Tag: BJP Chats

When Your Brain Doesn’t Work 🧠🙄 (Daily Content Marketing Challenges)

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So Brian’s having an off night, you do content marketing daily and see how it goes. 😉🙃

Transcription

When your brain doesn’t work.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Talking today about your brain not working because my brain isn’t working. It’s one of these things where I didn’t eat the best today, and my whole schedule was kind of thrown off today.

And so because of that, I get to the time of day when actually a little later than usual, in putting together my video, and it just isn’t happening. It’s just up there, the brain ain’t working.

This is common in content marketing, if you’re doing things on a regular basis, especially if you’re dependent on yourself as the producer of material. And sometimes it just isn’t there, there’s just not enough there.

All I can do is make the video about that idea. And I’ll give you something even extra, I’m going to direct you to the interview that was out about a week and a half ago or so.

You’re going to want to go check out that interview if you missed it with Bob Regnerus. It’s a great interview. some really interesting guys got a lot of cool stuff happening over at feed stories. So Bob Regnerus, you can catch that interview at BJPchats.com.

BJPchats, this is a website that I’m going to be using to contain all the interviews that I end up doing for Brian J. Pombo Live so it’s kind of a show within a show, if you will. So go check that out.

If by the time you’re watching this, we’ve put out the other interviews, you’ll be able to see those there as well. But those are if you’re watching this brand new, just realize those are coming up. If you’d like to be on the program, go over to BrianJPombo.com, and apply to be on the show.

So we’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Part 5: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories & The Ultimate Guide To Facebook Advertising

Posted on by brianjpombo

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Part 5, of our seven-part interview with Bob Regnerus of Feedstories.

Topics covered in this episode

  • Business Fundamentals that have Lasting Value
  • Role of a Coach in Business & Sports
  • Facebook Ads: Books, Education & Seeking Knowledge

Transcription

Intro Brian: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories, part 5.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today’s a little different than other days, we actually have part five of a conversation with Bob Regnerus.

And so this has been a lot of fun, if you haven’t caught the rest of them, go back and watch them.

But if you would like to be on the podcast or if you’d like to have me on your podcast or speak at your event, go check out BrianJPombo.com.

And now here is Bob Regnerus.

Brian: If you can change one thing about either the industry that you work in, or your business itself, if you could change one thing what would it be?

Bob: I think one of the things that bothers me about the marketing industry in general is there’s a lot of disingenuis people who really aren’t there to serve people, they’re there to kind of make money.

And you know, these people tend to get called out after time, they kind of get it…it’s really hard to hide that stuff these days. You know, I mean, like, people talk and things like that.

I really don’t like people that take advantage of others.

Also I’m not real keen on hacks versus fundamentals, in addition to running companies, I’m a high school basketball coach. And for us to be successful as a team year in year out, is we have to focus on fundamentals.

I’m not big on this is like a fluke play or a tactic or a hack that probably has a shelf life of a couple months. I hate people getting…it’s the bright shiny object syndrome. I hate when those things get weighed in front of people and they waste money on it and they spent a bunch of time.

Yeah, maybe it works for a while and then it like fizzles overnight.

I don’t want people to be in that cycle.

So I try to do things that are based on fundamentals that have lasting value. And yeah, I think that’s what I would change, is that’s probably the thing that bothers me the most.

Brian: You mentioned coaching, coaching the sport versus coaching a business person with their marketing and so forth.

What are the similarities and where are the differences?

What do you like most about that aspect of it?

Bob: It’s great question.

So coaching is the same. No matter what sports or business coach is not there to play the game coaches on the sidelines. The coaches preparing the players, the coaches is coming up with plays and going over strategy, and putting the pieces in place to make a team more successful.

Same thing in business.

I’m not running your business, I’m not there doing everything for you. Like, if I’m there doing something for you, then I should be like an equity partner or you know what I mean, like, I should be paid differently.

I come in as a coach, and it’s like, no, we’re going to talk about strategy, we’re going to talk about how you win, we’re going to talk about positioning people in the right place, we’re going to talk about things that have some lasting value.

But in the end, it’s really up to you to be successful.

Now, a coach shares in the success, probably shares in the blame mare than the success. If a team loses, I try to absorb as much of that as possible, like I didn’t prepare you enough, or I didn’t put people in the right place.

But you know, there’s a shared sense of responsibility. But ultimately, the person playing the game, the person on the court, the person in that business is ultimately responsible.

And I think it’s a really good relationship for people. I don’t want business owners abdicating their responsibility to a consultant or something like that. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Because then ultimately, do you really own that business, if you give up the responsibility for its success or failure?

A good relationship for me is going to be one that I may be doing some services for you. But ultimately, we’re in a relationship where I’m giving you the skills and helping you win when it comes to to business or a high school basketball game.

Brian: That’s great. It’s a great way of looking at it.

It’s a funny thing about when a person is searching out a coach, or a person that has all these great services like you provide.

If someone were looking to find out more about say, Facebook advertising, what is the first step they should take?

Let’s say this is the first time they’ve ran into you. They’ve said…well, they probably been thinking up till now about Facebook advertising. But what should I do first?

Bob: I’ll answer it maybe a little bit different.

If I’m going to seek out knowledge on something, I’m going to go to a book first.

I’ll say this, I have a high end Facebook course, alright. It’s a couple $1,000 dollars. And it’s hours of me like showing everybody what to do inside an account.

But the book itself that I wrote, contains everything you kind of need to know. All right, now you pay for the course if you want to expediate things or you want that hands on, you know, learning for me.

But you go into a book and you start to work, you start to apply some things.

I love the whole idea of demonstrating something and then doing so kind of way I do coaching and practice is we’ll demonstrate a skill first, and then we’ll work on the skill.

So I like people that have a little initiative that like, okay, Hey, I got your book, or I did this in your book, and I’ve got these types of questions, or I’ve gotten this far. Now I really need to, like accelerate my learning.

You know, that’s really what kind of a course or coaching is for is, I want to take it to the next level.

But you should prepare yourself with a baseline of knowledge.

You know, I wrote the book, so that like a beginner can pick it up and do some things and intermediate because certainly like advance and get to be an expert real quickly.

An expert reads a book and this is interesting, I’ll have people that have been doing Facebook as long as me or at least, you know, manage maybe more bigger accounts than me, who will get into the book and say, hey, you gave me that idea on page 270.

Or they look for one or two nuggets out of the book and it’s worth it to them.

You kind of have to kind of figure out where you’re at. So yeah, I call myself a Facebook expert. But I still, I drop in and I follow people that are on top of things in Facebook, because I’m not going to be able to be on top of everything.

I’m not like going to Jon Loomer, let’s say and stealing, like, oh, he came up with this idea. I’m gonna steal that and no…what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to expand my knowledge and keep up to date with those things.

I’ll go in and I pay for Jon Loomer training because what he does for me is he kind of keeps track of what Facebook does every week. I don’t do that, okay. That’s not what I offer.

I’m more about creative and account structures and things like that, it’s more of a strategic thing.

So if Jon comes out with something, I’ll go to my group and say, Hey, Jon Loomer talked about this. All right. And I’ll give credit to that.

And I think that’s kind of what you do is you start with a skill, you go into a book, you take a beginner course, and then you just keep accumulating that knowledge, like you’re in there practicing it.

I mean, a physician does the same thing.

They go to college, they get a base level knowledge, they start as an intern, they practice medicine, they keep up their skills.

I think anyone who claims to be an expert in anything really has this value of, I just need to keep learning this, I need to because there’s things I know, I don’t know.

And things are going to always change, I need to make sure I’m on top of those things.

So that’s why I approach it, I think that would probably the way most logical people will approach is get a base level of knowledge than the level of acceleration you need is really how much you invest.

So if you want to become better at something faster, you usually have to invest time or money to accelerate that.

Going back to the example before, I knew I wanted to run a company and I had this idea of running an agency, I paid to go to a mastermind, because I know it would accelerate my success.

Because I wouldn’t have to go through all the trials, I had people in that group that would help me get to where I needed to be faster.

So that’s kind of my rationale is you pay either in time or you pay in money to accelerate where you want to be.

That’s kind of the way to stay ahead of things and accelerate what you’re doing.

For full conversations, go to BJP chats.com.

Feedstories: The Power of Your Story 📖 (Videos That Sell)

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As Bob from Feedstories puts it, “every business starts with a story.”

Transcription

Brian: Who’s the ideal person that would benefit the most from Feedstories?

Bob: We like to work with people that have some sort of mission or purpose behind what they do.

Every business starts with a story.

I think if you don’t start with a story, or you don’t start with a reason why it’s not really interesting to us, and probably you’re not going to have lasting value.

We love pulling the backstory out of somebody, it really gets to the heart of why they do what they do. We do these videos called Big Why Videos.

And it’s really amazing to kind of just hear from people like, why do they do what they do?

We interviewed this guy, he was down in Texas, and he started a whole chain of yoga studios, and he wanted to start this academy for training more yoga teachers.

And that’s a great business, right?

Like, you think Yoga is hot. He’s in Texas, he’s growing like, fantastic.

Well, in our interview process, and what we got a video was the reason why he started the yoga studios, which was his mom had back issues when she was alive, and she went in for surgery.

And, you know, he was kind of nervous about that ended up that the surgeons kind of botched the surgery, and she lost most of the ability in her legs. And she suffered for a number of years.

He really felt that if yoga was an option for his mom, she went and had the surgery and she would’ve had a long quality of life.

And you could see like the passion, right? And this is all on video.

Now, if you’re a yoga teacher, and you see the passion from this yoga owner, and he’s like, I want yoga to be an alternative for people to have surgery, freedom from pain, and things like that really powerful, right?

That’s why video is so powerful.

Now, we love working with kind of owner-operators, okay.

Typically we’re working with companies that are like somewhere underneath $10 million.

So from startup to 10 million, we have and we’ll work with companies that are bigger, but when we can get the owner on camera and get his or her story about why they do what they do.

Talk with the clients and the customers of these businesses.

That’s really an ideal client for us when there’s a substantial story there and we can pick up on it and about a 15-minute phone call, then they’re a really good candidate for us.

Outro: For full conversations, go to BJP chats.com

Part 4: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories & The Ultimate Guide To Facebook Advertising

Posted on by brianjpombo

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Part 4, of our seven-part interview with Bob Regnerus of Feedstories.

Topics covered in this episode

  • Who are Feedstories Ideal Clients?
  • What is a “Big Why” video?
  • 10,000 dollar an hour work: Outsourcing & Marketing Outreach

Transcription

Intro Brian: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories, part 4.

I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today is part four of our conversation with Bob Regnerus.

If you would like to be on this podcast or if you would like to have me on yours or speak at your event, go to BrianJPombo.com.

And now here’s part 4 with Bob Regnerus.

Brian: Who’s the ideal person that would benefit the most from Feedstories?

It’s a great question.

We like to work with people that have some sort of mission or purpose behind what they do. We think every every business starts with a story.

I think if you don’t start with a story, or you don’t start with a reason why, it’s not really interesting to us, and probably you’re not going to have lasting value. We love pulling the backstory out of somebody it really gets to the heart of why they do what they do.

We do these videos called Big Why videos, it’s really amazing to kind of just hear from people like, why do they do what they do?

We interviewed this guy, he was down in Texas, and he started a whole chain of yoga studios, and he wanted to start this academy for training more yoga teachers.

That’s a great business, right? Like you think Yoga is hot, he’s in Texas, he’s growing fantastic.

Well, in our interview process, and what we got a video was the reason why he started the yoga studios.

Which was his mom had back issues when she was alive and she went in for surgery. And, you know, he was kind of nervous about that ended up that the surgeons kind of botched the surgery, and she lost most of the ability in her legs and she suffered for a number of years.

And he really felt that if yoga was an option for his mom, she went and had the surgery, and she had long quality life.

You could see like the passion and this is all on video.

Now, if you’re a yoga teacher, and you see the passion from this yoga owner, and he’s like, I want yoga to be an alternative for people to have surgery, freedom from pain and things like that’s really powerful.

That’s why video is so powerful.

Now, we love working with kind of owner operators, okay. Typically we’re working with companies that are like somewhere underneath $10 million.

So from startup to 10 million we have, and we’ll work with companies that are bigger.

But when we can get the owner on camera and get his or her story about why they do what they do talk with the clients and the customers of these businesses, that’s really an ideal client for us, when there’s a substantial story there.

And we can pick up on it in about a 15 minute phone call, then they’re really good candidate for us.

They’re in a growing stage and they’re using paid advertising. They’re out there marketing themselves, and they know they need a better story. It’s pretty common.

When I talk to somebody, one of the first things they’ll tell me is we’re not doing a good job telling our story.

That’s gonna be an ideal client for us, because they know they have a story. They just need somebody like us to help unlock it.

Brian: Wow, that’s great.

It sounds like you wear a bunch of different hats in your business. So out of everything that you do, what would you say that you enjoy the most or get the most out of?

Bob: I think part of this is Feedstories became the startup in 2016 and you kind of do everything. Then as you grow a little bit you bring people in. So now you’ve got a dedicated product manager, we’ve got editors, we’ve got videographers we work with, we have producers, so I don’t get involved necessarily day to day anymore.

My role with the company now is managing the team.

It’s doing business development, and like what we’re doing here, I’m on marketing right now, alright. We’re having a conversation.

But in reality, I’m marketing, I’m sharing my story, sharing as much wisdom as I can. But I’m also telling people about the company.

A lot of my calendar is doing these types of things. I like to have conversations with people, I’ll be the first one in my company that talks to people who are thinking about doing video, or, you know, working Facebook consoles and things like that.

My business partner, Brandon is working on the creative side of things, working on the story with clients.

As you grow, you kind of get to a point where you like, oh, here’s a bottleneck. You put a person in place that’s better to do it than you.

So I mean, my days. My calendars full. I have a lot of conversations with people who are thinking about working with us. I do interviews like this.

I talk a lot with partners, talking about potential joint venture relationship, and then working with colleagues and you know, attending mastermind, so that’s what I’m spending my time on is really thinking about higher level stuff.

Perry calls that $10,000 an hour work.

That’s the best use of my time these days.

You get to a point where like I said, you’re kind of scrambling, you’re doing a grassroots type of thing. You get enough revenue in to get people in place that can do things better than you, more efficiently and better. It’s just the natural life of a startup.

And I’ve never been one, I don’t know if you’ve done this, but like, I’ve never like went out and raised capital and had like a big chunk of money to start. I always start by the skin of my teeth. And grow a business from revenue, I’ve never had the opportunity to, like, get a whole bunch of money and then build it big from the start.

I don’t know if I ever want to do it at this point. It’s just, I do what I know. And it’s just kind of the way that I’ve grown companies over the years.

Brian: Makes a lot of sense. That’s awesome.

For full conversations, go to BJP chats.com.

The Beginning of Feedstories (Bob Regnerus of Feedstories Interview)

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Bob talks about how a visit to Facebook / Instagram headquarters led to an instant business idea that helped to launching Feedstories.

Transcription

Brian: You touched briefly on Feedstories.

Why don’t you tell us a little more about what that is how it came about?

Bob: So that’s interesting, that period between like 2010 and 2013, I was doing a lot of things to kind of find my way again, after you kind of lose an agency, you know, I was just kind of freelancing.

I hosted a radio show for a number of years doing kind of what you and I are doing right now, which is great, got to meet a lot of new people help other people, write books.

But 2013, I got heavily involved in Facebook.

Facebook started to become a media that advertisers could take seriously. I got my first five clients, and one of them just went into the stratosphere.

It was a clothing brand. In fact, it was a headband company, and it just took off.

One of the best things I did with that client early on was I said, got a headband. It’s, you know, it’s a $15 headband, I said, anyone can knock this off.

I said, but they can’t knock off your story.

I said, we’re going to build your whole advertising and your whole kind of foundation based on your story. And your story is what’s going to sell headbands, and I was right.

I was really glad was right, but I knew kind of internally that would be that way. This business called Bolder Brand Headband, they won Shopify retailer of the Year in 2014, driven by Facebook sales, like 99% of their sales came from Facebook.

Facebook recognized that and said, Hey, Bob, we’re having this meeting with some other big brands want you to come in, we’re going to kind of brainstorm I had a chance over a number of years to meet with Facebook.

But in 2016, in particular, I went to this meeting and all they talked about was video, Facebook said we’re a video company now Instagram, which’s is owned by Facebook says we’re a video company now.

And I’m like, Okay, this is my like, I’m looking ahead toward the future. And I went outside of the meeting was in the sidewalk outside of Facebook headquarters in Austin, Texas.

I called Brandon, who’s my business partner for Feedstores. Brian is a creative guy, he’s a copywriter, he’s a video graphic guy.

I said, we really need to be prepared for this because Facebook and Instagram are changing who they are, and video is going to be like the thing that they are emphasizing the most.

And so we started that company, literally a conversation over the phone, came into the same city kind of put this thing together and started feed stories in late 2016.

That’s how Feedstories was formed.

It was literally what I heard Facebook and Instagram telling me that they were going to prioritize. And so if I’m going to continue to be a really good Facebook advertiser, I need to have really good video creative.

And why not create a company that produces the creative that I know is going to work in the Facebook ad. That’s how that company was born and we’re going strong here in 2021, so far.

Relationships & Mastermind Groups (Bob Regnerus of Feedstories Interview)

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Bob from Feedstories talks about the value of relationships and mastermind groups and how he became a co-author with names like Perry Marshall and Robert Skrob.

Transcription

Brian: You’ve co-written books with some great names out there.

You have a book out there with Robert Skrob, you’ve got a book with Perry Marshall, how did you go about doing that? How did you go about co-authoring, with people that had a name in a different area?

Bob: Well, in that case, it’s about relationships.

So, you know, Robert Skrob is well known these days. I knew Robert before he was Robert.

One of the things I did early in my career, and I should say this, this is another thing I did is I took giant leaps by joining mastermind groups, not just like, hey, let’s get together on zoom five days a month, or, you know, this is like, I paid Bill Glazer, at that time, I think it was $12,000 a year, quoting Hamilton, I wanted to be in the room where it happens, right?

I was in there with people that were above my pay grade. But the reason I did that was I wanted the mentorship from a guy like Bill Glazer, mentorship from Dan Kennedy.

But then I wonder the relationships of people who are doing better than me, and there were some people that were below me. But when you’re in a group like that, it just pulls you forward.

And so that’s where I met a lot of people who I still consider friends and met friends that introduced me to others. By knowing Perry Marshall, I got to meet and become friends with Brian Kurtz.

I was in the same mastermind group as Ryan Deiss, before Digital Marketer was even a thought in his eye.

I got to know Jeff Walker before he was the Product Launch Formula Genius.

So part of it is you you know, there are these names that we all kind of revere, they’re just normal people. But I got to know them really, before they became famous, okay.

And they’re all more famous than me, by the way, which is fine with me. But I really was intentional about joining those organizations, attending conferences and networking, I’m not naturally drawn to do that.

Like, I’m really good with talking and sharing what I know I’m not really good at meeting new people, but I’ve had to force myself to do it.

And so writing the check and taking the leap really like makes you go I’m gonna make the most of it.

Outro: For full conversations, go to BJP chats.com.

Part 2: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories & The Ultimate Guide To Facebook Advertising

Posted on by brianjpombo

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Part two, of our seven-part interview with Bob Regnerus of Feedstories.

Topics covered in this episode

  • How Bob Co-Authored on Books with experts like Perry Marshall and Robert Skrob
  • How Masterminds & Networking: Establishing Relationships with good people
  • When Markets Shift: Hard times, Lessons Learned & Business Growth from it
  • Investing in Flexibility

Transcription

Brian Part 2: Bob Regnerus of Feedstories, part two.

Hi, I’m Brian pombo Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

This is part two in the series of an interview that we had with Bob Regnerus. You can hear the whole interview over at BJPchats.com.

If you’d like to be on the show, or if you’d like to have me on your show, or have me speaking at an event, go to BrianJPombo.com.

And now here is part two.

Brain: So you’ve co-written books with some great names out there. You have a book out there with Robert Skrob, you got a book with Perry Marshall, how did you go about doing that?

How did you go about co-authoring, with people that had a name in a different area?

Bob: Well, in that case, it’s about relationships.

So you know, Robert Skrob is well known these days.

I knew Robert before he was Robert.

You know, one of the things I did early in my career, and I should say this, this is another thing I did is I took giant leaps by joining mastermind groups.

Not just like, hey, let’s get together on zoom five days a month. This is like, I paid Bill Glazer at that time, I think it was $12,000 a year.

Quoting Hamilton, I want to be in the room where it happens.

I was in there with people that were above my paygrade. But the reason I did that was I wanted the mentorship from a guy like Bill Glazer, mentorship from Dan Kennedy.

But then I wanted the relationships with people who are doing better than me. And there was some people that were below me, but when you’re in a group like that, it just pulls you forward.

And so that’s where I met a lot of people who I still consider friends and met friends that introduced me others.

By knowing Perry Marshall, I got to meet and become friends with Brian Kurtz.

I was in the same mastermind group as Ryan Deiss, before Digital Marketer was even a thought in his eye.

I got to know Jeff Walker before he was the Product Launch Formula genius.

So part of it is you know, there’s these names that we all kind of revere, they’re just normal people. But I got to know them, really, before they became famous, okay. And they’re all more famous than me by the way, which is fine with me.

But I really was intentional about joining those organizations, attending conferences and networking.

I’m not naturally drawn to do that. Like, I’m really good with talking and sharing what I know, I’m not really good at meeting new people, but I’ve had to force myself to do it.

So writing the check and taking the leap really, like makes you go, I’m gonna make the most of it. That’s kind of how it happened.

So I met Robert in a mastermind group.

Perry I met through a connection in my mastermind group, a friend of mine also knew Perry.

Perry and I live eight miles apart, literally, I can draw a straight line from my house to Perry’s. We spend quite a bit of time together, we became friends.

You know, a lot of it like yeah, there’s gonna be another wave. It’s like, there’s always new people coming in. So want to be friends with people who are driven, who are successful, that can challenge you that could bring you up, that could kind of pick you up when you’re let down.

That’s another thing that’s been really powerful.

My career is just establishing relationships with good people.

And I’ve come across people that frankly, were terrible for me. Learned my lessons from them. You know, fortunately I could cut bait and move on.

But that’s what the entrepreneur life is about is like, you’re constantly honing your radar and your sonar and everything.

And it’s not a straight line. There’s a famous meme where it’s like a squiggly line. I mean, that’s really what it’s all about these days. That’s just another way to kind of do something like that, you’re not going to just approach a Perry Marshall and say, hey, I’m gonna write a book with you.

You’ve got to have some cred.

You know, Perry’s got a reputation in mind. But Perry has been known to pull people up who are kind of unknown, who’ve proven they’ve got chops, but all of them kind of have already established a little bit of a foundation of expertise.

But if you can do that, I mean, you can find somebody to kind of pull you up to their stage, very powerful.

Brian: Yeah, that’s fabulous.

So many great nuggets in there, so many great ideas that you brought forth.

Taken in a different direction. You talked about the highs and lows, and we always tend to focus on the highs, it just makes sense to do that.

But give us an example of something that you just thought was going to end everything. Whether it’s something recent or something from years past, where you just had a scenario where it just felt like everything was going to come crashing down.

Bob: I’ll share an experience that happened during the real estate crash.

So 2008, 2009, I had been speaking, I had been riding the wave from a book. Like I said, I grown my agency to seven figures in a year, it was amazing. I had a great team, a lot of clients.

Well, what I ended up doing though is I had a stable of a lot of information marketing clients, and specifically, a good portion of them were marketing real estate stuff.

As you know, real estate was the thing that crashed the market in 2009.

There’s nothing like having all your clients suddenly run out of money and declare bankruptcy and not paying you.

In a span of about three months, my business went from a million down to like 150,000 a year, had to lay off my entire team. So I spent probably two months like just hovering in a corner. Literally, I spent a couple nights in the hospital panic attacks.

Not being able to pay your staff, having to lay off people you love and care about. It was awful.

But I was either gonna let it break me or I was gonna learn a lesson, I decided to learn a lesson.

I learned that I needed to be more diverse and my client base, I needed to have a stool that was more than one leg. All right, you can balance on a stool with one leg for a long time. But eventually, you’re going to break and you know, if something knocked that leg out, you’re gonna fall.

I diversified my client base, I diversified my services.

But the other thing was that I was flexible with my team.

So I don’t have employees anymore. But I have a large team of contractors that I could go up and down in terms of payment. Like if I’m busy, I could pay them more, get more hours.

But if things pull back, we slow down. I don’t have that big nugget, right, like of the payroll and the benefits and things like that.

So I said to myself coming out of 2009 to 2010, I’m going to be much more nimble in the future. I’m going to have a value of cash in my business, I’m not going to be living on credit. And I’m also going to have a team that’s very flexible.

So COVID hits, right. And I’m like, okay, you know, I was ready for this. We had cash in the bank. We had a team and we had some clients that kind of pulled back for a time, we were able to pull back contractors, so I was not out a bunch of money.

But what happened was is we actually had a service which is remote videos, like you and I are doing this video right now. We have a service that does video through an iPhone or iPad, high quality.

And all of a sudden, once people got over the shock of COVID come April this past year, a year ago, our lead list absolutely exploded.

People who were on the fence about doing video came out of the woodwork.

We actually had our three best months of our company’s career, April, May and June of last year, because we were poised, we were ready. We invested in a technology that we thought was going to be important. People kind of push it to the side and then there was an event we were ready for it. So I was really happy.

Obviously wasn’t happy about the world situation, a lot of things changed. But I learned my lessons 10 years ago and I positioned myself to be flexible to be nimble, to be you know, value cash to not have a big piece of overhead.

I survived a couple weeks of like, what the hell’s going on?

But then we were positioned to really like take advantage of what was going on to be ready for the marketplace. You learn that through experience. You know I could tell the story and people are gonna be like, that’s a great, Bob is already prepared.

The pain I had to deal with at the start of the decade to be ready for that was awful but never want to live through it. But I survived it and learn from it. I certainly wouldn’t want to go through it again. Which is why I made sure I was prepared for kind of the next big thing that came along.

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