping invoicing and paying for that if you're not using it or only a handful of your grandfathered in clients are using it? That way you can shift them to an online payment method which will be more cost effective and easy to use for everybody. So a lot of the time it's just taken a holistic look at what is currently happening and why. In getting down to like the root cause, you know, like, hey, I said it up 10 years ago and I haven't looked at it since, you know, okay, well, maybe it's time to take a look at it and see what new technologies are out there or, you know, just even look at how we can lower those fees. Because you probably haven't looked at that in 10 years either.

Speaking of decades, do would you say the payment game has changed in the last decade?

Absolutely. I think within the last two years it has launched. The digital payment space has gone from, you know, some things have been online, not a ton, but the pandemic, I think, really forwarded our digital payments and contactless payments into a whole new era. I think it went 10 years down the road of if we, if we didn't have the pandemic, we would have been, you know, choo choo and along a little bit, you know, but, you know, 10 years later, it's like boom. All of a sudden everybody's into contactless payments, digital payments, wallets, this, and it's just exposure exploded.

Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate everything that happened, but I've been telling my clients since prior to 2010, I'm like, you should be moving online. You know, stuff's going digital.

And now all of a sudden I, I will say people have been reaching out, going, how have you been doing such and such. It's like, zoom. Meetings are nothing new. Websites are nothing new, Social media is nothing new. It's like, you know, you. And I don't think any of it's good or bad. It's what you do with it. Some people are going in circles, killing themselves for no, no return on investment, and other people are, you know, they pick one, they run with it, and it's like, it's almost as if they have a crystal ball because it's like they're, they're killing it and they're not misstepping one bit.

Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, it's. I think sometimes it can be overwhelming for business owners. You have so much going on and what I find is a lot of overwhelm. There's so many choices. They don't know which one to pick, which one does anything, and it starts getting a little convoluted. So when you want to go change, they think it's this big, huge thing that is so overwhelming to him or to them, and all of a sudden they're just like, oh, forget it, I'll just stick with what I know. And then you have someone like me who says, oh, don't worry, I got this. You know, it's like going to the doctor. You, you know, there's a lot of stuff sometimes going on, but you don't go to a lawyer for a medical problem. You go to the doctor. So it's like the same thing. I'm like a payments doctor. Like, if you have, you know, I work in this day in and day out, and if someone has a question, it's like, who do you go to? You know, just ask an expert.

So for anyone that's going, all right, she knows her stuff. This is sounding pretty good, but I don't want to change. I have been with XYZ company for a decade or two or five. How hard is it to change?

And do you have to change every system around or just the merchant account?

So it depends on what the business owner is currently using, and it depends on what their needs are. And most of the time, it's not a difficult change at all. It's very simple. It's to break it down simply. If you're doing online business, sometimes all it is is I type in a little code on the back end and you're good to go. It's that easy.

Are you talking about the API key?

Yeah, but just in case. Just in case you have listeners who don't know what an API key is.

That really. I thought you had to, like, I actually thought it would even be more complicated than that.

No. So let's say you're using. Let's just take authorize.net for example. That connects to a lot of different shopping carts online. And let's say you already have an authorized.net account, but you're kind of paying pretty high fees because you already came to me and you're like, hey, Carla, let's do a financial health assessment. Just show me where I'm at and what I could be doing. And I did that for you. And I said, oh, I can see you some money. Look at that. And so we said, okay, let's just get you an authorized account. You're still using pretty much the same account. You're just changing a code on the back end, goes into your shopping carts. We just change the API key. So now you're processing through me and my company instead of, you know, direct with a different company. I just saved you money. You blinked and it was done, and business as usual.

So you said something interesting to me there. You're not saying you have to leave authorize. You're just changing how it's. So you're literally talking the merchant account or the payment processor, not the entire interface thing.

Exactly. You know, if you already have an account like that, it's just a simple API key switch. If you don't have an account like that, like, say you're using, like, stripe square or PayPal.

I was just going to say let's do a hypothetical with Stripe, because I know a ton of people using Stripe, and I think one of the reasons is they integrate with so much stuff technically. But you're saying you could just swap that out, too and still use the interface, but it's not going to go through them. It goes to you.

Exactly. I've switched over a lot of merchants that do use Stripe because it does integrate. But there's so many other options that integrate as well that do the same thing. That subscription, that invoicing, Authorize.net is actually one of my favorites, and so is NMI. They're just one of my favorite online gateways. It just, you know, they just are. They integrate with a lot of different things. So you get a new merchant account, you set it up, you just plug in that simple key to your shopping cart or whatever interface that you have, and it's business as usual.

Can I still use QuickBooks?

Yes. And here's the most awesome thing, is that we can automate your QuickBooks stuff, not only lower your fees, but we also have two different solutions that will automate all of your invoicing for you and send out all the reminders until the invoices are paid.

Who's your least favorite?

I don't want to get sued.

There's a couple out there that I just won't use. But that's personal choice.

I'll ask you when we're done. When you're like, oh, my favorite are these. I'm like, I'm curious if I'm right. I think I know who it is. I think I may have already said it might be mine, too. Okay, so go ahead.

If I was just gonna say it might be, you know, a former company that I worked with or one of my top competitors.

Okay.

Okay. So people have stuff. How much can you usually save them?

It depends on the business. So let's just take, for example, I have a restaurant doing 100,000amonth, and they're typically paying between 3,000 and 3,500 in fees. So we can eliminate that. We have two ways. We can eliminate it entirely so that they save 3,000, 3,500amonth, or we can cut it in half.

Go into detail on both of those, please.

So we can completely eliminate their fees if they're in online or in person. And what happens is the business owner passes off that fee to the customer, which is what we're seeing a lot more common practice nowadays. So instead of the business owner paying to use credit cards, that gets passed off to the consumer, we call it either cash discounting or surcharging. And so the customer, when they buy something, let's say they buy something for $100 and now they're paying 104 for it in the business owner eliminates their credit card processing fees entirely.

And it's a great option.

And with half, we set them up on just normal traditional processing with the interchange rate. But if they're paying three to three and a half percent, we can usually cut it by 50%. It all depends on the business, what they're currently using. So I'd like to say between 5 and 50%, just depending on where they're at right now, which is why that financial health assessment is so important.

So it's fascinating. Tell me more about the financial health assessment. You talked about it. You'll do it for free? You're willing to. That's awesome. Give me some more details on it. What's it include? What do you, what are some of the things you look at for obviously who the current payment processor is.

But yeah, so we look at what, who the current payment processor is. Not only that, we will analyze the entire statement. So we look at it line by line by line because sometimes there's a lot of hidden stuff in there or there's just a lot of mumbo jumbo that doesn't need to be there. And so we break it down very analytically, look at what you're currently doing and you might be shocked. Like, so somebody might have told you one thing, but on the merchant statement, it's showing up completely different. And how many times do business owners really know how to read every single line item? And so that's my job, right? It's like trying to do your own accounting and filing taxes. Like, no, thank you, I'll pay somebody to do that for me because it's a nightmare. So basically I do the same thing. I show them where they're at and then I say, this is what I can do. And there's nothing hidden. It's just, you know, very transparent. This is what it is and this is what you get.

What's the biggest objection you get? I'm not hearing a downside to this. Really. What's the biggest objection you get other than I don't want to change because I like living 20 years in the past?

I honestly, that's the biggest objection, is people don't want to Change. They think it's going to be really complicated or they really hem and ha about it of is it really worth it to save money? And I'm just like.

Yes. Even if it's like $100 a month, that's 1200 a year. Guess what? Now half of that nice vacation that you really wanted to go on is paid for. I could do a lot with $1,200 a year. I mean, I'm sure most Americans can, especially in today's day and age.

Yeah. And when you're the correlation of how much you're investing in all of that, how much you're making and everything, when you're saying restaurant doing 100 grand a month, that's now three. 3,500amonth.

Yep. Over 36,000 a year.

Yeah. That might get a new front door mat or something to spruce up the place.

Right. Or guess what? You don't have to close your doors now with the rising costs of everything. You don't have to do layoffs. That's somebody's salary for the year. You know, I mean, let's keep it relative or that's a really nice. If you want to go there. Second home you can pay a mortgage on. But in today's day and age, with so many businesses struggling right now to layoffs and inflation and rising prices of everything, this is one of the simplest ways to reduce your costs and increase your revenue almost overnight.

So change the API key. And I didn't think that was too technical. I mean, I didn't ask you to call it Automated programming interface. But.

For anyone listening, if it's as simple as that, that's on a technical level, what we need to do. Walk me through how long. If I say yes right now, is it an hour or two of my time? You said over the course of a week. Can it be done through the week, through the weekend? What's the time commitment we're looking at to go, okay, call Carla. It's going to take X amount of hours. What are those X amount of hours?

So the first thing is getting a merchant account. Right. We have to get you set up with a merchant account. And so that takes typically the longest it'll take.

What if someone already has five of them?

I still gotta switch you over.

Okay.

Like, still gotta switch you over through my company. Because that's just the way things are every time you go to a bank. So that typically takes the longest seven to 14 days right there.

Okay. But that's on you, not me.

Yeah, it's on you to get me the information that I need to get this pushed through.

But once it is, you have to do. It's. It's all on you to change it all over.

Yep. And sometimes I log in. So a lot of times my merchants don't really know where to find certain things in certain aspects. So I get on a zoom call with them just like this. And we share screens and I go step by step where they need to go, where they need to type it in. Or I can change it on the back end so it's just there. I'm not throwing you to the wolves. I'm always there, literally every step of the way so people don't feel like they're lost in the sauce.

That's awesome. So even seven to 14 days. And you reminded me of one of my clients. We were doing this big marketing campaign for him and I asked about his clients. Same thing. Let's take a look at this. And I go, do you have receipts and no. Do you have emails? Names, address, phone numbers and emails? Stuff like that? He's like, oh yeah, it's in a box out back. I'm like, what? They had been writing everything down for 35 years. It's a locksmith company. And I go, okay.

You'Re going to love me, but your assistant's going to hate me. And guess what they had to do for the next. She had to do for the next seven to 10 days. I'm like, we need to digitize this. I can't work with freaking post it notes. But high five for having all the data. So.

Right.

I think I get where you're going with this. So assuming someone is doing business from 2000 forward and has some sort of digital system, they can just give you access to it? It sounds like too.

Yeah, sometimes they can. You know, if they want me to go in, I've done that for a restaurant. It's a family friend who owns the restaurant and she just gives me the logins. Here, go in and do it. I said, okay. You know, it's. Everybody's different and every client is different. There's no one size fits all. So however a client is comfortable with, I provide really a lot of different options that we can solution. And it's usually no problems and no issues. And if I have to fly somebody somewhere to really do an install, I will. So, okay, it's like a whole concierge thing and all, like an all inclusive merchant solution. And I'll fly to you if I need to.

I've never heard of that before. That's awesome.

We're changing the whole space, Mario.

Good. I think it needs to be changed on so many different levels so they can get it to you. You do the back end. They can give you access. Have you dealt with people, like, with one password or lastpass.

With one password? Yes.

Okay. So for anyone listening that, okay, maybe you have the digital stuff, but, you know, because I'm sure no one's ever said, well, I'm not sure if I want to give you my password, which I think is kind of redundant if you're letting them take over your finances. But objections. Put in a password manager and you can share it. Plus, it's just easier than going, here's 58 passwords. Oh, wait, is that a lowercase T?

Yeah. Everybody's different. Every client is so different. And, you know, it's just. We'll roll with whatever they're comfortable with.

So once you get into that, seven to 14 days there. How long to go? Okay, you're up and running on the new system?

Depending on the system, 24, 48 hours. Yeah. It doesn't take me very long to implement it. And if they need equipment, let's say it's a restaurant getting a whole new point of sale system. I'll ship it direct from the equipment. It'll be completely programmed, and it goes straight to the merchant. It's very simple, seamless, and simple is how I like to keep things, because I understand being a business owner and how overwhelming new things can be and just trying to get to it. When you have somebody helping you along the way and kind of doing it for you, it takes so much weight off your shoulders. And I get that. I understand it. And so that's what I want to do for my clients.

So that's really the service you're providing for them.

Yeah. Call one of the top three and see if you can get that.

I bet you can.

So it's reminding me of, like, jet fighters versus autonomous drones. The. What I'm hearing is the human element is the weak point here for going Mach 10.

Well, I mean, you need a week.

Or two to deal with the. All the organization and accessing it in 24 to 48 hours to actually do it. So if someone said, here's a silver platter, it's really 24 to 48 hours.

Yeah, really, it is. I mean, we're still. I mean, we got to remember we're still working off an archaic banking system that was created in the 1950s. So that's, you know, no matter how cool the technology Is everybody, I think, can relate. The banks have the certain way to do things, and there just isn't a whole lot of changing going on in that space.

What do you think of plaid?

Like.

I never.

I don't really.

You don't like.

I don't have a whole lot to say. You don't like as a color or as a platform? Because I know there's a platform out there called plaid.

Oh, I meant the color. Oh.

It's a bit Scottish, but can work with it.

I'm totally joking. I meant the platform.

So let's talk about success stories. Who would you say is your biggest success story?

I would say my family friend's business.

The restaurant?

Yeah, the restaurant up in Cody, Wyoming.

What kind of restaurant?

It is a steakhouse and a live event venue.

Oh, yum. And how fun.

Oh, extremely fun. They have a lot of singers and songwriters that come in from Nashville and a lot of really cool artists that go there. Open mic night for new and up and coming performers. It is a pretty amazing spot and it's very historic to the town of Cody.

Now, I'm going to give you two options here. One, if you'd like to plug them, feel free. However, I realize you've just been sharing stuff for quite a little bit that if you don't want to, I fully understand.

I will plug them in my own stuff, but I don't want someone stealing my account, so I'm going to hold the name to myself.

Totally cool. Totally understandable.

I have to ask you. Oh, crap. We got to know more about your background. So, like, Marine, US Army, Intelligence.

Blackhawk. Help.

Tell us more about this. And I mean, just tell us more about it because it's fascinating.

Well, thank you for thinking that it's fascinating. I spent years thinking I was so weird, indifferent when I got out of the military because I figured out what I did was not really normal. So what is normal? Right? Normal. I don't know. Kind of boring to me. So I was 17 when I went into the Marine Corps, and I had a fantastic time in the Marines. And that is something that I hold very dear to my heart because it was a lot of work, and it was a lot of work to get there. And to call yourself a Marine is especially a woman Marine is unbelievable accomplishment. And then I spent my time in the Marines, and I said, okay, well, maybe, you know, I should check out this whole college thing. So I decided to do that. And I was like, okay, this is okay, you know? And I was on military installations while I was going to college, and I kind of missed being in the military. There's something.

There is something like. That's an instant family unit, and there's just something to be said for serving in the military. So I decided to go back into the army, this time as an officer. And the only reason I chose the army was because they literally handed me intelligence on a silver platter. And it was what I wanted to do. It was confirmed that I could do it, and I said, all right, let's do it. So that's what I did for a good 10 years of my life in career.

And then the Blackhawks.

Yeah.

So how do you go from. I mean, just switching from one to the other and then intelligence to flying? I'm. I'm sure you'd. It's not a small feat to fly one of those. Looks awesome, But I know that intelligence is. It's like a submariner, like, reading the pings and stuff. That's different than driving it.

Yeah. Intelligence was awesome. I really loved. I really loved everything that I've done, and intelligence was just one of those things that I wanted to do and wanted to accomplish. It was on my list, and I just set off to do it, and I did it. I got burnt out when I was on my deployment in Iraq, and I. I wanted to do something more, but I wanted to help people in kind of do a 180. So I had a group of buddies who were.

That's not a helicopter. Pun is. It.

Can be.

We had a group of buddies.

I had a group of buddies over there in Iraq, and they were amazing. And they were all medevac pilots, you know, Blackhawk pilots. And, you know, we. We became really good friends, did some cool stuff, and I said, you know what? I want to go do this. So my. I grew up around aviation. My parents are pilots, and I grew up flying. Farm flying is what we used to call it. We had a grass airstrip. My mom had a little, you know, a rocker chief, and we'd take off and go farm flying. And that was normal to me. So it was always inside of me of something I wanted to do. And I said, well, heck, why not try? So I put in a packet, and one of my best friends who was in the medevac squadron there, he helped me put in my packet. I did. I had to go in front of a bunch of officers and generals and kind of plead my case. So I did. And they were like, yeah. And I was like, what? And they're like, yeah, go ahead. And I was like, okay. I Was like, no, no backsies, you know, let's do this. And so I went to flight school and blew a couple different airframes and I had the time of my life. And I absolutely love flying. Like, just hands down, love it.

So you've always been able to handle the data because the correlation I see is with the financial side. It's a lot of ones and zeros and data and same thing with intelligence. And I know flying, it's not like you just sit there and go, okay, go thing.

I mean, they have autopilot, but I don't trust it that much.

I'm sure when you're in combat, you're not like, oh, well, the thing didn't take care of itself.

Yeah, I'd be like, oh, oops. No, it's a lot. It's a lot of work. I mean, I tell people, if you can ride a motorcycle, you can learn how to fly a helicopter. I mean, it's just.

What about a WaveRunner?

Well, you only have like a little bit of thumb action on the throttle, right?

I want to fly a helicopter, but I haven't ridden a motorcycle.

So as long as you can multitask, like if you can. Oh, yeah. All day long in like, you know, do that whole pat your head and, you know, rub your belly kind of thing. If you can do that, you can fly a helicopter.

You know, I'm doing right now to pull this off.

Yes, I do.

Yeah, I can multitask.

Then you can fly one, easy peasy. And when I get mine, I will take you up and we'll go flying.

That sounds awesome.

Yeah, it's unbelievable if you've never owned Blackhawk. I wish. Maybe one day. But I've been looking into purchasing my own small little helicopter because it's something that I like a Robinson. No, I hate Robinsons.

Okay, never mind. I didn't say that. I meant Sikorsky.

And I would, if it was up to me, I would get a Bell 206 Jet Ranger. But you know that. Not for a starter. I mean, I used to fly one, but I think right now I would just go for like a little Eurocopter. Just a two seater, you know, just something small that I can start teaching my son on and you know, just go weekend flying and just have some fun.

I've always wanted a Stealth, so.

I'll keep you posted.

You let me know how that goes. Hey, the military decommissions aircraft all the time and you can pick them up fairly.

I honestly found a site where they had the nighthawk like they were selling a Nighthawk airframe. I'm like, my birthday's around the corner, I deserve it. They took all the good stuff off, though. But anyway, first off, thank you for your service. I think it's fascinating and I also think it's great what you're doing to help people now. So, sincerely, on all fronts, just thank you.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for your support. Like, we really appreciate it. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. I could have done a better transition. I got one question before the break and we'll come back. This is the wheel of whatever this is. We went from like super serious to this is intended to be goofy.

And I think you answered what I was supposed to ask you here. Anyway, I got another question for you. Yellow or black?

Yellow.

Cool. It's one of my business colors that matches. So if it wasn't the Blackhawk, what other aircraft would you want to fly?

Oh, 58. The army retired, the little Kiowas. But I love that helicopter like you wouldn't believe. Oh, 58. Oh, my gosh. Yes. It's small and I fit in it absolutely perfect because I'm little, like I'm five three, so it just fit me perfect. And it was the funnest helicopter to fly. Like, I was able to just whip that thing around and just do so many fun things. It was. It was amazing.

Okay, well, if it's retired, maybe it's for sale.

It is. I have my eyes on a couple of them, but, you know, well, we're. That's going to take some time.

It's possible I'm going to throw in one more. What do you think of the new Lockheed with the push propeller on the back that allegedly can do like 320 or 350?

I have the same feelings about it as I do the Osprey. I would never step foot in one.

Really?

Absolutely.

Why?

This is just personal opinion.

I think they're an absolute death trap. And there's been so many significant accidents, I just don't think they're airworthy. But that's my personal opinion, not the opinion of anybody else, just me.

Okay, that's fair.

Yeah. Thought it looked cool, but they look awesome.

But doesn't mean I'm getting in it.

And just remember, the government goes for the lowest bidder, FYI, so whoever the lowest bidder is usually gets the contract.

You're like, so do sharks. Doesn't mean I'm going to ride in one.

Right.

Okay, 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 I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can 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.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

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 with 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.

I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario. Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Carla, are you ready to take imperfect action?

All right, I am. Let's do it.

Okay, if 28 divided by 42 equals 62. If you're on a Saturday, what type of helicopter would you need to traverse Mount Everest?

Hmm. Well, since I don't do math on the weekends, I would say probably something with an awesome gas turbine engine who can handle the density altitude like the Aurora.

Go with the Sikorsky on this one.

Those are cool. I was totally teasing. What is the question? That's the first time I never. I actually didn't ask what I was supposed to. I totally just made that up.

Expert authority world. What do I normally ask here? It's something to do with your clients or something.

What's the quickest? This is perfect for you. It's actually what is the fastest path to the profits? Calling me oh, love that.

There we go. Number two, what's the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Biggest problem is hesitating and how to fix it. Contact me.

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

Great customer support. I'd like to think I'm pretty friendly. I'm in your corner. I fight for you. I fight for people I don't even know. So you know, that's the easiest way is to be there when your customer and your client needs you and to show up and support them and give it your all, which I don't know how to give any less. So.

Great answer, great answer. Being a publisher, I love talking about books and writing them. What books would you say impacted your life and business?

Let's see, the one that I'm currently reading is by Jay Shetty. You know, live like a monk. And that has currently impacted how I'm moving forward in business. And the ones that impacted my life, you know, a great deal previous to that and you know, was reading my bible every day. I'll tell you what, I get more out of that book than anything else.

Absolutely love that answer. That's why I say life, not just business anymore. Yeah, Love it. Agree 100%.

Where would you like people to learn more?

You guys can go to PHX.

To contact me and find out more about what we do.

Excellent. And we'll make sure all that's on the show. Notes on eainterviews.com Carla, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for your time and sharing the stories along with your knowledge.

Mario, thank you so much for having me. I had a great time talking with you and your audience.

All right, Expert Authority world, we have another great one here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day. God bless. You're already the expert. But have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book. Eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethod book.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it. If you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com link LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site 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 on the next one.