Episode 307: Do you leverage togetherness to grow your business?

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

Well, my name is Alex Sanfilippo and I am a podcaster through and through. I, I've been a host since 2016, which in podcasting years, that's like a full lifetime or more potentially, as you know, being over 300 episodes yourself, Professor Pete. Uh, additionally, I'm also a software founder and I decided to keep that focus in podcasting because I love that space so much. So an example of one of my businesses is I have a company called podmatch.com and it's a service that automatically connects podcast guests and hosts together for interviews. Very similar like how an online dating app would work. And in my personal life, I am a follower of Jesus. I'm a husband to my best friend and wife, and I also love playing sports, uh, specifically on the beach these days. I live very close to the ocean. That's something that's a lot of fun for me, my friends, my wife to go hang out and do. Uh, so I try to have a lot of fun. I'm an adult, but I also try to be a kid because you can't take life too seriously, especially sitting behind a computer being a software guy all day, right?

Absolutely, Alex. And it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, and I can definitely attest to the benefit of PodMatch as being a member of as well. It's a great service that you have. Question number 2, what is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?

So I'll share both sides of it. First off, something that makes me smile is just how supportive the podcasting industry is. When I first got into it, I came from an aerospace background, which was a great industry, but it was very, very competitive and it was like always like cutthroat and things like that. When I got into podcasting, everyone just wanted to help each other. They were so kind. And I find that even more when I got into the actual software side of things, like other software providers in podcasting want want to help each other. And that makes me smile. Something that makes me laugh is I attend a lot of podcasting conferences, virtual and in person, and without fail, every presentation, no matter who it is presenting, brings up Joe Rogan at one point or another as being like a good or bad podcaster. It goes both ways. But I love just keeping track of how many times it happens. That always makes me laugh every single time because Joe Rogan, he's kind of a legend in the space, or maybe he's just not as famous as we all think. But regardless, it's fun to keep track of it.

Oh, I think that's great. You probably have this, like this, uh, uh, checklist of every time that you, uh, and each, each, each conference. That's awesome. I love that. Question number 3. I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?

I think in today's world, because it's an ever-changing world, right? Like more than ever, we're just seeing rapid change happen. I think that what we need is a way for people to understand how to take action in their businesses. And I think a lot of us, we get scared and we fall into what's called maybe analysis paralysis, or just we don't want to move because the world's changing so fast that we're scared. We want to hold on to the business we have or not rock the boat too much. But I think that's really bad thinking. And we're seeing that in companies right now. The ones that are refusing to change are the ones that are really starting to fail. So I think that companies need to read a chapter about how to properly take action in a way that is systemized. So it's not just totally random and trying things, but also not falling into this area where they just kind of talk about theory and maybe we'll do this. They need to start trying things and taking action. If it doesn't hurt the business, it has potential to grow it. And people need to be able to start doing that. So I think there needs to be a chapter on instead of being reactive, starting to be proactive and really focusing on innovation and driving the future that we're all looking for.

Oh, I love that. It's very insightful. I, you know, taking that action and experimenting and, and, and if I'm reading you or hearing you correctly, it's not being afraid to experiment and fail because for me, me, at least, I've always learned more from my failures than my successes. Have you too? Has that been your experience?

It definitely has. You know, and something actually really helped me out is Jeff Bezos. He talks about a, he calls it like a closed door and open door change or experiment, if you will. If it's a closed door one, it means you walk through it and you can't go back. And that's what they have meetings about. There's other ones though, they say the door's open. So if we go through it and we're like, we don't like what we see, you can just walk back through the door and be back where you were at. And I think that's a really great way just to say, take change if it works that way. So if you, if you cannot undo it, take some time, think about it, talk about it. But if you're saying, no, I could just go back and reverse this at any point, then you should really just take action and go for it and see what happens.

I like that. It's, it's, you know, it reduces that fear of risk that someone would be taking. So excellent, excellent advice. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude and care for customers, what advice would you give to other business leaders?

So what I'd say, this business advice that I give to other leaders is actually from a quote by Helen Keller. And she says, "Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much." And the reason I find this to be so important is because when we're looking at this next generation that's coming up, Gen Z, they're starting to become the primary customer, like the consumer. They're, they're be— what everyone's starting to market to. And what we find is when everyone starts marketing to this new demographic, the rest of the world kind of follows suit with their personalities and we kind of adopt and adapt to what they're doing. And the reason I bring that up is because we're finding Gen Z is actually very, very driven by purpose. By collaboration, by community, by togetherness, if that's a word at this point. But I say that because they're looking at the world in the sense of we want to be together, we want to be unified, we want to like break barriers that have never been broken before. And a lot of companies are more so focused on supplying a solution to that one customer or just helping that one person out, which can be good, but at the same time it can really harm us when we're not thinking about how we can drive things through community. And now a lot of businesses might say, well, I'm business to business, but at the end of the day, we're all human to human. We're H2H, not B2B. And as long as you can find a way to bring people together around what you're doing, you're gonna find this next generation will be much more interested in working with you because they can see that, you know what, this is affecting my community, what I care about. It makes me part of something bigger than just myself. So I think it's really important we all start thinking again about this Helen Keller quote, alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. If we want our businesses to grow in the future, I think we need to be focused more on how can we make this something together and more collaborative. So my advice with that would just be set up an initiative within your company to see how you can get involved in serving the community, even if it has nothing to do with your business, or find a way that you can bring people together and actually make sure that you're listening to those clients and finding out ways that you can be involved in their lives and the lives of the people that they care about.

Mm, I love that. And if you go to the effort of doing that, I can imagine that the community that you build is going to be customers that are more loyal. They are gonna be supportive of you. If you've got any issues with the business, you know, the goodwill that is created by what you're recommending can be just absolutely amazing. And so I think that that's wonderful. And has that been something that you've experienced yourself?

Yes, definitely. It really has. I decided to really adopt this into my own business and make sure I have a community element of everything I'm doing, even though sometimes podcasting can be individual, it's my show, I'm looking for my guests, but at the end of the day, we still want to find a way to bring people together. And by doing that, we've actually found that that is the strongest part of our company, is actually the fact that we have that option. Now, not everyone engages in it, but some do. And the ones that do, they've really become the loyal fans, the customers, the people that we are excited to wake up to talk to whenever we get that opportunity.

Love it. Love it. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

Yeah, I'm excited about this question. I actually want to call out Rob Fitzpatrick. Rob Fitzpatrick, he's actually the author of a book. He's author of a few books, but the one that I recently read that really impacted me is called The Mom Test. And it's about how to ask questions that even your mom can't lie to you about. So it's like finding out if your business is a good idea. You know, if you ask your mom, hey mom, think about starting a business, do you think this is a good idea? She's going to say yes, you know, if it's a terrible idea. But he's talking about positioning better questions so your mom can't lie to you. And if your mom can't lie to you about the answers, neither can your potential customers. Absolutely brilliant. I think the guy is so smart. He's also on PodMatch, but he's somebody I think would do really well on the show that your audience would really gain a lot from.

Oh, I love it. I look forward to connecting with him. And I think about that mom question. That's great.

Right.

I'm going to be thinking about that well after this, this interview. And our final question, question number 6. Please tell me about your first job.

So my first job starts a little earlier than most, maybe, and it's really just the first time I started making money. But when I was a kid, I started selling used golf balls. I live right across the street from a golf course. And I remember one day I was out there with some friends playing on the golf course and by the water I saw a golf ball. Usually they're in the water, but I just picked it up. I was like looking at it and a golfer rode by in a golf cart and he stopped. He said, hey kid, he said, what does that golf ball say on it? And I like flipped it around. I'm like, Pro V1. And he's like, I'll give you $3 for it. And so I gave him— he gave me $3. I gave him the ball and a light bulb went off in my head and I decided if there's more of these in that lake and we can get $3 for each of these, we can make a lot of money, guys. So me and my friends just started doing that. And sure, this sounds crazy for a 10-year-old kid, but this was like my first light bulb moment. It's the first time I discovered like that I was passionate about business. And 10 years old is kind of a crazy age to have that. But that was my first introduction to entrepreneurship, to business. And I really never looked back. I've been passionate about really just the art of business ever since then.

I love that story. And as a former golfer myself, I would have paid you for good balls too, because usually the ones that I found were the, were the range balls and stuff.

That's funny.

I love it. Love it. Alex, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?

Yeah, first off, honored to be here, Professor Pete. I really appreciate it. Love what you're doing with this show. The best place to find me is actually at my website, which is also the name of my podcast. It is Creating a Brand. So creatingabrand.com. You can find everything involved with there. You can listen to my podcast, and I'd love to connect with anybody who in your audience who'd be interested. But at the end of the day, I recommend hanging with Professor Pete because this is a great show and doing some really cool things here. So thank you again. Appreciate it.

Well, and I appreciate those kind words. And this is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.