“Invest in Your Team” – 91 Days Success Podcast

About Our Guest

Tony Rubleski – Mind Capture Group

616-638-3912

Tony@MindCaptureGroup.com

https://mindcapturegroup.com/

1. Purchase “Positive Disruption: A Quote and a Question to Upshift Your Life”:

https://www.amazon.com/Positive-Disruption-Quote-Question-Upshift/dp/B0BJNPTT6K https://

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/positive-disruption-tony-rubleski/1142539829?ean=9798986831206

2. Mind Capture’s blog with contest details:

https://mindcapturegroup.com/taylor-swift-concert-tickets-to-be-awarded-as-grand-prize-in-contest-offered-by-south-bend-chocolate-co-and-bestselling-author-tony-rubleski/

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] The best defense is a stronger you. It’s personal development. Could be me, could be Les Brown, could be a YouTube video. TEDx course through a community college. Continue to upgrade your skills because then you’re not waiting around going, oh my God, I’m losing my job. You’re gonna have more opportunities because you’re more valuable in the market space.

Hi, and welcome to the 91 Day Podcast, and today I am absolutely blessed to be talking to Tony Rubleski of Mind Capture Group. And I’ve known Tony for years. I’ve heard him speak on a number of occasions, and I am just so honored that Tony accepted my invitation to be on the podcast today. Tony, welcome and thank you so much for taking time outta your day today.

You’re welcome, Jonathan. I appreciate the invitation. We’ll have a good. . Absolutely. So let’s jump right into the big news Before we do anything else, you just launched a brand new book. Can you tell us a little bit about [00:01:00] that? Yeah. It’s a book called Positive Disruption Volume Two, and it’s book number eight in the series, Jonathan.

And. Boy, I tell you what it’s always a fun experience to write a book. And some days it’s not fun, but when you finally launch that book out there, you’re like, okay, A lot of authors think, all right, the work’s over. No, it’s just beginning. We’re very delighted. We, December 7th actions have been very good.

We’ve people order the book. You got a copy. So thank you for picking up a copy on Amazon and I think yours will rise any day now. So very excited. And when you promote a. I think a lot of people have this conception that people just beat a path to your door, but this is about positivity in a world right now that’s very dark, and very negative.

I hate to say that, to start the interview, but it’s not easy out there for a lot of small and mid-size businesses and a lot of creative types to get their word out there. So we work very hard to practice what we teach. The book is really designed to have people look at the world differently each day, and more importantly, go in.[00:02:00]

to their own inner talents. In a world that’s got nine-second attention spans. Jonathan, it’s very unique to stare. I’m gonna shut all these devices off. I’m gonna grab a pen and paper. I’m gonna really focus and meditate and think and ask questions. . The book is volume two. Obviously as advertised Wine one did very well and we self-published it.

So this time we have Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other folks that are promoting that book, which is kinda nice. Congratulations. I love the first book. It was great, and I absolutely love the premise of what you’re talking about because. I can’t agree more with you on what you’re saying. As you listen to peers and associates and family and everybody around.

Everybody seems to have a reason to think that the world is going, where in a handbasket. And I think, just as I’ve said on social media recently, My model for 2023 is the future is bright. It’s what we make of it. If we just can decide how that future is gonna look, and we can control huge aspects of our future, we’re not just sitting here along for the ride and I’m anticipating here reading some of that when your book [00:03:00] arrives and I’m so excited for that.

One of the things I know that a lot of the business owners that are watching the podcast may be interested in, they’ve thought of writing a book. Could you share just a little bit, Tony, about the process now that you’ve written multiple books and everything else, what’s that process look like? And as a business owner, a speaker, and a trainer, is it something you would recommend for business people to do?

Is it, is writing a book a good idea from your perspective? Having written a few, I’m a little biased. Jonathan, I think it’s a great question. I don’t usually get asked this, but I think if the business owner here, wants to have even more expert positioning, they should do the writing. Now, it doesn’t always have to start out with being a book to itself.

You could do a white paper, you could do a special report. I know in your space, there are a lot of white papers. That to me is the formations when you do several of those to have a book. And it could be a shorter e. , it could be a longer form book, but my whole adage is, if you wanna do this, is it’s much easier than ever.

The [00:04:00] challenge is to set a deadline. Everyone says, I’m busy. I’m busy. I’ll get to it. When the kids are growing up, when I have time on the holidays, I say, look, that’s your procrastination or your doubt in your mind telling you that, oh, that’s gonna be hard. I’ll just keep waiting. And as we wait, we never get.

So for me when I wrote the first Mind capture 20 plus years ago, we didn’t have YouTube. There was no social media. The internet was brand new. And I look at this and go, wow, it’s gotten so much easier to find resources, but it’s also gotten easier to get really confused. Some people are professional researchers.

They analyze and deal the paralysis by analysis. They’ll research videos. , they’ll read books. Start writing. So the best advice I ever got was actually from John Grisham. It sits above my desk here and it says The best advice I ever got was to write one page per day. Unless you write one page, nothing happens.

So I look at the experts such as John Grisham that have written tons of the books. He’s got like 300 plus million books in print [00:05:00] and say many times the simplicity trips people up cuz they go down this hole of complexity, feeling like they’re doing something. when they actually have to sit down and write or type up a page at a time.

So I’m a big believer, yes, the answer is a profound yes, but start in incremental ways of writing. Because if we look at it and go, I’m gonna write a book in three months, many times, it’s such a daunting task. That people, they quit within two or three days. I’m not trying to be negative here. It’s just having watched writers that finally get their book over the finish line.

, some of ’em take years to, because they just keep waiting or they have a partially finished manuscript. I can’t tell you how many people I know still have a manuscript that I see the seminar or training, like they’re still working on, it been six years, eight years. I have a friend speaking business who I love doing his book for 10 years, hasn’t got it.

And I’m thinking, I’ll call him Joe cause he might voice this. He might see the interview and he is Joe, I don’t even ask anymore. I don’t want him to get mad or feel awkward, [00:06:00] but I’m like, maybe somebody have shocked me and get his book done. . So I love that advice, John Grisham write one page a day.

I think that it has far more value that’s even creating the content and just that discipline that, that brings great advice. Really appreciate you sharing that. Tony, you and I originally met through the Chamber of Commerce. You were just, you were speaking in an event and doing some group training.

Is that still an important part of your business? And so can you tell us a little bit about how you help businesses through. . It’s still a big part and for about a year and a half, Jonathan, at the beginning of Covid, it disappeared and it went more online with Zoom. And I like to do the live interaction.

I do a lot of Zoom training, and the technology’s cool. What we’re doing now time and distance is no longer an issue. The technology allows these, so what I’m seeing as we head into 2023 is more groups are saying, Hey, we’ve gotta get live training in-person trainings. So in January alone I had to Northern Michigan for a private client, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Seattle, Las Vegas.[00:07:00] 

So I’m delighted to be on the road again. I enjoy it. Some people don’t and that’s fine. There’s a variety of ways to train, but what I’m seeing is people miss the human connection. Jonathan, we met at a chamber. Oh, absolutely. And I like to network too, but I also know that there’s new tools. Really launched out of the pandemic such as, zoom and Streamy Yard and other applications for digital.

So we’re living almost in the Jetsons and Star Trek now, which is kinda cool. And the old throwback in me at age 50, GenXer likes a lot of the in-person stuff still. So absolutely there’s demand. And what we’re seeing now is a lot of meeting planners are freaking out going, oh my gosh, I need to get a.

We need to bring some in-house sales training or someone to inspire and motivate us. And really the core three sets I’m trying to think of which section you saw me originally is I do a lot of referral training. How do you get more referral, right? Yep. A lot of mindset training. Positive disruption is very much a mindset and a spirit set book.

And then the third area that I do is on leader. , which to [00:08:00] me is effective. Salespeople are usually effective leaders, and sometimes you have great leaders that maybe aren’t as good at selling products and services, but they can sell their ideas and motivate people. So those three talks are also based on a lot of my books in writing over the last decade, primarily.

And I honestly, I know I’ve seen you speak on multiple times. I am positive that one was on leadership but it was pre covid the last time I saw you speak. So I’m not a hundred percent sure what the others were. But let me tell you, if you are watching the podcast and you’re looking for a dynamic speaker, who’s gonna get your crowd motivated, they’re gonna bury everybody back.

Tony’s an amazing speaker. And I say that just from a personal testimonial. Tony does an amazing job and. Really relatable to the groups that you’re talking to. So seriously reach out to Tony. He does a great job. Learn more about what he does. You won’t be upset about that. Jonathan, thank you.

I’m glad we should be taping this . Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Much appreciate. , talk to me a little bit about the leadership training in particular. So [00:09:00] when you’re working and doing that type of training, what I don’t want to give away the speech let’s save that. But talk to me about some of the things that you have found over the years that are really inspiring to people in that leadership training.

Well, a couple key nuggets stick out of that, and then I haven’t this is fun to go backward and talk about the book on leadership around, called Trailblazer. . Yep. And it was the Chronicles of what I call 12 trailblazers who beat the odds and influenced millions. There’s the subtitle in these particular 12 were picked from over about a hundred interviews that I’ve done the last 15 years at least.

I have a paid newsletter where people would get my audio of the month interview and wouldn’t say it was a pure podcast cuz it was paid content that was walled off. You didn’t, you couldn’t find it online. And some of the interviews were never released except to private clients. , I look for patterns.

What are the successful clues? Tony Robbins says, success lease clues. , I said in the book Trailblazers, we review clues. What were the characteristics that we called? And there’s a couple that really jump out. [00:10:00] I think what audiences love the most when we are brought in to give that talk is the fact that persistence in not quitting.

And particularly the last couple years, there are a lot of people you keep hearing about, quiet, quitting, and workers don’t wanna. I don’t agree with that a hundred percent. Jonathan. I think that they’re uninspired. Yes. Or a lot of the workforce doesn’t feel like the leadership’s even listening to them.

And it’ll be interesting as we go into 2023 as we tape this, what groups are gonna bring me back in to talk about Trailblazer leadership? Because I’ve said this in some of my talks recently, and on other interviews I’ve said, look, we saw a couple things amongst many in business during the pandemic.

Lack of leadership. I saw lots of CEOs from big companies, mid-size, little to nonprofit directors, didn’t do anything. Jonathan, they sat in their office and frankly didn’t do much. And they wonder why a lot of their employees left, why a lot of their employees are [00:11:00] resentful. Don’t wanna put any extra time in.

To me, it starts from the very top. If the leader, he or she is not leading by example. They’re gonna set the tone of the behavior in what’s acceptable in the organization. Now, some leaders did very well. They were adjusting on the dime because there was so much out of their control that every week there was a new like, how are we gonna adjust to this?

What about these numbers? What is HR saying? And I wanna go in and say something boldly right now that I think a lot of leaders that are listening to this and even fans of mine is leaders, we’re looking for you. Where are you? And if you step up right now, this is a great time to. . And also if you’re the CEO, is they’re gonna go into this new year.

You’re gonna have to be thinking more about marketing and sales focus. And I’m gonna tick off some HR people that may hear this, and I have some HR clients. HR right now has been running the house for two years. Yeah. And when you More marketing dollars are budget put to HR and not to marketing and sales.

I get concerned. I believe that everybody’s in [00:12:00] marketing. Jonathan, will they choose to admit or. I don’t care if you’re a, you think you’re a customer service rep, you’re a manager, you’re a production every day. You have to market, you have to show up on time. You have to sell your ideas. And where we’re going in 23, we’re gonna be in a recession.

I, I, not with the Federal Reserve, but I meet with enough leaders telling me, and it’s all where the internet, that there is a trend. We’re gonna have a tougher rodeo. What will happen? Those that know how to lead more effectively have an advantage, number one, and those that know how to market and.

we’ll have a very decided advantage to survive and thrive, but not a 23. A lot of businesses aren’t gonna make it. They took customers for granted. They aren’t training their employees. And here’s something that concerns me. If I get a referral, if they’re losing a lot of employees, sometimes I won’t do the training for ’em because they’re not serious.

If they keep worrying about losing customers, but they’re losing a lot of their staff, if that correlation exists, I dunno if I can. Because it starts with a leadership [00:13:00] and the culture up top. And if it’s not present, sometimes they want me to come in and save ’em. I can’t do it on the positive side.

Usually the groups right now that are booking me into 23 aren’t worried about budgets. They’re saying, Hey, we train no matter what. We will find budget dollars to put you into, and we believe in our people. We’re gonna back it up with training. That to me is a serious. , a lot of companies are pulling back.

They’re they’re gonna wait. They’re not gonna invest in their people. You’re gonna have the same problem, Jonathan. They’re gonna keep pointing. Absolutely. And I just say how long do you wanna ride this thing out? If it takes a year or two, do you have enough cash reserves? Do you wanna lose your key customers because you’re not supporting with the right step.

Are you gonna burn out the staff you have? And I just get very frustrated sometimes when I see like CFOs. Why are we paying for all this soft skills, this WOOWOO training? Cause it works well. Exactly. When you, like Disney’s investing in training companies have been around 50, a hundred years that invest in training [00:14:00] constantly.

It doesn’t have to be marketing or mindset. Those are my wheelhouse. But maybe it’s OSHA training, maybe it’s dis personality profiling. If you’re not investing in your people, they’re going to go to companies that. and the top talent now has lots of options. So I just look at this interview and the Toms of it heading in a new year.

. Cause I hope it falls on someone’s ears. That’s maybe questioning why are we doing things the way we always have done them? Why don’t we try something new? Why don’t we get back to more training? Because we cut back for two years because people weren’t in the office. They didn’t feel comfortable.

I got news for you. People are gonna have to go back to the office next year. Pending. . Hopefully there’s no more pandemics, but a lot of employers are saying, those days are over. You’re gonna have to start showing up and meeting face-to-face and getting to the office. So I know I’m on a rant here, Jonathan, but you’re doing great.

It frustrates me. It frustrates me how many good companies are being held hostage like handcuffs by the HR department or their in-house [00:15:00] council that are literally taking the drive, the initiative, and the ideas out of their. and they’re literally repelling their staff and their customers because they’re too uptight.

They’re not allowing people in the organization. . And it’s, it is one of the reasons, Tony, I’m actually so excited to get your new book, is I believe the next two years are gonna be rough. Absolutely. But I also believe that they’re ripe for opportunity if your mindset is right, and I think it’s a great opportunity for us as business leaders to really step up and show our teams what it’s like to have a positive mindset, what it’s like to take advantage of the opportunities and to think outside the box, because.

upheaval, which is arguably where we’re headed or are at. Depending on your perspective, there becomes opportunity. , every change brings about opportunity. And we have the choice, as you mentioned, to be like those COOs that sat back and just watched and to see what was gonna happen. Or we can take the lead and being a sales and marketing guy, which I am I’m the guy that wants to jump in there, take the lead, take some [00:16:00] risk and go look, there’s great opportunity to grow through this.

I just finished a session with my business coach, literally 10 minutes prior to. And there were about probably 40 of us on the call. It’s part of a agency program in. all but maybe one or two are expecting TR double digit growth next year. And it’s because of the fact. , we’re all going in wide-eyed.

There’s gonna be challenges, there’s gonna be issues, but there’s also gonna be opportunity because every one of those clouds brings within an opportunity that as a smart business leader we can take advantage of. To help our clients. To help our team and to. The community that we’re in just all the way around.

It’s a win-win. So I’m so excited about the new book. Yeah. You’ve got a promo. That’s my soapbox. I’ll get off my soapbox, but you’ve got a promo for the new book , and we’re gonna be releasing this podcast, I believe, with just enough time for people to get in. Can you tell us a little bit about this, because yeah, there’s some pretty cool [00:17:00] promos here.

Thank you. And let me real quick, and I’ll come in to answer that is congratulate you, Jonathan, on coaching. You invest in yourself. , you don’t wait forage, you go and create them. Absolutely. So it doesn’t surprise me that your group’s growing because you have the right mindset of not being fear-based and being overly cautious now.

When I talk with clients to say, Hey, I understand you have systems and operations that work. You don’t gut the whole thing. What I’m saying is how do you supercharge this thing versus being too conservative? And that’s where some people go you can’t just abandon everything and go all in. I get that.

There is some balance required. Now going back to this contest, it involves someone making news right now along with a company called Ticketmaster . Maybe certain Ticketmaster, but I’m gonna hold up a magazine here and it might be a little reversed here. But Taylor Swift, ironically, as we record this interview right now, it’s her birthday today.

She turned 33 today and we had some fun with that, but the contest is, Ticketmaster a few weeks ago. The short version is they put her tickets on sale for her fans, a [00:18:00] pre-con. She’s doing her first US tour five years. I’m not a massive fan of her music. I like it, but I’m not like, posters on the lawn.

Okay. I’m more of a rock and roll flavor kinda guy. But her tickets sold out literally like within a couple of hours. They were expecting 1.5 million people to presale her big fans. They got 15 million heads that shot Ticketmaster down and people were rightfully. . Now with that, I kept hearing about on the news.

I thought, how do you take a negative disruption and turn it into a positive disruption? So I’m a big guy that likes to have fun when I launch books out and in general have a good time each day cuz business is stressful enough. So I partner with a friend of mine down in South Bend. His name is Mark Turner, south Bend Chocolate Company, 31 years in business.

He’s like the Willy Wonk of Indiana. And I said, mark, I called him right before Thanksgiving. I said, I got this crazy. about giving away like golden tickets. But Taylor Swift because they’re the hottest thing on the internet right now and her fans are just upset. Ironically, the [00:19:00] week we launched the book, they’re fans of many of the fans in her database sued Ticketmaster in a class action lawsuit.

If I said, mark, this thing’s got some legs. and why don’t we make this negative sort of very upsetting thing up positive. So what we agreed to do, we went 50 50. We didn’t get underwritten free tickets from a big company or Ticketmaster. We both went with our own dime and we bought two pairs of tickets for opening night after US tour in Glendale, Arizona in March 17th.

So we’re gonna give away chocolates. He’s like the Woo won key on Chocolate Factory. Jonathan, we’re gonna give away two pairs of tickets and they’re gonna give away some positive disruption. So we said, look, there’s thousands of books put out every week. What are we do to stand out and be different, but let’s have some fun with it.

So this contest slash giveaway runs through New Year’s Eve and essentially there’s no purchase necessary. If someone’s interested, they go to our blog page, which I know you guys will put our links. Check out the rules. If someone buys a book, again, they don’t have to, they forward their email of [00:20:00] confirmation from Amazon, Barnes and Noble to us, and then they’re entered in the.

and the drawing. We’re gonna wait till mid-January cuz we also have a mailing component. I know. Old school direct mail, email a three by five card of your favorite positive quote. That’s another way to enter the contest. So we wanna have fun. We wanna make sure that serious fans of her music find out about it and someone’s gonna win these tickets.

Were not cheap, Jonathan. They were thousands of dollars for opening. So we look at it and say, let’s, no matter how this thing shakes out, if we get thousands and thousands of entries, great. If we don’t, we’re still gonna have fun. It got picked up on the news wires a couple days ago, and it made on Yahoo Finance a couple days ago.

So the word is spreading, but. again, this contest had too many timely things line up that we said, look, why don’t we jump on this? Have a good time. We’ll share it with our fans. We have a lot of my fans, Jonathan, that are like, they have kids that are into Taylor Swift. They’re sharing the message out [00:21:00] and having the contest run for two and a half, three weeks.

It gives it more shelf life where people can talk about, especially over Christmas and New Year’s. And, obviously December 31st is the cutoff date, but we’ll see what happens. I’m looking ahead, thinking how fun it’s gonna be to award these tickets, especially if they’re a diehard Taylor Swift fan.

And we’ll do the drawing live and all that and we’ll announce this. But it’s just something to change the worldview of people being very grumpy. Right now I’m negative, especially music fans. , I can’t get, tickets are so expensive. We’ve got a fun way you can do it. So that’s the Willy Wonka sort of theme there, the marketing time involving Ms.

Taylor. I love it. It’s a fantastic promotion and I love the way you’re taking just exactly what you’re talking about in the book. You’re dealing with disruption, but you’re turning it positive and I absolutely adore that. That’s fantastic. We will absolutely put links down below to everything needed to apply and.

and get in the contest. Tony, you have my word. We’re gonna even try to get this edited since we pre-record. We’re [00:22:00] gonna try to get this edited faster, possibly even get it released a week earlier than what we were anticipating to try to get it out there to give everybody as much time because this is just really cool not to mention, Willy Wonk in Indiana.

I gotta go see that guy. That sounds cool. . We made golden tickets up. Love. So like we have tickets. Love it. We don’t wanna get sued. So these are public domain images. We put him on Golden tickets, but no, Mark Turner is fun. He’s actually to give him some credit. Been doing this a long time and he’s a little crazy like me in a good way.

He’s opening a dinosaur park museum Oh, cool. Like a year from now in South Bend. So he’s, Very visionary. He’s kinda like the Walt Disney of the Midwest, I call him. And he’s just very fun. He gets it. He likes to put a smile on people’s face. And when I pitched the idea, he is like, get in the car and come down.

Let me see this. So I did. He we’re in. So it’s a lot of fun to have some support. . Oh, I love it. That’s great. That is great. So we will put the links in to buy the book to get all that. That’ll we’ll take care of that. One more [00:23:00] question I want to ask, because we call this the 91 Day podcast on purpose and knowing again, where we’re at, things we’ve talked about with un uncertainty in the future, I think that a lot of people are also gonna be looking at either starting a side hustle, starting a business, maybe reinvigorating their business, whatever it is.

and I thought it’d be a lot of fun to talk to business experts like yourself and say, all right, Tony, if I gave you a thousand dollars, you get to keep your house and all that so you don’t have to worry about shelter and food. But I give you a three months, which bla turns out to be 91 days to build a business that’s making 10 grand a.

What would you do? What would Tony Leski do in the first 91 days knowing that, I don’t have credit cards, I don’t have a lot. Anybody can do a garage sale and come up with a thousand bucks. Kinda stealing from Dave Ramsey’s theory. But, if you had that a thousand dollars and you said, all right, I’ve got 91 days to start a business and be generating 10 grand at the end, what would you do?

What might that look like? Just, an outline of the thoughts of what you might [00:24:00] do. It’s a profound question, Jonathan, cuz it’s hard for me to erase, now 18 years of being self-employed out in my own internal items. Absolutely. So the first thing I would do is probably say don’t spend the thousand dollars immediately.

Okay. It doesn’t contradict that, doesn’t contradict that. You wanna be cautious and go after it. But I would do some research. The first thing I would do is, , what types of businesses can I make if I had to, within three and a half, four months, make $10,000 months research? And I would research for probably a good three or four days saying, okay, how do we find an industry that can do that and scale that quickly?

And then I would narrow it down and say, okay, I found that I, I wanna do, because if you don’t have an interest in it makes all kinds of money your motivation’s not gonna be there. Absolutely might. I’m gonna go back to, whatever. I tried the side hustle, but it’s not for me. So my time is more valuable than the thousand dollars, honestly.

So do the research. Next couple tips that I would do that are a little unconventional, [00:25:00] I would join my local of Chamber of Commerce and say, Hey, I’m starting a business. What are some resources you have available to help me out? Or what can I co. To me, chambers of Commerce, it’s a great way to meet the right people.

You can network, you’ve got to be seen out there, and you’re gonna generate people asking, what is your business do? Tell us more about it. We did an event recently a couple months ago in Traverse City. . I joined the chamber a few months in front of the event and I was amazed. We did a ribbon cutting.

They promoted our announcement to all the chamber members and several people that I knew in Traverse City said, Hey, we kept hearing about you when you joined. We saw that they were promoting you. So that helped me to have more doors open when I called on people, cause it heard about us because the Chamber helped build credibility.

So if the chamber dues are affordable within that thousand dollars, I would strongly consider joining the Chamber because the connect. and they can refer you to people that are legitimate and aren’t gonna rip you off. So that’s another tip. The other thing is this, I would look for someone that’s [00:26:00] best in class in the industry that, or product or service.

I decide to market that’s crushing it and here’s a little bit unconventional. I would try to find someone that’s maybe regionally doing that where I could find them to do, Hey, can I take you out to lunch? Name your favorite restaurant. I don’t care if it’s a hundred, 200. , I want to pick your brain over lunch because I’m starting out.

I’m gonna build this business. I’m not trying to freeload off of you. Or I’d say, Hey, do you charge for an hour? If I, for a consulting fee, and I would pick their brain for an hour, I’d shut up and I would take as many notes. I would record that interview and follow what they tell me. Someone’s already built a business that you’re trying to achieve.

You wanna model the best in class, John. Great advice. Maybe if it’s some of your, these local companies that get a little defensive then maybe you look outside your region, you find somebody on a Google search and say, Hey, I know you’re in St. Louis. I’m looking to do what you do here in Michigan.

I’ve joined my Chamber of Commerce. I have some people that are already interested in it. Cause Is there any way [00:27:00] that resources you recommend to me are a way you could. , and I don’t mind paying you for an hour of consulting, but I’ve done that over the years. When I started my companies, I’ve meant went to mentor them lunch, I’ve bought their books.

I’ve paid for coaching at 250 to $500 an hour. Jonathan. Now again, with a thousand dollars, you’ve gotta distribute that and be very judicious as how you’re gonna spend a thousand. But there are creative ways you could piece together several of those strategies that just advocated to get you out of the gate rapidly.

and maybe it’s not $10,000 at month four, maybe it takes you six or seven months, but you’re scaling that business with a good foundation. You’re getting the right coaching and mentorship, you’re joining the local business community. Or if your business is not geographically bound, maybe look at one of the trade associations of the product and service that you’re in to join that so you can get active and learn from the association that represents your product and service at a much larger level.

So those are my quick examples of what I. Great [00:28:00] advice. I think, and I love the out-of-the-box thinking. Like you, I’m a huge fan of finding somebody that can teach us something and asking to take them to lunch. I’ve been amazed in my career how many people that normally I don’t think I would’ve had any opportunity to talk to, gave me that time because I asked.

One that, that in and of itself, and two, because I asked to buy ’em coffee or lunch. Yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people that do charge $500 an hour or more for coaching that let me buy ’em lunch for $27 and gave me personalized one-on-one advice for that well exceeded what that, that value was.

So great advice all the way around. No, I love it. I love it. Thank. , Tony as we wrap up, I know there’s a lot going on for 23, 23, what advice would you leave for the business leaders that are watching this podcast as they head into 2323? What what final piece of advice would you give them? Twofold here.

Invest more in your best customers [00:29:00] and your staff. To keep cutting corners. There’s only so much you can cut before you start to take off limbs with the business. So allocate dollars into investing more in your customers that spend with you the most and thank ’em for their business. I am shocked, Jonathan, how much I do business with different insurance agents, products and services.

I never get a Christmas card, a thank you card. It’s never even like an acknowledgement. I’m even there. . So I’m a big believer that your best customer. If you make more offers to ’em, if you thank them genuinely, you ask them, Hey, who can you introduce me to? They’ll bring you to more business. Same with your staff.

The more you invest in, hey we appreciate you show it. Send them to training, make training options available. Maybe it’s tuition reimbursement, maybe it’s continue education that you provide. For example, my partner Linda, her company has benefits that I’m shock. They’re almost as good as. They reverse for health that they work out.

They have up to $75 a month for this. They have Aflac I, they really put up where a lot of companies say we, we believe in our [00:30:00] employees. Our company is just crushing it here in West Michigan because they’re acting almost as if they’re a huge firm. I think they’re about 50 employees, but they treat their employees so good.

They never wanna leave. Guess what that does to morale? It increases morale. It makes the customers happier because they’re like, wow, you’re kind. , you’re fun to work with and you guys don’t leave all the time. So it shows safety. So again, my bias in the interview is about training, continual improvement of your team.

And if you do that, your customers are richly awarded on the other side of that. But a big shift is you’re gonna see is if they’re customers that are, wasting a lot of your time, or they’re really chinsy, they don’t see your value, you need to let ’em go. You have to let ’em go next. Someone listening, I go, oh my gosh.

She’s telling, he’s advocating firing your clients. Yep. Certain clients have to go. Jonathan, I’m doing the same thing at year end as we planned for 23. We have new clients coming in via referral that pay for [00:31:00] value that are excited. We have some current clients that want to continue on and we have some right now that are getting scared and I’m not judging them person.

I’m just saying, hey, we have to watch our time very carefully and work with the vital few that we are most best suited for. Not everybody. . So again, beautiful advice and super sound. This has been a ton of value. I just can’t thank you enough for your time, Tony. I know you’re busy. I wanna encourage everybody, the moment you’re done watching this podcast, and this in all seriousness, go read Tony’s book.

Go buy it. It is the best $20 investment that you’re gonna make, and you may end up winning some chocolate too and maybe even take us to Taylor Swift , but better than that. As Tony said, invest. Invest in yourself. I do absolutely like you, Tony, believe that’s the best investment you can make. Invest in your team if you’re a leader.

I learned this year very clearly, and it’s been 13 years in business and I just learned it this year that I need to watch out for my team more than I even do [00:32:00] my customers. Not that my customers don’t matter, but I can’t take care of my customers if I don’t take care. Team and all the things you talked about from a training and motivation and all of that is so critically important, especially in today’s marketplace because if I can continue to keep the leaders that we’ve got and the A players, we can do so much more for our customers and deliver so much more value.

Yep. I’ll leave you with this. Jonathan, thank you again for your work. And the invitation is this one of the quotes from Positive Disruption one C g r Ts. Good friend of mine on North Carolina, he said The best defense is a stronger you. It’s personal development. Could be me, could be less Brown, could be a YouTube video TEDx.

A course through a community college, continue to upgrade your skills because then you’re not waiting around going, oh my God, I’m gonna lose my job. You’re gonna have more opportunities because you’re more valuable in the market space also. You’re not coasting. Those that coast next year barely get by are gonna find in certain companies, if they do recessionary, cutbacks, they’re the first to [00:33:00] go.

I’m sorry, but that’s what, so sorry to interrupt you there. No, totally. Totally agreed. All right Tony, again, thank you so much. I’m so grateful and I’m serious. Everybody go over to Amazon by Tony’s book. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day.

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