Freedom in Five Minutes: Recent Episodes
Dean Soto
The Freedom in Five Minutes Podcast where we make 5-minute decisions that change your business, relationships, and life.
Welcome to another episode of Freedom In Five Minutes! I am your host Dean Soto. Your man of systems helping you create more freedom and profit than they ever thought possible. That is why we have Steph Hilfer on the show – the lady full of Vim and Vigor!
Steph Hilfer is the founder and Chief Creative Director of https://getviim.com—a marketing consulting firm that helps businesses discover their brand. She can visualize what doesn’t yet exist and bring it to life... and boy it's alive!
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean shares three top benefits from leveraging virtual assistants. Learn how you your talented staff can help seize massive success for your business in the midst of a tough economy.
All that and more, coming up!
Check out more of Pro Sulum through the links below.
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🔥 Pro Sulum Systems Architects (Virtual Assistants with Superpowers) 🔥: https://www.prosulum.com
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⚙️ Free business systems and automation course ⚙️: https://www.systemizeinfive.com
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👨🏫 Take the Freedom in Five Minutes Masterclass👨🏫: https://www.freedominfiveminutes.com/masterclass
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🎙️ The Freedom in Five Minutes Podcast 🎙️: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freedom-in-five-minutes/id1439245704
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about his recent learnings from firing their gardener and how the lessons from that experience reflects how to hire the best personal assistant for your business.
Check out more of Pro Sulum through the links below.
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🔥 Pro Sulum Systems Architects (Virtual Assistants with Superpowers) 🔥: https://www.prosulum.com
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⚙️ Free business systems and automation course ⚙️: https://www.systemizeinfive.com
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👨🏫 Take the Freedom in Five Minutes Masterclass👨🏫: https://www.freedominfiveminutes.com/masterclass
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🎙️ The Freedom in Five Minutes Podcast 🎙️: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freedom-in-five-minutes/id1439245704
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto describes the best types of business owners who might have higher chances of success with Virtual Systems Architects and virtual assistants in general. For more episodes visit our blog at https://www.prosulum.com/blog/
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about how to best carry out your superpowers by outsourcing your excess tasks.
For more Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episodes, visit ProSulum.com/blog.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about his return to Jiu-Jitsu and how even the smallest things can make a massive difference in your pursuit of business success.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about his unconventional but highly effective methods in doing lead generation for Pro Sulum.
If you enjoy this episode and want more of Dean's Freedom IN Five Minutes, visit ProSulum.com/blog or subscribe to the Freedom In Five Minutes Youtube Channel
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about one uncomfortable thing that most business owners shy away from. Breaking things to make it better.
Listen to this episode and learn how Dean has gotten used to the discomfort of breaking things and reaped the benefits in business and life when the broken things are fixed and made better than before.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about his experience with recent clients who are looking to hire Virtual Systems Architects to fill Executive Assistant positions.
Dive in with Pro Sulum founder, Dean Soto and learn three tips on how to find the best Executive Assistant for you and your small business.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto gives you tips on how to find the perfect virtual assistant to help you achieve business success.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto speaks about our most valuable resource— time. Listen to this episode and learn how to whip up more time for your business and personal life.
All that and more, on this week’s episode of Freedom In Five Minutes.
Don’t forget to subscribe to Freedom In Five Minutes on Apple Podcasts and leave a review! We are excited to hear from you.
In this episode of the Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about a change in mindset that has opened better paths for him both in business and personal life.
So check this episode of Freedoms in Five Minutes Podcast and find out! And if you would like to get more episodes, just head over to ProSulum.com/blog.
Today on the Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean speaks with Jarrod Haning—master coach and founder of MindsetPerformance.co. In this episode, you take a peek at how Jarrod helps people achieve success.
Learn all about Mindscans, Mindset Pushups, Mindset Gyms, and other programs that Jarrod utilizes that will completely revolutionize what you are doing in your business.
For the first time on Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto records a video podcast episode with his new Elgato FaceCam!
Can we expect more video podcast episodes for Freedom In Five Minutes? Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out!
This week’s topic is about growing more powerful by accepting people for where they are. Listen to lessons from Dean’s personal stories with family and rediscover the beauty of growing together with people surrounding you.
All that, and more! Only on Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast!
What is one good way to bring in massive profits? Mending the flaws in your systems and processes.
In this episode, Dean talks about lessons from blunders in his old gardening system and processes. All that and more, only on this week’s Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast Episode.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Dean Soto talks about mind shift and self innovation.
You must want to change yourself in order for you to actually go and change. That, and more in this week’s Freedom In Five Minutes!
In this episode of the Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean Soto talks about creating systemic selling machines that led Pro Sulum to rake in over $50,00 per month! All that without the long hours involved in design and creation.
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean shares some of the best productivity methodologies he learned from his years in service to the corporate realm and how he took those lessons and applied them to his entrepreneurial career.
Discover how productivity hacks helped Dean develop his passion for providing first-class and global VA services through his Virtual Systems Architects at ProSulum.com.
All that and more, only on Freedom In Five Minutes!
In this episode of the Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Dean Soto associates gardening with running your business.
What do these two unrelated activities have in common? Find out how gardening can help you grow and scale your business only here on Freedom In Five Minutes!
In this episode, Dean uncovers all the elements around you that can possibly stir trouble for your business. Learn the best way to avoid potential disasters and grow your operation to greater heights in this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes!
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean Soto talks about how to best utilize your Virtual Systems Architect (VSA). This is a continuation of the previous podcast episode so be sure to check out part 1 of this conversation: FIFM 183.
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, we talk about the DON’Ts of creating standard operating procedures with your Virtual Systems Architect.
Dean Soto returns with a brand new episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast!
In this episode, Dean Soto hints at a lot of changes over at ProSulum.com — growing at a tremendous pace and restructuring the company’s leadership team — and minimal involvement with Dean himself!
Listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes as Dean fondly shares this short story about the CEO of Pro Sulum becoming “useless”. And how despite that fact, everyone in his company enjoys continued growth and peak performance!
Have you ever wanted to do something so bad but you just can’t seem to crush it? In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean unhands the “How” to success in favor of “Who” to share your success with.
Listen to this episode and discover your path to success from a new perspective.
In today’s episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about developing good leadership skills by managing your resources and effectively putting them into play.
Discover how easier it is to grow your business and team by knowing how to allocate resources well only here on Freedom In Five Minutes!
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, we take a moment to remember how business was in 2020.
Join Dean Soto as he talks about the importance of anticipating catastrophe and disaster. And how you can never be too prepared for the worst when it comes to business and life.
Dean Soto returns from his short podcasting hiatus at an opportune time to talk about two things. How to switch to the proper mindset so that you may scale your business. And a quick note on the importance of understanding business systems and processes. All that, and more on this week’s Freedom In Five Minutes!
Today on Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about how giving massive value to prospects have given him amazing clients and better business over the years.
Listen to this episode and learn how to build better relationships with potential clients and take your business to a higher level!
Sometimes the best investment you can make is in physical assets that you find value in. These are things that you can touch; things that you can hold.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about his recent investments in physical assets. Listen and take away some crucial lessons from Dean’s atypical investment strategies.
In this episode of the Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Dean talks about the risks of outsourcing a business owner’s decision-making and how to avoid or deal with internal saboteurs.
Today on Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about the different ways that you can leverage a real estate virtual assistant.
Get practical tips from Dean — who runs his own VA service business through ProSulum.com and FreedomInFiveMinutes.com — as he shares tons of examples on how to work effectively with your VA.
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean Soto shares some tips on how to hire better staff members for your business — a long-time pain point for Dean in the past.
Learn smart strategies and systems to find the best team members who can help take your business to greater heights!
In this episode of FreedomIn Five Minutes, Dean shares stories about two of his clients. Both experts in their industries, both are very good people. The key difference between these two clients, however, is how they put our Virtual Systems Architects to work and how they prioritize building Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
If you are a Pro Sulum customer or thinking about working with one of our VSAs, then listen to this episode and learn how to bring the best in your VSA (or any VA, in general). And discover the importance of creating SOPs for your business. All that and more in today’s Freedom In Five Minutes episode.
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, discover three tips that helped Dean improve his ability to delegate tasks on a workday.
Listen and learn how to delegate better on a workday easier, faster, and cheaper. So you can make more money. Those three tips are absolutely huge.
In this episode, Dean compares his learning experience in public school Spanish class to that of a better way of learning he found today.
Today’s episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean Soto talks about post-automation boredom. How does a business owner continue pushing the business forward when it feels like there’s nothing more to do after automating the business?
In this episode, Dean shares a recent experience that reminded him about the importance of knowing how to ask the right questions.
Find out how this lesson is crucial in making better decisions in your business and personal relationships in today’s Freedom In Five Minutes!
After having automated a substantial portion of the business, Dean has found himself with more downtime and with it, boredom.
Check out this episode as Dean shares exactly how he has dealt with his boredom and the switch of the mindset that he took to fully enjoy his free time again.
Today in The Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Dean talks about how firing a few customers leads him to better clients. It may seem counterintuitive, but this is his secret path to getting better business. Listen to the full episode and find out more.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about the COVID-19 situation in his area and the importance of being responsible for yourself.
Today’s episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Jarrod Souza returns to join Dean and talk about their mindset when it comes to building business automation, systems, and processes.
Check out the full episode and learn how to scale your business to the next level in as little as five minutes a day!
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean encourages you to move, get going, and bring about change in your business. People tend to forget about the dry spells in business especially when things are blooming and thriving.
Listen to an incident in Dean’s homestead one morning that served as a powerful reminder for him to be mindful of the season and always prepare the business against the heat.
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Dean talks about the importance of creating a recurring revenue stream no matter what industry you belong to.
So many businesses have been shredded during this global COVID-19 crisis. The better you are at creating recurring monthly revenue, then better your business is protected.
Our economy is ever-changing. There are good times and also bad. But if your business is the top-of-mind during bad times as a result of being generous and giving, what do you think is going to happen?
Customers will flock to you because you have given them value and attention.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about the power of giving. Discover how your business can benefit from one of Dean’s core principles: giving before you get.
LinkedIn is an awesome lead generation machine if you are armed with the right tools and techniques. But how do you make massive connections in a platform saturated with spam?
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean teaches you how to arm your LinkedIn with the proper automation tools and techniques to keep connecting automatically without spamming people.
Running your business through one single old idea and being narrow-minded towards new and better ideas is exactly like running a chainsaw into the dirt. All it takes for the chainsaw to dull out its cutters is one second in the dirt.
That mindset where there is only one way to run your business is the dirt that will dull out the blades of your business. You, as a business owner, must clear that dirt out of your mind.
In today’s Freedom In Five Minutes Episode, Dean talks about how even small ideas can be dangerous for your business during this global pandemic. Listen to this episode and learn about better ideas to run your business and thrive even in the face of a global crisis.
You never know the full aspects of what you have at your disposal unless you actively search all your options and alternatives. That being said, what is one thing that you do right now or a tool at your disposal that you can investigate further to discover all it has to offer?
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, we talk about how to grow a business in a variety of unexpected ways by uprooting all the different possibilities that the tools at your disposal have to offer.
Have you ever been intimidated by something you have not done before? Is this something you have kept on putting off because you felt like you needed to learn more about it or simply lacked the confidence to start the work?
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean challenges you to start doing the work, even if it is something you have not done before.
Have you figured out who the most important people in your life are? For most entrepreneurs, the answer would be their family.
However, not everybody is focused on building things for their family. Sometimes, business comes first.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean reminds you to pause and take a look at the things you are building. Are you focused on building and growing things for the most important people in your life?
An elite few people in your business will be there for you during tough times. These people are also responsible for growing your business indirectly simply by providing great customer service.
If you do not know the feeling of having an elite force to back you up, then listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes and learn the special things that a core team can do for your business.
Is your business struggling during this tough time?
There are contingency plans and solutions that are getting popular right now. But the fact is, these solutions are not new! They have been around for a long time now and most businesses across the globe have treated them as simply costs that can be dealt with “later”.
Listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes and learn how to safeguard your business and allow it to thrive despite any crisis that may come.
Not all green leaves are life-giving. Sometimes what you think are green leaves on an oak tree are actually mistletoes that suck the life out of life decades of years old.
This is true for some people in your life. Sometimes, what you think is a life-giving friend or client would, later on, reveal their true nature — that they are actually mistletoes — whose only intention is to suck the life out of your business.
If you have these types of people in your life and wondering how to cut these people from your branches, then listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes as Dean talks about the best ways to deal with mistletoe-types of people in your life and business.
There is one thing that has been generating massively positive results for Dean when it comes to running his business. And this thing is being replicated by a lot of his clients. This thing is about creating an environment where people love working with you.
But how does a business owner do that, exactly? Listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes as Dean shares what inspired him to implement this idea of creating a work environment where your team loves working for you.
We have all been in a situation where we needed something done but felt stuck, believing that we don’t have the tools or resources on hand to finish the task.
What if you were told that you have a ton of resources readily available to you right now?
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean shares a story of how discovering an important resource made all the difference in making his dreams and plans coming closer to fulfillment.
Have you ever abandoned a project in defeat because you were too frustrated to continue?
Do not let the frustration get the best of you. In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean talks about an interesting way of dealing with frustration.
Listen to this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes and be motivated to finish your ideas and achieve the freedom that you deserve.
We have all said a lie at some point in our lives. Do you remember the last time you were not being truthful? How much more work and stress did that cause you?
In this episode, Dean tells a personal struggle that has plagued multiple generations in his family and how he has found a resolution by simply telling the truth and being honest about what he wants.
Have you ever felt anxious about communicating with your clients? To be fair, it is perfectly normal to worry about negative feedback. Nobody likes them.
However, this should not stop you from reaching out and communicating with your clients. Their feedback is very valuable for your business.
Today, Dean talks about the value of customer communication. Listen and learn how to grow and scale your business five minutes a day in this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean reminds you that people come from different backgrounds and two people may be excited about a product or service but for different reasons.
If you are always frustrated about prospects being excited about your product for the wrong reasons, then stop and invest a few minutes of your time in this episode.
Learn how to take your prospecting game to the next level by learning how to leverage your prospect’s excitement over your product or service!
What are you doing right now that is helping your clients or prospects consume whatever it is that you have to offer?
If absolutely nothing comes to mind, then listen to this episode as Dean talks about a very powerful technique to filter out potentially troublesome clients while at the same time, gain raving fans from your existing pool of customers.
In this episode of The Freedom in Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about the stories we all tell ourselves. This is something that we all do within the confines of our internal world. These stories could be excuses or reasons for doing something — or not doing something.
But regardless of what these stories you tell yourself are intended for, the fact is that they might not be true. And to take something that is not true as facts are exactly where the danger lies.
Join in and listen to this week’s episode and learn how to recognize these stories that you tell yourself and how to determine the ones that hold you back so that you too can grasp the freedom that you deserve.
Sometimes, life puts us in the most uncomfortable places, stuck and cold out in the dark without a glimpse of light.
Then we start despairing and fearing that everything's going to come crashing down.
Those painful times and horrible bad things, how do you see it? How do you go about it?
In this podcast episode, let me share it with you and see these hardships as an opportunity for growth as a person.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this, the dirtiest and ugliest and most painful places bring the most growth. That and more coming up. All right guys, what is up? Oh yes, you're probably hearing cars passing me by right now. I am, I'm actually in a, so I dropped my car off to the shop and I live up in the country, up in the hills, and this is the first time I've ever started to walk home. And it is, it’s a very small curbside, so I might be risking my life. We'll see. I've seen people do it. And it's, gosh, what is this about, not three miles, this is probably like, four-mile walk. But my wife is coming eventually. So should be, should only be a little bit of a walk. We'll see what happens. But anyway, all that being said. So I was, the other day I was, we're at the point right now where there is, how do I want to say it? There's a, like, everything that is green is slowly starting to turn into a little bit of brown, right? So we're in spring, and we might get a little bit more rain, I don't know. But up here it goes from spring to summer very quickly, and we were at 60-degree weather last week to 90-degree weather this week. And it's, it's it swings pretty fast. And one of the things that come with that is that you know, God gives us some pretty amazing gifts out here in the country. For most people, you would look at it and go, Oh gosh, this sucks. I hate it. But for me, and for anyone doing any type of gardening whatsoever, weeds can be a beautiful thing. That's right. We have these big overgrown weeds. And when you chop them down or when you just pull them out, it is amazing for compost. And I'm just, I'm going, going past a marker that someone died right there. That's not a good sign. But yeah, it is amazing compost right there. Because, you know, you literally, you can just go and pick whatever you want. Go pick whatever you want. Throw it in your compost bin, get some greens, some browns, and you're good to go. And you could just start tossing and tossing and tossing and tossing in there. Well, one of the areas where, where, so I have a three kind of bin compost area. The first bin is if you've never done any type of composting, the first bin is for this, like the stuff that you just got, like the stuff that just, you know, it's green, you picked it, you put it in there, and it's gonna be the most, it’s gonna be the height, it's gonna be like the tallest. So as it starts composting, it gets less and less mass, right? All the bugs and everything like that goes in there and they start breaking down all the, the stuff and so it becomes smaller and smaller. So once it gets small enough, and where it's not, it's not you can't totally use it for composting at least at that point in time. You then can move it to the next bin, which kind of like a middle ground, it's, it's, it's not quite there, right? But it's, it's there enough to where, where, you know, if you move it, you're gonna be able to get a lot more, be able to put a lot more in that first bin, right? So, and then the third bin is where, where it's kind of in its final phase, where it's really broken down. It's really, you're really able to get, start using, start using it for soil. So, in the, I noticed yesterday or not yesterday the other day, that in the second bin,
Dean Soto 4:56
keep in mind I'm using these, I'm using pallets that we got from a store, from, behind the store that they were, they were getting rid of. The second bin had in one of the crevices in the, in the very back had some sprouts. And at first, I was like, oh, I wonder if these are weeds. And looking at them more closely, you could, you could usually tell whether something's a weed or something's not. But looking, looking at them, I, I have this. Looking at them, I have this what's it called, app? I forgot what, I forgot what it was, what the app is called. But I have an app that helps you to identify what kind of plant you have, right? And so, I use this app to go and, and see what exactly, what exactly it was. And it turns out which cos I have a feeling by the way it looked, it turns out that this is, it was some Butternut Squash, Butternut Squash growing in the side in like the, in basically waste. This was, it was, this was something a spot where I'd never thought that and obviously I'm not gonna be gardening using that for gardening because it's all for composts, for you know, for like growing stuff. But it was cool because it, so I'm looking at them like, oh my gosh this, this was the Butternut Squash that one of our neighbors gave us where it was, it was our neighbor’s, her, her mom, her mom had this stuff grow within her compost, and it was huge. This huge Butternut Squash it literally was, it had to be, how many feet, maybe, maybe a little bit over a foot long, maybe more, maybe a foot and a half long and just super wide and it was delicious and it was awesome and it lasted forever, and it was, it was just great. And so we had put a lot of that, so once we were done with it, it has obviously, they have seeds and everything like that. You know we composted it. I actually tried to go and plant some of those seeds in different places. And it doesn't look like they took anywhere. But it took, the seeds actually took in the, they took in the, in the compost pile. So, just like where we got it from the first place, this Butternut Squash seems to love sprouting up in the compost, obviously. I mean, it's rich and everything like that, but it's, you never would expect that it would start growing in the compost pile itself, right? And so I'm looking at this going, this is one, it's the most unlikely place, probably one of the harshest or most challenging places because it's, it's literally just stuff that's decomposing, right? It's, it's not fully soiled yet but it's, it's slowly decomposing, right? And I'm, and I'm looking at this going, how easy it is, how easily it's growing in that specific spot. And it totally got me thinking that one, this is like the way life is, I know that I've grown so much more in painful times, in times where, in times where I was put in spots that were uncomfortable, if not downright scary and there have been times where, where I was on, we had our last, like 1500 dollars. And our monthly expenses were far more than that and had to figure out how to, how to get all of that. Good, you know that, and, and figure out how to make that last, right? Well, the, the, those times,
Dean Soto 9:44
show, just what you're made of. Those times show just how much resilience you have, how much courage you have. It shows the ability for you to, to think on your feet, to innovate, to grow. And that is something super powerful that a lot of us try to avoid, right? We try to avoid and we get complacent, we get easy. And now with all the COVID-19 stuff, now with all this stuff happening, oh man, we are facing one of those times, yeah? We're facing one of those times were, where we have to be extremely creative, because there's a lot of pain happening, whether it's family-wise, not being able to send kids to school, not being able to go to the gym, not being able to do a whole lot of stuff that we used to be able to do before, right? And so, so that is something that you could look at as a, as a horrible bad thing and start despairing and start fearing and think, thinking that there's, that everything's going to come crashing down. Or you can see it as an opportunity to grow. So, during this time, I want you to take the time to see where you're at, to see the benefit of this. To see that, this is the opportunity to get a boost, to get a boost, because you have the, you have the, the strength and you have the courage during this time to make some big changes in your life, big changes in your life. There is nothing, nothing, nothing more valuable than be planted, being planted in difficult rich soil, which is, this is exactly where you're being planted right now? Alright, so this is Dean Soto freedom in five minutes, go check out freedom in five minutes.com. Go check out Pro Sulum.com and I'm going to continue my walk and I'll see you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
It is always frustrating to explain something to a person over and over again. But what’s more frustrating is when you are explaining the system of your business to different people repeatedly. This is when “Speaking to everyone” comes in handy.
In this episode, Dean explains how to avoid repetition by “Speaking to Everyone,” what it means and why it is essential to your system.
Whether you are tired of being redundant or are just curious about what “Speaking to Everyone” means, this podcast is for you.
Automated Transcript Below
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and pro sulum.com. And we're here again for another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this. I'm not speaking to you. I'm speaking to everyone. That more coming up so Good morning. I'm here with laluna Meister. we're out and about having our fun. So we just got back not too long ago you're probably hearing this a bit delayed. But as of recording this just got back from Southern California. We were talking at we work W-E W-O-R-K, we work, and at spaces S-P-A-C-E-S. and both of them are co big, you know, obviously very big co working spaces, wonderful people and they invite us to come and speak. So I was doing some speaking engagements there. And came back. I had a we had some really cool engagements there. So, we this is this is one of I Gosh, at least at one of the we works is the third time that we were invited. And we had we had what was it a this is a third type of talk. So the first it's interesting because the first talk is on systems. The second one was on lead generation and the third third one is on podcasting and automating your podcasts just like this. I don't know if Do you realize this but I, I press a button, I podcast, press the button is done. Like it's done. And my beautiful wonderful team does essentially the majority of the rest aside from some technical stuff that I've created for them to help them out. And it's done because there's a system. And so I was able to show that for the first time ever I was able to show this podcasting system to them and they to people and they were blown away. So I actually went out into the crowd and I said, I said, Okay, well let's give this a try. And I press the button I said, Hey, this is Dean Soto with freedom in five minutes and I'm here with the guy was name was Nathan is on Nathan, Nathan, Bob, Bob Bob. And I said, Oh, and thank you, Nathan. Okay, great. And I pressed the button to stop it. And started talking, talked a little bit heard the thing heard my email go which means that meant that the Audio and everything was processed and I press the button. And boom, the podcast was all processed audio with intros and outros and all other stuff on on it. And they were blown away, which is cool. So I've never, like I said, I've never shared that before with anybody. But that's actually not what we're going to be talking about. I was just excited to share that, that we went and had a had a blast doing doing this stuff for people. So what I am excited about sharing is a story. The main story of today. So we have this we have a client who is funny because so they came they came on at the end of 2019. And during the sales call this the initial sales call up my my buddy Paul and I were We were driving back from spaces which was one of the place that we places that we actually are Talk. We did a speaking engagement today. So we, we were driving back from spaces. And it was funny it was it was actually pretty interesting because when we did this when we're on this on this call the guy had a business partner and the business partner was older. So they're, they're kind of in the financial services industry. And the business partner is older. And he saw that what we were doing, he actually became a customer through our cold email system, sending out cold emails that are all customized and scaled to people. And he so so yeah, so he, he, he was we were in the call and he was like, hey, yeah, you know, my, the guy who I'm partnered with he's, you know, he's on the older side. He's probably gonna retire soon. He's not really great with time. Technology not going to really, he's not going to probably he's going to be kind of more of a hindrance than somebody who he'll probably be more of a hindrance than me who I understand what's going on. I understand what you do, and it's amazing what you do, and so on and so forth. And I'm like, Oh, that makes sense. totally makes sense. And so we had several different sales calls. And eventually, they became clients. Well, it turns out, that turns out that this the old guy who's the partner, he is loving the service. He creates videos all the time, he understands the concept and builds out his has been building out processes and systems with his virtual systems architect very easily. Whereas the guy who said that he would be a hindrance is actually having a really hard time creating videos even to this day. I have a meeting with him at one. And, and so. So this morning he sent me a couple of videos that he did for his for his virtual systems architect. And the first thing that I noticed was that he was so this is this is an issue that a lot of people have when they're building systems. For people. This happens a lot with lawyers. This happens a lot with CPAs. This happens a lot with with people who are used to being the bottleneck in their business. And there's a reason why they're a bottleneck in their business, especially when they're training or creating things for other people. And what the thing that I noticed was that he was speaking to his virtual systems architect is VSI And you're probably thinking, what the heck are you talking about Dean? Why does that make a difference? That of course is going to be speaking to us via say that's we sent it in the video too, right? Well, that would be a big wrong. He is not sending his video to us via say. That's not how you want to build systems. When you are building systems, you should not be talking to an individual. Right? You should be talking to everybody, because you don't know if that person's going to be there in the future. You don't know what situations going to change. And so when I saw this video, one of the things that he did was he said Okay, so this is how we, how we manage our LinkedIn profiles. how we manage our marketing on LinkedIn. So the first thing I want you to do is open up the document that I sent you. So what's the problem with that? Dean? What if he sent a document to this person? Well think about Jeff Bezos. I was talking with Marissa this morning about this and she totally understood it and agreed. Of course you better because you my wife, right? Think about Jeff Bezos though. A big Bumblebee flying around me. Leave me alone be. Does Jeff Bezos. If you say he had a creative process for somebody would he say go to the end Now that I sent you, or what do you say, go to the document that I sent, you know, he has thousands of employees, right. And he knows, at some point in time, that employee is going to leave, or that employee is going to change positions where that employee is going to get sick. And so that document needs to be in a place where everybody else can grab it. And the process has to say something a little something like this. You are going to go to the LinkedIn message messaging document, which it is found. If you go to Google Drive, you go to the business folder and you go to this folder, you go to this folder, and it's right here and this is what it looks like this was titled. He knows that it has to be that way. Because he doesn't know if one person is going to be doing in the future or 50 people are going to be In the future, he doesn't want to send 50 emails later on. Right? And he doesn't want to have 50 emails coming to him saying, hey, sir, just, you said in your process that you were you sent me a document, I'm not sure what document you're talking about, can you send me that document? You know, 50 times or 100 times 1000 times having to go Oh, yeah, let me send that document. Let me send that document to you. Let me send that he doesn't want to do that. Right. And so he has to speak to everyone. And this is one of the big pitfalls of a lot of people who create systems or try to create systems is that they are speaking to one person, and they are assuming they're assuming many, many things based around speaking to that one person. And so why is this important? It's important so that as you're starting to create These systems around your business, you the more that you're able to see things as almost like a computer program, almost like an almost as if you're gonna have thousands of users use utilizing what you have created. You know, if you log in to, you know, whatever your favorite thing is maybe a sauna or some Google calendar or whatever. Your name is different than everyone else's, right? Because they realized, well, we have to have a variable that is able to show this person's name of who they logged in. It doesn't just say hello, Google user. No, it says Dean Soto, right. So they created a variable knowing that people, thousands of people are going to log in, thousands of people are going to want to see their name. So we're going to create this variable that is simply their name. That's just one thing. They're thinking about, right. And Google, when you create an account, you don't have to go and email Google with a different email address and say, Hey, Google, can you create an account for me for Gmail? No, they know that thousands of people are gonna want to create accounts are millions, in this case, so they have a whole system that allows millions of people to create accounts by themselves. The same goes with systems. You have to make it whatever information that's needed. You have to look at it and and start and and basically set things up in a generic but specific way. My wife came up with this today. Generic, but specific, generic in the sense that it's a form and this is where the forms that but specific in this is what you do with that form. In the circumstances, right? And so, what I want you to do this week is whatever system or process you have where, where you've created around one person, where you've said, Hey, Michelle, in the in the thing it says, send an email to Michelle, once you're done, and it says actually says that in the process, that process needs to be changed to something like send to your supervisor when it's done, or sent to HR when it's done. Because Because Michelle might not always be there, right? But HR will always be there. Your supervisor will always be there. Your supervisor, my mate might be Michelle might be Georgia might be Steve, it might be Sam it might be Lala, it might be whomever, right so this week, I want you to To make your systems and processes a little bit more generic and a little bit more specific Alright, so this Dean said, Oh, go check out freedom in five minutes dot com you got to. It's about time guys. You got to go check out freedom five minutes calm. It's part of the plan of making it to where you work only five minutes a day and go check out personal comm ProSulum.com. If you want a virtual assistant architect that'll do all of this for you. Five minutes a day train, document everything that you're doing and automate your entire business so that you can work four hours a month. Alright, so there's Dean Soto freedom in five minutes and I will catch you on the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode
Business owners who have spent years in any type of service-based industry know well that there will always be unfriendly and aggressive customers. That’s just how the industry works.
But if you are a business owner who is still new to the scene, how do you deal with these types of customers? Have you ever encountered one or two that gave you so much stress?
In this episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about the best ways to deal with these types of bad customers. So, listen in and learn. You might just take home valuable points that could unlock your business to the next level.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean delves deep into his process of building his network of Virtual Systems Architects and how he is able to scale his business— the easy way — by just using three key principles.
Listen to this episode and find out what Dean’s three key principles are and you might just propel your business to the next level and beyond!
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about a beautiful experience he had with his family that inspired him to finally take the time and appreciate the beauty and blessings that already surrounds him.
What could this experience be that served as a powerful reminder for Dean? Listen to this episode and find out!
The water can come crashing on the shore in big waves and small — you never really know what’s coming. When the waves come crashing in, all you can do is hope that you can surf over them and not drown in their monstrosity.
If waves crash on you right now, do you think you can survive? But the more important question might be, have you already figured your waves are?
Today, Dean shares what a wave is, how do you apply it in life, and how important it is to ride with it.
You have special skills that are unique to you. But despite that, you are not fully utilizing and embracing them. These gifts are a part of you that have gotten you farther in life. It is time to embrace your gifts!
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean encourages you to see that you are given unique gifts for a reason. Have the courage to step out, help people with your God-given gifts, and discover for yourselves why you have such talents.
In this episode, Dean talks about the importance of being adaptable in business during this lockdown and quarantine period. The global COVID-19 pandemic is tough for a lot of people. But now more than ever is the time to be resilient.
Listen to Dean as he talks about innovative ideas and stories from his circle of entrepreneurs that might just inspire you to grow your business despite this global crisis.
Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”
In today’s episode of Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast, Dean talks about the importance of giving without expecting anything in return during this global coronavirus pandemic. The ultimate secret to happiness is found in helping others.
Today’s guest on Freedom In Five Minutes is a very good friend of Dean — Patrick Reis, the Executive Director of Encounter Ministries.
Listen to the full episode and learn how Patrick is able to thrive and grow his non-profit organization in the midst of the global coronavirus crisis. That and more, coming up.
In this episode of Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean chats with Jarrod Souza, CFO at Michael Hyatt & Company, about making a huge impact on small businesses from the corporate world, and the importance of having a positive, healthy, thriving work culture, and braving through the changes in your career and personal life.
Today in Freedom In Five Minutes, Dean chats with special guest, Eric Olsen. In this special interview, Eric talks about his leadership experience as a freelance consultant in both civilian and military backgrounds.
If you want to take your leadership skills to the next level, then join us and listen to the whole episode!
The concept of giving is more of an attitude of generosity. Always be generous with people that you come in contact with and add so much value that the people who receive your kindness feel compelled to be your cheerleaders and ambassadors.
In this episode, Dean chats with friend and business partner, Paul Tran, about giving people the potential to be your raving fans and make them want to help you.
Automated Transcript Below Dean Soto 0:00:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSuum.com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: Giving So Much Without Expecting Anything in Return. That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:00:29
Well, guys check this out. I have a special guest here today. I am NOT on my acreage running around with the Luna Mister. In fact, I am in some kind of industrial-type area with a lot of cars. We're at Toyota-thon guys.
Dean Soto 0:00:46
That's the way it looks over here it's Toyota-thon no we are actually at a Toyota dealership because Mr. Paul Tran got a flat tire right before we were going to speak. Of course, that didn't stop us but I have with us as a result of that beautiful gift of a flat tire.
Dean Soto 0:01:09
Mr. Paul Tran, how's it going my man?
Paul Tran 0:01:12
Good. It's good. Whenever I got that flat tire I thought of you know how we both are fans of Chaco Willing is his strategy have you heard of his concept of good? No matter what happens in your life always end it with good.
Paul Tran 0:01:26
If I today I was late for work good I got to spend more time with my family or I got a flat tire good I got to like appreciate people's help you know whatever happens just end up with good because it reframes your positive attitude.
Dean Soto 0:01:42
That's actually pretty cool. I love that. I love that. I'm at Toyota-thon good I am NOT gonna get another Toyota. I like Toyotas but I'm not in the market but yeah I still feel it makes me feel really good but um so interesting thing happened today so we were speaking out we work in boardwalk which was in Newport California right
Paul Tran 0:02:05
Irvine Irvine
Dean Soto 0:02:07
Irvine California and it was cool because there's a guy who got us into the whole WeWork space a guy by the name of Daniel. Can I share his name?
Paul Tran 0:02:18
Yeah okay.
Dean Soto 0:02:20
A guy by the name of Daniel Apple and he works for a company called TriNet who they are awesome by the way if you have a company that is doing anything HR-wise, TriNet is friggin amazing they run they do all the HR stuff for Paul's halal you know 20 million dollar halal guys restaurants that he owns and stuff like that and they just been pretty amazing
Paul Tran 0:02:40
right yep they also did payroll and did HR strategy for Netflix and its heyday so they just pretty much help you know maneuver all the HR pitfalls for a starting company because you know as you know you're in the business not to — unless you're in the HR business you're not in the business to process payroll you're in the business to serve people and do what you do uniquely so trying it kind of takes all that off of your plate so that you can focus
Dean Soto 0:03:07
I love that so yeah go check out so Daniel Apple which all once I post this on LinkedIn I’ll actually tag him on there so if you're if you want to check him out he's awesome great guy him and William Chiem C H I E M guys
Dean Soto 0:03:26.019,0:03:30.549
Yeah, both are awesome and the reason why we're bringing them up both of them is that so they got us into we work and the interesting thing is that Paul and I so hearing Paul actually reached out to me and said hey do you want to start speaking out we work I have this contact and he's you know he has a lot of people in there that he worked with and could get us into doing some speaking engagements to share all the whole VSA concept — the Virtual Systems Architects if you go to FreedomInFiveMinutes.com you get to check those out so he so we're talking about he's talking about this guy and I'm like oh that's awesome so like what's the catch what's the catch and it's been how many months like six months?
Paul Tran 0:04:14
yeah it's been about four months
Dean Soto 0:04:16
four months of doing these talks and I'm still waiting for the catch that's the interesting thing literally William and Daniel both got us into this spot and then have literally asked for nothing in return but it was interesting because every single time we've done any type of talk
Dean Soto 0:04:42
I know I always bug Paul I'm like we should have Daniel talk in the beginning we should have Bill talk in the beginning we should look how can I give back to Bill how can I give back to Daniel huh and to the point where I referred people to him and he literally has never asked for a referral whatsoever he's just been giving giving giving giving giving and it would today be the first time where he actually shared his dirty little secret with me after he after I had talked to him about somebody who I had actually referred and who looks like might actually be signing up with TriNet and I love for Paul to gotta give that little dirty little secret that he's shared today.
Paul Tran 0:05:24
well I mean pretty much the the concept was it's more of a an attitude of generosity like give so much be so generous with people that you come in contact with always add so much value that the people who receive your generosity they have no choice and not no choice but they feel so compelled to just be cheerleaders and ambassadors for you and create raving fans and just want to help you you know all this time you know Dean and I were always just figuring how did it benefit them how to take good care of them and you know the concept was pretty much I guess based on the book that they go giver and the concept was this like give more value than you capture provide more value than you capture like the the byproduct the referrals the business the growth all that stuff is a byproduct that takes care of itself similar to the concept of if you're doing the right thing for clients like the monies of natural Byproduct so his generosity his continued generosity to us has been so enormous and so over abundantly overflowing we abundant that we just want to help him out all the time like we're not even working for TriNet we just want to help him out and give him as much business as possible because of that philosophy
Dean Soto 0:06:45
yeah it's funny because he's even like he's was even like he's like yeah yeah dude you know if anyone now signs up will even give you a little you know I can give you like some kind of kickback or something like that I'm like dude no honestly you've given so much to us there's like it's already like we feel already in debt and that's literally what I told him today because it was cool because it just kind of came up out of the blue the the whole concept that he shared but it's super powerful it's something and quite honestly for me it's something and I don't know if it's because I grew up pretty poor I mean we went from you know hotel to hotel and how's it going guys we went from hotel to hotel and motel in the motel and never you know it was I grew up reporter so a lot of the times for me I tend to hold on to things I tend to like be more about me than about other people and just seeing just seeing like this I mean you've taught you Paul have taught me to give and to give and stuff like that but like even even with this I was like I mean literally every time we came down it was it was I had in my mind like what are they getting out of this I even asked Bill a couple times like what are you getting out of this what are you getting out of this and you know we want to help you and he's and he's just like oh I don't just long game don't worry about it and I'm like this is crazy but now it's funny because now you're starting to see the reaping of what he what those two have actually already sowed you know
Paul Tran 0:08:11
Yeah and but I mean it does start with just being someone who's generous and being a kind person with a positive attitude like if you're just in it truly just for that ulterior motive, yeah people smell it out and it'll debilitate any efforts that you make so you actually got to be a really kind good person and be super sincere about wanting to just truly help someone with no expectation in return that's the prerequisite.
Dean Soto 0:08:42
that's interesting like I could totally see that as well like if people know you're doing that just to get something that that that could be more detrimental at times but yeah like the I mean why like why is this important I mean it's important because a lot of times we're in business obviously we're in business to make money to feed our families to grow the business and so on and so forth but you know that doesn't need to come at the cost of a that doesn't need to come at the cost of giving before receiving you know even jesus said that's better to give than to receive the the whole idea is that that your mode is like because no matter what with a business you have to give that value anyway there the money your value should just in general with your business be more valuable than the money that they're paying they need to get a return on their investment and so that's a huge huge thing and it's so important to just have that in mind of I'm giving no matter what I have to find a way to give more value than receive right
Paul Tran 0:09:52
yeah and the trick is to I think because we as business people we need to manage our numbers and we need to measure things and whatever measure is measured and proves right all right but the trick here is you know culture things like generosity are really hard to measure but I find it funny that those are the most important so I'd say focus on things are a little it's it's okay to focus on things they're a little bit harder to measure yeah cuz those are the ones that usually probably every other business person is not measuring either so that's you're a competitive edge as well
Dean Soto 0:10:24
Yeah for sure and you know on the on the flip side of things the cool thing is you can actually systemize a lot of this type of giving there there are many ways like the reactive campaign attaching these active campaign to different things like Thankster or Zen Direct or other places you can actually systemize the giving to your customers based off of how much they buy based off of you know who hold a number of data points and stuff so if it's hard for you because it really is hard for me to give like I have to systemize giving to where it's actually out of my head and it just constantly get on a regular basis so like my challenge to you right now is if you have a business or just in general even with your family how much are you giving before receiving you know are you giving love notes to your wife are you giving love notes to your children every day are you giving you know free things to your your your clients or reaching out to them and just saying hey appreciate you or things like that like how much are you actually doing that and that's the challenge this week is to to put that as a priority and see over time just how much that gives back and that allows you to to grow as a business and to grow as a as a person in general but but yeah that's the challenge this week. Paul, do you have any other things?
Paul Tran 0:11:45
Actually, as you mentioned that you taught me the concept of the bank account the virtual the emotional-spiritual business financial bank account like you if the more you deposit the easier it is to withdraw like if you put more money into your bank account and it earns interest you can always withdraw without any issues without feeling like that scarcity mindset right it's the same thing it's not just money but if you're adding so much value you're depositing so much help you're sending them thank-yous you're giving them referrals you're figuring out a way to help your clients win like without any expected returns. Guess what those are deposits that interest-earning deposits that the with Charles and the distributions back to you are just automatic and you don't feel like you're losing out no some think of it as just living off the interest of it you know
Dean Soto 0:12:38
I love it right so my relationship — but I relate that to everything, yeah no I totally and I only use it for my relationship and some of my business I need to do it for other things so all that being said so this is Dean Soto and Paul Tran and if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet go to FreedomInFiveMinutes.com do they actually do the right thing actually you go to Apple Podcast type in Freedom In Five Minutes and subscribe that way or go to Spotify type in Freedom In Five Minutes or stitcher to type in Freedom In Five Minutes or I Heart Radio and type in Freedom In Five Minutes and you will be able to find the Freedom In Five Minutes podcast go and subscribe now so I can give you lots and lots of episodes all the time okay so...
Paul Tran 0:13:28
without any expectation return
Dean Soto 0:13:31
Exactly. Exactly but until then Paul and I will see you on the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode
What scars do you have? Some people see a scar as an imperfection on your skin, but there could be an amazing story behind that. Trophies come in a variety of forms. And they can be anything from medals and status to scars on your body. So, what trophies do you have that you have a story around?
Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: Trophies Come in Many Forms When You Work Hard for Them. That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:00:35
Good morning. Daylight Savings Time. At least as of recording. So this might actually be a little while because I pretty much record every day —+ just about every day and my guys are amazing and they do a lot of actual content around these podcasts. Often, they are delayed quite a bit so if you're wondering, “Why the heck is he talking about daylight savings and it's closer to Easter.” Don't worry about it. Just go with it.
Dean Soto 0:01:06
It's more about the story anyway, right? It's more about the story. All right. So, it is a beautiful morning today. It is still having all these amazing yellow wildflowers and everything is blooming. We have our lupines. If you’ve ever seen lupines, they’re like lavender — I don't even know if it might even be the same thing as lavender. I'm not sure. But it's just a beautiful purple flower all over the place and I see the new lupine bushes like that have been planted that are kind of wild and all over the place popping up and everything absolutely amazing — even got a small little manzanita doing its thing that'll have some berries later on yeah it's just absolutely amazing so so yeah
Dean Soto 0:02:00
Oh before I get into this why don't you go to Google. Type in Freedom In Five Minutes podcast and subscribe via Apple iTunes. Won't you go do that? Do it. Do it. You can subscribe to iHeartRadio. You can subscribe to Spotify. If you go to Spotify and you type in Freedom In Five Minutes, you'll find the Freedom In Five Minutes podcast. It'll be up there, alright. So, it's not the five minutes to freedom album or whatever yeah.
Dean Soto 0:02:36
I actually was like oh man I'm not gonna actually name this podcast freedom — I can't name it five minutes of freedom because somebody else already made an album. It keeps on popping up and everything. But it's Freedom In Five Minutes. Complete opposite. Five Minutes comes later. I was recently on a podcast where the podcaster kept saying five minutes to freedom and I'm like...god alright
Dean Soto 0:03:10
So. Jiu-Jitsu. Let's talk about this a little bit. I started Jiu-Jitsu about a year ago. I've talked about this in another episode. I started in February of 2019. The whole idea was I needed a 90-day target. I was part of the Wake Up Warrior community. We were in the Kings’ 90-Day Challenge. It's the way that they do things in the Wake Up Warrior. Every 90 days you create a target for your body, for your spirituality, for your business, as well as your family. Something that you're gonna do with your family and something that I still do today.
Dean Soto 0:04:08
I do it off and on. I need to be much much better about it but something that I still do to this very day and during that time I knew that you're not supposed to create targets that are like, “I want to get to a hundred and eighty pounds.” because weight is not really something that you can truly be accountable.
Dean Soto 0:04:36
If you sign up for an Ironman or for a Jiu-Jitsu tournament or something where you've paid money, you've gone into it. you have to actually do it. It becomes much much harder to say, “Yeah I'm good. I don't need to do it.”
Dean Soto 0:04:50
Especially when it's something that you really truly want to do. So that was my body goal for that time and it was interesting because I had always wanted to do Jiu-Jitsu. But there were two things stopping me. One I wasn’t sure about rolling with the opposite sex which I think I talked about in previous episodes. I always just felt uncomfortable. I don't know, it was just something that was kind of odd to me. I definitely got over that. It's cool because my Warrior Brothers were really helping especially with Jiu-Jitsu. it's a great equalizer of martial arts. You're helping them if they were ever in a really bad situation. To be able to at least have some sort of self-defense.
Dean Soto 0:05:49
So, that was cool. The other thing was I just actually didn't believe that I would be that good at it — that I would be able to even compete. I was relatively out of shape. I just was not in the greatest shape at that time. I was about 215 pounds going on 220. It didn't seem like it was gonna be in the cards. The cool thing was — the really interesting thing was that I did it anyway. I did my first tournament about two months later.
Dean Soto 0:06:33
I called the gym — I was looking at all these different gyms and it was kind of a good thing because there were all these gyms that were only open in the evenings. I got into Google. Being an entrepreneur, I can go anytime. I don't want to go in the evenings. I want to be able to go whenever I want. So I go on Google and I see one.
Dean Soto 0:06:58
Jim says that they open at 8 o'clock in the morning well they do open at 8 o'clock in the morning but I'm guessing Google got it wrong they only opened on 8 o'clock in the mornings on Saturday so anyway I call this guy I think they had a ClickFunnels little funnel I put in my name and everything like that and then
Dean Soto 0:07:22
Rudy calls me back. It's Fresno Ultimate Martial Arts. Rudy calls me back and I'm like, “Yeah. You know I really want to do a Jiu-Jitsu tournament.”
Dean Soto 0:07:35
It was part of my business things. In about two months. And he's like, “Oh, Whoa. Yeah. I think we'd get you ready by then. That'll be really tough but you're gonna have to really work at it.”
Dean Soto 0:07:48
I was like yeah I have to. I'll just keep calling around to anybody who will take me and help me to do that.
Dean Soto 0:08:07
He's like, “Yeah. No problem. We'll try and make it happen.”
Dean Soto 0:08:11
So I went over there, signed up, and then realized that it was Tuesdays and Thursdays in the evening. And I'm like, “What?!”
Dean Soto 0:08:20
And then on Saturdays, you can roll at around 7:30 in the morning but it ended up being a really really cool thing because the community and the instructor were just so welcoming and so awesome.
Dean Soto 0:08:36
Everyone's so positive and in fact, it was neat because I went to my first Jiu-Jitsu tournament in April or May of 2019 and ended up getting third place in No-Gi and got a little trophy — that was my first trophy in Jiu-Jitsu.
Dean Soto 0:09:01
I was like wow that's really really cool and for a while, nobody was doing much in the way of tournaments and the next tournament that came up with it was a few months later after that and because of that, the whole tournament thing of me doing that, we ended up having five or six people do a tournament. Out of those five or six people, I want to say five of them ended up placing and actually getting medals which was awesome. The pictures that came from it and everything was just really really cool.
Dean Soto 0:09:42
To see that it went from nobody competing to one person competing to five people competing and now in April I'll be doing another tournament and we'll have multiple people doing the tournament over here in central California. I might even do one down in Southern California a few weeks after that.
Dean Soto 0:10:13
That was trophy number one. Trophy number two was not exactly a trophy I expected and wanted. Trophy number two is on my right ear. If you were me, at least. But if you were looking at me it would be my left ear. It is becoming a cauliflower ear.
Dean Soto 0:10:41
I went for a full year doing jiu-jitsu and nothing like that happened at all. Nothing like that happened at all. All of a sudden, I actually don't even know when it happened or how it happened or whatever. But my ear started to swell up and it's been this way for about two weeks now.
Dean Soto 0:11:06
I get a lot of people saying, “Hey are you gonna drain it? Are you gonna do this, you're gonna do that?”
Dean Soto 0:11:10
It's annoying and it's kind of slowed my roll which I think I needed to do anyway. I think I was doing a little bit too much.
Dean Soto 0:11:24
There is someone shooting right now. We’re living in the country so people shoot quite often.
Dean Soto 0:11:39
All that being said — it sounded like an AR15. Anyway, all that being said I have people who say “don't worry about it” as people say “drain it”
Dean Soto 0:11:57
People are like, “Oh my gosh that looks so bad.”
Dean Soto 0:11:59
All in all, I'm like, “I like it.” It's definitely not aesthetically pleasing but it is a trophy. It took me a year to get that thing. It's something that wouldn't have been there had it not been for me doing Jiu-Jitsu and you might be thinking, “Well that's really dumb. Why would you want to have that as a trophy or whatever.”
Dean Soto 0:12:41
Well, I don't know why quite either. But I have this thought that this type of stuff doesn't happen quite often. As I said, it took a year to get this. It took a lot of hard work. It took a tournament and it took a lot of learning. It took a lot of different things. It took a lot of things that people could say, “Oh well, you should drain it because you're gonna be stuck with it for life or whatever.”
Dean Soto 0:13:26
it took a lot of hard work. It took a whole bunch of different things. And to me, if it stays, it stays. If it goes, it goes. I have a scar! I have scars all over my body from different things throughout my life and each scar has a story and those are physical scars and even emotional scars. Things that I do without even knowing that also have a whole reason. And a whole story behind them.
Dean Soto 0:14:00.929,0:14:07.619
I don't want to let those go because those give me power and this gives me power as well. This gives me a powerful story that I want to be able to share with other people. I want my kids to look at my ear and say, “Hey, Dad! How did you get that ear?” and be able to tell them the whole story of how hard I worked to get this thing.
Dean Soto 0:14:34
Trophies come in a variety. They come in a variety of different types. What's the whole purpose of this? Why is this so important? Well, it's important because you have things in your life, you have things in your business, you have things in your family. You have scars. You have things that you work for. Trophies that you worked for, have a huge story around them. It's conventional wisdom — it's the conventional type of people who say “Whitewash it over.” “Don't forget about it.” Yet you get rid of that scar because it looks ugly.
Dean Soto 0:15:32
A scar is a blemish on your body. A scar is a blemish on your soul. That scar is a blemish on your character as scores of lemon. But there are things in that scar that are priceless. There are things in that trophy that are priceless that nobody except you and God knows.
Dean Soto 0:15:52
Nobody except you and God knows. There's a thing in the Bible where it says — I believe it's in Revelation — that God will give you a stone and on that stone is written something that only you and God know. Out of all the billions of people and quadrillions of angels and whatever else is out there. Only you and God know. And guess what? That's the same thing as the trophies that you have won. The trophies that you have earned whether it's a scar. Whether it's a literal trophy. Whether it is a congratulation. Whether it's your marriage and your wife giving you a love note or your husband giving you a love note or whatever it is that is a trophy of hard work that only you know the value of truly know the value of.
Dean Soto 0:17:15
You can communicate that to the other person but only you know the true value of that trophy. So what scars do you have? What trophies do you have that you have a story around? I challenge you this week to at least document or share a story just like this with somebody.
Dean Soto 0:17:44
I never used to be good at stories and I'm still getting better at stories. In fact, it was only about two years ago that I learned a really good structure for telling stories. That's really helped me to be able to do podcasts like this. To be able to share in a way that's cohesive. That structure goes: What, Why, Lesson, & Apply. I learned this from Garrett J White from Wake Up Warrior.
Dean Soto 0:18:18
What, Why, Lesson, & Apply. So, what do you want to talk about? So, like today, it was on trophies and the story behind my cauliflower ear and how that's a trophy.
Dean Soto 0:18:31
Why is that important? Why is that important to me? Why is it important to you? What are the lesson that you're going to get from it and the lesson that this story is trying to explain? And then, how do you apply it in your life? Hence, the challenge to actually document or share that trophy this week. All right. What, Why, Lesson, & Apply. It's very powerful.
Dean Soto 0:19:02
Okay. So what trophy are you going to share? What scars are you gonna share that only you know and only you have learned? Because these scars that I have are what brought Pro Sulum to where it is right now P R O S U L U M .com
Dean Soto 0:19:23
It's why I can work five minutes and have a process be created and boom it's done. It's why I'm able to have a wonderful staff that has an amazing culture who write this content when you look at the blog who are just absolutely amazing people. It came from a lot of this work.
Dean Soto 0:19:56
What, Why, Lesson, Apply. What, Why, Lesson, Apply. Go and do that. What is your scar? What's your trophy? Go check out ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com as well as Freedom In Five Minutes. It got me all sentimental...
Dean Soto 0:20:16
I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode
Plant seeds for your business by constantly posting your content. Doing this lets you develop a backbone for prospects to funnel through.
It does not matter if the content that you are putting out there is short form. The important thing is that you are constantly sharing your ideas for prospects to see.
Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulm.com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: The Key is to Sow as Many Seeds as Possible. That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:00:30
Well, good morning on this chilly day. It's overcast. Hopefully, it starts raining over here. We’re out with the Luna Meister doing our normal walk. She's sniffing around. We are at it again.
Dean Soto 0:00:44
So, when I first started doing anything entrepreneurial, I ran across a guy who is obviously very popular. Pretty much everyone knows him in the business world and that is Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk. When I first started, I read his book Crush It. Crush It.
Dean Soto 0:01:11
So, I read his book Crush It and I immediately started — or so I thought — crushing it. I just was putting out a whole bunch of different content. I was reaching out to a whole bunch of people. I was literally killing myself trying to build my business at the time.
Dean Soto 0:01:33
One of the things that I noticed right away was that it was very difficult. It was extremely difficult and I was literally like killing myself. I'd be up to one or two because you know he even talks about in the book like oh you should be up at all hours of the night.
Dean Soto 0:01:56
A big part of that — I actually for a few years ended up not liking Gary Vaynerchuk at All. I honestly didn't because I was burning myself out a ton mainly because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have any sales experience and I didn't have really much of anything else and so I'd be up late.
Dean Soto 0:02:28
If you go and search, you'll see some of my older Pro Sulum videos where I'd be up at 1 o'clock 2 o'clock in the morning talking about gosh I forgot what that Google product was. It was like a Google communication product.
Dean Soto 0:02:45
Sorry, I’m eating some miners lettuce right now. What was that? It kind of — almost kind of looks like slack but anyway... They shut it down a long time ago and I was talking about that and how it only just really kind of random things. But those YouTube videos are still out there where I was trying to put out all this massive amount of content but really having no place for you to put the gas. The gas would just kind of spill all over the place.
Dean Soto 0:03:19
If you had a car and you went to the gas station and you didn't know where the actual gas tank was and so you just kind of start spraying the car with gas hoping that somehow the gas is going to get inside the car somehow.
Dean Soto 0:03:38
Of course, you look retarded which is exactly the way I looked. But you know, you're spraying gasoline all over this car and because of that, you end up just making yourself look like an idiot and your car doesn't work. That's the same way it was for me. I didn't really have a sales system. I didn't have anything to sell people and so it was just this massive amount of content but nowhere for them to go and actually buy things which would then sustain me to continue to do more content and back and forth back.
Dean Soto 0:04:21
For a long time, I avoided doing content in general because of that very reason I avoided. I had burned myself out so much that I would do content, I would see some results and then I'd stop and I do content I see some results and then I would stop because I just really didn't like that feeling of I really didn't like that feeling of you know I don't want to put it off of starting and burning myself out with all of this content that's being put outright.
Dean Soto 0:04:59
Well after a while I definitely noticed when people did. When content was being made on a regular basis, people did interact and found it valuable. You're always your worst critic. And so, I'm thinking, “Whatever it's not that big of a deal. I'm not that great at whatever it is I'm trying to explain.”
Dean Soto 0:05:29
But over and over again as long as the content was being put out, people were refining value of some sort over time. But I still would consistently stop. I would consistently just put something out and then stop. I was a good consistent stopper because I really didn't have a system for all of that content.
Dean Soto 0:05:54
Fast forward today, I have a system that was developed by me as well as it was developed by — it was actually refined by my core 5 staff really really well. It was made into something that's really really awesome.
Dean Soto 0:06:19
So, whenever these podcasts go out, they do the blog post into transcripts. They do the show notes. They do all this different stuff and it turns into something that's really awesome.
Dean Soto 0:06:31
That allows me to focus on the content while they create the backbone around it and what's been really neat is that it's allowed me to sow seeds.
Dean Soto 0:06:47
It's allowed me to sow a lot of different seeds whether it's video or audio. I'm going to be into some more video type stuff so that when videos come out there will be clips and there'll be different things like that based around those videos and put on two different types of content syndication formats and things like that.
Dean Soto 0:07:16
But one thing that has allowed me to see is that the more you sow, the more that you're going to reap. Now, one of my mentors Jermaine Griggs mentioned before is that done is better than perfect. Done is always better than perfect. The more that you are able to just put something out there and obviously you don't want it to be crappy but the more that you're able to put something out there for the world to see and the more chances there are that somebody's going to see it and find value.
Dean Soto 0:07:57
In fact, just recently I've been hammering LinkedIn with content because I want out not just because of lead generation which that's a big part is there's literally no way I can continue doing what I'm doing unless I had customers coming through multiple channels right.
Dean Soto 0:08:17
There is literally no way it's just not going to happen. It's not possible. But I hammer LinkedIn because that is where I can meet and interact with my target market — the people that would find the most value in what I'm talking about, what I'm saying, what I'm doing.
Dean Soto 0:08:47
So much so that not only — so I'll give you kind of a seek the secret sauce at least for now of the way that we target LinkedIn and I might actually end up changing this in the next few weeks to even be more powerful because I have been seeing results and I have been able to bless people who have become clients of ProSulum through LinkedIn — through that avenue.
Dean Soto 0:09:24
The first and foremost is that I try to automate as much as possible the actual connections in LinkedIn so this is my way of sowing seeds. If you've listened to past podcasts you'll know that there are three ways of automation.
Dean Soto 0:09:47
There's the manual automation — something that has to be done by someone. There's automatic automation, the technological automation where something can be done completely by a computer program.
Dean Soto 0:09:59
And then, there's the hybrid automation where part of it's done by a computer program or some kind of automated thing. And the other part of it's done by the person.
Dean Soto 0:10:18
It's kind of a mix of the two. Well, with the LinkedIn automation I utilized a lot of stuff to connect with people — to reach out and endorse people, add value to people's lives and then I also have a calendar that is more of a manual automation thing where I create content based around a specific topic every day and that content all of that allows me to connect with the right people.
Dean Soto 0:10:50
It allows me to scale. It allows me to scale the messages that I put out on a regular basis and it allows me to then sell over time the concepts that I have so that's to bless more and more people over time.
Dean Soto 0:11:20
So, all that being said, I have all these things going on from that automation standpoint. I create all this content, and put all this stuff out and this is not about me.
Dean Soto 0:11:40
Look at all the stuff that I'm doing you can do this too in your respective platform where you can utilize all these different tools to kind of till the soil so to speak. And then so when you are planting seeds when you are putting content out there when you are asking for a sale when you are talking about your business the soil is already tilled so that you've given so much value ahead of time.
Dean Soto 0:12:07
When somebody's ready to buy, they buy not because you had to sell them on the spot and you know they didn't have buyer's remorse and things like that but because you have given so much value ahead of time that they are they have really now had no choice not to buy because they see that, “Wow if you're giving away all this value why would I not — like, whatever I'm buying from you has to be even better, right?”
Dean Soto 0:12:38
What's the point of all this? The whole point of all this is that once you have developed kind of a system like a backbone to keep. to that where you know where you're gonna send people in order for them to purchase and to put fuel into the car that is your business once you have figured that out. And the more that you can put ideas out there on a regular basis and it could be short short short ideas.
Dean Soto 0:13:12
If you ever go to my LinkedIn profile and you check the content that goes out, it's relatively short like all my videos are less than 10 minutes long. Purposely because of LinkedIn all of my posts are relatively short.
Dean Soto 0:13:31
I share a lot of different things that are interesting to me and comment on them — kind of curate them. And it's through that — it's through that that I'm able to share, I'm able to get people on board on my mentality — and kind of indoctrinated into a different way of thinking that's going to benefit them and over time it just means more and more clients more and more customers.
Dean Soto 0:14:10
and so what can you do right now in your perspective foot platform whether it's LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or wherever where you can just continually sow seeds where you can continually sow more and more seeds that allow your company to grow that allows your company to bless other people.
Dean Soto 0:14:31
I want to challenge you to do that right now. I do have this one calendar. It's not mine and I'm not gonna get any affiliate income from this at all but I think her name is Lindsey Padilla it's on Wednesday. It's called On Course Social. She has a really good calendar for like the next three years It will give you ideas of what to post every day for your social media accounts and I found that it has been awesome so definitely want to check that out and yeah I would just Google search her. I think it's Lindsay Padilla. Do a Google search on that pretty awesome resource. It works well and it only gives you one tip a day so you gotta have to fill in everything else. But it's a great start.
Dean Soto 0:15:37
What can you do? What seeds can use today in your business and in your platform that allows other people to find a ton of value in what you're doing? All right, so this is Dean Soto I'm gonna finish the rest of my day and I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Have you ever felt stuck on your plateau like you’re no longer progressing? At some point, you must have whether it be in life or business. What if I told you that your plateau is not an impediment but a nesting ground for your power?
In this episode, Dean talks about how to make the best out of the time spent on your plateau to prepare yourself for the next level.
Automated Transcription Below
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. We're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Dean Soto 0:15
Today's topic is this: Your Power Comes From Your Plateau. That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:29
Well good morning everybody. We're on a walk with, yes, you guessed it. The Luna Meister. We're out and about with all the yellow, white, and purple flowers.
Dean Soto 0:43
Just absolutely loving all of this. She found something that she really wanted to sniff. So she's out there sniffing. Oh, man.
Dean Soto 0:54
Well for those who do not know. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is very difficult. So for the last ... wow. It has been going on for a year. It will be for one year. Wow. For a year. I have been practicing, Oh no. It's been a year. Because I started in February last year.
Dean Soto 1:21
Over a year I've been practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Something that I had always wanted to try and got into it because of the Wake-Up Warrior program. All of the Wake Up Warrior stuff. It was one of my goals.
Dean Soto 1:38
Last year about February, one of my targets was to compete in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament. That actually happened within 90 days of setting that target. I competed in my first Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament, ended up getting bronze, on no Gi, and ended up not getting anything on Gi as a uniform that you use in jujitsu.
Dean Soto 2:05
No-Gi is basically without that uniform. I ended up getting a bronze and, it was something that was really cool. It was a pivotal moment in my life.
Dean Soto 2:18
I never thought I would continue and just keep on going, but it's something that has continued to challenge. It’s Like chess. It is a chess match every time and you learn more and more every single time.
Dean Soto 2:35
One of the things when it comes to jiu-jitsu is that you have these plateaus. For a couple, I want to say a couple of months now, this has happened two or three times.
Dean Soto 2:54
I'd get to the gym, we'd be doing our normal training class. Basically, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the normal training class is where you're actually learning something. You’re hitting. You're being taught something.
Dean Soto 3:14
On Saturdays mornings we roll. It's just sparring the entire day or in the entire time that you're, at the class. You're rolling, you're just putting into practice everything that you had learned.
Dean Soto 3:33
Well, Over and over again, I would consistently get submitted by the same guys who had been, they'd been doing this much longer than I have, but they were continually submitting me. I'm like, gosh, and submitting means they won.
Dean Soto 4:01
They either got me in an arm lock or a choke. I'm like, man, I just am not getting better. One guy, in particular, he's our resident blue belt in jiu-jitsu. If you don't know it, there are only a few belts in jiu-jitsu. It's White, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Black. Okay. They do have a red belt, which is like you have to be in for like 40 years or something like that to get it. But it's very hard. It takes a long time to get from belt to belt.
Dean Soto 4:37
Just going from white belt to blue belt, it's a bit of a... you definitely have learned a ton. Okay. You're much better than your typical white belt.
Dean Soto 4:52
All that being said, the resident blue belt — he would submit me usually in 15 to 30 seconds, maybe a minute if I was lucky. It was just getting so frustrating and so I would take a little break from it.
Dean Soto 5:10
I'd be speaking at work or whatever, take a break, go back. It was just — it was happening and happening. One thing that happens in jiu-jitsu is that these plateaus — I think that they're there, they naturally happen because they do two things.
Dean Soto 5:35
One is I think that they provide a constraint and it allows you also to build up different types of muscle memory for the different things that you're learning. No, I don't know. That's just a theory.
Dean Soto 5:52
The last week or two, Oh my gosh, the same guy who was submitting me, in 30 seconds, couldn't submit me at all in five minutes. Certain people who I have gone against over and over again and lost, I've been able to submit.
Dean Soto 6:22
My body would start doing things that I knew in my head and I had tried and failed, but now have been able to actually pull off and it was like a switch. Just flipping. How the heck did that happen? I don't know.
Dean Soto 6:47
It's happened two or three times in this whole ordeal, this whole learning, resilient jiu-jitsu to the point where now I go in against some of the younger folk. I can't believe I say that. 39 he's going against some of the younger folk where I would be, panting and I would be like, I'd have in the back of my mind they're going to outmaneuver me. They're going out.
Dean Soto 7:23
I do all these different things. Like as they're doing whatever they're doing, I'm just calmly rolling him over, calmly putting them into a submission hold calmly doing things where I'm like, what the heck happened?
Dean Soto 7:45
This breakthrough of plateaus has happened over and over again in this particular— However if I look back on life. If I look back on business, spirituality, my body, my health, these plateaus come very often and a lot of the times we see these as bad things. We see this plateau as a bad thing.
Dean Soto 8:25
Gosh, I feel stuck.
Dean Soto 8:30
Well in that instance, there are certain things that you are learning. There are certain things that you are learning in those plateaus that you might not even realize that you are learning.
Dean Soto 8:46
People who are Pro Sulum customers who have a Virtual Systems Architect, a lot of the times they become customers because they're in a spot where they cannot get out of this constraint — time.
Dean Soto 9:03
The constraint is they're working tons. A lot in their business. Or the constraint is that they're tired of when they stop working, their business starts declining and they see that plateau. They've been in that plateau for a while.
Dean Soto 9:24
I've had one recent customer, who just came on, who had been researching a lot of different ways to start systemizing what he's doing a lot of different ways, but never really pulled the trigger and that's not because he's not action-oriented, but because during that plateau process there's something about that process about being in that particular situation.
Dean Soto 9:54
There's something about that situation where the wheat is being separated from the chaff, right. The good is being separated from the bad, the good idea, the good system, the good thing is being separated from the bad and there's a problem, right? There's a problem and obviously there's a possibility of fixing that problem.
Dean Soto 10:27
For me in jiu-jitsu, the problem is getting submitted by these bigger guys, these or these guys that have been around for much longer than I have and there's the possibility of improving my technique against these guys or finding some way to improve my technique against these guys. But often what's lacking is that path that's in the middle.
Dean Soto 10:56
What path do you take to get there? And this is something I learned. That is the whole framework. There is something I learned from Garrett J White at Wake Up Warrior. Very powerful.
Dean Soto 11:09
You have a problem. You have the possibility, but you need to have that path, and not all paths going to take you to that possibility, right? Not all paths are going to take you there. Some paths might take longer, some paths might take shorter, some paths might not take you there at all.
Dean Soto 11:28
During that plateau, the reason not to be scared, the reason not to fear, and to think that you're going to always be stuck there is because that process is there to help you to make a good decision. On which path to take to reach possibility.
Dean Soto 11:55
Now for me with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. One, there were a couple of paths that I took. I took a course, an online course called Keenan Online. K E E N A N Online. It's Keenan Cornelius. His course, super cheap, but he goes through pretty much every technique in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And so that helped out a lot.
Dean Soto 12:29
Then, there's an app on the iPhone called BJJ over 40, so Brazilian jiu-jitsu over 40. That might sound like, well, why do I want to learn how old guys do jujitsu? But one of the things is the stuff that he teaches works for everybody, but the whole idea, the whole point is to use as little energy and as little movement as possible.
Dean Soto 12:59
Those two things over time completely allowed me to take that path to the possibility of defeating those people in Brazilian jiu-jitsu who had been plaguing me for so long. But the same thing goes with business.
Dean Soto 13:19
For me, I did not want to hire a massive amount of employees. I did not want to make seven figures plus in revenue over time, I did not want to have to deal with W2's and deal with payroll and worker's compensation and insurance and all this other stuff. I had to find courses and mentors that taught me how to do that,
Dean Soto 13:57
How to build systems — how to build automated systems through technology or systems that other people use. I had to find that path, right? So the plateau gives you the power to find the path to the possibility. That lets you solve your problem.
Dean Soto 14:26
What are you plateaued in right now in this week? What I want you to do is enjoy the plateau and start researching ways to get on the path to getting to the next level of that plateau, but don't get anxious about it.
Dean Soto 14:50
Don't get frustrated by it. Enjoy it. Enjoy being on the plateau because just knowing that this is going to lead you to the next level, whether it will, whether it's now or a week from now or a month from now, you will reach the next level.
Dean Soto 15:13
It's just right now your subconscious is finding the absolute best way to do that, and so just trust that God, your subconscious, your talent is helping you to find a way to break through to get to that next level. All right.
Dean Soto 15:35
This is Dean Soto. Go to google.com type in Freedom In Five Minutes podcast and it will come up with your favorite podcast apps. Go and subscribe.
Dean Soto 15:47
The more you subscribe, actually, that was about to say the more you subscribe, the more value you're getting. You can only subscribe once but go ahead. Subscribe. The more that you listen, the more value you're going to get. So go check that out. Go to ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com.
Dean Soto 16:05
If you want a Virtual Systems Architect that can literally automate your entire business in five minutes — in as little as five minutes a day, go check that out. Get yourself a Virtual Systems Architect and I will see you, my friends in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Change is inevitable. At some point in your business, you will be forced to change mindsets, habits, or principles.
If you want to change your habits, place yourself in a totally new environment, and get used to it as quickly as you can. The more that you restrict yourself or your business in situations like that in short periods, the more you are able to grow!
Automated Transcript Below Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, Founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. Today's topic is this: "Getting Used to Your Environment as Quickly as Possible." That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:32
Good morning. We're here with the Luna Meister. Luna, are you here? Why are you running away from me? Where are you going? Go get them, Luna. Go get whoever you're sniffing out.
Dean Soto 0:44
Good morning. It's starting to get a little warmer here in Central California. And the rain is not coming. What the heck guys the rain is not coming. A very dry season again. Anyway, not to be depressed or depressing at all. Anyway, I just wanted to say good morning to you and do a little podcast. What I like to call a podcast episode. So not too long ago, I had been building this cat house for a while.
Dean Soto 1:24
It's a four by four foot wide by eight feet long by I think the top of the cat house is probably around six feet from the very top of the gable. I've been building that thing for a while and I had actually completed it. And it was the first time I ever did a gabled roof. Right?
Dean Soto 1:50
If you don't know what a gabled roof is... So, a gabled roof, if you don't know what that is, it's basically like an angled roof with those composite shingles. It's kind of like what you see in every typical suburban house. And it's gabled so that the water runs off it or the snow runs off it and so on and so forth. Right?
Dean Soto 2:07
So it's angled. Well, it's the first time I've ever done that. And it was cool. It took a lot longer. There was this one YouTube channel that I watched. And the guy was like, "Yeah, well, it took about a good eight hours to do."
Dean Soto 2:22
Of course, he had been building all his life. So he went super fast. Whereas, I literally took like two weeks to do. But it's done. It's awesome. It is fantastic. And so what did we need for this cat house? Well, we needed some cats, right? We need to get some feral cats in there. And I talked about this in podcasts. I talked about this in a couple of things.
Dean Soto 2:46
So we were like, you know, where do we get these feral cats? We were looking at the SPCA. We're looking at a bunch of other places and a lot of the time, these are gonna be barn cats. They're cats that are gonna be out and about in a barn right there.
Dean Soto 3:01
They are essentially not the type of cats that are going to be in our house as pets and so on and so forth. And because they're barn cats as well, as long as I have my gate, also my fencing all secure and everything like that, they'll be good but you never know. There are coyotes. There are owls.
Dean Soto 3:24
I saw an owl last night, and you could hear it. We have great horned owls, we have all these other different things here that would love to snack on a little kitty. And so these places that we wanted to get cats that were looking for a home. As far as I could tell so far, we still keep on looking because we want to get more.
Dean Soto 3:53
As far as I could tell so far, these places want you to sign a thing saying you're going to have them indoors. You're going to have them this way. You are going to do that. It's a lot. I mean, it sucks because you think that a lot of these places these cats are just going to end up getting euthanized that sucks.
Dean Soto 4:20
You know, why not let the ones that are totally feral — that are not going to go well with a family — let them be workers right here and have a good life. They have some good Meow Mix and some water and some gophers to snack on and they'd be very happy kitties.
Dean Soto 4:45
Well, all these places it was just very hard to find any — It was hard to find anywhere where you could get a cat without having all these stipulations and so on.
Dean Soto 5:01
Hmm. I think I might be getting a little sick.
Dean Soto 5:07
So I go and finally we look at Craigslist. And every now and then I check on it, but we had this lady who had five cats available. Five feral cats were available. And we're like, "Wow, cool."
Dean Soto 5:22
So we contact them and these cats are awesome. They could only catch two of them on one day. So we had to come the next day and get the other two. But we have four cats in our cat house. And these are super nice cats I should say.
Dean Soto 5:42
I should say this. They are good cats. There is one that is very nice. The other ones aren't used to humans. But one of the things we had to do is we had to literally lock them up in the cat house for about a week and a day — about a week. And why did we have to do that? Why did we have to lock them into the cat house?
Dean Soto 6:12
Well, the way that — so cats are very territorial. And the way they get used to a place, you know. If we were to bring them into the cat house and just say, "Hey, here's your new home, they would have bolted and tried to get back to their owners."
Dean Soto 6:33
So by putting them in that situation where they literally could not leave that cat house. They were locked up in there you can see their little beady eyes staring out of the little windows and stuff like that. that I put on the thing.
Dean Soto 6:47
But there were no exits other than a side door that I built so that we can change our kitty litter. We could do a bunch of other things. So they're stuck in there. I just feel so bad for them. Oh my gosh, those little kitties but the thing was that after about a week I was like, "Okay let's try and let them out."
Dean Soto 7:23
So I go into the cat house and I mean they are freaked out because I'm at the cat house and I have my saws off. I'm starting to make holes into these little like six and a quarter-inch holes into the cathouse. So that one on each side, one higher one kind of up high, the other one down low. And, and I made these holes so that they can come and go and actually nothing will be able to — that a predator can go in and get into the cat house.
Dean Soto 8:02
I mean the holes are just way too small. So if a coyote or a fox or something like that tries to come in and get it ain't happening. Ain't happening. And so, I'm doing that and the cats are in the corner, they're like, "What is going on? This thing is so loud."
Dean Soto 8:25
And I pop one hole, and then I go and do another one on the other side. And all of a sudden, I see that there are only three cats. And I'm like, "Huh, that's interesting."
Dean Soto 8:37
And then two cats, and then one cat. And that one cat stayed for a long, long time like it's just sitting there going, "What do I do? What is going on?" And eventually, it left and I never saw a single one again.
Dean Soto 8:57
Or so it seemed. So later that night I could not find any of them at all.
Dean Soto 9:03
Later that night, I went and put on my headlamp and started going across the property. We have tons of trees, tons of places to hide. So I put my headlamp on. The cool thing about cats is if you shine lights, you can see their eyes. So I'm shining my lights and guess what I see? What I thought was maybe they started running back home. What did I see? I saw four little beady eyes staring at me from different locations. Very, very cool. Which means that they are used to that area. Okay. They were very uncomfortable when they first got there, but they were forced to be in that area for a week.
Dean Soto 9:53
And that's something that we — if we want to get used to something — if you want to get used to an idea or get used to a habit we have to do to ourselves... We have to force ourselves to be in a very different spot, a very uncomfortable spot.
Dean Soto 10:12
So like when it comes to systems, a lot of the time we have to force ourselves to create those systems and let somebody else do them. Even if it's uncomfortable, even if it seems like "Oh, I could do this way better than this person, I don't trust this person."
Dean Soto 10:30
We have to allow it. We have to have the ability to. We have to be okay with letting that environment grow around us. Okay. And so, putting things in places like, "I'm going to create a system a day, and I'm going to delegate all of those processes to somebody and I'm going to let them do it no matter what. And we're going to see what the result is. That is where we have a massive habit change. And we want to have massive habit changes.
Dean Soto 11:10
The more that we are able to put ourselves in situations like that and stay in situations like that. The more we're going to grow. The more we're going to see that by doing that, we change our entire environment around us and we get used to it. We get used to those customers on our end, that despite us even forcing them to agree that they will and they don't. They end up having no results or bad results. Or they end up just burning out. Their Virtual Systems Architect or two or three. And we have to cut them off as a customer.
Dean Soto 12:09
It's those people who will refuse to put themselves in a brand new environment and stick with that brand new environment that have a hard time getting different results and they've always been getting right.
Dean Soto 12:32
So my challenge to you this week is if you want to change a habit, get into a different environment. If you want to get fit, go join a Jiu-Jitsu gym. You know Gracie. Or if you're in Central California, Ultimate Martial Arts. Or whatever CheckMat because now you have accountability with other people. Right? Putting yourself in a different environment or CrossFit gym, something where there's accountability. If it's business, join some kind of accountability group. If it's marriage, start seeing a counselor and agree to a specific amount of time. If it's your spirituality, just sign up for a retreat or something like that.
Dean Soto 13:24
I just spilled coffee all over my phone. Please Oh, over my hand. This is Dean Soto Freedom In Five Minutes. I will catch you on the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
How much time do you spend watching the news every day? If you spend several hours a day watching the news on TV, then you have probably noticed how much scare-mongering there is in the media.
Of course, not all news stories are fake or sensationalized out of proportion. But the fact is, the news is sprinkled with drama so that it is better consumed by more viewers. That’s just the reality of television.
In today’s episode, we will look at the effects of being exposed to daily fear-mongering of the media. Learn the negative effects of fear if you let it rule over your life and how to change your mindset to be free from being constantly fearful.
Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey this is Dean Soto — founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Dean Soto 0:13
Today's topic is this: Stop Hypnotizing Yourself into Being Fearful. That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:29
Good morning! Good morning! Luna meister is out there. She's out there somewhere. What are you doing Luna? Are you hunting a fox? I don't know.
Dean Soto 0:39
Once again we are out on the land and enjoying the day. It's a good morning, I got my coffee — my sugar-less coffee. Man, I am not going to have sugar until — I mean, I have sugar on Sundays but the rest of the time is a sugar-free week until late April. April 20-something, I think. 26 or something like that. I have another Jiu-jitsu tournament. I want to be in tip-top shape! Tip top shape! You know that is. You know how it is.
Dean Soto 1:19
And yeah, so if you have not subscribed to the podcast, go to Google. Type in Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast and your favorite Apple — your ever favorite Apple — your favorite app! Maybe Apple Podcasts, it might be Spotify. It might be whatever. Stitcher. I don't know, but go there. Subscribe. You're gonna love it. It's gonna be great. It's amazing. So go check that out.
Dean Soto 1:53
I have this friend. We'll just call this person a friend who's near and dear to me. This friend has a lot of talent. A lot of talent. Lots of hidden talents in general. And for a long time, he has been able to use those talents in various ways to make money for himself and his family.
Dean Soto 2:31
One of the things that is very unique about him is that whenever I see him, he is watching the news of some sort. That's his thing. He watches the news, many hours a day.
Dean Soto 2:49
And on the news, usually, usually it's something about President Trump — whether you like him or you hate him. Usually it's something about how evil and horrible he is. And if it's not about President Trump, it's about whatever is going wrong in the world. It might be Coronavirus, it might be SARS, SRS, it might be H1N1.
Dean Soto 3:19
How many different things did we have in the last decade? Bird flu, SARS, swine flu, mad cow disease, whatever it might be. It might be one of those things. The ozone layer is leaving. The ozone layer is coming back. The ice caps are melting. The ice caps are coming back. The world's gonna end. And he watches this for hours, and hours, and hours and hours.
Dean Soto 3:46
And whenever I see him — I visit him and we talk — it inevitably... the conversation turns to one of those topics. A Doomsday topic. A topic whether it's political, economic, health — whatever it might be. it is the end of the world. The world is over.
Dean Soto 4:13
And this has been happening for the last two decades. Man, it's been happening for at least the last two decades. So this impending doom, these conversations, literally the same conversations just about every time we talk, they echo and they repeat over and over and over again. That soon, some terrible disaster — some catastrophe is going to come.
Dean Soto 4:46
And so we'll be talking about family, we'll be talking about whatever. And then all of a sudden, it's like, "Did you hear what Trump did? Did you hear what he did?"
Dean Soto 5:00
For me I would typically — for me, I'm like, "Yeah, not really."
Dean Soto 5:07
"Oh, well, he said that he contacted the Martians and the Martians contacted him back and we're all doomed they're going to invade anytime soon. Anytime soon they're ready. They're gonna invade."
Dean Soto 5:27
"Oh, well that sucks."
Dean Soto 5:32
"Oh you don't care about it, do you? You don't care about the martians. The Martians are coming!"
Dean Soto 5:38
No. Right now, I'm actually caring about my chickens. I want to start breeding some chickens and I just finished my cat house and I need to be getting some cats. So that we can start getting rid of some of these rodents.
Dean Soto 5:58
"Well, just pay attention. You gotta be informed. You have to..." and that's what he says whenever I say that.
Dean Soto 6:06
"You gotta know what's going on in the world around you."
Dean Soto 6:09
And I'm like, "Oh, yes, like the nuclear holocaust that was supposed to happen for the last 50 or 60 years or swine flu or H1N1 or whatever."
Dean Soto 6:24
"Well, that's only because we averted those disasters. If we didn't know what was going on, if we didn't know what the television was telling us ... that black box that I watch, if we didn't actually know that was a possibility it would have been a disaster."
Dean Soto 6:44
And it's over and over and over again, literally the same thing to the point where it affects family life, it affects life with his relatives.
Dean Soto 6:58
So what's happening every day? Rather than building, rather than growing, rather than being productive — and trust me, I used to fall for this a lot. I used to watch so much television. Oh my gosh. Literally just programmed every day. Programmed every day.
Dean Soto 7:28
You know, every day, this hour of nonsense. This hour of — and you might be thinking "Well Dean, come on. Coronavirus that's not nonsense." That's not nonsense. That's a real thing and Kobe getting struck by lightning 15 times. Like, I know he died in a helicopter crash supposedly. So-called the helicopter crash. But the likelihood of that happening, getting struck by lightning 15 times with millions of helicopters out there. All the helicopters grounded prior to that, and they shouldn't have been out there in the first place. I don't know. Call me a conspiracy theorist. I don't care.
Dean Soto 8:21
The likelihood is very, very slim. Now, if I were a famous person. If I were a famous person that couldn't walk down the street without being hassled every single day — every single minute of every single day, I would probably fake my death too.
Dean Soto 8:44
I know you're probably thinking, "Oh you're probably insane. Oh, Dean's crazy. He's crazy, I tell you!" But that's what I believe.
Dean Soto 8:52
And, you know, social pressure, all other stuff, don't care. The facts are more on my side anyway. The likelihood is extremely, extremely. Just go watch the interview of the husband — the very first interview he did as he was sitting down. He's wearing sunglasses and tell me... I want you to ask yourself. Why? Why does he laugh so much during that interview?
Dean Soto 9:25
If his wife — I know if my wife just died? If my wife just died, I would be distraught. I wouldn't even interview. Are you kidding me. I'd be like, leave me alone. You know, I'm grieving. I haven't even gone to the funeral yet. Are you kidding me? Don't talk to me. Talk to me in two weeks, three weeks, four weeks a month. There's no way like, Get away from me. But he's there. chuckling away. So, anyway, you take that for what it is. That's your job. Your daily dose of conspiracy.
Dean Soto 10:02
Alright, so um, but yeah so here's the deal is that every day you're getting fed — you know, he's getting fed this daily dose of fear. And that translates into a lot of his interaction with family.
Dean Soto 10:10
You know, "Don't travel to this place."
Dean Soto 10:25
Oh, by the way, like the best places to travel whenever the news is saying, "Don't go to this place." It's the best place and the best time to travel because it's the cheapest and you can get so many deals.
Dean Soto 10:39
And I won't say that the reports are totally fake. But a lot of the time they are. The news has to have something. There's been several times where I've traveled when it was supposed to be dangerous or supposed to be you know, dumb to do. But I got some amazing, smoking deals and it wasn't at all what they said.
Dean Soto 11:05
Anyway, okay. This is not this is not Conspiracy In Five Minutes. This is Freedom In Five Minutes. So anyway he goes and it just affects a lot of what he does. So it affects traveling, what to eat, what to buy, what to wear, who to talk to, how to talk, what to say, what not to say. All of these things are affected in his mind.
Dean Soto 11:30
And so, when I talk to them and I visit them, it becomes a point where you can tell that he's almost paralyzed, and I was the same way. I was paralyzed when I was younger. I used to think that man, we were going to get nuked by Russia. We were going to get nuked by whomever. Because now we have these intercontinental ballistic missiles and the earthquake in California is gonna take out half of California on the San Andreas Fault. The Bermuda Triangle we can get lost in there.
Dean Soto 12:11
Here's the thing about all these things, I used to get so afraid. And it would keep me from doing certain things. Even whether it's directly or indirectly. That's not a fun place to be.
Dean Soto 12:24
So why is this important? It's important because you have to — as business people, as husbands and wives, as people who are building legacies, we have to be very careful what type of fear we bring into our world and into our mind. Because there are a lot of people who live off of fear. And there's a lot of people who make a lot of money off of fear.
Dean Soto 12:54
I'm not gonna say anything, but it's a very good brand for Corona, now that this virus came out, right, it's very good. It's very good from a medical, pharmaceutical sales point of view to have masks being sold, right?
Dean Soto 13:18
I even have some friends who have jumped on board that bandwagon and have been making money. Right. Now, I'm not going to say that's a conspiracy, but there are people who profit off of fear. There are people who profit off of fear. There are organizations, governmental organizations, that profit off of fear. Just, you know, the whole "this day and age with terrorism" and so on and so forth. It keeps a lot of governmental organizations alive. That's just the way it is.
Dean Soto 13:50
I mean, do you really want somebody — if terrorism went away, like it did in the 1950s and 60s when it was not that big of a deal? 60s, 70s 80s 90s? I mean, it was somewhat there, but not enough to have the TSA, right. And have Homeland Security.
Dean Soto 14:14
Are you going to tell all of them, "Hey, your jobs are gone."
Dean Soto 14:19
That's uh, I doubt people would want to do that in the first place. It is very rough saying, you know, "Go find another job."
Dean Soto 14:27
But a lot of people profit off of fear. The more that you are afraid, the less you create — the less you build. You want to be building. I have fears every day. Every day. I have customers coming in. I have customers who cancel. I have customers who have issues. How I respond to all of that directly affects my business.
Dean Soto 14:54
And so, if I were constantly afraid — which I was for a long time with my business — everything was gonna come crashing down. I wouldn't keep building. I would find an excuse to go drink or go play games all day or to do whatever. But that is the point of fear. It is to paralyze you and make you worthless — to make you stop doing stuff.
Dean Soto 15:22
And if you look back on the things that you were afraid of, if you look back on SARS, swine flu and H1N1. When you look back on the Bermuda Triangle, nuclear war, and all of that, how much of that actually happened?
Dean Soto 15:38
Pretty much 0.00000001% of people were affected by any of those viruses. And zero on the nuclear side, there hasn't been a nuclear bomb detonated in war since World War Two right?
Dean Soto 16:01
So, all that being said, What are you afraid of? Right now? I want you to rather than saying, "I'm gonna stop being afraid. I'm gonna stop being afraid of this thing." I want you to do something. Build something, create something that is what will take you to the next level.
Dean Soto 16:22
All right, this has been Dean Soto of Freedom In Five Minutes. I've got to go watch my daughter's presentation. Her speech for 4 H that she's giving. Two of my daughters. And I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Nobody and nothing is perfect. As a matter of fact, perfectionism is the lowest standard to set yourself because it does not exist. Perfectionism is unobtainable, so it does not exist.
Besides, you do not need to do something perfectly because 90% of the time, it’s going to work anyway even if there are a few mistakes. The more that you can avoid paralysis by analysis, the more you can get things done and connect with your people.
In this episode, let us look at ways to do tasks better and faster so you can learn what works and what doesn't right away— rather than just sit there, wonder, hope, and be scared of submitting imperfect tasks.
Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com. And we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. Today's topic is this:
Dean Soto 0:21
Done is Always Better than Perfect. That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:34
We're out again with the Luna Meister - hanging & chilling like villains. And today's a good day yet again. Another good day. Who would have imagined? It's another good day in Central California.
Dean Soto 0:48
We're running and walking around on the acreage. We have snakes now. Snakes are starting to show back up. Starting to show back up. Rattlesnakes, the good kind of snakes, and all of those buggers are starting to show up again.
Dean Soto 1:07
So yay... That's why we got some cats. We got more cats. We want more cats. Give me as many cats as possible to keep them snakes away. I want them gone.
Dean Soto 1:26
So a couple of things have been happening. So I've been lately doing a lot of LinkedIn marketing, and I have just been using it a lot more. I've been scheduling posts. I've been really trying to build my presence on LinkedIn and doing everything from automation to different types of automation tips, different types of scheduling, different types of things like that. All the way to reaching out to people and connecting or endorsing all this other stuff. And a lot of it is automated, as usual — per normal Freedom In Five Minutes and Pro Sulum fashion. Everything has a system, everything is automated, right?
Dean Soto 2:20
And so, one of the cool things about that is really just seeing that the more consistent you are, the more that you just put stuff out there. The more things happen. And this is something that a lot of people have had trouble in the past. So anyway, let me get to the story. I'm gonna get to the story. I'm not gonna just start to lecture.
Dean Soto 2:50
Alright, so there were a couple of different things. One, I got this content scheduling calendar, I've forgotten who the name was where I got it. It was called On Board or OnBoard Social Media or On-Board Social or something like that.
Dean Soto 3:09
I bet you if you were to Google that you'd be able to find it. But OnBoard Social is a cool little calendar that I got for 27 bucks. I found it off of an Instagram ad. And normally I don't.
Dean Soto 3:23
Normally I don't get stuff like that. I'm not a big social media type guy. All of my social media stuff in the past that has worked has been through one-on-one connections, where I knew somebody was gonna be somewhere. I reach out to them on social media. I go talk to them, meet them, and then now I can talk to him on social media from then on, right?
Dean Soto 3:45
Well, so I got this calendar, and it's pretty cool for basically the next three years. It gives you an idea of what to write and what to talk about during that day. And then I scatter in a couple of things. So what I do with social media is the first thing I do. So I use Hootsuite. Hootsuite is the major tool that I use just because I like that they have auto-scheduling,
Dean Soto 4:20
I am auto-scheduling it because you have Buffer...you can select what times you want things to be scheduled. They have a whole bunch of different – So, Buffer is a different app, I should say. You have Buffer, which is a different app.
Dean Soto 4:33
You have a whole bunch of different other apps that allow you to create a schedule. I don't want to create a schedule baby. I just want to press the button, let it schedule whatever for me and let me move on my way. That's what I want. I don't want any other funny business.
Dean Soto 4:34
Okay, just let me press the button. You figure out what the best time is and let's go So, I get that. So I have Hootsuite. I got that calendar.
Dean Soto 5:05
The cool thing about that calendar too is that it follows a system. It's called ACES that she created. So ACES. So A C E S it's an acronym. It stands for authority. So you have an authority post. The C means connection post. Something that connects people to you. An engagement post where you engage somebody else and you tag somebody else. And then a sizzle post. The sizzle post, I believe only comes after doing the first three a couple of times.
Dean Soto 5:42
So, I want to say it's like every six of the A, C, and E's. You then get the S which is sizzle. Which is talking about your sales — like different types of sales? Things like you know, discovery calls or something, getting somebody to come and opt-in for your email or sale that you have — things like that.
Dean Soto 6:03
And, and so you said that it comes only every once in a while. Okay. So the next thing that — so the cool thing about that is it really gives a really cool and systematic approach to at least having the idea of what I want this day to be around.
Dean Soto 6:34
And so on top of that, I'll have different posts from Mashable. I have different articles. I post different things from all of these different content sites. the Signal Versus Noise, blog, all these different places that I find very interesting posts from. I'll put that out there. Also, I do different quotes from people that are — but then I also do my own quotes. So I'll do my own quotes, which are things like, you know, that's one of the last things that I did was, if you think you're the only one that can do something, you're wrong. It's something in your business, you're wrong. And I believe that.
Dean Soto 7:13
I believe that I am not the only one that can even do these podcasts. That I can actually outsource these podcasts. And guess what I have in the past with the Online Empire Academy, I outsourced my entire podcast to a wonderful guy named Josh Woodward and he did a really fabulous job.
Dean Soto 7:29
Okay. So, I mean, the entire podcast and I'm not joking. The entire — everything from interviews to the podcast itself to the podcast processing. Everything. Okay. So, all of that can definitely be outsourced to somebody else.
Dean Soto 7:52
So, all that being said, one of the things that push when you have a system and you know, you're going to do consistently, the thing that what pushed me was to start putting a whole bunch of content out there. My own content, other people's content.
Dean Soto 8:10
And I actually had somebody who asked me, "Hey, do you actually have a training course on the stuff that you're talking about?"
Dean Soto 8:20
And so, I wrote back and I said, "Well, we usually get people hooked up with VSA's. But I do have a training course."
Dean Soto 8:28
And I gave them a link to the training course. And he started taking training courses. And this is somebody who, you know, he actually works for someone that's very popular — very, very well known. And a super nice guy, and it was awesome.
Dean Soto 8:42
And so he messaged. He actually started taking the course. And then he messaged me back on LinkedIn. Now, this is all just out of the blue. Just all from doing the content stuff. And doing the different types of automation and endorsing and reaching out to people and stuff. He emails me.
Dean Soto 9:00
So he messaged me back on LinkedIn and said, "Hey, your ClickFunnels affiliate badge is on by default."
Dean Soto 9:09
So what ClickFunnels does is, even though you've paid for ClickFunnels, they will put a little badge that pops up by default. It says, "Hey, this was made by ClickFunnels."
Dean Soto 9:23
And I mean, the good thing is that it gives you – and it's like a little affiliate badge so they'll give you credit if someone buys. I actually had someone purchase ClickFunnels and I get monthly revenue from that little badge. But I didn't realize. I actually did not realize that that badge was showing up on all of my course pages. And because it – just by default, you just don't think about it.
Dean Soto 9:47
You don't think of turning that thing off. You think of —, usually a software will be the opposite. It will be default off and you have to choose to have this affiliate badge on. But in this particular circumstance, it defaulted "On". Okay.
Dean Soto 10:06
And so I didn't think about it, I didn't even realize that it was on until he had messaged me. And the thing is that this training course has been up for months. And several people have gone through it.
Dean Soto 10:21
And so he would just say, you know, "It could be a little bit distracting and so on and so forth."
Dean Soto 10:27
And he's totally right. And so I had to go through six different pages and turn the whole thing off. And then I went through all the opt-ins that I had created, and they had the affiliate badge on, and so I turned all those off because it was a pain in the butt.
Dean Soto 10:47
Obviously, I don't want that showing up but it was a pain in the butt getting all that stuff done. But that's not the point. Okay, that's not the point. The point of this is that they were up. The pages were up, people were going through the course.
Dean Soto 11:06
Did he say, "Hey, the affiliate badge is on? I'm not going to go through this course. Because of that, I'm not going to listen to a word you say, you are done. You're a big dum dum. You had the affiliate badge thing up and you obviously are not perfect. So I'm not going to listen to you."
Dean Soto 11:29
Of course not. No. He's like – he basically was being super helpful and helped me to help.
Dean Soto 11:38
He just basically was like, "Hey, you know you have this on. You might want to turn this off because it can be a little distracting."
Dean Soto 11:47
And he just kept going on with the training course. That is awesome. But there are a lot of people, including myself at some point In time, that would have been like, "Well, you should have checked that out in the first place. Oh, you should never put anything out. Unless it's absolutely perfect. You don't have five quality control checks. I have 17 people look at the thing before it goes out."
Dean Soto 12:23
But here's the thing, whether it was perfect or not, the person is still listening to my training course. And still liking it. So I learned this from a mentor of mine named Jermaine Griggs, which I've mentioned several times in the podcast.
Dean Soto 12:42
He learned it from I believe his grandma, that done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. 90% of the time, when you complete something, it's gonna be fine. And if it's not, you know, like, just as in this example, what happened? Nothing, right? Nothing at all.
Dean Soto 13:10
There is nothing that came from this other than me, thanking Him and us continuing to connect even more. Right. And I'll give you one other example. This is an example from a client.
Dean Soto 13:27
So I always tell clients who have our Virtual Systems Architects, that when you're doing these videos, if something is going to be pretty important like it's going to go out to somebody, and you know you want to, you want to make it. You want to make it to where, you know it is going to be perfect most of the time, if not all the time. You know, because you're doing videos and the videos are the ones that you know, you're getting everything documented based on those videos.
Dean Soto 13:58
At the end of the video, you know, you spent five minutes creating that video, just at the end of the video, just say, "Hey, here's the quality control check for this test that you're doing. Every time you're done with this task, I want you to check these three things or check these five things. I want you to check here and here and make sure that everything is correct."
Dean Soto 14:22
And so I had this client who sent a rather than doing a video and creating a process. He sent an email to his Virtual Systems Architect. His VSA at $9.50 per hour — at least as of recording this. Oh, they will automate and systemize everything in your business for you.
Dean Soto 14:50
So he goes and sends this email that kind of outlines what needs to be done for this particular task. Well Because there was no quality control check and because it wasn't as clear as it could be. Because email is like one of the least clear ways of creating a process or a task. Because it was not as clear as it could be. The VSA ended up messing up. And it was essentially a "Thank you." to donors for this nonprofit. So pretty major companies who donated to the nonprofit — the event that they were having. And the email that went out there were these merge fields where it said "(Your Company), (First Name), and so on.
Dean Soto 15:54
So she did the first name. She did all of that, but she accidentally forgot (Your Company). The merge field for (Your Company) Right? So she accidentally forgot that merge field.
Dean Soto 16:10
And so the email went out and said, "Hey, you know, Tim, or whoever it was. Hey, Tim, thank you so much for supporting this nonprofit event. Bah, bah, bah, bah, we couldn't have done it without you, and the support of (Your Company). And it was obvious — it was in red. So it was an obvious merge field thing. Actually, I don't think it was red. I think the feedback back was in red from the person.
Dean Soto 16:45
But uh, so the guy writes back and says — No, so the client writes back to the VSA, copies me, copies the Account Manager and says "Hey, how can I communicate more clearly? What needs to be done here?"
Dean Soto 17:12
Good job my love. Oh, nice. Um, I think — sorry it's chores time. I think feeding Luna should be it. I'll handle the chickens. Yeah, that's it.
Dean Soto 17:36
Um so anyway, he said you know "How can I be more clear? But when he forwarded the email response from his donor... his donor said — because it also requested something from the donor, you know, "Hey, could you do bah bah, bah."
Dean Soto 18:14
The donor just simply said, "Hey, so and so yes. When would you like... when would you need this by?'
Dean Soto 18:22
That's it. The thing wasn't perfect, right? wasn't perfect. It had a merge field thing and still got the job done.
Dean Soto 18:34
The person was just like, "Okay, yeah, no problem. When do you need this?"
Dean Soto 18:38
Almost as if they didn't even notice it. Right. And that's the thing. Yeah, no. Things don't go well. Would it have been better had it been totally perfect? Yeah, of course. But a lot of times when we do stuff, the job still gets done. Right. Everything still gets done.
Dean Soto 18:59
I'm not saying to try and be accurate and perfect or anything like that. But a lot of times we get paralysis by analysis, right? And we don't want to not do something simply because we have 15 people checking it before it goes out.
Dean Soto 19:22
So by the time, it does go out, it's not even fun and valuable anymore. It's not even relevant anymore. And so the more that we are able to take that analysis by paralysis — that paralysis by analysis away we can get more content out there. More things out there. Connect more and reach out to more people. We can do it faster, we can do it better and actually learn what works and what doesn't, rather than just sit there and wonder and hope and be scared and have fear.
Dean Soto 20:05
So done is better than perfect, always. Done is always better than perfect. All right, this is Dean Soto. Freedom In Five Minutes. FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Have you ever met people who give you the wrong idea — or worse, tell you that you are wrong even though you are right? Life is riddled with these types of people and they can be your closest family and friends!
Now, this does not mean that these people are lying to you. Most of them actually mean well. They simply had no idea that they were being untrue. This is simply group thinking. In this episode, Dean talks about how thinking outside the box can lead to better ways of doing things for your business and personal life.
Automated Transcription Below Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto — founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com and we are here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. Today's topic is this: They Lied to You but They had No Idea that They were Dishonest. That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:38
Good morning. Good to be back. Good to be here with you. I'm eating some miner's lettuce. Miner's lettuce is some plant that grows out in the wild where we are at. Right here. So, I'm on my walk with the Luna Meister. We get to enjoy some of this succulent, succulent miner's lettuce.
Dean Soto 1:02
Huh? So delicious.
Dean Soto 1:05
Um, good morning. Luna has not been on a walk in like two days. And she's going cray-cray! She is crazy running around and going nuts! That's what we do. We enjoy that. We allow her to do that. We allow her to be free! Luna be free! Go! Go find them coyotes, doggy! Go get them.
Dean Soto 1:33
So I was a very bad student. I was a very very very bad student as far as I can remember. It was funny I am — as far back as I remember, I just did not fit in well at school. I did not like it. And I don't think it was because I was a dummy — at least I hope I wasn't.
Dean Soto 2:00
When I was younger they were testing me to put me into GATE which is for smart people I guess. And it was funny. I remember I was in the Assistant Principal's office at Clegg Elementary School in Huntington Beach. One of the tests that they gave me, I had apparently passed all their tests. But they gave me this test of putting a puzzle of a girl together — like a little girl. She had a little pink dress or whatever it was. And so funny. And so, they gave me this test. But it wasn't like, you put this puzzle where you have the slots or anything like that. He gave me all the pieces, and I had to do it free form on a table.
Dean Soto 3:10
And so I'm putting the puzzle pieces together. And at the very end, I put the girl's legs so that her legs and her feet were both, you know, attached. And so when I saw her, I put her legs with her feet facing inward. You know, have you ever seen though, you know, in most comics and things like that when the girls are trying to be like very girly and very pretty. They kind of draw them– with their feet kind of inward, right?
Dean Soto 3:47
Oh. Well, that was wrong! At least according to him. So he said, No, no, no. The feet go outward. You cannot be in GATE. You cannot be with smart people.
Dean Soto 4:04
And so I started my journey of absolutely hating and loathing school. At least public school. So from that point forward, it was the beginning of the end. Pretty much every year after year after year after year after year, I was nothing but trouble. I was extremely bored. I just could not handle it, except for the eighth grade.
Dean Soto 4:39
Eighth grade, I've resolved you know — I'm going to actually do the work. I actually learned. I actually did what they wanted me to do because my poor grandma at the time was like, I cannot handle this. So I ended up getting an honor roll in eighth grade. I did really, really well. And I ended up getting into freshman year of college and it was Mr. Wilford of Marina High School, he's probably still there.
Dean Soto 5:08
He taught electronics. I was excited. I was actually pretty excited. I, you know, I'm like, Okay, well, you know, I'll just keep going and keep getting honor rolls. This stuff is gonna be great.
Dean Soto 5:20
And so I took this electronics class. I thought, oh, electronics sounds really interesting. And we got this test. And the test was one of those where you pick the letter, and there's literally no way you can pick the answer. It could be two of the same letters. So say you had, you know, 15 letters, you had 15 or 26 questions and 26 answers, right. And each answer corresponded with a letter in the alphabet.
Dean Soto 5:57
Well, huh, Logically, there would be no way to do a double letter right there in that case, since each one — each answer corresponds to a single letter. It's kind of like a mixed-up / jumble thing.
Dean Soto 6:14
So I went and I finished my test. I almost got a perfect score. And the reason why I did not get a perfect score on this test was that my T — the letter T had a little bit of a hook on it. And so Mr. Wilford said it was wrong. That's an F that you're trying to do right there.
Dean Soto 6:48
I said, No, it's not an F that I'm trying to do. I did an F over here. It could not possibly be an F because you can only have one letter for every answer. I said, sometimes that's just the way my T's come out. It has a tiny little hook.
Dean Soto 7:06
He said, No, that's an F there, that's an F.
Dean Soto 7:09
And I'm like, No, seriously, there, that's not an F. Logically, it cannot be any other thing, but a T.
Dean Soto 7:17
He said, Nope. It's an F. And so you're not going to get that perfect score.
Dean Soto 7:25
And I was livid. I was like, all right, done. You know what? I'm done with this crap. You know, the injustice, the injustice of it all. I'm done. I am not going to. I'm done. I'm done with that. If that's how it's going to be. And that's how it's going to be.
Dean Soto 7:50
And so from then on, once again, back on track to being a horrible, naughty student. Well, all throughout that time, I hear, you're going to fail out of high school, you're not going to be able to get into college. You're not going to get a good job. You're not going to get this. You're not going to... Dean. You're doing it wrong. You're being very bad.
Dean Soto 8:17
And yeah, I mean, yeah, I was disobeying my Grandma at the time. And so, I totally get that. And I understand that. However, the thing was that in my junior year of college, close to my senior years, like the second half of junior, close a senior year in college.
Dean Soto 8:43
They said, Dean, you know what, you're dumb, dumb. You are a dummy, so you're gonna go to adult school.
Dean Soto 8:51
And I'm like, Okay, great. Now, you know, I'm a dum dum.
Dean Soto 8:56
I've already been beaten down already. Might as well beat me down some more, right? Well, I get to an adult school. And it's right next to Merde Park, right where I love to play basketball. I picked up games of basketball. And I get into the adult school and I see it's literally one building, like one small building with an open room, like large desks everywhere.
Dean Soto 9:17
And I'm like, What is this interesting place? So I went in and they gave me an orientation. And they say that, yeah, all you do is you go and get a packet from whatever class you want to get credit for. You get the packet and you start doing the packet. You can spend as much time as you need, just go ahead and start to open it up. And there are teachers on the outside — on the outer rim of the class and just above their thing. It'll say English it will say history, it'll say whatever. They'll be able to help you If you have any questions. They'll also be the ones that grade your tests.
Dean Soto 10:04
And I'm like, So you're telling me that I can just go grab one of these little packets? And if it takes me a week to do it, I get the semester credit?
Dean Soto 10:17
Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. As long as it takes you to actually do it. You get it.
Dean Soto 10:22
I'm like, What the heck? Why did I not do this three years ago? Why did nobody tell me this? They all said you had to go to high school. And I can actually get my college — like I can actually get my high school diploma doing this?
Dean Soto 10:39
Yeah, yeah. Not GED. No, yeah, you can get your high school diploma.
Dean Soto 10:46
What the heck! That's crazy! And so I blew through those packets. And I wish I knew about that earlier.
Dean Soto 10:57
Well, I came to find out that same thing. That same type of thing can happen in college with CLEP testing — college level examination program testing. I did the same thing in college. I'm like, all I have to do is go take this test that's like two hours long, and I'll get credit for my lower-division classes. Yeah. That's awesome. Blew through those — it was like 100 bucks each. I didn't have to pay to have to go to semester's worth of college and anything that I didn't pass, that's when online stuff started coming out. So I went to Coastline Community College for that. I got those out of the way. Oh, it was awesome.
Dean Soto 11:46
But over and over and over again, to this day, even in business. I see that same thing happening. You have to do it this way. This is the way it must be done. Everybody has to do it this way. If you don't do it. You're a bad bad, bad, bad.
Dean Soto 12:03
And 99% of the time, it's wrong. Right? This is all through life.
Dean Soto 12:11
Oh, yeah. You know, one you have to go to college. You're gonna have to pay for all your kids' college. No. Why? Why?
Dean Soto 12:23
Oh, you have to, you know your kids. You have to go to a private school or public school. No. Why?
Dean Soto 12:36
You have to have employees in order to have a big functioning business. Mm-hmm. No. Why?
Dean Soto 12:49
If you need a copywriter or if you need someone who's good at copywriting and sales. You need somebody who has lots of experience in copywriting sales. No Why?
Dean Soto 13:01
Over and over and over again. It's been shown, at least anecdotally, through my experience, that most of the "What we're taught is BS."
Dean Soto 13:20
And so I don't trust Luna out there. She is staring at me.
Dean Soto 13:29
So now, were all those people lying? No. Some might have been, but a lot of these people literally didn't know any better.
Dean Soto 13:41
And there are a lot of things that I do that I didn't know any better. Right? So the idea that ... Here's the main point behind this. We are trusting and when you're listening to what is essentially the status quo, you're gonna find that if you do a little bit of research, just a little bit of research. That's right, honey, that it's wrong. It doesn't mean that they're lying to you. It's just groupthink.
Dean Soto 14:28
And so you want to have as little groupthink as possible, get away from the groupthink. By doing that, you can start building businesses that automate themselves, you can start building businesses that are way different than anything else that's out there.
Dean Soto 14:45
Like, I'm part of a — Yeah, I'll leave this actually for another time.
Dean Soto 14:52
But just start doing things differently. The more different you can be in what you do, the more you're going to see that there are powerful, easy ways, much easier ways to get something done than traditional people think are
Unknown Speaker 15:15
Luna No, no.
Dean Soto 15:21
She's trying to get to our feral cats right now. We're gonna put you in your crate. Go crate. Go crate. If you're gonna do that, you need to go crate. No.
Dean Soto 15:39
But I just challenge you this week. I challenge you this week. You know, if there's something like with your kids or with your business, where you're like, oh, it has to be this way. That you kind of just examine, just examine for a little bit, whether or not it's true that it has to be that way.
Dean Soto 15:59
More often than not, you're going to find that it's absolutely not true. And there's a much faster, easier way of doing stuff. This is why we have the VSAs at ProSulum.com and Freedom In Five Minutes.com, right?
Dean Soto 16:13
A much faster, much better, much cheaper way of building your business than your typical employee. And yeah, I just challenge you this week. Look at the things you're doing and ask yourself, Is there a better way? Is this the only way to do it?
Dean Soto 16:30
You're gonna find just through a little bit of research, that there are much faster, much easier ways often to do things that you thought there was only one way. Alright, this is Dean Soto of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. I will go check you out. Well, you go check that out.
Dean Soto 16:48
But I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Most entrepreneurs do everything themselves and they end up becoming their own bottlenecks in business.
These entrepreneurs have worked long and hard to remove themselves from being the bottleneck but what happens if another staff member becomes the bottleneck instead? How do you remove bottlenecks when the business is booming because of great staff members?
The solution to this problem and more, in today’s Freedom In Five Minutes.
Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto — founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. We're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: "You May not be the Bottleneck. But are You Creating More Bottlenecks in Your Business?" That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:30
Well good morning! We are here once again with the Luna Meister. Luna is having a blast sniffing some — not other dogs. We only have Luna for now. We will get some other dogs soon. But for now, she's just enjoying her doggie day running around the acreage.
Dean Soto 0:53
So, today I woke up to very Interesting happenings. So we have one customer who was absolutely amazing in what they do. They create a ton of videos. So there iss a ton of processes and it's a design company.
Dean Soto 1:11
It's a design company that does design work for a lot of other big-named companies. And the emails that were flying around were basically that their VSA was bedridden in the hospital. And so, the Virtual Systems Architect — if you don't know go to FreedomInFiveMinutes.com or ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com — but he was bedridden in the hospital.
Dean Soto 1:12
At first, when I saw the emails, I'm like, "Oh, man. Okay, well, he's just out." Well, the guy. The VSA. The Virtual Systems Architect did not want to stop working. So he just kept on working, working, working, working.
Dean Soto 2:05
And it was actually one of my general managers who were like, "Dude, you need to stop or else you're not going to get better."
Dean Soto 2:13
And so, we reached out to the client saying, "Hey, you know, I got him to stop, and he'll be back either tomorrow or the next day. But he needs to rest."
Dean Soto 2:27
The client was like, "Well, we don't know who's going to do his work."
Dean Soto 2:37
And then we asked — my guy actually suggested, "Hey, well, we can put somebody else in there temporarily, and just work off the process documents."
Dean Soto 2:48
And the customer responded, "Well, it's not as easy as that. There's a lot of things that he's become familiar with that requires some thinking."
Dean Soto 3:04
And so, as far as for today and for tomorrow, it sounds like the client is going to actually end up having to do the work.
Dean Soto 3:41
All right. So what happened is, originally, this client was the bottleneck. And now, he has made a bottleneck out of somebody else.
Dean Soto 3:52
This is a habit that a lot of people have. It's normal, right? It's normal to not want to do the hard-easy things before they become the easy-hard things. Meaning the hard-easy things means creating very, very detailed process documents that anybody, anybody can follow. Anybody can follow. Right? Because you can even have a process document that says, if somebody is out, the first thing you're gonna do if you're taking their place, is you're going to introduce yourself to the customer and say, "Hey, just letting you know, I'm going to be handling some things while so and so is out. And bear with me..." It could be something as simple as that. Right? But we tend not to do that. We tend to allow our business to get stuck in other people's heads. Right. So now they become the bottleneck.
Dean Soto 4:53
We can't live without Kevin. We can't live without Jana. We can't live without James. We can't live without any of these people because they know how to work with this guy, and they know how to work with that guy, right?
Dean Soto 5:08
We recently had another customer who didn't have a process of bringing a new person totally on board. Like, getting all their accounts set up and everything like that. So, they got a new person and guess who was doing all the work? It was the owner of the business, right?
Dean Soto 5:31
That should not happen. Jeff Bezos does not say "Oh, we got a new client. We have a new customer in the Amazon FBA warehouse. Okay, well, I'll stop everything. And I'll go train that guy up."
Dean Soto 5:43
In Plus he, you know, people they know, they know what needs to be this.
Dean Soto 5:49
"There are some people who know what needs to be done. So I'll need their help." No.
Dean Soto 5:54
They have managers and the managers handle the whole entire process.
Dean Soto 6:02
That is something very hard to do for a lot of people at the very beginning of the business. However, once you get out of that habit of feeling like you have to do everything— that you just have to do everything but then you bring somebody in who they're the only ones who know how to do anything. That's where the problem becomes very apparent. It becomes very apparent.
Dean Soto 6:44
So, all that being said, I want to stress that the more that you can create processes in documentation and systems that are so detailed that anyone can do them. And yes, they could do it, even if it means talking with clients, you can make things so detailed that you very rarely get put in that situation where it's, "Oh, well, this person knows this thing or that thing. Right?"
Dean Soto 7:28
"This person knows this or that, and I can't live without them." That is putting yourself in a very vulnerable situation.
Dean Soto 7:36
You know, this guy, the owner had plans for today, right? He had plans and all those plans went to crap because the process documents were not as detailed as they possibly could be. Right? And so because he could not quickly put someone else in that situation as a temporary, he had to change all of his plans. And that's what we want to avoid.
Dean Soto 8:08
When we are in business, we want to avoid that type of stuff. We want it to be where it is a no brainer, no brainer. No brainer. That when somebody can pop in and take over, at least on a certain percentage of things, right.
Dean Soto 8:37
So, all that being said, Why is this important? We tend to do that. I even do that with my kids sometimes. Well, Allison knows how to do this. So I'm just gonna have her be the person who does it. Or any of my other kids know how to do it. Oh, and they could be the kind of lead person. Well, there should be a process. Even in my house. I have process documents for all of our time. Areas. All of our zones. And everybody knows what to do because we all have our zones, right?
Dean Soto 9:08
So my challenge to you this week is to figure out where you are the bottleneck or where you've put somebody else as a bottleneck, and switch it up. Switch it up and make it make something that allows nobody to be the bottleneck. Anybody can go in there, anybody can do it. Anyone can make all of this, make whatever it is happen, despite knowing in their head and being familiar with it. Right.
Dean Soto 9:45
Familiarity breeds contempt, right? We don't want familiarity, we want processes. So all that being said, this is Dean Soto with Freedom In Five Minutes. Well, today was a rough one. I'm kind of feeling a little run down Actually, I might go to the hospital and tell Gel to force me not to work. But anyway, I'll catch you later in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Most of the time, people tend to shrug off advice from their inner circle of friends — even if it is a really good tip or idea. These are your closest people; people who love you the most. If you refuse to listen to them, you also refuse the possibility to grow phenomenally. You’ll be surprised how knowledgeable and capable your inner circle of people is.
Automated Transcription Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto — Founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. And we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: You Don't Know More than Those Who are in Your Inner Circle. That and more coming up.
Dean Soto 0:31
Oh, good morning! So the audio in this is going to be a little bit gravelled a little bit garbled.
Dean Soto 0:37
Thank you so much!
Dean Soto 0:40
So, I live in a community where people are super awesome. They flatten out the roads. We have these dirt roads that have asphalt on them. They're like asphalt grindings and literally, people will just do it. And that is pretty dang amazing. Sometimes they'll get potholes and they'll get little little washboards and things like that. People will just come with their tractor and grader and do it. I always try to spot them like 100 bucks or whatever. And they'll flatten out the road. They'll make it nice, amazing, and easy to drive on out of the kindness of their hearts. Basically, it's a pretty cool little community we have here.
Dean Soto 1:26
So all that being said, I was on a call with some of my really close business friends — guy friends — that I have. And it's so it's funny because there are times where I think that I kind of have it all together. I mean, just being honest. I'm gonna be totally honest. But I think I have it all worked out and everything like that. I have the best way of doing stuff and it was cool because this morning — I really just listened this morning more than anything.
Dean Soto 2:08
But as they were talking, they were talking about some of the different diets. They've been going on how they vacation. How they have fun, how they work, who they're hiring, who they need to hire, and what's been their troubles. And as I'm listening, I went from the feeling of "I know so much."
Dean Soto 2:33
I know all this stuff in business, and I'm living the four-hour work month and all this other stuff. And all the way to — "...they do things way better than I do."
Dean Soto 2:44
They're really good at what they do. I really don't even know what the heck I'm doing sometimes.
Dean Soto 2:52
Dean Soto 2:56
Maybe I should just sit and listen. It was cool because some people— especially when we are new to certain things. We tend to almost be a little bit intimidated by people who know more than we do — even when they're close, I get it. This actually happens more when you're close to somebody.
Dean Soto 3:33
I'm going to roll the window up. So it might sound a little bit different.
Dean Soto 3:37
But this actually happens sometimes even when we're closer to people.
Dean Soto 3:43
Is that when we are given really good advice — I mean really good advice. Because of who they are, it kind of sometimes flies in the face of our view of, well, I should know better than this person or I'm the guy. And for me, I tend to feel like I'm the guy that knows how to work less. Who knows how to outsource and develop systems. Who knows how to do this and that. And so, when somebody gives me an idea. Like, one of my guys held me accountable to creating a webinar, creating the sales page for a webinar, and the entire copy for the webinar. I kept on saying, "Well, I'm going to do my book. I'm going to edit my book." And he's like, "Okay, that's great. What are you going to do this week? You did that? You said, you're going to do that last week? What are you going to do this week?" I said I'm gonna finish my book. He's like, "Well, that's what you said last week. What are you gonna do this week?" I'm like, "You son of a monkey." He totally, totally called me out. And in a good way, because I did not finish what I said I was gonna finish last week. And I will get to that. Now that becomes secondary. My primary is now making sure that I actually get this webinar up and running. I could bring in some cash and so on and so forth.
Dean Soto 5:28
So, my initial reaction is, "Well, it's gonna be more work, you know. I'm the four-hour work month kinda guy. I don't necessarily want to do that." It's so easy to just sit, edit, and use that as an excuse. I could say, you know, "Screw this guy."
Dean Soto 5:48
I could literally just say, you know, "Screw him. He works more than me or whatever." But he's right. You got more work and you got more valuable work. So you got more valuable work done than I did last week for sure. Right? And it's funny. A lot of people get hung up or get hit.
Dean Soto 6:13
Dean Soto 6:18
I don't know what the word is, but they get enamored with the idea of the four-hour work month. Working a lot less, right. When my wife and I went to our marriage counselor. One of the things that he told me that really stuck and resonated with me — and it should resonate with a lot of guys is that in order to keep our house clean, guys are looking good, guys, we tend to be minimalist. We tend to want to just get rid of everything and make it as easy as possible.
Dean Soto 7:01
Not all the guys, you know but a good amount of guys who want to just do that. And that gives us the ability to keep everything neat and clean all the time. Because there's no upkeep. You know, there's nothing to put away because there's really nothing, right? And that's not necessarily the best way to do things. So it's the easy way to do things, but it's not the most beautiful way to do things, I should say. And I know I'm kind of ranting in this particular podcast, but trust me it's going somewhere.
Dean Soto 7:47
So my marriage counselor said that in order to make a beautiful house, yes, you need to clean. But if you stop with just cleaning, it wouldn't be beautiful. It will just be an empty house. Right? And so, you actually have to put beautiful things and create beautiful things to put out there. And that's one of the things that yes, it's a selling point in my webinar. I mean, obviously I'm going to use it because a lot of people are workaholics. I was a workaholic as well. And in some ways I am. So am, I enjoy work. I don't have to — I enjoy working. I enjoy working my hands I enjoy just doing things that some people would find mundane, because they're in a cubicle, right? But work in and of itself.
Dean Soto 8:43
So sorry, working less in and out and of itself is not something that's fulfilling. You get bored really fast, really fast. When you don't have work to do. It's just the nature of things. It's very By nature, you will get bored fast. And so, part of me is like, “Well, yeah, I work less than some of my really close business friends. But they create beauty. They create new things. And while they might work more, I help them to work less. I help them to create systems. I help them to do things that give them the opportunity and the ability to be part of their family.”
Yes, I help all of that. They helped me to keep on track with building, creating, and making energy and building it up. Yeah, developing things that are absolutely beautiful.
Dean Soto 9:54
Dean Soto 10:01
Why is this important? Because especially with family members, especially with spouses, they are able to teach you things about yourself and they're able to teach you about things that they know way more easily than you could. If you just listen, they could help you to grow extremely quickly.
Dean Soto 10:22
And so, what I challenge you to do this week is to listen. I had a hard time listening to my spouse. I had a hard time with my wife when she would give me her feelings on certain deals that I was doing and certain things that I was doing. Had I listened, I would not have wasted two years, maybe even four years. Because I would have grown at a much faster rate. I would have grown at just a phenomenal rate had I listened to her when the time was right and the time when she had those feelings. And so I've learned to listen. If my wife has a really strong feeling about something, I'd stop. And she says, "No." I stopped. If she says, "Yes." I go because I've learned that it is something that I'm not going to be able to learn. It'll take me two years to learn the hard way.
Dean Soto 11:33
Two years to learn the hard way, rather than just listening.
Dean Soto 11:38
And following what she went through some of her feelings of herself. All that being said, I challenge you to listen to the people who are telling you something, don't just say "Oh, yeah. Sounds great." And not do it.
Dean Soto 11:52
Actually listen. Actually do it. You're gonna see that you're gonna have some phenomenal results when you listen to the people who love you and are able to be outside of the whole situation that you might be all right. This has been Dean Soto go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com, go check out ProSulum.com
Dean Soto 12:20
Lots of amazing stuff there if you want to automate your business in as little as five minutes a day. But until then, I'm gonna be driving into the city right now. That's what I'm doing. Until then, I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
This gift-giving concept is in place for a very good reason. It is there as a means to show and give value to your people even if they are non-customers. This is actually a very effective — yet subtle strategy.
You are building great connections with people. What happens over time is you have put some kind of positive thing out there and that positivity is bound to come back to you eventually.
The biggest thing is to give. And be giving in a strategic manner.
Automated Transcript Below Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. And we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Today's topic is this: Increasing Your Value to Customers Through Gifting. That and more coming up.
Good morning! Beautiful, beautiful, sunny, sunny morning over here. It's starting to become spring. Got a lot of green grass and everything going over here.
It's pretty amazing what we have in our California area.
So, before I get into the story guys. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. Go to Google & type in Freedom In Five Minutes podcast, Apple Podcasts, or something like that.
You actually see Freedom In Five Minutes pop up for your Apple Podcasts app that you can subscribe to. You can do the same thing for Spotify and Stitcher and a whole bunch of other stuff as well.
Okay, so go do that. You'll get these episodes every time they come out, and you will love them. Alright, Luna is chasing a whole bunch of crows that are flying and I don't think she realizes that is really not going to work.
Anyway. So with my first daughter, this was almost 12 years ago, 13 years ago.
With my first daughter, really my first child. We were living in Buena Park, California. We were not looking to sell our house, at least at that time. We were not looking to sell our house. But there's one real estate agent who came by. A guy by the name of David Sidoni – really cool guy. I'm still connected with him on Instagram.
He came around and started talking with my wife and was saying, "Hey, you know, I'm in the area. Have you ever thought about selling and moving and whatever?"
And my wife was like, "No, no, not really." But I was chatting with her.
So he was chatting with her and with me. And things were cool. You know, he seemed like a really nice guy. And so he went on his way.
Well, it was about a week later. It was about a week later that he came back to the house and brought my wife some sunscreen. It was summer and my wife was pregnant with our first child.
It was summer and he brought her some sunscreen and he left a little note just saying, "Hey, it's hot out there. Especially if you have a new baby. Congratulations. That is so cool. Why don't you go spend some time at the beach and just enjoy yourself? You and your husband deserve it."
So I was like, Oh, that was really really cool. Well, about a month later he comes back. Now keep in mind we were not wanting or even looking to move at all. We weren't.
Well, a week later he comes back with this baby DVD.
It was called The Happiest Baby On the Block. It was this doctor that showed you how to shush your baby. How to help your baby to not cry all the time. And boy did we need that.
Afterward, it actually worked out really, really well. Especially with my first who was such a huge crier. It was really rough.
Anyway. So he came back with his Happiest Baby On the Block DVD. Keep in mind, we were still not in any way looking to move out. I was just blown away.
I'm like, "This guy. We're not giving him any business. Like in the sense of from us. This guy is doing this. Wow. Like what would he do if we were actually looking for business?"
So what do you think we did? Well, I knew that we weren't going to be moving anytime soon. But I had some friends. We had some friends that we knew were removing and we called them when we're like, "You have to use this guy."
This guy is awesome. Like we're not even moving and he's already doing this, this, and this. Can you imagine what it would be like if you actually worked with him? And we literally became evangelists for David Sidoni. We became evangelists for David Sidoni. Without ever doing really truly any business with him.
And what happened was, our friends – our really good friends ended up using him as their realtor. And he ended up finding a house. They ended up finding a house with David Sidoni. Their dream home, which I believe that they're still into this day, so 12 years ago. They're still in that same house. And it was all through sunscreen, which probably cost them at the time like four bucks. And sunscreen and then a Happiest Baby On the Block DVD, which I think Probably was more – that was probably more around the $9.95 or $14.95 cents. So let's say $20 of investment into a gift to people that he liked.
And he was able to close – at least at the time – I want to say it was about a $650,000 house in elite Aliso Viejo, California. It was around there – it might have even been in the 700 thousand.
So if that guy is getting 3% – you know, his 20 bucks turned into several thousand. So, just to think that you know, his $20 plus, you know, the time that he spent talking and enjoying turned into a high – you know, a good percentage that's not counting any other fees or anything like that. That he was able to get a sale. Simply from that $20 and taking the time to grow his business in that way right?
Taking the time to actually find out about us people – who literally were not interested in moving which is crazy to think about right?
Oh my gosh. So it actually opened up my eyes. I never I'd so I didn't use I didn't really I saw it when–
It opened up my eyes to what is possible when you give and you give.
I mean, it's like what Jesus says, right? "It's better to give than to receive."
Well, when you give and give and give, without asking & without taking. To me, it's without going in and saying "Hey, buy this thing from me."
It really showed me the value of doing that. So it was interesting because, you know, at the time I was not an entrepreneur, it wasn't even thinking about it until I got back from being deployed. That's when all of that started.
I started listening to Gary Vaynerchuk. The typical entrepreneur path where you listen to Gary Vaynerchuk. You get all hyped up and on the hustle and then move on to other things so that you can kind of start systemizing things and, and so on and so forth.
But uh, but I started seeing that it was all that. So I started seeing how to apply what David Sidoni had essentially taught me.
I mean, it was a really cool coaching lesson before I was even a business person. And one of the things that – when I first started my business, I was like going to Craigslist. I was putting up advertising. I was doing all this. Doing all this stuff that really was not working.
And it was not until I started, I started using social media. And I was doing the typical social media thing where it's like, post all this content on Twitter. And then ask people to go to your website and try and make a sale and blah, blah, blah.
It didn't work. None of that ever worked. What did work though, as I started attending these tweetups. It was really big in Orange County – these tweets... what they called tweetups.
And it was just a bunch of people meeting up who were on social media and Twitter and so on and so forth. And I'd go to these meetups and I would do nothing but give. I would give. I would give advice. I would talk with people just to hear about their day.
I would give shout outs to them on Twitter, you know, saying thank you. It was never like a salesy type thing. And it was when that happened. When I literally started giving with Twitter that I started seeing growth in my business. A lot of growth and a lot of traction.
Had that not happened I probably would have quit I probably would have not even gone the entrepreneurial route I would have stuck.
I would have stayed in the full-time employee route, which was not bad.
It just wasn't something that I wanted and I felt called to. That translated later on, as my business and business grew it translated into... How can I make my customers feel special?
I want my customers to feel special. I want people to feel like they are taken care of whenever I'm working with them. When they're one of my customers. I want them to feel like "Wow."
I want them to see that they're not just spending money on service but they have a friend who has someone who's thinking about them & caring about them – giving to them. Because nobody does that anymore. Right?
Think of the last thing that you've bought for the last service that you've had. How many times a year do you get something from them? Whether it's a handwritten thank you card, usually you get emails on Christmas, your birthday.
You'll get emails and Christmas birthday, New Year's and a lot of the times it's like, "Hey, happy birthday. We really care about you. Come here's a $20 gift discount to buy something from us."
It's this half-hearted fake thing. Right? It's not really truly just giving. Right? And so, when's the last time that's happened? Never.
And so it's great. Because when you give. In your business, when you give, in your business, you're able...
Luna hears a truck. Go get them, Luna. Get them.
When you give in your business, you are swimming in a pool of a ton of fish. And you're able to just take whatever fish you want. Because nobody does it.
It's such a really huge surprise when people see –
You know, I just actually had an idea. I had an idea of gift-giving that I think I'm going to do relatively soon.
But you're playing in a pool that nobody else is playing. Whether it's a consultant and a lot of people will do like consultants and things like that, who have really high margins.
They'll be like, "Hey, I'm gonna send you a, I'm gonna send you flowers." or something like "...right after you pay me."
Like, that's great. But for the most part, like, imagine, you know, you're like, two months, three months down the road, and all of a sudden you get a gift. That's way different, right? That's huge. And so, you really want to see that this gifting concept is there for a reason. It is there as a means to show and give the value like literally to just give.
And what happens is, over time, whether it's that person coming in and buying more from you, or whether they refer you, or whether you know. You've put some kind of positive thing out there, eventually, it comes back, generally.
You shouldn't do it just because you want something in return, but generally, that's what seems to happen. And so, the more that you can give, in the beginning, the more that you can give, the more that you're going to see that there is a tremendous value, tremendous value in giving value before taking anything, okay.
To the point where I'm like, I just had an idea of cuz like, think about. A little business talk. Let's talk business real quick.
Think about it. Would you?
Like if you're in the consulting side of things. You're on the consulting side of things. Would you spend $100 to make $5,000? Well, if you send four gifts throughout the year to somebody, more than likely is going to cost you about $100.
Now, they might not be buying now. They might not be buying later. You might not be buying within three months, six months, but at that 12th month... I actually had someone that I talked to yesterday that I've been talking to for 12 months and now they're finally ready to move forward.
And so, this idea that you can't spend $100... because if you look at Facebook advertising or any type of Advertising. The cost, not just per lead, on average for a customer. But the cost per lead, generally, is going to be, you know, around $50, depending on what you're in. But it could be anywhere between $50 to $100. That's not a customer, that's per lead.
So then, for them to become a customer, especially in the consulting field, you're looking at $250 - $500, sometimes even $1000, depending on how high your ticket is, right?
Well, imagine spending $100. Just $100 and you're making that happen. That's huge.
So you don't want to simply just want to see that. Really, I mean, to get something in the mail. There's like a 100% open rate, never asking for an ID for anything.
And you're getting this, you're getting the potential of making thousands of dollars, it's pretty huge.
Sorry, I'm all over the place. I literally am like thinking, Oh, I need to do this, I need to do that.
And I'm totally thinking of new things, a new strategy right now. So, which I'm actually gonna go implement as soon as I get to my computer.
So why is this important? It is important because the more that you give, the more you will receive, whether you like it or not.
The biggest thing is to give, give, give, give, give, but give strategically, as well.
Like, don't break the bank. Don't go into debt, in order to give. But give to give, so that you can receive and then give more and then receive and give more and more. So, you give more.
There are so many automated ways to do it now. You just gotta figure it out.
So alright. So this is Dean Soto. FreedomInFiveMinutes.calm
Go check that out. FreedomInFiveMinutes.com
If you want a Virtual Systems Architect, go and get a Virtual Systems Architect where they'll take everything off your plate in as little as five minutes a day. Over at ProSulm.com
P R O S U L U M .com and I will catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
“Botting” is the process of using software automation to perform tasks. It’s a very popular tool in social media. However, it is frowned upon among video game consumers and developers.
There is a proper time and situation to use bots. To name a few: in business systems and processes, and in social media interactions. It is important that you know exactly in which situations you should offload your tasks and automate them so that you are able to scale personal attention.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey. This is Dean Soto – founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com and we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Dean Soto 0:14
Today's topic is this: How Multiplayer Online Video Games Teach You to be a Massive Consumer. That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:32
Good morning! Hey. So, if you have not gone to Google and typed in Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast you better go do that right now. If you go to Google, type in Freedom In Five minutes Podcast, and you type in Apple Podcasts after that... Freedom In Five Minutes Apple Podcasts. It'll take you to the place where you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple iTunes. You could do the same thing with Spotify. Do that. Type in Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast Spotify or Stitcher or many, many other places. You'll be able to get this whenever you want on your mobile device and anything else. You'll be subscribed and you'll get the latest and greatest. You will absolutely love it.
Dean Soto 1:27
So every now and again. I get this hankering. I get this hankering for some botting. That doesn't even make sense—botting. B-O-T-T-I-N-G. There are games out there where that is a big no-no. Nobody. Don't you bot?
Dean Soto 1:56
What the heck is a bot? What are you talking about? Botting. Dean? Well, a bot is something that is essentially a robot that does all of the things for you. It gives you all of the... it basically runs the game, and does all of the quests and does all of this stuff for you. Now, why is that a bad thing? It's a bad thing because they want you to consume and they want you to play fair, right? They want you to play fair in this game.
Dean Soto 2:30
Well, for a long time, I actually can't believe it's already been almost two years. For a long time, I've been playing this game called Final Fantasy 14. Really cool game. The whole Final Fantasy series is a really neat series. I actually play the Final Fantasy series with my oldest daughter, we're actually playing Final Fantasy seven. They are going to be making a remake of Final Fantasy seven which is good. It'd be pretty interesting and cool. But we are playing Final Fantasy seven.
Dean Soto 3:06
The thing that we love about these types of games... not all of them. Not all of the Final Fantasy series is that great. But for the most part, the storylines are really really cool. And it has a lot of emotional and very archetypal images. And one of our favorite games is a game called Chrono Trigger. Which is pretty dang... I love that game. Anyway, I digress. So for the past two years, I've enjoyed playing this game not because of the storyline, but because I'm able to easily bot the game. I'm able to easily automatically do things within the game where I can program some bots to go and do various things, there's a lot of tools that you can do that you can use that allow you to do that.
Dean Soto 4:12
Well, the other night... Every now and then I'll stop the subscription because it does get expensive, especially if you try and run four bots at the same time. So it can run its own party. It's doing all that stuff all by itself, within a party of four different robots.
Dean Soto 4:32
So I'm going through this fantasy land and doing all that jazz. And I turn off the computer and they're running these dungeons where really nobody's supposed to be able to even know. Like, be able to see you. You can run this. Let this thing run and nobody's gonna catch you botting or anything like that. And this morning, I woke up. And I see a little message from someone named "applesauce". Which is a...you can name your character whatever you want. But it said, "H Max Bot? LOL." which I'm guessing is some type of bot software or something like that. Some different types of software that I use.
Dean Soto 5:24
And I'm like, "Ah, crud." Like, how does someone catch me? Because what they can do is they can then report you. And then you'll get your account suspended. And I've had my account suspended many many times. And usually, after a while though, they won't even tell me sometimes how long they're going to suspend. They just suspend and you have to go with it, whatever it is. And then after a while, I'll go and try to log into one of my accounts and I'm Like, "Oh, cool, I'm back." I'm guessing the reason they do that is because it's money. They're getting their money. They're suspending for 7 days or 30 days or whatever. But they're like "Yeah you know we don't mind having the money." It's not that big of a deal. You know because you have people... Anyway all that being said... Why am I even saying this? So I see this person and my initial reaction is like "Dang, all that work. All that. Now, I have to go back to do all this again and then I have to go back to not..." I don't play the game by itself like I just have to go back to doing something else and you know, waiting it out and stuff.
Dean Soto 6:40
Like that sucks. You know, I just started up again, just started botting and one of the things that personally I love in this whole systems thing that goes on with the business. I love seeing things work by themselves and knowing that in the background, it's doing the work for me. It's giving value, right?
Dean Soto 7:04
Well, these massively multiplayer online games they want you to consume. They want you to sit there literally for hours and hours and hours and hours a day and they want you to get so consumed. That when a new gear comes out or new bonuses comes out: new extensions, new expansions, etc... You're going to be one of the first to grab them because you want that extra edge right? You want that extra thing or that new piece of entertainment.
Dean Soto 7:47
They want you to have that going on in your head. And literally, if I look... So these characters are maxed out now. Maxed out characters essentially, for the most part. And if I were to sit there and max out just one of these characters, sit there, doing it all alone, pressing the button. I literally... if I count the number of hours, it's in the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on this thing, and that's what they want you to do.
Dean Soto 8:33
They want you to if you're mining for gold and for resources and things, they want you traveling by yourself over to the thing, pressing the button a couple of times, go into the next one, pressing another button a couple of times and going into the next one pressing another button. They want you fighting, they want you doing the quest, they want you doing all of that stuff. Because the more that they can suck you into that repetition. The more that they're able to consume off of you, like a vampire, and don't get me wrong like it's business right? it's business.
Dean Soto 9:09
It's part of the success of this game, so to speak. And you know, they also want you to... they want things to be a little bit fair, right? They want people who who are doing this to not feel like "Hey, but this guy over here...I'm playing on this PlayStation but this guy on the PC, he's able to bot and I'm sitting here for hours and hours and hours and this guy is able to just do you know, press a button and let the thing go. That's not fair."
Dean Soto 9:45
Which is totally understandable. But it's the same thing as in businesses. This is what I'm preaching on. Oh, man. Same thing in business. This is so important because a lot of other businesses—a lot of businesspeople say because I have friends who run multi-million dollar businesses and some of them literally think it's not fair. It's not fair to have something that is just doing its thing like a bot. A business that's just doing its thing. And it's funny because I used to have this weird thing where these guys were making millions. My friends are making millions. People that I look up to, they're making millions of dollars in revenue, it's amazing. And here I am, you know, building a cathouse. Here I am spending most of my time in the morning chatting with my family having breakfast, going out, building a cat house, cutting down poison ivy, doing all this stuff. And this is not real. This is not like this is not the way it should be in business, but it's actually the opposite. Where they're like, more and more they're like, "Man I wish I had the cheat code like that." And I'm like you can! Why do you think you can't do that? Why do you think you can't get the cheat code? Some of them have. Some of them got Virtual Systems Architects from Freedom In Five Minutes and ProSulum.com. And they did get the cheat code.
Dean Soto 11:45
But some feel like it's cheating, some feel like, there's a little bit of a botting situation, right? That you would find with some of these types of video games. So why am I bringing this up? One was just the fact that I'm like, "Oh crap." That I got caught yet again. So I'm sure my $15 per bot or whatever for the month is going to be wasted a little bit because they will not let me play for a while.
Dean Soto 12:22
Two, it shows you that we are taught even in video games. Not everything is taught in school. We're taught in video games. We're taught in a lot of different ways that we have to be the ones to do everything. That's the only fair way.
Dean Soto 12:50
We have to be the ones. You're the one with the skill. You're the one summoning the health angel of whatever...Asgard. You're the one that can do the ice spell. You're the only one that can do all of that because you're the hero. You're the hero of Final Fantasy 17,000. No, you're a zero.
Dean Soto 13:21
If you're literally spending our like thousands of hours doing something that somebody else could do or something that you could program you're not. And I'm not taking away from your creativity. This is funny because as I'm doing speaking engagements, this is one of the things that comes up a lot. That you are the creative one. Create! You create the systems. You create the environment, the systems, the processes, all of that.
Dean Soto 13:52
And now, you then are able to make that into a process that someone can do. And you can see this happen over and over with things that people think is absolutely impossible. Right? But not only that, it is having the internal side where you're okay with doing that. You're okay with offloading. You're okay with giving somebody else the keys to the Ferrari that you've built with your own hands, your own custom Ferrari that nobody else has in the entire world.
Dean Soto 14:37
You're okay with handing the keys over to that. And so, what now is something that you're doing, could be watching Netflix. It could be playing massively multiplayer online games. It could be stuff in your business that you won't simply let go of. Even though you could, what are some things right now that are consuming your time when they really don't need to.
Dean Soto 15:14
I want you to be suspended from doing that. I want you to be banned from doing that for 30 days. But give it a try. Give it a try. Give "create" a process. Create a process document. If you have a Virtual Systems Architect, you can do that in five minutes. Start getting that going. Because the sooner you get started getting that going, the sooner you're going to be able to absolutely enjoy the massively multiplayer game of life.
Dean Soto 15:49
Alright, so this is Dean Soto. I'm going to continue my walk with the Luna Meister. So if you haven't checked out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com, go check that out. We have a business process scorecard. We have a masterclass there. Actually, I also have a four video series over at ProSulum.com. I'm gonna be doing a lot of cool automation in the next few weeks that's going to be really surprising.
Dean Soto 16:15
We're gonna see all the things you can do when you start trying to scale yourself and systemize yourself and scale, as Jermaine Griggs would say, my mentor. Scale Personal Attention. I will catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
Have you ever asked yourself why you are working too many hours? And why do you sometimes still end up feeling you’re not getting the job done?
Well, you might want to take a closer look at how you’re spending your time and energy because it’s actually possible to get things done without spending all your resources.
You want to know how? In this episode, Dean talks about the value of using your energy in the best possible way, and how it inspired a lot of his clients to use their energy efficiently.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes calm and prosulum.com. P R O S U L U M .com. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this using more energy doesn't mean you're more productive. That and more coming up. Well, good morning. Man, it is getting a little warmer here in Central California and that is that is not necessarily a good thing. I love the cold and so it's a little bit of a downer that things are getting warmer I want to I want to see more rain more cold. However, however, All of the seeds and stuff that I've planted. With all that being said and done, that means that we will be having more of a crop. Because the winter is bringing spring, right? I'm looking at that I'm actually looking at one area that I planted right now see if anything's popping up. So I created these food forests. So try at least I'm trying to start creating food forests, so that in different places where we're at there, there's there. It's not just it's not just a normal homestead, not just normal farm, but actually, you know, an actual food force that I can go walk to and go pick out some lettuce, go pick out whatever. So anyway,takes a lot less energy to do that. But you have to have the right conditions. You have to have the system that's already set up around trees. So on and so forth, and it kind of leads me on to what we're going to be talking about today. So yesterday was really cool. This. I was. So yesterday I went and did some jujitsu. So some Brazilian jujitsu, which if you've been listening for a while, you know that I've been doing it almost almost a year now. I love it. It's such a good way to exercise a good way to also learn more about yourself and, and develop skills of self defense. One of the best it just I was so hesitant at first, when I first started doing the whole jujitsu thing, but now I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is great. Why did I ever not do this before? So So it's interesting because the It's New Year's right? And so with New Year's comes a whole mess of people who have new year's resolutions, and they want to get into shape or they want to learn something new. They want to start doing something new, right? And And that leads to bigger class sizes. Not even just bigger class size and not only just bigger class sizes, but it also leads to the idea that the it also leads to new people who who are brand new to the sport but might be totally fit, they might be muscular and fit and wrestle or do whatever, they come to the sport and it it's a great way and a great time to test what you actually know. Okay, so.So after class,every after every class that we have on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do a bit of rolling we do about maybe a half hour of what we call rolling, it's sparring. It's, it's it's actually doing jujitsu with each other and trying to submit each other, right and so there This one guy not gonna say his name, but he is a he's definitely fit. And you can tell that he does something like CrossFit. or something of that nature. And the guy is, I want to say is probably about the same age as me maybe between 30 and 40 around that, that and when I when I see it, like the initial reaction is like oh crap this guy's good at this guy's gonna destroy me right this guy's going to absolutely destroy me because he's all fit and and he also I think wrestles and all that stuff so so it's after class we finished class I went and said hi to him and stuff like that and asked him you know, Hey, have you done any martial arts at all? Have you done Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at all and he did. I think one time, one class before and so it was interesting. So my like I said, My initial reaction was, oh my gosh, this guy's because he was definitely ripped. He definitely was a is a let me turn on airplane mode real quick Hold on one second just had a telemarketers to try and call me. So and so he. So anyway, we I'm like hey, well let's roll and internally I'm like ah crap is gonna suck and you know all of my year of trading is gonna go for nothing. And so we start and he's a wrestler so he knows how to do clinching and stuff, stuff like that. So we start and we clinch and the cool thing is that that he, I kind of got to feel them out a little bit. And right away I ended up getting them in my guard, which in jujitsu is a dominant position. It might not look like a dominant position. But it is a dominant position. It's basically where I have my back on the ground which for wrestlers in wrestling you don't want to do that's the whole point of You know, you want to pin someone to the ground, right? But in jujitsu, having your back on the ground is totally fine. So it's when you have your back and your ground on the ground and your legs are wrapped around the person. Okay? That might not look like a dominant position, but it's actually a dominant position in jujitsu. So, so we're going, and it's cool because he's trying to get he's trying to get out of my guard and I'm constantly putting him off balance this way and that way, and then I was able to then sweep him over and get into mount which is a very dominant position. It's one of the best positions where you have a lot of different opportunities to do different arm locks, armbars chokes, and all that other jazz. So when I get into mount, the first thing that he does, is he wraps his arms around me so mount is basically just so you have an idea of what mount is full mount. It's where my so I'm, I'm on top of him and my legs are headed want to say it I'm on I'm, I'm on top of him, I'm in a position where if I wanted to pound on his face with punches, he can barely do anything. So my legs are kind of North, kind of in the area around his abdominal around his abdomen, right? And then my legs come, I try and wrap them around his legs so that he can't really so I can't really throw me off or anything like that. If you Google Brazilian Jiu Jitsu mount position or something like that, you'll see what it is. But anyway, so he's there, but the first thing he does is he is he goes and wraps his arms around me to hold me close to him, which is sort of what you can do. If someone's punching you you definitely want to do that because now I can't get any strength. I can't get any space to I can't get any space to start start landing punches or anything like that. So he's pulling me close. And the thing was that he's squeezing at the same time he's like her, and it feels to him like he is making a difference. He is constricting. He's a boa constrictor constricting all of my oxygen and making it to where. I'm just going to pass out and give up right?Well, that's what he might be thinking. But in my head, all I'm thinking at that point is yes, yes, young Skywalker. Please keep doing that for the energy is leaving your body. So as he's doing that on thinking as a as literally, yes, yes, yes, keep doing that. Keep doing that because you're going to get very tired You're expending all that energy trying to squeeze me in a position that is in a position that is not going to do anything for you or for me, it is very easy to it's very, it just you're making it easy for me to win later on, because that squeezing is not going to choke me. It's not going to constrict my airflow or anything like that. And so he keeps doing he keeps doing that keeps doing that keeps doing that I just wait and wait it out and I can tell you starting to get tired. So now I move in for different submissions. And ultimately, ultimately, I submit the guy and one of the first tips I gave him was.Don't try to escape don't try Don't try to squeeze don't try it like if you're in a position where you're not. If you're in a position where you are not The dominant one, the person really cannot submit you cannot do anything unless they move first. Okay, so say I got you into mount. Well, now I got you locked in and you're not going to go anywhere. However, if I actually want to do anything to you, if I want to make it to where you, I armbar you or do some kind of submission, hold on you, I have to move first, which means I have to start creating space, I have to start creating the, the, the in setting the tempo of everything. And as soon as that happens, now, I can if I was on the bottom, if I was if I was the one that was in the non dominant position, I can start doing things that take advantage of that space that you just created. But if I try and escape, I try and do all this stuff. I try and move around. I try and squeeze, I try and do all this stuff. Get me out of here, get me out of this. I don't like it. I don't like it, I don't like it. Then I'm using all of that energy and wasting it. And while it might seem like I'm being productive, it might seem like I'm like I'm squeezing and choking, and I'm doing all this other stuff. It is not I'm actually losing energy in the long run. So why is this important? It's important because we do this a lot in business. Right? We do this a lot in business. We all know whether it's you or whether it's somebody else. We all know those workaholics right. We all know those people who are so proud that they pulled an all nighter that they're so proud that they were up till two o'clock in the morning working on something and finally got it done. Right. We know those people that that stay you know if you're in your normal in a Normal nine to five job. We know those people who stayed till 910 11 at night trying to finish things up and then they come back and they're like, yo, yeah, I was here till 910 or 11. And then they make you feel bad for from working normal hours. They make you feel bad for working eight to five or nine to five or whatever it is. Right? Well, those people are those are just like those people who are spending energy and getting nothing done. They're spending energy and, and that energy that's being spent is actually being wasted. The fact that they even have to stay that long is an indicator that there's something wrong in the system. There's something wrong in the process. Okay. Just because you work hard on something, doesn't mean you're doing more doesn't mean you're produced. More, it means that it simply means that you're working hard on something that's it doesn't mean anything else. And so, what's more, one of the things I love about jujitsu, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, is that everything is strategic. Everything is built on leverage, everything is built on a system of techniques, a system of if you move just one inch in this direction, because of how you have your body, their their body will flip over, or their body will board or you can choke them or you can do all of these different things. Right. So the the big thing in business is to pay attention if you're working hard Something if you're working on something in something that's done over and over and over again, especially, it's a big indicator that you're wasting a lot of energy. If you have a team, you should have a standard operating procedure that your team can then use to do that thing, so you're not doing it. So now you can step back, be more strategic, find points of leverage, and have your business grow and excel in so many different ways. If you're working hard, and I'm not saying hard work is not it. Trust me hard work is great when it is necessary. Hard work is great when it's necessary. But if you're just working, if you're the boss, and you're working, working, working, working 12 hours a day, every day on the same thing and it's stuff that your team can do or you are stuff that That you're doing over and over and over again and you think your team can do it. More than likely you're wasting energy. More than likely you're wasting you're wasting all that time. But if you just step back, created a process for it, a documented process, step by step. You could offload that that in many, many other things. So that every ounce of energy that you're spending every single ounce of energy you are spending is spent in an efficient and beautiful and amazing way. So right now what are you doing? Where you are just you are constantly constantly spinning energy. You're constantly doing, doing doing doing right. What what are you doing right now? That Oh, over and over and over again. And you use it as an excuse over and over and over again. You're doing these few things that's keeping you in the office for 12 hours. take a hard look and really truly see especially if you're the one if you've learned how to do this thing over time, more than likely somebody else can do it. What what are you doing right now? That if you simply handed it off created a process for it. That energy that you're spending can be best used for something else. This is Dean Soto freedom in five minutes go check out freedominfiveminutes.com. We have a lot of amazing stuff there. masterclass. We have our business process scorecard, go check that out. Go to prosulum.com, P R O S U L U M .com if you want to be able to do these processes create these processes. is in five minutes, in as little as five minutes,give them step by step have someone do it for you. So you never have to do it. Again. Get a virtual systems architect that's dedicated to you. They're like a, like a virtual assistant with superpowers. And go check that out. And if you if you go if you if you try if you go to pro slim calm and you try to exit it will come up with a course and brand new course that you can subscribe to. It's a four day series it'll teach you how to create all these processes teach you how to create step by step processes so you don't have to do this stuff and waste all that energy on stuff that doesn't matter. Alright, so this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes.com This is the freedom in five minutes podcast. I will catch you on the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Although the product is an important factor, at the end of the day, it is customer experience that determines the success of your business. And one of the best things that can lead to great customer experience is through systemizing processes.
In today’s episode of Freedom in Five Minutes, guest George Chen, founder of UBestPacks.com talks with Dean about the importance of offloading tasks, leveraging your VSAs, and the influence of customer service over the success of your business.
Automated Transcription Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto — founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M . com. And we're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. Today's topic is this. Systemizing Global Manufacturing the Easy Way with George Chen. That and more coming up.
Oh. Today is going to be a treat. An absolute treat! Because I have one of my favorite people here on this podcast. Someone who has taken – oh my gosh, like he not only does – he systemizes in a way that allows his global manufacturing business to run with as few people as possible.
He is so creative when it comes to systems and really doesn't hesitate to at least try to systemize pretty much everything in his life as well as with his business. So, that being said, I am here with Mr. George Chen. He is the President and CEO of U-BEST PACKAGING SOLUTIONS. George! What is up, my man? How's it going?
George Chen 1:29
Hey. What's up, dude? Stoked to be here. Very excited. Yeah.
Dean Soto 1:34
Awesome. Awesome. So we actually met through — Paul who is a mutual friend of ours.
And he introduced us and we started working together. You do some pretty amazing things. I had no idea - when we first started - all of the things that you do. Can you kind of give an overview of what you are in charge of? And really, how did you get to that point?
George Chen 2:03
Yeah. So, what I'm in charge of. So, I run U-BEST PACKAGING SOLUTIONS. We're based out of Brea, California, Orange County. And we do anything branded. So, if it involves putting your brand on it, whether it be packaging, business cards, flyers, to clothing, apparel, we do it all. So, what I oversee is I oversee our U.S. operations as well as our overseas operations. We have manufacturing sites here in Orange County, as well as in Taiwan and China as well. We not only do packaging, but we also do shoe manufacturing as well. So in various different industries. And how I got here. Well, it's funny, I started a sticker company. In college, I traded two DJ turntables for a vinyl plotter. And what a vinyl plotter is — if you look at cars. And they usually have those family stickers where it has a mom, dad, son, whatever. Yeah, so I traded two turntables for a vinyl plotter to cut both stickers. And from there, we moved into different types of packaging. And that's kind of how it started.
Dean Soto 3:21
That's crazy. That's crazy. So actually, were you selling your vinyl cuts to your friends and things like that? What I mean — that's pretty dang cool.
George Chen 3:36
No. I was — originally, I just wanted to make a bunch of stickers for myself. And I was pretty into the car modding industry where you take the parts off of that. So it kind of went hand in hand. And then eventually, we started selling parts. Vinyl, you know, kind of like tinting parts for certain head lamps and headlights. I would sell it to car modding shops. And that's kind of how it started.
Dean Soto 4:05
That's crazy. That's so crazy. And now, you have a whole manufacturing company in Brea that I have been to a couple of times. You have a staff there, and you do some really amazing things there. So what's out? Give a big rundown of some of the things that you're able to do right now. I know you say you have your shoe manufacturer and you have whatever. What's your favorite thing right now? What's the most innovative or what was your — kind of the thing that you love the most that you're doing right now?
George Chen 4:43
I wouldn't say it's one single product that we do. I think it's more so the gratification of printing something and showing our customers and seeing the look on their face. That's what I love doing. I love — it's not that I love printing or I love manufacturing. I love the feeling of giving my customers a product and having them go, "Holy crap, this is better than I imagined. Thank you for this, like, I'm so stoked." That's usually where I get my gratification. But if you want to boil it down to kind of more so a product, I would say, our paper packaging. Doing boxes and doing retail packaging, or a lot of marketing, influencer marketing packages. So, a lot of times we've worked with global brands and we make special influencer boxes for them that they ship out to all these marketing influencers. And we build like really, really cool custom wooden boxes. Sometimes plastic boxes, clear acrylic boxes and just make the user experience something super cool that they can post online and share with the world.
Dean Soto 5:57
It's amazing. It's amazing. You actually deal with a whole bunch of different industries right? With all of this? And as I've seen your packaging too, and we'll get into some more deep questions in a little bit. But I've seen your packaging. It's funny because when I think of packaging, I think of just — it sounds bad because you're probably gonna be like, "Yeah. That's like totally not what we do." But I actually just think of like, cardboard box around
George Chen 6:31
Brown shipping boxes.
Dean Soto 6:32
Yeah.
George Chen 6:34
Literally what everyone says, "Oh, you do packaging? Can I buy like brown boxes?"
I'm like, I mean, we can do that. But that's not our bread and butter. Yeah. And then everyone's like, Oh, yeah, you guys are like... I say no. Yeah.
Dean Soto 6:48
So yeah. I want people to get an idea of all the different things that you have created. Some of the most creative things like for Afters Ice Cream, which is really big over here in Southern California you did some really creative amazing things for them and for some pretty big named companies right? So what are those kind of things?
George Chen 7:12
We're pretty big in the restaurant industry. I would say we do a lot of franchise restaurants nationwide and we do local franchise areas like Afters Ice Cream. We did everything from their wall installation. So if you go on their website, I think it's AftersIceCream.com. You guys can go through their portfolio and see some stuff that we've done. So we do all of their ice cream cups for them. We do all of their wall installations for them. So, wallpaper wraps, signage, photobooth opportunities. We just recently did the Rick and Morty collaboration, and we did all the window clings that go in the storefront. The wallpaper packaging and merchandise quoting
Dean Soto 7:58
The Rick and Morty Thing man was so cool. Like kind of give an idea of what that actually was just because, man. If you guys saw the video of this, you felt like you were in the cartoon.
George Chen 8:12
Yeah. So I think it was at their Pasadena store. And they have this building on the side just solely for a photo op. But once you walk in the door, it's covered in wallpaper of different designs of Rick and Morty and you go in there and you take photos, and with ice cream and whatnot. But, you know, you just gotta go to the website and take a look at it for yourself. It's kind of hard to explain.
Dean Soto 8:41
I love it. Like I always kind of — I always think of what you do as putting ideas and dreams into a physical and tangible product whether it's actual packaging for something. Or you know, wrap or something like that. It gives that whole physical... You're able to put these ideas into a physical form which is absolutely amazing. I love it man.
George Chen 9:13
We like to say we bring ideas to life. If you have an idea and you saw something super cool and you want to recreate it, or you want to redesign it into something that fits around your product, that's what we're good at. We're really good at building packaging around our customers' products — whether it be boxes, bags, or whatever it may be. We're really good at you know, catering to certain customers and making something very memorable.
Dean Soto 9:41
Yeah, I love it. So guys, if you haven't noticed, I'm like, these guys. You guys got to know exactly what this guy does. So that as we go deeper into how he actually gets this done, you'll just be blown away that he's able to do what he's able to do. So with such a lean organization. All that being said, when we first met, I mean... prior to us even meeting, you already seemed to have a mind for systems and operations and you run your business, from what I can tell, very differently than a lot of other people in your industry. And that one of those things is definitely a focus on outsourcing and documentation. So, what is your whole idea when it comes to those two things — documentation and outsourcing? So that you can maintain a flexible but still powerful organization?
George Chen 10:51
Oh, it's funny. Before we met, I actually did not really thinking that kind of way. It might have seemed that way but not really. I did learn from a friend one time. We were — I can tell you, when we started this company, I was typing out invoices on Microsoft Excel and doing inventory counts manually by hand, typing them into Microsoft Excel and calculating our inventory that way. So that's where we started. And we my friend was helping me out. And we were talking about inventory management systems because going through my inventory every week and counting everything was not working. So we found a company called StitchLabs.com. And he explained to us like, you know, you have to catalogue everything. You have to go through and input all this data. And it's going to take a lot of time, but if you put in the work now, it'll be smooth sailing later down the road, because you'll have all this infrastructure that you've implemented. So that was kind of the beginning of where I had that kind of system thought and operations way to do things. But in the like, until we met, that's when it started really kicking in and understanding. They are doing the outsourcing and documenting all of our processes. Because, you know, in the very beginning it was me. I was doing the account managing. I was doing the sales. I was doing the invoicing. I was doing the purchase orders. I was doing the accounts payable, accounts receivable, so literally doing everything. So there wasn't really a way that I systemize everything, it was just Oh, something came up, I had to do it, and I just did it and then we'll go on. But slowly as we met, you know, I started realizing, "Hey, I can document all this stuff. Cuz at the end of the day, how to type an order is going to be the same every single time."
Dean Soto 12:46
Exactly.
George Chen 12:47
So how do I document it so that I can pass it along and have someone else take care of it for me? Where I can focus on the more important parts of scaling my company, doing business development to product development. Things that actually I'm very valuable at because at the end of day, my time isn't used best if I'm typing up invoices or purchase orders, right? But yeah systems changed the way I run the company.
Dean Soto 13:12
That's awesome. That's awesome. What was the first thing that you put into a system that — not necessarily the first thing... But the first thing that where you were blown away where thought "Oh crap I don't have to do this thing ever again and now that gives me time to do this other thing that's way valuable. What was the first thing where the light bulb just clicked?
George Chen 13:43
Order processing and invoicing. I hated doing that. Like, I absolutely hated it. I don't like typing out invoices and typing out orders. It's such a waste of my time. And once I implemented that package. I was able to focus on sales. I can just talk to a customer and say, "Hey, please process order and these are the details of that order." And never have to do it again. That was the beginning. And that, you know, that snowballed into even... I mean, we've always had a process on how to do some of the printing in our warehouse. Yeah. But once that happened, I was like, "Okay, now I'm starting to look into all of the different things that we do, and how I systemize this?" Coming from a startup company or coming from, like, not having any business background - learning on the fly. Now I have to think, how would a global corporation do this? Right? They have all the standard operating procedures. Now, that made me realize, because I was doing everything myself — I knew that I had my operating procedures. Those are all in my head.
Dean Soto 14:48
Yeah.
George Chen 14:48
There's no way for me to teach someone and have them replicate it time and time again, without any errors because then it's all subjective. Then it's like, "Oh, you have your way of doing this. I have my way of doing this." I'm teaching you how I'm doing it. But you're not going to be doing it the same way I'm doing it, because there's no documentation.
Dean Soto 15:05
Yeah, exactly. So
George Chen 15:06
I started looking in my warehouse, and, you know, printing facilities. And I'm looking at, how do I systemize this now? So now I went through our printing process and started documenting. Okay, you mix the ink for 16 seconds. And why do we do this? Like, we started listing out all the different reasons why we do certain things, and what to look out for. If the ink is not mixed properly, you're going to get separation and whatnot. And it kind of teaches everyone "Hey, this is the exact way to do it. And if something goes wrong, then we look at that document and say, okay, where did it go wrong?"
Dean Soto 15:42
Yeah.
George Chen 15:42
And you can easily pinpoint now, at what process something went wrong. And now, we have a much better quality control because now we know, "Hey, this print station is producing something different than this other condition. What's the difference between the two? Or what not.
Dean Soto 16:00
I love that. I love that. That's cool. Especially the the idea that because you have the process, you can see where something breaks down. It's not a person, you know. If somebody messes up and it's just because it's in their head, then it's like, "Okay, well how do I fix that?" And that's not very fixable, especially if they keep on messing up. But if it's the process, it makes it super easy to be able to say, "Boom, there's a problem right there." And to fix it, I love that. Before we get into more of the tactical stuff, walk me through how a new customer comes in. Like what's your entire system from new customer comes in to ideation where you're coming up with strategy and everything like that to actually delivering a product. What's your involvement in all of that?
George Chen 17:00
Now. So in the beginning, I was — beginning to end, I was in everything. Now we started outsourcing a lot of our account managing. So now, when a customer comes in, they call us right? Either whoever's in the office will take the call or if I take the call, I'll get their contact information. They'll most likely give me a brief of what they're looking for to do. "Okay, cool, thank you. And I tell I instantly, as soon as that call is done, I provide my VSAs who the customer is, what their email address is. I say, please send them an intro email. And what an intro email is — it has our customer application form. It also has some of our portfolio and some of our past projects, and it kind of gives you a brief about our company and what we do. So it starts off there. They send the customer application, they get set up and then they respond with what they're looking for. Get a quote for, say it's a very standard product, they'll go through a quote, if it's involved. And then they email us what they're looking for: quotes. So then my VSAs, will go ahead and grab that information and start working on the quote, looking at either where to pull some products from different places, wherever it may be, shoot back the quote to the customer. Quote, good customer start placing the order they'll send us the artwork, my same VSA. So at this point, I haven't touched anything. I'm just monitoring my same VSA will take that artwork, send it to our pre-production department, they'll come out with a proof. The proof goes out back to the customer through the VSA. Customer approves the proof. Then we move into manufacturing that is done either here overseas, wherever it may be. And from there, the product gets delivered. I have not touched this product or talked to the customer. The only time I'm involved is more so product development. So if they're trying to build the packaging around their product, or if they're trying to come up with something new with different types of materials, that's where I kind of jump in. More of the creative side and helping them understand what capabilities — because a lot of times, most, I would say 90% of customers... they have a graphic designer in house or they have hired someone to do graphic designing. But that graphic designer is solely for online. You know how to make pictures, put it on a website and make it look nice. Yeah, they don't have the experience of doing graphic design for packaging or for printing because it's way different. You need bleeds, you need Pantone colors, you need all different check points. So the difference is that's where I come in and I help them guide through that process in doing the understanding of how to build these custom projects.
Dean Soto 20:05
That's the stuff that you enjoy. Yeah?
George Chen 20:08
Yeah. No, it's fine. It's fun. Because then I'm on starting it from scratch, and then bringing these ideas to life. Where at the end of the day, the customers like, "Wow, that was super cool." And for us, you know, we try to provide a five-star experience every time we work with a customer. We know what it's like, dealing with, you know, I don't know someone like... Well, I can't really compare but someone like Vistaprint or someone like youprint.com to do your business cards, right? You just send something online, you hope it comes out and you get your product and it's like... We guide you through that whole process because we know what to look out for. We know that if you're printing a box and it needs to go in the fridge or you're printing a box and it's going to go on something that's what... We know that "Hey, you need to use different types of material to get what you're looking for." That's why we're different from most suppliers in that we will look at your product and try to understand it instead of just trying to sell you something. Yeah, that's not our goal. Our goal is to give you a five-star experience where you can tell us "Hey, this is what I'm trying to go for." And we take the reins, and we guide you along the process. And that's our way of providing a five-star experience.
Dean Soto 21:26
I love that and you have the time to actually do that.
George Chen 21:30
Yeah, I'm not typing out invoices and purchase orders all the time.
Dean Soto 21:34
Man, man. So there was a time where, when you were working with your Virtual Systems Architect, your VSA. She did something where... Because she, you know – obviously you guys had the processes that you guys created. All the documentation. everything got systemized but there was a time where the customer actually sent something to you. Like an image. And she knew right away. It wasn't really through the process, she actually knew that it was wrong and like, slapped your customer on the hand a little bit, right?
George Chen 22:21
So that specific example is when one of our customers sent us artwork that was not print ready. So what it means is that once you send us the artwork, all we do is take it, make a proof out of it and print it. We don't touch it. We don't do anything at all. But what they sent to us was an artwork. But it had text in the middle, giving instructions on what needed to be what size and whatnot. And if we took that and we printed it, that would have went wrong, or it would have had all that markings on there. So what my VA did is that she responded and saying "Hey, we noticed that the artwork that you sent was not print ready. Please make sure you remove all of your markings and resend this artwork so that we can move it into print."
Dean Soto 23:11
Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that. And that was like not necessarily something in the process. But you feel like because you had so much documentation... Because all that – because you know, as your VSA is actually creating all that documentation. They're learning your business. Do you feel that that? That's one of the reasons why that happened?
George Chen 23:36
Yeah, I think more so why that happened is that just copying them a lot on every single email that goes out. I think it's more so just the training process, right? If you have someone with you at all times, and they see how you interact with someone, they'll start picking up on that, right. They'll start seeing "Okay, he treats them in a very professional manner. Very courteous. Certain ways you talk to them. They'll start picking up on that. And that's kind of how we've educated every single one of our employees here. You help. You educate them. Versus telling them to do. Yeah. Help them understand why we're doing what we're doing. And why. Because for us, sometimes, a lot of our customers think, "Oh, I need this today." But we realize, "Hey, if you do something quickly, problems happen." Then you start skipping steps. And then that's why we have such a strict, strict guideline on our processes. They're able to pick that up because of our training. And if you have a good training process and teach people why they're doing what they're doing, versus "Hey, go do this." It help them understand a lot more. And for them to pick up on it, and for them to execute it better.
Dean Soto 25:04
Yeah. Yeah, it's cool because, you know, out of all of the people, you definitely — with your documentation, you know, a lot of people that I know who create this type of documentation whether it's with a VSA or not, they just say, "Here's the process. Go do it, but you really do bring the why. Like, why is this process being done? Why? Even like, during the middle of the documentation, you say,"Mix for 15 seconds." like you'll have things like why are you mixing for 15 seconds? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing it? Why? I've just noticed that because of that, your guys are like superhuman. They're able to take on a lot more that they otherwise, wouldn't. A lot of business owners want this kind of robotic kind of just do as I say type thing. Whereas I can tell with your guys to the point where it seems like you're able to just hand off to your I guess she would be your general manager or ops manager — hand whatever off and she handles a lot of the stuff you're doing. What have you noticed that has come with that "why?" Compared to because you know, other people who do this type of systemization stuff. Do you notice that your staff is better because of that?
George Chen 26:42
Yeah. 100%. So, because for us, you can print the sticker using probably five different methods of printing the sticker, right? You could print a sticker, you could digitally print it. You can silk screen it. You could print it with flexo. There's so many different ways to print a single sticker. But you have to understand what your customer is trying to achieve. Are they trying to put it on a box? If they're trying to put it on a shipper box, you know, the brown cardboard box that you thought we do. You don't need such a crazy sticker for that, right. But if you're trying to put a sticker on a bottle that is going to go through a wash, you want to make sure that you're using a vinyl sticker for that. So, understanding "why" helps them better process on which method to print the product for the customer. And teaching them "why" helps them able to empower them to come up with solutions on their own. Right. If you give them an education, they can now offer that same education to your customers. And that creates so much value added to your company. Very, very rarely do you have these companies think for the customer? Because usually it's all about me. How do I get the sale? How do I make this next paycheck? Whatever it may be. For us, it's like, how do we maintain this relationship? So that, you know, you can count on me? Yeah, every single time we talk. Right? That's the difference between us and a lot of other people. We teach them "why" so that our employees can come up with the solutions themselves. So that I don't have to be answering the same way every single time. If I tell you, these are our capabilities, of course, there's going to be times where it's something that they've never experienced or whatever. But a lot of times, it's how you have to understand the machine. You have to understand our different methods of producing a product and which solution is going to be best for the customer. Because it's going to be different every single time. And if I gave you — Okay, if I told them it's a sticker, then you go misprint it but that's not the way, right? You have to understand if they're printing a sticker, what's the sticker for? Yeah. Are they trying to match certain colors? You know, with printing it. That's why we get a lot of customers — they say this today. I got a call from a customer. "Hey. We're looking for woven labels, and we're looking for bags. What's the price?" You're like, I'd be zero information. You told me two categories and expect me to know what's in your head and give you a price. I can't do any of that. Right. So now I have to ask them all these questions and teaching my employees that same thing. Like, you have to understand why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. So that you can offer the best solution for the customer.
Dean Soto 29:32
Well, it's cool too because you have the ability to do that. Because of all the things that you've systemized in your operation and stuff. It's cool, too, because you could, I mean, theoretically — you probably could just say it would be this much. But then, say they bought that stuff off you. And it didn't work for whatever application they're doing. Like, that hurts your business big time.
George Chen 29:54
Yeah, no. They won't come back. There's no way they would come back. Yeah, and they expect you are the professional. You're supposed to know what I'm looking for. Pretty much, you're supposed to read my mind — is what they want.
Dean Soto 30:07
That's crazy. That's crazy. So one more thing I want to touch on before I ask the strategic Five Minute Question. And then get more information about your business and customer base and stuff. So you kind of mentioned this, you kind of alluded to it before,
There was a pretty big shift where you're getting questions like all the time even when you had systems, documentation, and things like that. You were getting questions. And there was a point where we even talked and you're like, "Oh, I should just make it to where they asked somebody else." Can you kind of explain like how you had to make that mindset shift of always being the person who's getting the questions when you could delegate that to say your general manager who, you know, your VSA who runs the other VSAs?
George Chen 31:10
Yeah. So we originally, you know, I mean, during the training process, you're always going to be the one to answer all the questions. Yeah. But if you're training multiple people, you don't want to be answering the same question for the new trainee every single time after that, right? So what we learned is that we created a frequently asked question document for everything in our company, right? So when, you know, when a customer is asking, what is the duty charge from China to LA for a .... Right? Now we have frequently asked... like that's gonna be asked every single time when we have a new account manager that we're bringing on or whatever. So we've created this document where they can refer to that, and they'll know "Hey, if the customer is asking for duty charge, hey, go look in their frequently asked questions." It should be there. And then if it's not, you know, ask who you report to. Ask them the question and if not, then come ask me. So now I've delegated all the questions that are being asked into my main manager. And then from there, you know, if it needs to get escalated, then it gets escalated.
Dean Soto 32:16
I love that. I love that man. You don't do any of the training whatsoever for anyone new that comes on as far as like a VSA like remote person, right?
George Chen 32:24
Not anymore. So the VSAs of Pro Sulum... they come systems trained. I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you know that. They all come to some trainings and I hired one in August of last year. I think August No. Two years ago now. Yeah. August two years ago. And then, within three months, I had that VSA training the other VSA. And it was mind-blowing seeing her you know, within three months, be able to train two new people in the same way that kind of I trained her. And she was really quick to pick up on, you know, how you train. How we do training in our company. And since then, I haven't had to train anyone.
Dean Soto 33:16
The best thing was when I talked to you. One of the speaking engagements that we did. When I said, "Hey, how's your new one coming along?" And you're like, "I don't know, my main VSA is..."
George Chen 33:38
Yeah, I had the ability to say, I have no idea what's going on.
No, it's not good. But no, I mean, I obviously I did kind of know. But I think it's more so just having that weight off your shoulder and knowing that a task that is delegated and being taken care of. Because the worst thing is, you delegate a task, and then you have to go follow up. and say, "Hey, what's the update?" Yeah. Seriously, that is something that I hate. Yeah. But, you know, with these standard operating procedures, "Hey, you need to report to me after a certain amount of time, because that's our operating procedure now. And I haven't had to go follow up anymore. And it's been handed to me." And I think that's one of the biggest differences now. Systemising all this stuff is that these are my expectations. But it's not. It wasn't in our standard operating procedure. Yeah. So when it wasn't happening, it was making me mad. But that's at the end day. That's my fault. Because I didn't systemize it. I didn't implement it into our process. And now that it is, I get so super hands-off approach now, and I get reports handed to me and that's how a company should be run. Yeah, you know, all right.
Dean Soto 34:59
I love it man, I love it. I love it. So, two more questions. The first one is, if you had...if you were talking with someone, and they said, George, what's one thing that you can tell me that if I implemented right now. We call this like the Five Minute Focus Question. If I just did this one thing and more strategic, not like a tool at all or anything like that. I mean, it could be a tool, but more and more in the strategic level that would improve their life, their business. What would that one thing be?
George Chen 35:40
I think it would just be in stead of trying something, just do it. Because if you think about it, you know, as adults, we don't really fail at things nowadays. Right? We have this level of comfort in our decision making that we're going to take — most of the time, we're going to take the same solution or we're going to decide on something that we already know is a most probable outcome. Yeah, when we have come across something that we don't know, a probable outcome, we usually don't make that decision anymore. We just push it off to the side, or we keep not attending to it. And it just kind of gets lost, right. So a lot of people have a hard time trying new things or being willing to fail because we've taken all of that out of our day to day now that we're older, right? When you were kids, you always fail. You always fall down, you always get back up, right. But now, when's the last time you fell? Yep. Never. Right. So I think just doing it and being being willing to fail again, and just being willing to fall down and see what happens because you're not gonna die. It's not the end of the world if something doesn't go right. But then you learn from it. I think that's the biggest thing and just doing it. Whenever, like something comes up, just, just don't be afraid to fail. I think that's, that's one thing that really changed the way I think and just being confident in moving. Once you move like you can only start winning after that.
Dean Soto 37:22
I love that man. I love it. And that's one thing I definitely noticed about you. You just do things.
George Chen 37:29
Like, my motto is do it first and then ask forgiveness later.
Dean Soto 37:36
Man, I love it. It's so good. It's so good. Yes, so who is your dream client? If someone were to come and work with you. Who would be your dream client and what would they expect with working with you and U-BEST?
And keep in mind guys, he works with really big names as well. Like these are huge companies that you're probably wearing shoe-wise right now. But, yeah. Who do you feel that you serve best? Or at least you have the, you know that like, "Oh my gosh, we changed these people's lives all the time." These types of people.
George Chen 38:37
Yeah, that that is a very good question that I have actually not thought about.
Dean Soto 38:42
Sorry. I know.
George Chen 38:45
That's a great question because for us, when we see an opportunity we'll always go... I would say for a while it was Adidas. For a while, it was trying to work with the adidaa. Either in shoe manufacturing or doing marketing or packaging for them for a while. It wasn't even — I guess it could still be. I think I was really into shoes for a while — being a sneaker head and, you know, trying to go for all the easy stuff. But when I was really into that I think Adidas was definitely on my top priority in trying to do because very few companies do "Made in USA" shoe manufacturing.
Dean Soto 39:34
Oh yeah.
George Chen 39:34
We're one of them to supply certain brands that do "Made in the USA" shoes. But the trend has a lot of big shoe pumping brands. They've started moving manufacturing here to reduce lead times and to better serve the changing market nowadays. So yeah, if Adidas was listening. My company would love to work with you. Going back to what you said, what kind of what would they expect? They would expect a five star service, right? Being able to delegate a task to us or a project to us, and letting us take care of it. Because a lot of times how companies utilize us now, when I was the main dealing with all the customers at once...They would be like, "George, this is what I need, go get it done." And then you know, take it, give them the product and have them stoked about it. And that's, I think that's the easiest way to help these brands scale. So our bread and butter is taking a company from either three locations. So in the restaurant industry, our bread and butter taking company from three locate two to three locations and helping them scale in 200 or 500 stores within a short amount of period of time. And the only way to do that is for us to take all their print materials and everything they need printed and taking it off their plate so they could book.
Dean Soto 41:13
Oh, sounds like
George Chen 41:15
there you go.
Dean Soto 41:19
All right, so it sounds like you cut out a little bit. Are you still there right now? I knew this was gonna happen. It always happens at the most inopportune time. Can you hear me right now?
George Chen 41:33
Yeah. I cut out.
Dean Soto 41:34
You cut out right at, like, toward the end of what you were saying like what they can expect...
George Chen 41:44
What they can expect is... they can expect a five star experience regardless if the customer would say "Hey, George, this is what I want. Take it." And then that's what we do. We would take it and then run with it and provide them a product. And that's our bread and butter — helping companies scale and taking away a lot of their tasks to do. So our bread and butter from the restaurant industry is taking a brand with two to three locations and helping them scale to 100 to 500 stores. And how we do that? We help them with all their print marketing & print materials, so that they can go focus on the franchise sales. They can focus on finding their next locations; for their next next door to be open. That's where they're valuable. And utilizing their time not trying to shop for the best or cheapest business cards. That's a waste of their time and working with us they get that five star experience in delegating a task and knowing that it's going to be handled properly and it's going to be executed and the products are gonna come out exactly how they want. And that's our five star experience.
Dean Soto 42:56
And what I've noticed too, for those listening as well is that you're almost actually like a more of a trusted adviser. I've seen where you've taken — I always think of when somebody comes into especially like a restaurant or store where a package is going out. I mean, you know, I'm always proud of my iPhone package when I get it like it's one of the things I look forward to every two years when I get my upgraded iPhone. The packaging and just undoing it. There's something about it that's prestigious and I've noticed that you've actually taken several businesses that had went the cheap route and their packaging has to be wrapped in a rubber band and all this other stuff. And you've made it look like so professional that it takes the brand. It actually does take the brand to another level because people are willing to handle that. It sounds so dumb, but, you know, even just in takeout food. If you have a really cool package. If you have something like, it's like, I'm going to Instagram, I'm going to take pictures of it. There's something about it that you are able to bring to people and it's literally not that much more expensive than going like... They're really paying for you, George. Because you have the time to be that trusted advisor like "Hey, let me help build your physical brand."
George Chen 44:34
Yeah. Well, I mean, what they say is "Camera eats first, right? Yeah. That's the image we live in right now. So everything is instagram every one is taking pictures of food. And yeah, at the end of the day, they get me or they get us. Right? Grant Cardone said it in his book, right? The difference? I can go to this shop down the street and get it at this price. Yep. The difference is you don't get us. You don't get us to think for you and figure out what the best way in keeping your costs low and still getting that wow effect when a customer opens that box or opens that product.
Dean Soto 45:14
I love that man. I love that. So how can people contact you? Work with you? What's the best way for them to actually get to work with George?
George Chen 45:23
Yeah, so our website is UBestPacks.com U as in umbrella. Best B E S T. Packs P A C K S .com. My Instagram is George Chen @georgechen. George with a zero for the O. Yeah, you contact us there through our website or through our Instagram.
Dean Soto 45:48
I love it man.
George Chen 45:49
Would love work with all of you,
Dean Soto 45:51
Dude. Yeah. And so if you're listening and you want some amazing branding, like I mean if you want to really take your business to the next level when it comes to Physical branding and you want your packaging to look better. I mean, better than all of your competition. You have to work with George it is absolutely amazing. So, George, thanks for being on man. And for sharing all the things that you do. It's honestly amazing. There are so many other ninja stuff that he does. But I didn't want to keep him for so long. But yeah, man, it's so good having you and I appreciate you being on.
George Chen 46:29
No, thank you so much it was, it was a treat getting to share our experiences and what we do. And just trying to try to teach people and giving them a better experience, as we know. I mean, we've heard of so many times, customers like "Oh, I can go on Alibaba and order this. And they order $10,000 worth of product and it gets here in the wrong color." That has happened for us, too.
We help customers avoid it. And it's night and day, their experiences. We've had customers leave us a lot of times and saying, "Oh, I got this wrong, you know?" I remember one time this girl. She was nickel and diming us for five cents off a T shirt. For I think for like 500 shirts or something. She was like, "Oh my gosh, like why can't you just give it to me for five cents cheaper?" And I'm like, I've already done so much for you. Like, this is my price. I'm not making any money. I'm doing this out of courtesy because you are a friend of a friend. Whatever it may be, the next order she ended up going to someone else. And I heard that supplier made her cry. The service and how they would not do everything that she asked. And I was like, "Dude that's what you get." But I think customers always have to understand. It's always better to pay five cents more. Yep. And have that peace of mind, knowing that something else is going to be taken care of, where you don't have to worry about it. To have five cents is for something, you know, maybe not in the millions of quantity. But you know, for something — if it's a smaller, like, trust that you get what you pay for at the end of the day. Yeah, and you would want that peace of mind. And paying a little bit more customers have to understand that at the end of the day. It's all about service. It's rarely about product. Of course, the product plays a factor. But at the end of day, it's the service you get and why companies do so well through customer service, because you always remember when you had that great experience with that one supplier. And you always go back to them and you don't really care as much about what the price is. You really care about how you felt and how it was a piece of cake. Yeah.
Dean Soto 48:59
Yeah. No and that's what's... You're spot on with that because you've engineered it yourself to be able to give that service and you know think of all the not just the money that was wasted by her but the time that was wasted by her and the stress and all that stuff that
George Chen 49:23
The stuff that you can't put a price on.
Dean Soto 49:27
I know, exactly. For five cents per shirt.
George Chen 49:32
You got actually five cents.
Dean Soto 49:35
Oh, but it's time that she can't get back. She that probably put a huge amount of stress on her. At the end of the day if you find somebody who's amazing at what they do, and as long as they have the systems to stay amazing like you do, you're only making things better. Like all the time. That's what makes what you do so valuable that I can't think of anybody, any other company that's built like yours to where you're just constantly delivering more and more value over time as you figure out more systems to offload.
George Chen 50:19
That's what we learned. High-end value. How not just to take, but to give even as a supplier, right. Like, how do you give to this person? And that's definitely helped us for longer for sure.
Dean Soto 50:33
Dang, I love it. Well, thanks for being on man. I appreciate it. And guys, go check out UBestPacks.com George is amazing. He is. Yeah. If you really want your brand to soar from the physical design standpoint. you got to go check him out. And we'll have him on again to talk about his other exploits with systems and operations. But until then, guys, thank you. This has been the Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast and I will catch you on the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
A lot of times, we find ourselves wanting more customers. Naturally, we want people to like us. Of course we want more people to join our tribe who will allow us to grow our business, so to speak.
One valuable lesson I've seen over years, running my service business is that, having less customers is the best. And these customers are people who absolutely love what we do.
It is a game changer and I find that we have more fun together, see massive results, and grow in ways we would not have been able to grow before.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey! This is Dean Soto – founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. We're here again with another FreedomInFiveMinutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: "Just Because You Like It Doesn't Mean They Like It." That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:31
Good morning! It's nice and chilly here. It's such a good winter morning to go for a walk with the Luna-meister. Luna, say hi to everyone. She just ran off. Bye Luna! Go get them. Go get them birds.
Dean Soto 0:45
All right. So the other day, my business partner and I, Paul... So Paul, he's so great at selling. Like, he is such a good salesperson. So non aggressive. So nice. Sometimes, you don't even realize that he is actually selling. And it's just awesome. Just the way he does things. And so, we were on this sales call with this guy who was a referral from one of our other customers. And it was going well it was interesting.
Dean Soto 1:24
Even right off the bat, I knew it was "What a small world." I was actually deployed with one of this guy's team members. I was deployed to Kuwait and for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008 to 2009. And so, that's one of the first things I brought up. I'm like, "What a small world." He's like, "Wow, that's Yeah, that's awesome." So this prospect–things are going well. We're on the call, and he gets it. He's like, Wow, this is awesome. You know, and, you know, we always ask a lot of questions.
Dean Soto 1:59
We want to Make sure it's a good fit because one of the things that is a big no no for us–a big thing for us is that we do not want a lot of people for the sake of having a lot of people. We want people who want to be a part of our tribe, our community. People who understand, like what's going on with what we do. And that the thing that I find, more often than not, is that the temptation is to want to have everyone be a customer, right? The temptation is to want everyone to like you everyone to be around you and so on so forth. It's almost American culture. When there's no conflict, we don't want any conflict. We don't want anybody who doesn't like us and so on and so forth.
Dean Soto 2:56
But if you look at some of the greatest businesses out there, The greatest business minds of greatest comedians, the greatest people who are very highly notable. What do you find? You find that they are very polarizing. A lot of them, a lot of people don't like. The ones who like them, love them. The ones who don't like them pretty much hate them. And same thing, you know, you look at Steve Jobs, I mean, he completely revolutionized the whole computer world, right? And you either love Mac or you hated Mac it put you into this binary. Are you a Mac user? Or are you a PC user almost to the point where you couldn't have both. If you're both you almost seem like this hybrid monster at some point in time. So, of course, it's not that way anymore, but it was at that point in time.
Dean Soto 3:56
So the thing was that – it was interesting because the conversation was going really well. And the guy said, "Yeah, you know, I'm good. Let's, let's move forward."
Dean Soto 4:11
He was somewhat semi-serious, semi... I don't know, it was just a kind of interesting temperament. So, we decided to move forward. And we – for the last two years – have this template email that goes out and the way it works is I introduce the people who are moving forward to our general manager. And he sends over a draft agreement to look over. And if all looks good, then we send final agreements, and so on and so forth. But the template email says something a little bit like this: It says that we're so excited for you to massively grow or 10X your business something like that. It was something we basically say, "We're so excited that you're essentially going to massively grow your business."
Dean Soto 5:03
So my general manager sends that out. And then Paul follows up with, "Hey, you know, I'm so excited for you, it's gonna be great. You know, let's stay in close contact just because that way we can share ideas and we can... we really want you to succeed..." and everything like that.
Dean Soto 5:20
That's kind of a follow up. So this guy goes to his referral–the customer right now. And he says, "These guys are pretty aggressive, they kind of sound spammy. They sound kind of scammy with the 10x in your business and massively growing your business and they're still trying to sell me after the fact..." and so on and so forth.
Dean Soto 5:57
So our client sends an email, basically saying, "Hey guys, I'm getting feedback that you're coming off a little bit aggressive and spammy..." and things like that.
Dean Soto 6:10
And so, you know, that really could potentially be harming our reputation. "Can you, you know. Just looking at your emails, the fact that you use 10X and all these buzzwords..." and blah, blah, blah. "That's really, you know, probably not necessary..." and so on and so forth.
Dean Soto 6:31
So, I look at that, and I'm like, "This one is a really good customer." So I'm not blowing off anything that he's saying. In fact, I always take this type of stuff in. So I ended up emailing them back, but then I also ended up calling him and being like, "Dude, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry if you got this type of feedback. I'll look into it. I'll look into what's going on with that. I'll look into what exactly was ..."
Dean Soto 6:37
And I'm asking him questions to be able to get more specific as to what the heck was the issue? Well, it turns out, that was the issue. The emails afterward and the 10X buzzwords and things like that. And it's funny because you know 10X-ing is definitely a buzzword. But one of the reasons I even have that in there–and it's been in there for about two years now–is because it's true!
Dean Soto 7:34
We have seen multiple times where our customers have literally tripled, quadrupled, and even to the point 10X. I have one customer... That one customer who went from a business that was barely squeaking a profit to now he is... I want to say it's almost like it ended up almost being like a 20X return using our VSAs. Because he was able to let go of a lot of dead weight people who weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. And he has two VSAs and just crushes with them. So it's not this, you know, I mean, we have a proven track record with people who are extremely...
Dean Soto 8:24
Hold on. Hold on one second, Luna. Luna. Come
Dean Soto 8:36
So one of the things that Luna has been doing... she goes and sneaks away and then sneaks back home. And I don't know why she's doing that and when she's doing that, but like, it is really kind of starting to... just go girl. Good girl. Come on, baby. Let's go down. Let's go down more. Come on. Good girl. Good baby.
Dean Soto 9:09
But it's true. So, you know, it's one thing to use buzzwords and stuff like that. But if the buzzwords are true, and I get it, I totally get it. You know, some people are going to get turned off and everything.
Dean Soto 9:19
So anyway, this guy got turned off by it. And, essentially – I'm guessing with the way it is – he's not going to move forward which is a good thing. Because at this point, even if he were to want to move forward... You know, going behind rather than coming in and saying "Hey, you know, you guys are being a little too aggressive or whatever. You don't need to sell me or anything like that. I appreciate it." But this whole "Well, oh my gosh, they're a little aggressive." And going to the referal and causing trouble like that. Like, do I really want that that type of person to be a customer anyway? No. I want customers who are good customers. Who are ready to to be a part of our tribe.
Dean Soto 10:16
Because that was the other thing, he was like, "The whole 'tribe' thing." Like, no. I want you to... Yes, "tribe" has been used forever but who cares? Honestly, if you're going to be picky about that, who cares? I want you to be a part of our tribe, everyone who is a part of our tribe who really does and utilizes what we do knows that there are certain things that we do. And there are certain things that we don't do... that we don't do training with our Virtual Systems Architects. Training is a very bad word. We don't do training, right? We do process videos. Okay, we do process documentation videos, okay?
Dean Soto 11:00
So, if you're going to train, get the hell out of our tribe. It's not ... we do not do that. We do not do that. And so, it's one thing to use buzzwords when you've just started a business, right? When you've just started a business, if you have someone, say, like Warren Buffett say, "Hey, you know, we have a proven track record of 10X-ing your portfolio." Are people going to say, "Oh, why are you using those buzzwords? Warren, you're crazy. You have no credibility now." No, the guy's a billionaire. Right? So no. Like, who cares? Who cares of those buzzwords? Same thing with with what we do. If I say 10X, it's because we actually have and more often than not, I see at least a 2X 3X 4X return on people's investment.
Dean Soto 12:06
It's not all the time. Most of the time, the success is because they follow the system. And most of the time, the reason for no success is because they did not follow the system. They were not part of the tribe, they did not have the mentality that we need, that we have as a tribe. And so obviously, I'm going to utilize proven things if he said, "Hey, can you show me a company that you 10Xed? I would say "Why, of course, here's one right here."
Dean Soto 12:44
So, all of this being said, Why is this important? It's important because a lot of the times we want customers. We want customers. We want people to like us. We want more and more people that will allow us to grow our business, so to speak, right?
Dean Soto 13:07
What I've seen over time, and what I've liked, at least in my service business is less customers. I love having customers who absolutely love what we do. It is a game changer, the more that we have customers that love what we do, the more that we find that we have fun, they see massive results, and we grow in ways that we would not have been able to grow before.
Dean Soto 13:40
And so, this whole idea of pleasing these people who aren't even a customer... He's not even a customer yet. Just so that they would become a customer is completely foreign, to our way of thinking and now keep that in mind. Keeping that in mind, I told the person who refers me that we will change and split test a different email just to his referral partners.
Dean Soto 14:09
If it does better, great, then we'll use that email. If it doesn't, then we'll use the same old email. But this is the first time in two years that this has ever come up. And the whole idea behind this is that, who cares?
Dean Soto 14:27
Honestly, if things are going well... of course, if you just started your business and you're already getting complaints like that... Then yeah, you probably want to change. But the idea is that you want to work with people. Yet again, you want to work with people that make you happy.
Dean Soto 14:47
Work with people where you can make them happy, and don't get stuck in a relationship. Do not get stuck in a business relationship. Where already right off the bat, there's some kind of animosity Or something that's not a good fit.
Dean Soto 15:01
So anyway, so this is Dean Soto. Freedom In Five Minutes. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. Lots of good stuff over there. You can actually punch in the numbers and see what it would be like if you were to get a virtual systems architect and go check out ProSulum.com
Dean Soto 15:24
P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. That's our main Virtual Systems Architect site. And you can schedule a discovery call there as well. So, anyway, all that being said, I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
I think you'll agree with me when I say, it's essential to have a large organization and a ton more employees to be one of the industries included in the Inc 500, or is it?
Well, it turns out that you don't really need to be that massive.
In this episode, learn how Matt Laird changed the entire scope of the oil industry with just a simple step and an overhead of less than 10 to hit the Inc 500.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:01
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedominfiveminutes.com and prosulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this, disrupting the oil industry with Matt Laird. That and more coming up. Cool! So today I have a very, very, very, very special guest. Someone who is near and dear to me and who is also completely disrupting a, an industry that is, for lack of a better word, extremely archaic, but still extremely profitable and brings in a lot of revenue. I'm here with Matt Laird from Camrock Oil & Supply. Matt, how are you doing my friend?
Matt Laird 1:02
Man, life is good Dean. Thanks for having me.
Dean Soto 1:04
Oh, no problem. It's, it's a long time coming I've, I've been wanting to interview Matt for quite some time, but I wanted things to be like perfect man. Always, I'm always like, okay, well I want it, I want, I want a lot of people to hear him. I wanted a lot of people to hear your story and, and what all the stuff that you've been able to do. And because it really is truly amazing what you're able to do right now. And but all that being said, how in the heck, to first tell us a little bit about yourself and what industry you're in and how did you end up being a part of the whole oil industry in general?
Matt Laird 1:48
So, to start now with, with who I am. So, I'm a father of three beautiful daughters, from ages 16 down to five.
Dean Soto 1:55
Nice.
Matt Laird 1:56
Have an amazing wife, who's, who's from this part of the world which we'll get into why I'm here. But just to start out early so soon as I graduated out of high school and started looking for, for things to do, I found that I wasn't near as good at sports as I, as I had once thought. So I found the next best thing, so I found a drilling rig. So, basically, over the course of the next 20 years, I worked my way up into the drilling ranks. So I started at the bottom, rose about, worked my way all the way up to where I was a drilling consultant. I actually own the company who had several drilling consultants. So I was basically, my job was to manage the people who ran the entire drilling operation well. Really good money, really fun job. Basically, really hard job to raise a family. So when you wake up and you realize it for, for 19 years you've been away from home 300 days a year and nights.
Dean Soto 3:02
Holy moly.
Matt Laird 3:03
Basically, you have to find your way, right? So, about five years ago, we, we made some, some partners, started a business using Dave Ramsey's logic. We went to build the boat and get the boat close enough to the shore to step off and not make a huge jump. So we, we started a business in the lubrication and filtration business, industry. So, servicing the oil for was our original goal. We were, we're basically a full on, lubricant like motor oils and greases, full line lubricants and then filtrations, just being like your air filters and oil filters similar to what you would put on your car but in a little bit bigger scope. So that brings us up. We've had some really good successes over the last five years. Good enough that I was able to actually sell my consulting company and come on full time so that I'm home every night. If, if I'm not home at night is because I'm on vacation. So, that's where I'm at today so wherever you want to take it, it's yours.
Dean Soto 4:12
So, for a little bit of background for those listening, I, so I always pride myself on making very fast decisions like five minutes decisions and, and doing things that will allow me to have more time or whatever, whatever it might be. Matt is on a whole another level. So, that was, that was definitely a, an amazing background. Now, one thing that people don't realize is that, that you, that the consulting side of things, you were making a lot of money which you said and you, like you said you were gone pretty much the entire year away from your family but you very quickly, given the data that you had and, and everything, you very quickly made that decision to let go of that whole entire thing which was bringing in a lot of revenue for you, you know?
Matt Laird 5:07
It was, yeah, it was. It was a lot of money to walk away from but at some point, you had to realize what your family's worth. If I didn't make a decision really quickly, I would have just had a lot of money in a empty house.
Dean Soto 5:22
I love it. Like, see this is, this is, so from here on out now that you're, you know, while you're listening to this, this, this is the type of man that Matt is and so just keep that in mind as we move forward through all of this. So, it's just absolutely amazing what he, what he and that just quick decision, literally it was like an overnight decision where he's like, I'm done. So it's, it's absolutely just inspiring. So all that being said, give me kind of the day to day with Camrock Oil & Supply and, and we'll talk about how you've been actually disrupting the industry. Like when you first built this business, like, like, what, what were some of likes, kind, kind of what's you in a typical day? Like, what are you servicing? What are you typically doing?
Matt Laird 6:12
So early on in this business, we were just primarily a filtration company. So we just had a whole bunch of filters and a whole bunch of people that needed filters. So we've got really big trucks and we fill them up with filters. And we, we drove around and, and realized pretty quickly that those filters are mostly air and there wasn't enough margin, huge invoices but no margin. So we began to, to seek out something that was more profitable, that is more needed in the market that would fit really well with our filter company. So as we added the bulk lubricants, we were able to definitely get into a niche. So we're, we're one of our own, so there's not many small independent lubrication filtration company. So there is some small independent oil companies. And then there's some parts houses, there's not really a, a merger between the two of lubrication filtration. But once we've realized that these two works so well together, we're able to infiltrate these markets that the person who's selling just oil couldn't get into with a person that's just selling filters or truck parts getting into. So basically what we are is when we walk in the house, walk into a shop. We've got a full line of outside sales people who do excellent job at getting us into facilities. But when we walk in the door, we can pride ourselves to say that we're going to get the best service, you're going to get the best overall products because we're able to, to cover needs and niches that no one else can do. So, as far as Camrock as a business, we're a full outside sales. Full delivery business that covers all lubrication filtration. But as far as what I do every day, all I really do is just grow the business. So I spend approximately two hours a day working in the business, you know, about eight to ten hours working on the business. So basically, I pulled myself out of operations so that I can focus on going forward and moving the needle, disrupting the industry not just selling more cardboard boxes, actually finding a way to change the entire scope of the industry.
Dean Soto 8:37
That's it, that, that so, so in this industry, because I remember you'd went to a conference not too long ago and you're like, holy crap, like it's, yeah, people tend, in your industry tend to be doing the exact same thing like what differentiates you from, say, your closest competitor with, what is like the big key factor that, that you're doing in this whole filtration and lubrication business that people, if they were if you know if the old school oil type were looking at you they'd be basically say, you know, that's impossible?
Matt Laird 9:17
So basically, the way that this deal works is that I'm an old industry. I'm in an industry where there's no influx of new people because the cost and the, just the ability to get into this industry is so expensive and so time consuming. There's not really a big welcome party for new distributors in the market. So my closest competitor in the lubrication side does over a billion a year. So they're a huge, big company that's not nimble, that doesn't care about their quality, doesn't care about their personal services. They're more worried about how many gallons they can sell all these big accounts so, so with this big company growing bigger, and essentially just through acquisitions and mergers taking over all of the small companies, it's just leaving a huge gap for me to get in with a little better service. Maybe not even as well as good a price but just a better service of better customer relationship and a little more technology. Basically, at the point where I'm at now, if I could do something, you know, maybe I don't put my guys on a route, maybe me I go and get people their stuff when they need it coz I'm not worried about every single penny. I could charge a little more margin. And then on my filter side, in our truck parts as well. We've figured out ways through the market that we can offer a product at basically a more competitive price than, than what your auto parts stores can do because of the sheer volume that we do. So, in our market, we have two small auto parts stores, and one decently sized truck parts store. So, I do more in filtration sales per month than the three of those do combined. So, just in the sheer volume that I move in my filtration I'm able to use my 10 or 12 x buying power to push down the, the cost of the point where I'm competitive so that I can cover my entire market with lubrication filtration. So, for what, I do a little better on my lubrication side than what the competitor does as far as quality goes, but my price is slightly higher, but my pricing on the other filtration covers that gap. So it's basically, if you use me for, for all of these product lines that I offer, my price is competitive with what you're paying across the board, yet you're getting a far superior service.
Dean Soto 12:05
Hmm, hmm. So that's, that's amazing. Because, because, essentially it's the choice between do, do I go with this big huge company to service all of the, the things that I need who doesn't care about me because I, you know, I'm just one of maybe thousands or one of maybe 10,000 accounts, and they just want to sell me stuff. And that's about it and take it or leave it. Or, I can get the same or better discount from you and know that I'm actually being taken care of. Like that to me is like a huge, huge thing, which has always been good for at least my business has been that ability to scale personal attention and the fact that you can with what you're doing compete with this billion dollar company who's your next biggest competitor. There's very, you have no other competitors, because the barriers to entry, and yet you're able to be small enough to give that, that scale personal attention. That's, that's huge. And do you see, like with your customers, you see a, do you see in them, like a, like appreciation of that?
Matt Laird 13:30
So I mean, I would just assume that appreciation or voting is done with your checkbook. So in the, in the five years we've been in business, we've lost a few customers to mergers and acquisitions, but as far as retaining a customer, there's only two customers in the history of our entire company that have actually gone somewhere else.
Dean Soto 13:52
Wow.
Matt Laird 13:53
Though, of every customer I've ever sold a product to, I've only had two of the hundred or probably pretty high in the hundreds that have ever actually quit working, quit using me and went somewhere else. So I think that our, our culture and our customer focus in our pricing structure and everything else is really, once someone comes to us and learned the way we do things, and learns our culture and realize that we do care is not just something we sell from the street. They never leave. Not to this, up to this point, it's been scalable, so it was scalable at one customer, scalable at 60, scalable at 200. And we just continue to just push that culture into our salespeople. So everyone that touches my customer knows the culture, knows that it's our determination that they do right. And I also have several of my salespeople that, that will follow up and actually we'll cross pollinate between customers just to make sure that there's not any issue.
Dean Soto 15:06
Wow.
Dude, people would kill for that churn rate, man. The, I mean, most you know a lot of service businesses that you're looking at, 10 to 25%, you know, churn rate people leaving and, and for you to have you know below, below 2%? I mean, it depends on how many hundreds you have like that's a super low and super high, you know super high retention rate that, that a lot of companies would die for. Oh my gosh, that's, that's, that's absolutely amazing, dude. Like so, with like, without that being said this, so a lot of people would think, okay well yeah, well, it's because Matt is, you know, you know smaller company and, and yeah, you know smaller companies, you're able to have the the more personal attention and yada, yada and but, but one thing that people might not realize is that you actually recently hit the Inc 500, right?
Matt Laird 16:12
We did we, we hit Inc 500. Number three in the state of Oklahoma. I believe it was 36 in the energy sector.
Dean Soto 16:20
Wow. See, look at that. So, how in the heck man, how do you? I mean, I know because you, you follow, you know, books and thoughts like Jason Freed's and David Hannah Meyer Hanson's rework and a whole bunch of other really, really.
Matt Laird 16:39
That rework is sitting on my desk right now.
Dean Soto 16:40
Yeah, that's why I love you. So, like, you have to grow, right? These days, you know, contrary to popular belief, you know, or you know, I shouldn't say contrary to popular belief, but popular belief is that you have to be this in order to hit the Inc 500 at all, you have to be this huge organization with you know, hundreds of employees, you know how many hundreds of employees you have, man?
Matt Laird 17:06
I have about three.
Dean Soto 17:10
Not 300? Three employees, right?
Matt Laird 17:12
No, no, I have three employees and then I have four outside sales that are, they're contracts that they have other, other lines that they sell other than just mine so, and then my wife and I. So there's essentially less than 10 people in the whole building and then I'm running two, one part-time and one full-time VSA that do all my background stuff, everything that nobody, nobody sees, I have VSAs doing it.
Dean Soto 17:38
So cool, dude. Yeah, so then that's, that's, that's one of the reasons why I was so excited to have you on is just how, how you are able to do all of that with such a small amount of overhead when it comes to at least payroll, you know. So what, so like, what one, how, how did you go about structuring that to where you know your next biggest competitor, I'm sure has way more employees than you do because most Inc 500 companies do have a ton more employees like, what, what was going through your mind? And how did you actually make it a reality to have such a small organization that's, that is able to deliver such value that you're able to hit the Inc 500?
Matt Laird 18:28
Ok, so there's a lot of pivots along the way. But when we originally started the company with myself and two other partners, we started the company as an investment that we would oversee not as a business we would run day to day. Basically everything was put in place from day one that basically we started with The E-Myth Revisited, right? So the first employee was day one and that employee had to do this, this and this. And then as we grew, we're going to add another, we're gonna add another, we're gonna add another, that didn't work. So it didn't work at all. Basically, this was about three and a half to four years of me working my other job, and then putting in 40 to 50 hours a week on this job plus my business partners as well. I had three different times. I hired someone who was Six Sigma, or what's this? Had all the abbreviations in front of their name and basically, I hired three different people at three different times to try to grow the company. And I had zero success with any of them. So, every single time I would grow up to 8,10, 12 people, then I would go back and realize that this isn't working, that we're, we're losing money, that we're failing that, you know that this is not the path we need to be on. So there was three times In the growth of the five years that we actually ended up back with one employee.
Dean Soto 20:04
Wow, wow.
Matt Laird 20:06
And one sales person, other than myself.
Dean Soto 20:09
Yeah.
Matt Laird 20:11
But over the course, so what I finally realized was that, it's not the people, right? So the people that I hire aren't bad people. What I realized was that there's no way I can increase the, increase the ability of my company if I cannot get beyond two to three people, and my culture shift. So basically, that's where I realized that everything had to be documented. Everything has to be written down, checklist. Everything has to be repeated. So how do we, how do we go to a customer today? And we drop off their products and we throw them in the middle of the floor, and they're super upset and then the next day we go back and we put them all on the shelf. Well, that was happening at some point, right? So, maybe not that dramatic but there was, at one point there was no system. There was no follow up, there was no, there was no way that anybody other than my one delivery guy that's always been with me.
Dean Soto 21:15
Yeah.
Matt Laird 21:16
And my one employee that's always been with me in the office. So if those two people weren't doing it. If anybody else was doing it, they would get sloppy?
Dean Soto 21:24
Yeah.
Matt Laird 21:24
Well, I just realized that those people aren't training because they don't have any guidelines to train off of.
Dean Soto 21:30
Yeah.
Matt Laird 21:30
So I've trained them so they know. But it's just the carbon copy effect. And every time I get to the next person, it's lesser of a solid line.
Dean Soto 21:39
Yeah.
Matt Laird 21:39
And then I get to the next person, then it's a dotted line, and then I get to the next person, and the next person is costing me more money than they're making. So it's, it's basically, I went through this transition three different times and realize that in each of those times, I could have been well-rounded. I think the people would have probably done, done an excellent job, had my training been better. So basically, I was able to come in at that point using first I tried to do it myself, PowerPoint. Tried to build these processes. I spent hundred hours and got three processes documented maybe. It was a, it was definitely a terrible, terrible thing, but.
Dean Soto 22:23
I know the feeling, dude.
Matt Laird 22:25
Yeah, so then. So then after, Dean and I were talking and he was able to bring his guys in. Basically, it was pay-per-click on these processes and I would spend my day from 4pm until 5pm every day working on the one thing that I never wanted to do again. So whatever I did today between 4pm and 5pm, I didn't ever want to have to do it again and I wanted it to be done correct. So all I would do is, is follow Dean's programs. So basically jumped in, jump on Loom, record that process exactly like you would want it done. Because you, you have a system, your system may suck, but you have a system. So record your system exactly like it is on Loom every day, whatever that process is and I would email it to, to Dean and Dean finally got tired of me emailing him and then he gave me somebody else's email.
But I, every day at the end of the day, between four and five, I would email my whatever that process was over to Dean and he would send to his guys. The next morning when I got back to the office. The next morning sometime, I would have a full process document that was just prim and proper. I would look through it very few times that I even have to correct anything on there which is perfect. And then I was able to use that as training. So I would basically start training my staff as I was growing. And then I lost the girl that was working for me, that was my bookkeeper/ receptionist. When I lost her, I decided to give the VSAs a try. And I was able to not only would have the VSAs do what I had primarily been doing, but also what she was doing. And then a few weeks later I lost another employee. And then, so now I have one and, essentially a full-time and a part-time VSA that do the work of the three people that I lost, including myself, which pulled me completely out of the business.
Dean Soto 24:39
So cool.
Matt Laird 24:40
So that I can just spend a couple hours in the morning checking on things and then off to disrupt the industry.
Dean Soto 24:49
That's awesome, dude. I love it. I love it. So like what, like what that's so cool that you won, that you felt the pain of documenting a processes is that like is the worst, man. I mean, because, but it's what was necessary, obviously, you know, any, any real business has to have those documented processes. Like, with, like with, with all of those the, the one of the things that you just what you, you said that we had talked about in private before is that you said that you had systems. Like the systems could have sucked, but you had systems and you document it in any way. Like, that seemed like it was a pretty big game changer, right? Like rather than trying to create a new system that you don't know is proven.
Matt Laird 25:34
Yes. So I mean, just one system I use, right? So instead of having some fancy software for my inventory, I use QuickBooks, alright? And I mean, I could use something else and I may at some point use something else but right now I just use QuickBooks. QuickBooks Platinum has an inventory feature. And I have Bernadette, who's my full time VSA. She creates an Excel spreadsheet that I basically I recorded one afternoon when I never wanted to do it again. She jumps onto my QuickBooks. She has full access to my inventory on my QuickBooks. She builds this spreadsheet. She runs through the spreadsheet and, and knows exactly when how long it takes to order something. She knows how long it takes to come in, and then minimum order amounts. And then she will actually take that spreadsheet that I generated, that I taught her how to do on a Loom video. She actually takes that, creates purchase orders in my QuickBooks then puts the, a suffix on the end that, that has the purchase order number with the "-INC". So when I get to the office in the mornings, it's already ready. I open up my open purchase orders folder on QuickBooks. Anything that says "INC" suffix after that, that part. It means that, that has not been ordered. So all I have to do instead of the 45 minutes to an hour it takes me to run through that spreadsheet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Now I get to the office, open up my QuickBooks, and I can look and see that oh, this particular vendor, I know I need to get to 1500 dollars to get free freight. It's at 1411, I can either throw on one or two, one or two items or I can just wait and then the following when Tuesday or Monday, Wednesday or Friday, I know it'll get over 1500 bucks. So, and then, so I never had this system before. This is something new that just happened to come up. Whenever I was making the videos, once I started making a video, I felt more comfortable and then I was able to, to be more creative as I was doing it. And, and one real big thing that just the straight game changer was that I know that I'm not gonna have to do this process. I may add steps that make it easier for me to go back later. Because I know I'm not the one doing it every day. So there's been several times where I'm, I'm just generating a new process or a process that I'm already doing. And there's stuff that I've always known that I needed to be doing, but I've just been kind of skipping.
Dean Soto 25:36
Yeah.
Matt Laird 26:21
When you make that process document, you add all that stuff in.
Dean Soto 28:33
Yeah.
Matt Laird 28:33
And now that stuff that you always wish you would have done is now being done.
Dean Soto 28:37
That is so cool. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So I want to ask the, the big question, which is the question I asked everyone during this. So if you had five minutes and it was like a life or death situation so to speak, what's what's this, what is something, strategically if somebody were to implement whatever it might be? What would be something that, that you could strategically give someone or that would absolutely change their life in five minutes if they made the decision to actually do it?
Matt Laird 29:25
So if, if I had five minutes to explain it or if they had five minutes to do it?
Dean Soto 29:28
That's it, both, five minutes to explain it, five minutes to explain it.
Matt Laird 29:32
Oh man, Russell Brunson gave people 30 days for his, at five minutes?
Dean Soto 29:38
That's how we roll here man, we're lazy. We need to do something fast.
Matt Laird 29:41
Yeah, I really think in, obviously, I'm, I'm kind of biased right now because I've been going through so much of this, this new training to get to mass market. But today I would say if you want to do something to get your life in order or, or would it, would you want it to be life or is it just something that someone could do that?
Dean Soto 30:07
Maybe any, it could be, it could be business, it could be life, it could be absolutely anything. Something that's just like that, that is super impactful. It's not like, it's something that, that that you know, you know, would or has made a big difference in your life.
Matt Laird 30:24
So, I'm gonna have to go with, with more than one thing. So the most impactful thing that I've ever had in my life is getting my morning routine dialed in. So without my morning routine my days are, are essentially garbage, right? So I'm just chasing that sanity that I would have had with, with my morning routine. So I spend an extra hour a day getting ready to play, you know, getting ready to to win.
Dean Soto 30:53
Yeah.
Matt Laird 30:53
If, if I don't spend that hour, hour and how long it takes getting ready in the morning , I might as well just stay in bed. That's my number one life hack of today.
Dean Soto 31:09
I love that, like go, so and then you can tell me the, the number two after this but so what is your morning, normal morning routine like, like what do you do personally?
Matt Laird 31:19
So, so I think you know it personally but, but I'll go through it. So the first thing I do is I get up. Use the bathroom, wet myself, brush my teeth, make a coffee with one teaspoon of either grass-fed Kerrygold butter, unsalted or ghee, whichever I have there. One tablespoon of MCT oil. I use the Brain Octane which is, I've been using it for years, I love it. And while that's brew and I take a scoop of the either Organifi or green smoothie. I use the, I've been using the Oreo brand lately just because it, it tastes so much better. Crush the green smoothie that's still in my, you know, I'm still in my pantry, pop a couple of Nootropics, Alpha Brain or, or whatever I'm on that. I cycle through them a lot. So whichever Nootropics I'm gonna popped that.
Dean Soto 32:25
Dude, yeah, you, you got me back on to that, by the way, and it's made a huge difference.
Matt Laird 32:30
I mean, I'm 100% it gets the brain impulse.
Dean Soto 32:34
Oh my gosh, it's, it's the way I like, so I mean, I was doing the Qualia for a while and that, that would just make me really anxious for whatever reason, but I've been using, I know you've used the, the Thrivous, whole stack that they have. That's what I've been using too and oh my gosh, they had the difference, man.
Matt Laird 32:51
It's good thing. Then I, and I come into my office. So in my office, I have four by six index cards, random assortment of colors. So I have my three daughters and one wife. So I'll write them a note to each of them every day. On my note, I'll say something like, had a great time at the movies, can't wait to go, we're going to go to the movies this week, wherever my daddy daughter date or my wife and I date is for the week. Sometimes I'll bring up a unique memory that we share together. You know, I put something on a card, not a whole bunch coz I write with a permanent marker. So it's big, takes up the whole card, boom, kinda in your face. And then I take those into, my oldest daughter charges her phone in the living room, so I will have it in that room. I put her card under there. My two youngest kids, I put them where they eat their breakfast and then my wife I put about the coffee pot. So that's done. Got all my family stuff out of the way just so that when they wake up they know even though I'm not here, I do love them. And then I have, come back into my office, I'll throw on, hit record, I am blogging a book. So I'll do five, seven minutes, 5 AM on my book then I'm dressing out the door, jump in my truck, turn on the Through The Word App, TTW. Right now, coz actually tomorrow I'm finishing up the In Times, which was 70, 70 days worth or something.
Dean Soto 34:29
Wow.
Matt Laird 34:30
Soon as I pull up at the office. My office isn't very far. So usually I can go through that five to six minutes on the way to the office, go to the office, all ready to kick all the heaters on in the office coz it's cheap. So I turn all the heaters off at night. My staff is in, in the Philippines anyway, so they don't need it at night. So and then I'll jump back in my truck. And so as soon as I get back in my truck, I'll, I'll go through what's called the Stack, which is an app put down by the Warrior, which is Garrett J. White.
Dean Soto 35:04
Yep.
Matt Laird 35:05
Basically it, it ask yourself a lot of open-ended questions.
Dean Soto 35:08
Yep.
Matt Laird 35:10
Steady, so there's like 15 different questions it asks you and then it asks you the question, how you feel about what you just said and it was really good app, Warrior brotherhood, Garrett J. White.
Dean Soto 35:20
Yeah.
Matt Laird 35:21
And then, kick on Headspace. So right there in my truck in the parking lot at work, 10 minutes today, I actually stepped it up to 20 minutes of Headspace.
Dean Soto 35:31
Wow.
Matt Laird 35:34
Basically do a bunch of, right now I'm doing one of their programs that go through right, so it's like a 10 day challenges or something. And then I'm good enough. It's about 6:10, office is already warmed up. I'm already at the office. I've already had my first coffee and then I'm ready to go. So I skip, I don't do any fitness in the morning. Which to someone who doesn't work out a lot, I would recommend fitness in the morning but for me it just doesn't work with my schedule because I have a hundred plus minute workout regimen that I have to do all together. I would have to get up at three o'clock in the morning so we don't do that so but that's it. I mean, I'm in the office and I'm usually sitting at my desk at 6:15, levelled, centered, I've already pre planned my entire week on Sunday. So I have my schedule lined out in 30 to 45 minute increments and I'm ready to go.
Dean Soto 36:37
I love that. Oh man, the and that, that that is why, that is definitely why it's super important as far as the the five minute strategic thing that is, that is awesome. All the stuff that you're able to pack in to an hour and a half. You know obviously a lot of that comes from the, the Warrior stuff that's, that's actually how Matt and I had, had met. We actually did warrior week with, through Garrett J. White's program.
Matt Laird 37:07
We're Week 57 man.
Dean Soto 37:08
57.
Matt Laird 37:09
Most uncomfortable the human body could do without dying.
Dean Soto 37:12
I know it was crazy, man. And it wasn't just the physical as all the, all the emotional stuff too man, like it's crazy. The, so yeah, dude. So that, that, that was one you were, you said that you, there was two things. So there's one was the getting your morning routine down, which you out of everybody, you definitely are so structured with that, with that morning routine and actually doing it on a regular basis. I have a morning routine that, that relatively mimics what you're doing. But sometimes it's at six, sometimes it's at eight. Sometimes it's at seven, sometimes it's at nine. My dream is to, to just make it six o'clock from here on out, but we'll see if we can make that happen so.
Matt Laird 37:57
Oh, you know, I've been chasing a morning routine for years.
Dean Soto 38:00
Really.
Matt Laird 38:01
Funny enough, it doesn't, that you wouldn't think that you would. But so like I've heard people talk about their meditation practices and their morning routines. I read Elrod, Miracle Morning, like three or four years ago. And I've always been trying to get it primed and get it right. I just didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. But it is super important at this point to have all of that correct.
Dean Soto 38:26
You know, you know, I love it, man. I love it. It definitely makes a huge difference. Like I got every Monday we have our little, our group that we, that we talked about, that we meet that you're a part of and every time because I have to be on at around, wake up at 4:45 and be on at five. Like, I've gotten so much done today. Like way more than I normally do during the week and I'm like, oh I gotta do this everyday but then Tuesday comes around, and it's kind of harder, harder to wake up. But yeah, so what's this? What's the second thing, man? You mentioned two, you got me all.
Matt Laird 39:01
Yes, so, so the second, second thing is where I'm going right now, man. It is, it's the niches. I mean, it's not mass market. I mean, it's obviously mass market. You don't want to be in a, you know the small area. But it's just to get into that niche, right? So you want to find your customer in the niche, in the niche, in the niche. So you want to know, basically, your customer, you want to be able to draw that avatar on a piece of paper. You want to know how many kids they have, you want to know how many trucks they have, or you want to know how many rakes they have or whatever it is that you do, you need to find out what your current customer is. And I have done some soul searching lately and I realized that a majority of the customers that I work with now don't fit into my perfect customer bubble. Not to say that it doesn't work but I do know that the ones that do fit into my customer bubble feel better with my service. They feel better with me as a person, and I like being around them. So you can't force yourself to go to work when you're actually going and it's people you like to be around, it's people you like to serve. But I really think that finding that niche the people you want to work with and finding where they're at inside of their niche is super important.
Dean Soto 40:28
That's awesome man. And I, when, so you recently put out a, a funnel and, and a video and when I, even when I heard the video that you did, it was so specific to problems that you face that, that you, that you know, others face those exact same problems that it got me interested and hooked like right away. And, I definitely don't have those problems, but it was, it was as if I was in the room and you were speaking to a friend of mine that was in the oil or, or had a, you know, fleet of trucks, but wasn't big enough to, to be you know, to get the discounts that a lot of these big distributors and so on are able to get. And you, the way that you talked on this video, it was so narrow and specific in the pain that the person's feeling that it, that it was contagious. And I just thought that, like I, I've, the, the fact that you're able to go that deep definitely tells, tells the person listening that you know. You know if they are going to, you know if they are actually going to be a customer, you know, the pain that they're going through and then you have the path and the, the possibility of helping them to get past that pain that they're currently in right now. It's, it was pretty amazing.
Matt Laird 42:02
Well, we're hoping to actually launch today, funnel launches today, I'm just finishing up but this would be my first, funny enough, Inc 500 going on probably two years in a row, and I've only spent $250 my entire career in advertising. So, my first funnel launches today and sad to say that as soon as I hit click, it's gonna double my ad spend for my life.
Dean Soto 42:31
Oh poor guy, poor guy, dang, dude, so, so all that being said, like, how, how can people reach you? How can people connect with you, whether they're customers or strategic partners? Any? How can, how can people work with you?
Matt Laird 42:48
Yeah, so basically, I'm available email or LinkedIn. I see only two platforms that I use. I, I don't do social media. I don't have any of the Instagram, Tick Tock, whatever the newest thing is. LinkedIn or email. So my email is matt.laird@camrocksupply.com and my, my name is Matt Laird on, in LinkedIn.
Dean Soto 43:15
Oh, I love it. Let me, I'm going to grab your LinkedIn profile link real quick, hold on one second so, so when my guys are doing the, the blog post for this, they can link to you. You heard that guys, thank you so much for doing my blog posts for me by the way as you're hearing this. So linkedin.com/in/matt-laird-77540b59, okay? Cool, so you can go there and then you can actually go to, what was your website, it was Camrock?
Matt Laird 43:54
Camrock Supply.com
Dean Soto 43:57
Camrocksupply.com as well. So go check that, C A M R O C K supply.com. Dude, you're amazing. And I would love to have you on again and talk specific things, operations wise and things like that later, but I really wanted to get, get you on just to introduce you and show people that you're able. You're, I mean if you're able to hit Inc 500 with the overhead that you have, and with the flexibility that you have in an industry that is absolutely archaic and old. It, it shows what you're able to do, that you, that you don't have to go with the flow and stuff like that. So it's just amazing to have you on man and see all the things that you're doing.
Matt Laird 44:43
Oh man, I appreciate it. Yep, let me know whenever you're ready. I do know that. After the 21st, when I go live with my new project, I would definitely like to talk on how that things go and we're going to disrupt the industry.
Dean Soto 44:59
I love it man.
Matt Laird 45:00
Wanna keep up with 2020.
Dean Soto 45:02
I love it. Well how, how can people get to your, to your funnel?
Matt Laird 45:07
It's not launched at the time but the regular email address for that will be fleet, F L E E T E X.net.
Dean Soto 45:20
Cool, perfect, fleetex.net, cool. So by that, yeah, by the time this is on, it should be up and running man. That's great. Cool. Well, it's great having you on brother. I appreciate it. And guys, go check out Matt Laird. If, if, and he is just an absolutely amazing, amazing person and then go check out camrocksupply.com and also fleetex.net. Until then, guys, this has been the freedom in five minutes podcast and we will check you out in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
People nowadays are so eager to produce an output that some of it leads to mediocrity. And because they want to have something right away, most of them end up forgetting about the most important thing when it comes to building something. But what exactly is that “thing” that we need to be aware of?
In this episode, Dean talks about what it means to have a strong and reliable foundation and how important it is when you’re trying to build your business.
Automated Transcript Below:
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes calm and pro silom. Calm PR O, Su, O u m calm. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes episode. Today's topic is this, the foundation of what you build is what matters most. That and more coming. Oh, good morning. It's kind of getting warmer here. Which is good, in a sense, but I need to go and take advantage of the snow before it all melts up in the mountain area. Anyway, I'll solve that problem when we get there. So I'm on the walk with the Luna Meister as usual and got some good things. That's some good things. So So building this cat house. It's a it's a feral cat house, we want to get a whole bunch of cats set from the ASPCA who, you know, they've been fixed. They've been spayed, but they just they're just not something they're not a cat that wants to be indoors or not a cat that wants to be with people, and so on and so forth. And so they're not going to be cats that want to be inside right. So. So I'm building a feral cat house is going to be four foot, four foot wide by eight foot long and I need to start putting some more dirt on on my What's it called? My chicken coop I have this I have this wire mesh that comes out from the chicken coop and then you start putting some more dirt or over it. Anyway. That'll be Yet another thing I need to do. So anyway, these feral cats will live in this cat house. So I'm gonna already have kind of the designs for it and everything. So I already started building the foundation and built most of the, the frame of the structure, and so on. And it's good. The way that we're going to actually design and it's going to look like a like a, like a biker bar. Have you ever seen like a, like a biker bar type thing and, and it's going to have like a sign out, out in front of it's gonna be all black and have like spikes and things like that. And it's good. The biker bar is going to be called Hell's kittens. And so or something like that. And so these, these are going to be our rat catchers. They're going to be the ones who get all of the the rodents and snakes and squirrels and and gophers and things Like that, so I'm super excited to get these guys gonna be pretty awesome. But one of the things and I learned this when building other things, but one of the things that has taken me the longest is building the foundation for this house. I've already like I said, I've already built the frame and darn it, I left this piece of wood out. Hopefully it didn't work. I don't think it will. Anyway, I'm sorry, the, the, the the that I've already learned from other structures that have built despite how annoying it is, despite how much I don't like it, whether I like it or not. whether I like it or not the hardest part of this whole thing is the foundation. Right so the foundation is made of cinder blocks is going to be, it's going to be four corners, and then a couple of blocks that are in the center just to keep the keep the floor from bending, and so on and so forth. But the most important part are definitely the four corners. And it's on a slope. Right now it's on a slope. So the front of the structure, the cinder blocks are dug in about halfway down, which is totally fine. That's great. But the ones in the back, because it's on a little slope. Those are barely dug in. So when I was trying to make sure that they didn't shift or anything like that, when I was doing that, I found that it just wasn't going to work. As soon as I put soon as I put the structure on there, and there's any type of movement, it's going to start shifting the cinder blocks, right. Well, luckily, I had a bag of Quick, quick drying concrete I've brought the bag down and I didn't want to do this is just one obviously an added piece of work and then anytime I'm anytime I'm con creating something it's pretty permanent like that's the way I've always feel it's a pretty permanent and so I don't want to mess up so anyway I pour the concrete on it and go and get some water to start winning the concrete and and right when I pour the water on the the thing I realized oh crap, there was concrete on top of the cinder block too. So I had to I had to very quickly brush it all off with my hand and make sure that that so that didn't dry on the cinder block and then make that all uneven and everything like that. But um when I when I finished it was, you know as quick drying concrete so it didn't take that long to dry, but it was a perfect foundation. Perfect. The one on the back. They're not going to shift, the ones in the front are not going to shift. Not too worried about the ones in the center because if those four corners don't shift, we should be good to go should be pretty golden. And so yeah, it was a, it was one of those things where, where I started realizing, you know, I've spent hours spent hours just on this dang foundation. And it's cinder blocks, it's literally just cinder blocks and trying to make them as straight as possible, as highest as as the same height as possible, as well as the same height as possible. But also, more importantly, that all of them are leveled, and they all align with each other. Okay, which is hard. It's a little bit harder. It's not hard, but it just takes a lot of time. And and I realized, wow, yeah, I could literally be doing the fun stuff like cutting word and putting all the word together and doing all our stuff. But here I am doing This foundation Well, if I were to do all of that, the word and cut all that stuff and build everything and then put it on a foundation that was horrible, the foundation that wasn't going to last so foundation that was shaky or an uneven, the whole structure, eventually very quickly is going to give away and it's going to come crashing down. Right? And I don't want to come crashing down on my kitties That would suck. And so, why is this all important? You know, the foundation of everything is so, so important. This is why we are we are ruthless. And I say that in all honesty, like we are ruthless with our customers, making sure that they have the foundation of building systems the foundation of creating systems from systems documentation from video, right. That is a huge, huge thing and a lot of customers want to jump we want to jump just to the building part. Just want to jump just to the fun part and We have to stop them and say that's not how we work here. That's not what we do. So if you don't, if you if you're looking to if you're looking to have a building that and a business that is going to crumble, or you're going to have to go and fix and fix and fix and fix, not the not the right place, right? So what right now of your foundation of your business or your marriage or anything like that, what right now, are you doing that you know, that you should spend more time on even though it's not fun, maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's going on date nights, maybe it's going on? Maybe it's taking time during the day for your family to have a meal together? Maybe it's maybe it could be, you know, going to church more for your spirituality side of things or exercising more stretching, whatever it might be. I challenge you to take the time to build the foundation for that thing. Because the more that you try to, to build, without having that solid ground built, the more difficult is going to be for you to the more difficult it's going to be for you to see results in anything that you're doing. And it's going to be a constant fight and a constant struggle and the constant repairing of everything so so this Dean sort of founder of freedom in five minutes calm, go check out freedom in five minutes calm also go check out. Go check out proselyte calm PR o su lm calm. If you want a virtual systems architect, super, super inexpensive, but they will literally transform your entire business. Sometimes. almost overnight, I would say. I wouldn't say overnight, but pretty darn close. So all that being said You're hearing me in my garage. So I'm going to take off this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes. I'll catch you on the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
What are you procrastinating on? What is something right now that you know you have to do? Something in your business that you keep on putting off - it could be bookkeeping.
Some of the tasks in your business are like ticking time bombs that could explode in your face if you do not deal with them sooner than later. It's just going to get worse over time!
Now, I learned this the hard way. The more that you are unwilling to do what needs to be done now, the harder it is gonna be later.
Automated Transcription 0:00
Hey. This is Dean Soto, founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. We're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode. Today's topic is this:
0:19
If You Leave Poison Oak Next to You, Eventually You're Going to Get Burned. That & more, coming up.
0:32
Oh, good morning. Good morning. Good morning.
0:36
So when we moved onto our property about three years ago,
0:44
one of the handymen - he was someone who did our tree work. He did a whole bunch of stuff. He showed us where we had some Poison Oak on the property within a very close distance to our house.
1:06
And we actually had him come and spray and kill a good amount of it. And then we're going to have him get rid of it but never ended up getting around to it. And then, I started thinking, "Well, the kids really don't play over where that's at." And you know, it's not that big of a deal. It's just poison oak... yada yada yada.
1:27
Well, nearly three years later, we kicked the children out to go and play. Apparently they were wandering right around that area. And they got poison oak on their hands; and subsequently on their body; and subsequently on their face. And now, they have the poison oak rash all over them. And it sucks.
1:56
It sucks. It's funny, like you know, my little guy is a beast... He is a monster when it comes to pain. He's totally fine. Like, he's just, "Oh, I want to go play. I want to go play. I want to go do this. I want to go do that." And yet when you look at his face, you're like, "Oh my gosh, dude, you should be resting. Because man, you look beat up." Um, it's sad because that poison oak is just like, all over him.
2:27
So all that being said, one of the things that is going to be happening in the next few days is I'm getting rid of all of that stuff. I know where it all is. I've been hesitant just because I didn't want to get it but who knows I might actually be immune to it because I was touching his face and doing a whole bunch of stuff and I haven't got it at least as of yet.
2:49
And, you know, there are some people who are immune to poison oak. There are people who are immune to poison ivy and poison oak where it doesn't bother them. I think it's about 50% of people in the United States.
3:01
I don't have an allergic reaction to it at all. And none of my other kids have had any symptoms or any signs. It's just this particular one. At least that's what I think it is from looking at all the pictures online and looking at everything. It looks like it is poison oak.
3:21
And so anyway, we are just looking and just waiting for all his stuff to stop swelling up and everything like that. But one of the things you have to do when you're getting rid of poison oak is you have to have gloves on. You can't burn it because it'll get into your lungs and will cause a whole bunch of damage into your lungs, apparently. So I'm going to take that and we have a place over our fence that I'm going to go to throw it out of - that no one ever goes to. No one will ever go, as far as I know. But I'm going to try and make it kind of spread out on the grass over the fence.
4:00
So that all the oils dry up and it gets all decomposed as fast as possible. But what you have to do is you have to get gloves, you cut down the stuff, and then you move that stuff - you typically would throw it, if you were in the city. You'd throw it away. You try and cut it up as much as possible and throw it away. But then, you have all that stuff on your gloves. You have all that stuff on your tools and everything like that.
4:28
So I gotta go do that. I'm gonna go and start doing that this week.
4:35
Making sure that stuff is just off of our property. Because it was a ticking time bomb. It was there. It was something where I'm like, "Ah, nothing's gonna happen. Nothing's gonna happen." And then, all of a sudden, "Boom!"
4:51
You know, and it sucks. And why is this important? It's important because there are a lot of ticking time bombs. There are a lot of poison oak that you have in your business right now. Right? It could be in your business. It could be in your marriage. It could be in your spirituality. It could be in your health. Things that you've been ignoring for quite a while, you know are bad.
5:10
And I can think of some in my business that I know are just sitting there and they will eventually explode. And when they do, it's going to be not pretty, it's not going to be pleasant.
5:26
So it's best to handle that stuff now. You know, had I done this three years ago, I would have gone through the exact same thing. I would have cut the stuff down, put all the poison oak in a place where it can just decompose by itself as quickly as possible and be done with it. But now, I have a child who was exposed to it and is now healing from all the allergic reaction to it.
6:01
So, either way, I had to cut the stuff down and move it. But because I chose to wait, boom, that's what happened.
6:10
So, what are you waiting on? What is something right now that you know you have to do that if you keep on letting it go... it could be bookkeeping, it could be whatever... You keep on letting it go.
6:25
It's just going to get worse and worse and worse and worse. The more that you are unwilling to do what you need to do now the harder it's gonna be later.
6:45
This is Dean Soto. It's a short one because I'm gonna go and start getting rid of this poison oak.
6:52
This is a short one, but go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. It's a really awesome site.
7:00
Obviously. I wouldn't have a podcast about it if it wasn't.
7:05
We have a business process scorecard. We have a masterclass there on how to automate your business and get things moving in the right direction - systemize and everything like that.
7:17
Go check out ProSulum.com P R O S U L U M .com. There's a four-video series there that you might want to check out. If you try and leave the site, it'll pop up. You can check out that four-video series or you can schedule a discovery call if you want to start systemizing and automating your business in as little as five.
7:37
Yes, five minutes a day. All right. This is Dean Soto. FreedomInFiveMinutes.com
7:43
I will catch you on the next Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast episode.
The power of being a generalist is a major advantage to an entrepreneur. Join me as I recount my struggle to niche down and specialize until I finally had enough and said, “Screw that! I do not need to specialize in something!” This is my journey to becoming a proud generalist.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. We're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Dean Soto 0:15
Today's topic is this: Specialists in Your Business & in Any Business are Stupid. That and more, coming up...
Dean Soto 0:32
Well, good evening! I just took my son. Right now, we're at his martial arts class. I'm going to be walking around, you're going to hear some cars in the background, but that's okay. Let's just talk. Let's talk, all right?
Dean Soto 0:52
Growing up... Let me let me go rewind the clock a bit. Shall we? Growing up, I always had this issue. It reared its ugly head predominantly in school at first but then it started rearing its head in the workplace too when I started getting into my full time job.
Dean Soto 1:33
During elementary school all the way up into college, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I remember – gosh, it really was from the time I met my wife when I even decided on an actual true major. I was majoring in Japanese and then I majored in music. Eventually I was like, "You know what? Screw this." I just wanted to get out of school. I wanted to get my degree because my wife wasn't going to marry me if I didn't have it. I'm just going to do business. Business Administration. It was the easiest, it was the fastest. And it looks good on my resume if I was going to get a job that paid well.
Dean Soto 2:33
The thing about Business Administration was – and I still remember to this day – I was working at a company I don't even think exists in the same way anymore. I was working at a company called DMJM+Harris. DMJM Harris, and it was a Civil Engineering company. Within the organization, I want to say there was probably 50 people – everything from civil engineers, structural engineers, to finance to accountants to project schedulers, etc... I was an administrative assistant there.
Dean Soto 2:33
It was really cool because it was one of the funnest jobs. And no joke, it was one of the funnest jobs I had. I couldn't put my finger on why I actually enjoyed that job as much as I did but I'll get to why that is in just a little bit. The thing about this organization was there was obviously a lot of skilled people, especially in structural engineering. They're building bridges or roads or building things that perhaps billions of people are driving over and those things have to be perfect.
Dean Soto 6:02
You might be thinking, "Dean, what's the big deal? Really. It's not that big of a deal."
Dean Soto 6:10
Well, for me, I had already spent years going throughout school and getting hounded by councillors as to what I wanted to do. What cog in the wheel did I want to be, right? And I could never decide. There was nothing. There's nothing where I need to dive into so much. There's nothing where I can fall so deeply in love with this thing that I wanted to go. I dabbled in programming and it was fun. Then I dabbled in music, it was fun. But I can only get so far.
Dean Soto 6:53
Everyone was telling me, "You never want to be a jack of all trades and master of none. You are never going to get rich that way. You are never going to see any success that way."
Dean Soto 7:07
When she said that I was like "Crap, I think I'm totally destined just to be this wandering guy who really doesn't know what he's doing and I'm never gonna make anything of myself."
Dean Soto 7:27
It's interesting because right about that time I was applying to Boeing Aerospace. I did not have my bachelor's degree at that time but I did have a security clearance. That was a big thing for Boeing.
Dean Soto 7:49
In my resume when I was applying, I applied for this industrial security job – I didn't quite know what it was. But it sounded like it wasn't armed security. I wasn't wearing a uniform or anything like that. It was more like protecting government secrets. So, I thought, "Wow that's kind of cool! That sounds pretty interesting."
Dean Soto 8:30
You know, honestly, it was still the "fastest" degree. I'm like, "Screw it. I'm going to be destined to this life anyway. I'm just gonna go for it. I'm just gonna keep going." If I'm going to be this poor jack of all trades, master of none, then that's the way it's going to be. I cannot specialize. It's so hard for me to specialize in anything.
Dean Soto 8:53
Lo and behold, as I was working at this civil engineering company, I ended up getting this callback for the position at Boeing and I had an interview. I ended up getting hired.
Dean Soto 9:18
I'm like, "Wait a minute, this is interesting. I didn't think that this would happen. That's pretty cool."
Dean Soto 9:25
I let everyone know at this civil engineering company that I was working for. They were super happy for me. They offered me a job beforehand but it definitely wasn't nearly as much pay so they were happy for me. They gave me a going away lunch and I went to Boeing.
Dean Soto 9:52
It was there that I was like, "Hmm, this is actually pretty cool..." because the industrial engineering job was pretty General. I mean, it had everything from computer security to document control, document security that had physical security. I was climbing the rafters. I was helping to build buildings. I was doing all of this stuff. This is actually really cool.
Dean Soto 10:19
This whole thing that nobody ever talks about in any type of school that was making good money. And it was perfect for a generalist. As I'm doing this, I'm like, "This is awesome. I like it."
Dean Soto 10:40
But it was only at that time when I started to wonder why I liked that administration job so much. I love that administration job so much because I got to talk and help structural engineers. I was doing formulas, popping and creating elaborate spreadsheets that would auto calculate and auto do all the stuff for these engineers; and learning what they needed, how they needed it to go, what needed to be rounded up, and figure out how to make certain things not round up.
Dean Soto 11:16
I even got to these really specialized way of doing formulas in Excel. I learned a ton of stuff in Excel. And so I'm dealing with structural engineers and project schedules. I'm dealing with all these different people. I'm like, Wow, this is so fun. Yet again, with the industrial security, it was the same thing. I'm dealing with engineers I'm dealing with computer security guys, I'm dealing with IT guys I'm dealing with contractors, construction workers, with all these people. This is so cool, and I loved it.
Dean Soto 11:53
I was getting promoted left and right because it was my wheelhouse. I didn't want to specialize in anything. I love the fact that I knew a good amount of all this stuff. I was learning more and more every day. Oh my gosh, it was so wonderful. It was amazing.
Dean Soto 12:15
I got deep into the computer security side of things. They ended up hiring me as a computer security specialist eventually and that was really amazing as well. I'm getting all excited. I'm obviously making a lot more money with that because it's a more technical job and doing a lot of cool things.
Dean Soto 12:37
And then it all came crashing down. Not money wise, it was fine. Not job wise, everything was fine.
Dean Soto 12:51
I got pigeonholed into computer security. There were two ways out. One, leave my job to get promoted to computer security regional management. That was not going to happen because there was one of those jobs and the person who was already there was going to stay for a long time. There was one position like that in all of the western United States. So that wasn't going to happen.
Dean Soto 13:29
Or, I truly deeply specialize as much as I possibly could into computer security. Well, I tried. I honestly tried my hardest. I tried my hardest to make that happen. I tried so hard to really get nerdy and deep and technical and super specific into computer security.
Dean Soto 13:57
But you know what happened? It was extremely painful to the point where I was getting depressed. I was drinking a lot. I hated my job, I could not see a way out. It was so horrible.
Dean Soto 14:14
Like, for me, it just was killing me. I and it got to the point where because a lot of the stuff that I was doing was much more of project management anyway, I would complete a project super super quickly, and then sit around doing nothing because I really did not like the subject anymore. It was getting so boring. It was super valuable to the company because I can come in, fix what needed to be fixed when it came to getting government compliance with computers and everything like that.
Dean Soto 14:43
They could bring me in when people were failing. That's government inspections and all other stuff. They bring me in, get everything up to speed, get everything fixed, and then boom, we're all done. Everything's good to go. That would happen over and over again. The vast majority of the time – because I was not interested in the subject – I'm like, this sucks, I'm done. I'm trying to do better, but I can't get anywhere because it's too specialized. I was feeling like the biggest failure.
Dean Soto 15:19
It wasn't until I became an entrepreneur where I'm leading probably over 100 people or more in building organizations, when I'm supporting client after client and doing all of this general stuff from accounting to payroll by myself and our core team of four people – the core team of four people – those other people who work for me. They work specifically for my clients doing all of these, that I started to see specializing sucks.
Dean Soto 16:16
I mean, they say, Oh yeah, you can't really make a lot of money if you're not specializing... Yeah, maybe in the employee world. Maybe in the employee world that's true but I'm doing just fine. I can work pretty much as little or as long – as as much as I want to. And I make way more money, and I'm not doing this to brag. I make way more money than I ever did as a specialist. It's not meant to brag.
Dean Soto 16:49
This is for those people out there who are a generalist when you just didn't really know what you wanted to do. This is for you. For all those people who say, "Oh, you need to specialize in something." Screw that. You don't. You don't.
Dean Soto 17:11
There are plenty of opportunities out there. And there are plenty of things that make you so valuable. I like to say that I specialize in generalization. I specialize in being a general. I guess the highest ranking people in the military are their generals. Right? Why are they called generals? Because they know they know a good amount of everything but don't specialize in any of it. And they lead those who are specialized, right?
Dean Soto 17:46
Why is this important? It's important because specializing in your business as well, I think, is so dumb. This is why we have Virtual Systems Architects at ProSulum.com and FreedomInFiveMinutes.com because these guys – I have a core team of four people. They do everything from design to copywriting, recruiting, accounting, payroll, invoicing, accounts receivable, accounts payable... they they do everything. Everything.
Dean Soto 18:19
If I was going to go the traditional route of business, I would have 50 people working for me all in some stupid department all doing one thing in one department. For four people in one department doing all that stuff, my overhead costs would go through the roof.
Dean Soto 18:41
When I see these organizations that have their bookkeeper and then they have their accounts receivable person. They have their accounts payable person. They have their marketer there. They have their advertisers they have all of these specialized people. You guys are retarded. And if you're listening to this right now you're probably thinking I'm the biggest jerk.
Dean Soto 19:06
But honestly, the way that things can be done if you use systems and if you document everything you're doing, you do not have to specialize and have those specialists in your business because they suck up so much resources. So many resources and they kill your overhead. They destroy your overhead.
Dean Soto 19:28
So how is it that Matt from Camrock is able to do with only a few people – two VSAs and only a few people – he's able to do what his other competitors do with hundreds of people. It's because he does not specialize. He doesn't get all these specialized people. He has people he can train with systems. They have processes to do whatever they need to do. But they're generalists and they're able to do so many different things in that business. So it's able to grow exponentially. All that being said, rethink the idea of specializing.
Dean Soto 20:23
If you need copywriting, your first gut instinct should not be "I need to hire a copywriter." If you need marketing, like a social media manager, your first gut instinct should not be "I need to hire a Social Media Manager." Your gut instinct needs to change with the times, which is "How can I build systems and processes – some documentation around the process of social media management?" Get it all documented, have someone do that, and then have someone do that bookkeeping. Have that same person, who does bookkeeping, do the social media management. Have the same person, who's doing social media management, do accounts receivable and collections.
Dean Soto 21:10
How can he make that happen and get out of this realm of specialization?
Dean Soto 21:16
When you do, you'll see that your overhead costs will drop significantly. Significantly. And your revenue will – more than likely – grow exponentially because you have these few people who are able to do everything and giving you the ability to be creative and grow in several different ways as well.
Dean Soto 21:31
All that being said, I have to go pick up my son. His class is done. So, I will catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Dean Soto 21:56
This is Dean Soto. Freedom In Five Minutes. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. There's a masterclass there that talks about everything that I'm talking about here. I also did a four-part video series at ProSulum.com. P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. It goes through in several days. It's really good as well. Go check out either one of those things and you'll see the power of what is able to be accomplished.
Dean Soto 22:23
So excited for you guys to get into more of the generalization. I'm a proud generalist that specializes in generalization. I'll catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes episode. This is Dean Soto. FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and I'll catch you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
In this podcast episode, we talk about how automation and scaling your business does not necessarily mean becoming impersonal with your clients. It can be a way of showing love and appreciation to them.
Learn how systems and automation can help you create a foolproof customer experience where no customer will be left hanging.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey! This is Dean Soto, founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. P-R-O-S-U-LU-M.com. We're here again with another Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this:
Dean Soto 0:21
I Systemize Because I Love You. That and more, coming up.
Dean Soto 0:29
Well, good morning! And hey, if you have not subscribed to the Freedom In Five Minutes podcast,
Dean Soto 0:35
go to Google and whether you like
Dean Soto 0:39
Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or whatever it might be... Just type Freedom In Five Minutes and Apple podcasts; or Freedom In Five Minutes and Spotify; or Freedom In Five Minutes and Stitcher Radio.
Dean Soto 0:59
And you will get the ability to subscribe using your favorite platform to this podcast. So we're at a couple of hundred episodes. We're in the hundreds of episodes so far and if you have not subscribed yet... What is going on? You've got to get subscribed. Sounded like sound like a... Have you ever seen Homestar Runner? That was one of my favorite cartoons when it was still big and popular. They had a tarantula– No, I forgot. It was the rock band the hair rock band. And that's what the lead singer sounded like.
Dean Soto 1:41
You gotta subscribe. Anyway, Luna is just running around. I'm out on my land. And let's get into this episode.
Dean Soto 1:58
I'm on the board of a particular ministry that does amazing, amazing work. They actually have grown so much in the last few years. To the point where their last conference that happened in January sold out. And they actually had to get more. They had to get more people in there. I think it was like 3000 people. And they had to figure out how they could get more people in there. It looks like it's going to be 6000 people this next year, which is great. The thing about this particular ministry is the person who heads it... One, he's a really good friend; and two, he has the mindset of really being a good steward of his money – of the money that's been entrusted to him. He is being a really, really good steward of that money.
Dean Soto 3:07
If you're going to be a good steward of anything, you want to make sure that you get the most bang for your buck. You want to make sure that you get the most out of whatever it is you are spending. It could be money, it could be time. It could be anything. It doesn't necessarily have to be money. For example, if you have a homestead and you want to get as many eggs as you can out of your chickens while making them as happy as possible. Or with your parenting, you want your kids to get the most out of life without spoiling them. Different things like that. Well, this particular person is really good at utilizing his resources to maximum As much as possible,
Dean Soto 4:03
I had a phone call with him. He uses VSAs from Pro Sulum and FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and he uses Virtual Systems Architects for his ministry. They do everything from reaching out to donors, to talking with new donors, to handling new people who come into the membership site that have content and everything like that. They do all the process documentation, all of that type of stuff. It's pretty amazing what they're able to do. And they have one guy. One guy. This one guy is handling so many different things. And it has been really helping the organization tremendously. And one of the things that I started sharing with my friend is that...
Dean Soto 4:57
It was funny because he was talking about wanting to build the organization and scale the organization. But at the same time, he still wants to have that personal touch. He said essentially that, "If it grows, it's not going to be as personal, I know that but you know, I still want to do that as much as possible." And I rebuked him. I rebuked him and I said, "No, you don't have to get impersonal."
Dean Soto 5:41
No. So I said, "You know what? It's quite the opposite. The cool thing is now we have access to so many different tools that literally would have cost thousands of dollars per month to be able to do. And we now have these tools at our disposal that allow us to be personal, but still have run a small-ish organization."
Dean Soto 6:17
So I started talking to him, I'm like, "Look, my organization does everything from sending text messages to the handwritten cards in the mail, to gifts in the mail, to phone calls, voicemails and a whole bunch of different things. There's a whole mess of stuff that we do which completely wow our customers. It's because we're scaling."
Dean Soto 6:55
It is what Jermaine Griggs calls – one of my mentors – we are scaling personal attention. It doesn't matter if we have one customer or if we have 1000 customers because of what we – the data that we gather – because of the information that we are able to use in cards and we're able to use to trigger different things. We're able to give a personal touch.
Dean Soto 7:28
Even when we're we're a one person organization, a five person organization, a 10 person organization. We're able to touch thousands of people and continue to be profitable. At the same time, wow our customers.
Dean Soto 7:57
And maximize the money and resources that we have. Okay, now is that because "Gosh, Dean, you're just so genius and that's why because you're the Freedom In Five Minutes guy. You're the Pro Sulum guy that has these Virtual Systems Architects where you can show them how to do something in five minutes. They document it and then you never have to do that thing ever again. You're that guy, right? That's why because you were born anointed. So that you may do this for other people."
Dean Soto 8:34
And I do this for other people. You know, sometimes it is. Sometimes, people just have a really, really hard time with that and they pay me several thousand dollars – tens of thousands of dollars to do it for them. But the vast majority of people can do it by themselves. They can do it themselves. A lot of the time, they are just doing one of two things: It's embracing constraints and seeing what you have and utilizing what you have. And then, seeing systems as a way of saying, "I love you," to your customers, and "I appreciate you."
Dean Soto 9:12
A lot of the time, we think, "Well, my customers – the way that they will feel special and taken care of is if I'm constantly the one doing it." And it's true, in a sense, every now and then if you give a call, or you say, hey, I want to give you a free strategy session, just because you've been so amazing. That's totally fine. That's something that's completely true as well. And you know, they would appreciate that. However, the reality is just getting something in the mail – think of all of the different businesses that you do business with and think of how many times you have gotten something in the mail from them that wasn't an advertisement? Even something like a birthday thing?
Dean Soto 10:14
You know, say you got a birthday card in the mail where it was like "Hey, happy birthday. You're gonna get 20% $20 off your next visit." It's always some dumb advertisement. It's something that's never just given to you. Imagine getting a box of cookies in the mail and a card that just said, "Hey, we thank you so much for being a customer. It really does mean a lot to us that you value us and that you are getting a ton of value from what we're doing. Just wanted to say thank you." And not asking for anything in return.
Dean Soto 11:02
To me, that is something that goes so far right? And never happens and it costs you 10 bucks or 15 bucks?Maybe 20 bucks to do and you've already netted and profited from your client like $200 so 10% of that goes back to them just saying thank you.
Dean Soto 11:30
Nobody does that
Dean Soto 11:34
Nobody does that.
Dean Soto 11:37
And so when I have my customers get something like that. They're like, Whoa, I've never had this happen before. This is amazing. Or A phone call like after they buy. Even if it's an automated one where it goes to their voicemail. They're like, "Whoa Dean called. That's amazing." You know, this is all possible you have Twilio. You have Thinkster you have all these different things. You have send-out cards. you have all these different things that you can use to trigger different things based on how much someone has bought and where they are at in the sales cycle. Where are they? As a client and customer, how many people have they referred to you? All of this type of stuff, right? And so, when you set up these systems, you automate the saying of I love you. You automate the saying of I value you as a client and a customer and it keeps it to where... because the personal is great. Don't get me wrong – in person, over the phone, that is great. But there are times when you or an assistant or whomever drops the ball. And now you have a customer who is just dangling there. We want to have people... We always want to make it a foolproof type thing. Okay. So all that being said, I really want to tell you the importance of this. The more systems that you can develop that thank your customers and tell them that I love you, the more you're going to get referrals. Man I my business is based off of referrals for the most part, and they are the best.
Dean Soto 13:58
They come because of all these gifts and Stuff like that to happen and it comes because we have a great product obviously. No one's gonna refer if it's not a great product. But these gifts give the little nudges. These little gifts say I love you, it gives a little nudge to go, "Yeah, you know what? I really like these guys. I really want to have other people experience this as well." So what do you do? What system do you have right now that can say I love you and give that beautiful, wonderful personal touch, even though it might not be actually in person?
Dean Soto 14:35
So all right, this is Dean Soto. Founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com. I don't know where Luna is. She's somewhere lost in this area. I do not see her. So I'm gonna go and find her. So, all that being said, Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. Go check out ProSulum.com P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. We got lots of amazing stuff there. And if you're ever wanting a Virtual Systems Architect and want to get to the next level. If you want to scale your business, want to grow your business and do it all in as little as five minutes a day. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com or ProSulum.com P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. There's the answer to Freedom In Five Minutes. I will catch you on the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.
Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone just to improve on something that you want?
Everybody might say that they want change but few are actually willing. We don't do it unless we want to or unless something in our life prompts us.
In this episode, understand the great margin between knowing how to change from truly wanting to change.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes episode.
Today's topic is this, people say they want change, but do they really mean it? That and more coming up.
What is up guys? How's it going? Oh man, another great day, another great day to be alive. Another great day for the freedom in five minutes podcast and I'm going up the hill and I'm seeing my chickens. Chickens what are you doing outside the fence? You going out of here guys, get back inside the fence. Let's go. Let's go. So, had a really amazing thing happen couple of days ago. So one of my, one of my customers really, there, they are a really cool software service that is in a billion dollar industry and they use our virtual systems architects to help people in their industry to, to grow massively very quickly and so, so I'm going uphill so I'm going to be all winded and so it's, it's it's interesting because the, I, I’m looking at my chickens I'm getting all you know flustered. Chickens you’re making me flustered girls but uh yeah, it's interesting because out of the blue, they posted on Facebook how amazing our services and how it's really transformed their business. And so they referred like literally like 30 people to us. And which was really cool. And so I got about 30 emails from people. 30 emails that were referrals, who all said, oh my gosh, you know, these guys, you know, obviously they're amazing. They, they're one of the top people in this Facebook group. They're, you know, they're doing millions of dollars and yada yada, yada. They've been in Ink Magazine, and I think it's Forbes. And, and so they're like, yeah, we'd love to, you know, schedule a time to, to talk right? Well, out of the 30, guess how many signed up or not signed up, how many actually took the time to schedule a call? Because it's not it's not exactly the easiest to just schedule a call. I actually try as I, so out of 20, so 20, so 20 of them, I used one questionnaire, 10 of them, I used another questionnaire, the first, the first questionnaire, the former questionnaire was a much bigger, much more questions. A lot more questions I should say. The, and the other one was a lot less questions and out of the 30 guess how many actually signed up to schedule a talk to see if they are a good fit?
Probably you’re thinking 15, 20. Four, four people scheduled and I even had one person literally just canceled this morning their scheduled call. Now, am I hurt? Am I like, oh my gosh, how dare they, how dare they cancel? How dare they. No, partially because the whole, the, the, the, what's it called the form is meant to weed out a lot of people but in the decade plus of doing this, I've definitely realized that people say they want change, myself include, myself included. People say they want change but more often than not, are they willing to, to actually do it? No, and so for, even with, even with customers, existing customers sometimes it is very difficult to get them to even spend five minutes because it's five minutes a day, right? Five minutes a day and you can literally transform your business, grow your business, quadruple your business I've seen in 30 days, maybe even 60 days depending on your industry by spending five minutes a day. But a lot of people, myself included, are comfortable doing things the way they are doing it. And it might be painful, it might, it might be something that's unhealthy for their relationship for their, for their actual physical health, for their spiritual health, for their business. They might even be losing money because of this thing or losing a ton of time because of whatever it might be, but they're comfortable with it. I see this in the restaurant industry. You know, Paul is my business partner. And he's in the restaurant industry. And I'm like, dude, you guys are archaic. I cannot believe, honestly cannot believe at when I look at what some of the things you guys do, why you still do it this way and it keeps your margins so, so razor thin. I don't know why anybody would want even be in the food service industry. And so, and so when you look at why people do what they do, a lot of the times, a lot of the times they say they want to change, but they get some kind of fulfillment out of the, the thing that they're doing that they say they actually don't want to do. There is some kind of fulfillment. There's something that makes them feel, you know workaholics do this all the time, something that makes them feel important. Something that makes them needed. Something that makes them feel, feel, feel as though things are getting done. This is my, myself included. So what I do, my habit, I can tell you right now, my habit is, because my business is so systemized and for the most part automated, 99% of it, I will have it but so my habit is I will start looking for different business opportunities to start, right? It might be some kind of affiliate marketing thing. It might be this or might be that. Well it, it can be a whole host of things. But I will go and try and try and start a whole new business for whatever reason. And what usually happens, wasted time, wasted time. But, that wasted time what I think is actually wasted time is an indicator that something is not being that, that is, that, that's my comfort zone, is starting new things. Trying to find that, that next sense of security, right? Rather than focusing, sitting and focusing on what is actually working and growing, right? So I have to be, it is actually hard for me to stop with the new business opportunities, but whenever I do, that's when the change happens. That's when the big stuff happens. That's when, when I see massive growth, the growth in my business. So why is this important? You are comfortable doing things that aren't necessarily the best for you. You have habits, I have habits, we all have habits of thinking that this is the way it's supposed to be. This is what's going to make me money. This is what's going to improve my love life. This is what's going to improve my family life. This is what's going to improve my spirituality. And when we see something that's not working, we say, oh, yeah, gosh, I want to change that so badly. And it's like the rubber band effect, right? You stretch a rubber band, whack, it goes right back to where you were sometimes even worse than where you were. So often, this is why people pay for high value coaching. This is why people pay for, pay me 10s of thousands of dollars to automate their business because it forces them. Once they paid, there's no turning back, right? I mean, they can do that, they can start and refuse to do what I say and waste all that money, or they can actually do it. But there's no turning back, right? It’s why people pay for stuff like this because they know that they're not going to do it unless they feel some kind of they, they put their all, their chips all in, right? So what are you doing right now? What are you doing right now that's purely out of comfort? Maybe it's onboarding clients, maybe you're, maybe you are doing sales. And you're, you're the one scheduling workshops, or you're the one calling leads, or you're the one doing developing the lead lists. When you don't have to. Some of our clients come from simply cold emails that are built off of lead lists that are built by virtual systems architects from Pro Sulum, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. Where none, where none of this stuff was done by me.
What are you doing right now? What are you doing right now that's purely, because that's the way everyone does it. That's the way we've always done it. I want you to just look at what you're doing right now and see that, and, and, and see what you're doing and know that there is a better way. That is why it's so nice when you work with people who are outside of your industry. One of the worst things you can do is have people in your industry consult you because they're used to the same thing too.
So, what are you doing right now that's purely out of comfort. Just see what it is so you have the information and now you can start making the decision to do something about it.
So this is Dean Soto, freedom in five minutes.com, go check that out. There's, there's process, process scorecard there, masterclass and if you want a virtual systems architect, someone who you can literally no joke, literally spend five minutes a day, showing them something, they'll document the whole thing and then they'll do it. So you never have to do it again. You can literally transform your business in 30 to 60 days into something magical. If you've, that sounds amazing to you, go to Pro Sulum.com and schedule a call with me or one of my team and we'll make it happen. But until then, this is Dean Soto with the freedom in five minutes podcast and I will catch you in the next episode.
It's important to realize that any good relationship requires giving and not just taking and taking.
You cannot expect to receive something if you don’t offer on your own turn, "you reap what you sow", as the biblical saying puts it.
But how fair is it to give away all of the things you’ve learned without adding any value?
In this episode, know how to understand your worth and the information that you need on deciding what to do so that you're starting to give value.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Today's topic is this, please stop picking my brain. It's gross! That and more coming up.
Alright, we're here again with another frosty morning in Central California. Love it. Love it. So good beats, beats, beats 90 degree weather in the morning. Oh, so good to be out here. So, gosh, this was three weeks ago? Has to be, yeah, probably three maybe even four weeks ago. So I got this, I got this text message from a friend of mine and a little background story is that this friend actually used to work for me. This friend, this friend worked for me doing, he used to do my podcasts and he was the podcast host for a, for a while on another, another thing that I was doing. Actually I outsource my entire podcast situation which was really cool. They worked out really well. But, but he moved on, he moved on to work with some other folks. And a while. Gosh, I want to say maybe a year ago, we got back in touch and he actually, he wanted to, he was looking for a, another position and not, not with my, with my company but with a relatively big nonprofit organization. And I ended up helping him with a referral recommendation. I ended up talking with the person who was doing the hiring and, and gave them good reviews and stuff because the guy was, the guy was good. And, and, you know, decent friend and everything like that. So I always want to help people out. Well, a couple of weeks ago, so I hadn't heard from him in a while. He actually ended up getting the job, which was awesome. You know, he just had a baby. And as he and his wife just had a baby, and it worked out really well. He did, that he was able to, you know, move on to the next level, right? Well, a few weeks ago, he texts me out of the blue. And this is not the only person who has done this, but he texts me out of the blue and said that he ended up getting another position with a really well known church organization. And he is, he was the marketing director for that particular church’s music group, very, very popular in the Christian circles music group. And because of that, he, so he's, he's the marketing director and he was looking for additional channels to just roll channels to get their music into different locations and so on and so forth. And but so in the text, in the text, it was basically, hey, Dean, you know, giving update and everything like that, and at the very end, he says, I would love to pick your brain. I would love to pick your brain about the different channels we can use to market our music. And immediately, I was like, yeah, I'll get to you later. Yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna respond to you. Because in the, couple of things, one, in the past, whenever I've let people quote unquote, pick my brain, it's never worked out in my favor. Anytime you, just think about it, anytime you would let somebody pick your brain, just like pick, you know, hey, Dean could I pick your nose for a little bit. I just, I just need to figure some things out. Does that sound like a beneficial situation? Yeah, maybe you have a clean nose, but it's also kind of gross, right? Same thing goes with picking your brain. What value am I getting out of that? Not that I, not
that I want to always, you know, get something back for helping other people. But immediately, in my opinion, it's, hey, let me take from you. Let me take all of the experience, all of the heartache, all of the challenges, all of the things that you've learned, all of the thousands and thousands of dollars that you've invested and lost, the wins, the losses, everything let me, let me. Can I, can I just take all of the good stuff from you, so that it benefits me?
Now, does that sound, does that sound like a win-win situation? And so I literally have not responded to him. And I've done that to the past to other people. Do I still like the guy? Of course. Do this, this happens quite a bit. Especially with people who are just starting out their business and they're friends of friends. And they're like, hey, Dean, you've been in business since you know, 2009. Even before that, doing some side stuff, since you know, for over a decade, let me pick your brain. I just started my business. Let me pick your brain and give you no value back whatsoever. Because I'm a new business owner, and I have no value that I could potentially give you other than money, which I probably don't even have, right? And even if I did have it, I wouldn't know how much your value is because I'm a new business owner. And while, while, while I might be sounding a little sarcastic, I don't mean to be. The, the idea that it's okay to ask if you can pick someone's brain is so backward. Why would you ever think that that's okay? Why would you ever think that, that was, that, that, that would be okay.
And so why is this important? It's important to realize that any good relationship requires giving. Not just taking, giving, right? What are you giving to the situation? What's the value you are bringing, right? This goes for new clients. This goes for new customers, this goes for prospects, you know, what are you giving? So, so for example, with, with prospects, what are you giving, in the very beginning? People who are, are wanting to get a VSA through Pro Sulum when they're scheduling a, when they, when they schedule a discovery call. They get asked a series of questions and it looks like it's, it looks like those questions are taking, right? Iit looks like, you know, you get asked what your industry is, do you have standard operating procedures, is everything scalable, yada yada, yada? A whole bunch of different questions and 10 questions and all. And, it looks like it's taking but in fact, what's going on is it's giving. The person right away can tell you know, is this right for me? Do I even need this? And if they do need it, they're like, holy crap, I actually do need this because I don't have standard operating procedures, I don't have automation in my business, I don't have scalability. If I stop working, I lose lots of money. Immediately, it's giving a perspective. So that when they do get on the phone, it's a good fit, and it's not wasting their time. It's not wasting my time, right? And even if it's not totally a good fit, it's still not wasting time. Because they, they know, they know what to expect. It's a better conversation, right? So, what are you bringing to your relationship? Because it's not just business. What do you bring into your marriage? What do you bring into your time, your relationship with your kids? What are you bringing? Like, what are you bringing to your relationship with your friends? Or you’re just picking your wife's emotional brain? Or your husband's emotional brain? Or you’re just picking your kids brains? Or you’re just taking, taking taking, taking, taking, taking? What do you give? How many, how many love notes do you give in a week to your family? How many love texts, videos, things like that? Do you give without asking for anything? How many times are you giving gifts to your, to your clients during the year as your way of saying thank you? You know, they're giving you, yeah, they're giving you money and you're giving them value back. But how many times are you, are you appreciating them and not just taking them for granted, right? How many times are you doing that? Stop picking people's brains. It's a bad habit. It's a bad habit. So how right now what are you doing right now that is simply taking from other people? Maybe you're just taking from the church, maybe you haven't tied in years. Or if you do, it's like $10 in the basket for the year. When you've made $200,000. Maybe it's taking from the church. They have to pay their bills. Unless you're doing something home study online or something like that. They have to pay for that fixed cost. It's paid to keep the lights on. This keeps the fellowship going. What's the percentage that you've donated? What are you taking? I just want you to, to, this week, see where you're taking. That's it. And then you'll have at least the information that you need to then make a decision on what you want to do so that you're starting to give value.
All right, this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes, go check out freedom in five minutes.com, or if you want a virtual systems architect, someone who you can literally show how to do something in five minutes, they will clone you, they will do, they will document that entire thing for you, and then do it, which is crazy. So every five minutes you spend is freedom. Freedom in five minutes, you can literally transform your entire business in 30 days, five minutes a day. Alright, this is Dean Soto, freedom in five minutes.com. Go check that out and Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com, and I'll see you in the next freedom in five minutes episode.
In business having good friends is far more about the good things than the bad ones.
Friends who are close enough to know your most intimate struggles can rejoice with you in the victories you win, give you a form of motivation or improve your ability to make decisions.
At this very moment, who do you have around that's helping you to succeed and tells you if you’re on the right path or not?
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this, the best accountability in business is having good friends. That more coming up.
Oh! Good morning. It is a nice chilly morning here in Southern or Southern Central California. Anyway, it is a definitely a chilly morning out here with the Luna Meister just having fun. She's off gallivanting around, don't even see her anymore. She's probably chasing some cougars or mountain lions or bobcats or something. And just keep them away from me Luna. Just keep them away from me, Luna. That’s all I care about.
So, I had two interesting things happened this week that were both related to this subject. In the beginning of the week, so every morning on Monday, I have a call with some really, really good, close friends who are also in business, who I’ve, who we've had, we've shared a lot of experiences with. And they're constantly pushing each other to hit the next level of our game. Like it's, it's really cool because so we'll hop on, hop on a zoom, share a bunch of things, and start keeping each other accountable to what we say we're going to do for the week. And this has been going on for us several, several months now. And it's been a game changer.
So, one of the things that I said I was going to do is I was going to create a four video, I was going to create a four video series. It was going to be a course on, on some of the things that I that I know and I love and I trust and I and I preach when it comes to systemizing and automating a business. And, and I had been putting it off for quite some time. I actually had the content made, then putting it off for quite some time, but it, it just didn't build a ClickFunnels, funnel for it. And the reason being is because I'm not good enough, like who's gonna want to listen to this crap, right? Who's gonna want to listen to, to anything that I do? I don't know why, I don't know why. But I always think and sometimes it's true. I'm guessing sometimes it's true or sometimes it's not true, but I'm always like, well, nobody's gonna find this valuable. Nobody's gonna like this, nobody's gonna you know, I'm gonna put it out there and people are going to just say, yeah it's all right. Or as and so why do it, right? Why put it out there? Why put my, why make myself vulnerable like that right? Why make myself vulnerable to feel that pain and but here's the deal is that is that they don't care. My friends don't care. They're like you said you're going to do it, do it. See what happens. And so this week, so far so good 90% done if not 95% done. And they literally do not care. Like why, why would they care if, if I put it out there or not? They, they I mean they care. They care from that but they don't care. Even, that if it does bad. They do care if it does good but if it doesn't, if it does bad, it's like okay, there's data. It’s awesome. And, and had it not been for them, the damn thing would not have gotten done. It would have, it would have been totally, it would have been totally put on the back burner yet again, yet again, yet again. Yet again. Yet again. Yet again, yet again, yet, again, month after month, possibly year after year, right? Rather than just pushing through completing it letting people be the judge, right?
And so the same thing happened with the book that I'm writing, the freedom in five minutes book. So I had already, I already have a book out there called Leverage and I had published it on Amazon. And so I was talking with my buddy Devin, who's, who's absolutely amazing. Just we always love, I love talking with him. He's actually been on the podcast in the, in the past. But he, he's always doing something, always building, always experimenting, always doing a whole bunch of different things. And, and the cool thing is that he, he. So I, I told him that I was, I was just about done writing this book. I'd written, I had written most of the content probably around, it’s, it's close to 20,000 words, I even have more content. And so I said to him, so I should step back. Actually, I had already even paid somebody to help me edit it. A good, a good amount of it. Who is, and so Tara, she, she's awesome, by the way, Tara Pasha. If you google her. She has this really cool service where you can talk into the phone and she will not only transcribe, she'll also edit a copy at it so that you literally can just write a book in, in like an hour or two. It's pretty cool. So she did a huge amount in that as well. And so, but I'm I gave it I gave him all of the things that I had I had written. And I'm like, you know, it's not, it's kind of all over the place. It's not really in a cohesive, cohesive, it's just a jumble right now. There's a whole bunch of chapters, there's jumble here, there's a jumble here, there's a chapter there, you know. It just just when you read this, don't, don't judge me. Don't you judge me. But you, but, but you know, he wanted to see it, wanted to read it. See, see where it was at and everything like that. And that was, that was actually a couple of weeks ago, and, and so he, he reaches out to me and he's like, he's like, this book is really good. This is like, this is a book that I want to read. Like I actually, like as I got into it like I want, I wanted to read it. And, and I was like, what really? That's crazy. Are you serious? Is that, like it's, I, I thought it was gonna be crap. I thought it was gonna be like, not that great and, and, you know it was just gonna to be this, I don't know. I just didn't know what to think. I was, there's no way that I could write a decent book and, and he thought otherwise which was really, really, really cool. I and I really appreciated it and, and it's pushed me to finish actually editing it and put it out there in several ways.
And so, so what's the point of all this? What's the point of all this? You are your biggest critic. You are your biggest critic. And so am I. There's so many times when you discount the things that you are able to do, and you try to do things like everybody else. The minute that I try to be like someone else, it doesn't work. The minute I try to do things, the way that everyone else does, it doesn't work. And so when I, when I start doing things the way I want to, would I start saying, well, you know, we don't have to do this, this way. And everyone else is like, no, that's the way you always do it. That's the way you're supposed to do it. And I say no, 90% of the time, it goes well. Yet every single time I want to put something out there something out for the world to enjoy. Something out for the world to benefit from. What happens? I say people are going to not like this. People are going to discount it. People are going to say that yeah, this is, this is crap. Even though, even though I'm close to 40 years old, a young, 39 years old, man. Even though I'm that old, people are gonna think that this is done by some young punk who doesn't know what he's talking about. All of these self critical, this self critical thought comes from, not from my friends, not from my business. Okay, I had a call come in and I don't know if that positive or what anyway.
So, so all of this self critical thought. The biggest critic comes from me and it comes from you. And that's why it's so important to have people to bounce ideas off of. Because a mirror cannot look at itself without somebody holding up that mirror, right? You are the camera that's filming everything. The camera that's filming everything can't film itself unless you have somebody else. You need people to show you like a mirror, who you are. That's why God made us this way. With, to fellowship and to, to talk with one another and to have friends, to have business colleagues, to have business partners, to have a wife or husband, to have children. Because they show you who you are so that you can grow, that you can become better. And so you can stop being in the nasty habit of what do you think I'm going to say? Criticizing yourself. You are your worst critic. And the solution to you, as a critic is having other people around you who want you to succeed. So this week who do you have around you? Who do you have around you that's helping you to succeed that you can talk to on a regular basis to tell you, to tell you what works, what doesn't, what's, what, are you going on off the right, off the wrong, going on the wrong path? Are you going the right way? Who do you have that loves you? And who will do that for you? Who will do that for you?
Alright, so this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes.com, go check that out. And by the time this podcast out, you'll probably go to Pro Sulum.com and get the four video series course which I'm going to put as a little exit pop up. So if you go to Pro Sulum, and you, you mouse, put your mouse over the URL, as If you were trying to leave, which I don't know why you would ever want to do that, go up there and it'll give you the option. I'll have a little pop up that says, hey, get to systemize and automate your business in five minutes or less course from Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. And I will also let you know when the book is out. Which should be coming out first quarter 2020. All right. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, and we'll catch you on the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
In today’s modern world, we like things to come instantly. Because of technology, we can do things as fast as possible. We believe that our time is so valuable that spending time on something is almost impossible. But we have to remember that the trees that we have today didn’t grow in a day. We have to put in a lot of work if we want to achieve our goal because patience is a virtue.
Dean will teach us a lesson in this podcast episode relating to why trees don’t grow in a day. Stay tuned!
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes calm and pro sulum.com PROSULUM.COM. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this trees don't grow in a day. That and more coming up. Well hello, welcome back to the podcast. Nice to hear from you. Nice to see you What are you chickens looking at? I'm looking at some chickens that think I got you think I got some treats for your chickens ain't gonna happen. Once you come mix my compost over here needs you to mix my compost pile anyway. Not gonna mix my compost pile get get a step and so, back a couple episodes ago, I had mentioned that we had planted a whole bunch of treats and not just that I have a ton of raised garden bed. Actually, I should say four raised garden beds in a in a garden enclosure now. And the so they've got these raised garden beds also got a what's called a roof stout potato patch. And so what I've reached out potato patch is is essentially you take a whole bunch of straw, or mulch or anything like that, you put it on the ground, and you do it again, and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again, you just have a whole bunch of mulch on the ground. And you put potatoes and you put potatoes at the very bottom of it and with with the water from the rain and everything like that, it should grow. It should all the water should, should be all trapped in there and the potatoes should grow. So as I was doing All of these things, one of the frustrations that I was feeling one of the frustrations that I was feeling because this is the first time I've ever done this, right. We've been here nearly three years. This is the first time I started venturing out into actually building a homestead and started gardening and, and things like that. I mean we have chickens, but planting is different. Right? planting something is it's a pain in the butt it from from, from my modern mind to wrap my head around. It's extremely difficult. And why is that? It's because I'm so used to the microwave. I am so used to that which we've gotten rid of we actually don't have a microwave, but we're so used to the microwave. And And once I've planted so I'll tell you all the things Is that I've planted so we have four raised garden beds right. One of those garden beds actually has seeds in them and has a we planted spinach, carrots, and I think broccoli and a couple of other things. The other garden beds don't have anything in it because we we put a bunch of bunch of organic matter in it and we're just waiting. I'm just waiting. That's my wife's thing. Okay, planted, I'm trying to create a food force as well. So planted a whole bunch of stuff in this area that has just a lot of lot of stuff going on already. And, and got 12 to 14 trees or something like that have all these things that I kind of listed before. Plus the rooster grind. Out of all of that work out of the out of the tons of work that has gone into into all of that so with the even with the food for us I sorry I had to go back to this because just to give you an idea, planted radishes in this food forest or your radishes, cantaloupe, radishes, cantaloupe, oregano, parsley, time, carrots, different types of carrots, different kinds of watermelon, whole bunch of different whole bunch of things, whole host of things beans, peas, I want to say All in all, we probably planted over 50 different things in the last few months. And what has been the major frustration what has been the thing that I literally have such a hard time with? It is the fact that I do not see quick progress at all. It's so hard.
I'm like Oh my gosh. Okay, so do I see do I see progress? Yes, that the spinach is growing and went from being super duper small to now it's now it's a little bit bigger. The carrot seeds went from being dirt to actually seeing the seeds starting to sprout, which is cool, right? But, but the trees we got it was it's it's wintertime as a recording this the trees well the thing that sucks about the trees is that they went dormant, right? So they're just sitting there doing nothing, at least as far as I can tell, which is of course not the case they're doing what they're supposed to do. But I want I want to see these things grow. Oh, the other thing. The other thing is that the brew stout potato patch. It actually shows that It's starting to show some some growth. It has some potatoes growing, which, which makes it so I'm looking at it going, go go faster. It is so hard man, I can tell you right now it is so hard for me to get a wave mosquito. It is so hard for me to look at this. Even though I see progress, even though I see these things to look at this, and I just like just come on already. Let's go. But here's the deal is that trees are not, they do not. They do not grow in a day. Right? Because we've also planted I've already direct seeded some persimmon trees, some plums, trees, some apricot trees and those ones Gonna take even longer than the ones that are planted that are saplings. But trees do not grow in a day. And so often, often we we take, we want to see these huge results, right in the beginning when we're trying to do something, we want to get the thing right now that's the way our culture is, let's get all of this as as quickly as possible, right? But there are times whether, especially if you're in sales, sometimes the sales cycle is two months, three months, six months, seven, maybe even a year. That'd be a really long sales cycle. But often we we don't do the things today. Now the That that will bring these the simple, simple little things like people. So our pro sulim clients, the ones who see massive success, the ones who see like massive results are the ones who take the five minutes a day to create the video that their virtual systems architect, their virtual assistant on superpower with superpowers does used to create the standard operating procedures and grow and everything like that the ones who the ones who simply want to say go do this thing and get a task. They actually see really poor results. Right? Because they go say they go go manage my social media account and give no direction, no clear process, no clear documentation, no nothing like that. They don't do the system. That even though the system takes five minutes is like planting a little seed even. It didn't take me long to plant seeds. The the system is there to allow you to plant these little seeds that once the documentations created, the person can go and do it without ever coming back to you to ask how to do something. They they're set up for success and and we just see Matt like massive like quadrupling revenue, you know that are the business owner spends like zero time doing any work on their business in like 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Right. But those who want the tree, they want the fruit right away without doing without planting the little seeds. They lose more often than not. They lose, they lose. And so so this is where we really have to
look at See, are we willing to go with the season? Are we willing to go with the system? Are we really willing to? This is why, you know, when people go to, say, psychologists to fix their marriage, you know, they, they, the psychologist says, you know, hey, you know, it's going to be, you know, let's do this once a week for the next three months. And you need to he need to actually apply what we, what we're what we're actually doing during this thing. Those those who actually have success and see their marriage grow, typically, are the ones who follow the system, follow what the psychiatrist or psychologist says. Those who fail are the ones who go they go one week. They try it out, and they they get into a big massive fight. And they go, Oh, this doesn't work. I'm we're done and I go, there's this doesn't Work, I'm not going to do this anymore. Right? Not gonna do this anymore. And so so the, the big thing that, that I think a lot of us, especially in today's age, fail to see and fail to even have the habit of is seeding and waiting for those seeds to grow, knowing, knowing that, okay, if I want X amount of dollars in six months, these are the things I need to do now. If I want to have a happy marriage, these are the things I need to do now. Because when you start trying to get the fruit, so if I if you start trying to plant something right in, and you go, Hey, this isn't working and you dig up the tree. The next you dig up the seed as it's starting to sprout. What happens the whole thing dies there's no established route there's you try and you're trying to get the fruit but you end up killing the entire thing very quickly you know if it's if it's trying to save your marriage it's I this isn't gonna work I want good feelings now. I don't want to put in the work. I want good feelings now. The you run the risk of killing the entire thing, right? I want a business that automates that that has a standard operating procedures that everyone can follow that I can replace anybody at any time. And that that a somebody who wants to buy my business looks at and goes, whoa, this is a totally automated turnkey system, and I want it now. I just want to tell this person do do all these things. And and it's done. It doesn't work that way. I want a fit body I want muscles I want I want to look like a Greek god. But I want that by next weekend when you're 300 pounds, not gonna work. Trees do not grow in a day. And so the big thing is spending those five minutes a day, literally could be five minutes a day, planting those seeds, planting those things. Planting those new habits planting, planting the the standard operating procedures, planting the the the love notes to your wife or your to your husband. It's those things. Those things that over time you doing them will blossom into huge trees with amazing fruit that people will look at envy and be inspired by. I love you too big boy. You're gonna go with Jen. Okay, well she's coming back up right here. She's coming back up. She's right there. Alright, so freedom in five minutes.com go check that out or go to prosulum. com if you want to virtual systems architect they are virtual assistants with superpowers to transform your business in 30 60 90 days into a fully automated system that you can sell at the highest price if you wanted to. You don't have to You can just enjoy your your business that works without you and makes you a lot of money.
Go check that out PROSULUM.COM and I will catch you in the next freedom in five minutes episode.
Often we stick our noses into other people’s business or personal lives. And most of the time, it backfires. We should stop that habit and have the courage instead to focus more on what we do best.
In this podcast episode, Dean shares his adventure on how Luna got sprayed by a skunk. Stay tuned!
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:01
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes calm and pro sulum com PROSULUM.com. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong and you won't get sprayed by a skunk. That and more coming up
whoo It's so nice and foggy and crisp and amazing Here it is. It is in the evening here in the hills. And earlier this morning, my daughter comes to me and she says dad Luna Luna keeps on going to this rock so we're we're at we have a ton of granite right like literally tons of granite rocks all over the place and these rocks, they're huge. They make these huge kind of just huge rock formations. And I'll and a lot of the time you're gonna find little critters hiding in these rocks.
Well my daughter's like hey Lena Lena Lena will not leave this rock and she keeps on whimpering keeps on barking and won't listen to me and won't come back into into the house. And I'm thinking all right, there's obviously there's something there like some kind of there's, there's some kind of creature there that Luna is looking to devour or play with. She's pretty she's pretty good. She's not she doesn't really devour anything. She likes to play with things.
Well, I couldn't get my shoes on and we head on over to the rock formation. And Luna looks at me, it's like whoa, Masters come in. That's let's see what this thing is. Let's go Come on master. And so I go around this huge rock formation and keep in mind this is kind of going downhill so I have to climb over these rocks but then I go start going downhill. And there's this almost rock that if you've ever seen The Lion King, where the monkey holds up Simba when he's born and deems him The Lion King deems him there's Luna right there. deems him The Lion King. There's that rock that like his jag it out it's like, over looking the entire Sahara Desert over there.
Well, the I think I hear ya I hear my my baby just woke up. So this is going to be a short podcasts and I'm playing Mr. Mom today. So the the rock is jutting out. And so I'm looking underneath this rock and Luna goes along with me and goes ahead of me underneath this this rock and I see in this little hole, a black and white tail. And you know what that means? That Bay lip you Luna is whimpering and I should have grabbed her before hand but luna iss whimpering and she goes up closer than she had been going before and puts her paws on the tail sticking out because I was thinking is this thing dead it might be dead, puts the the paw on the tail, the thing moves and Luna shoots out of the out of that little hole and it is like And smells like skunk.
Oh, she got sprayed, she got sprayed by the skunk and had to stay out side most of the day. This is not the first time she's been sprayed, not the first time she's been sprayed. She stuck her nose where it didn't belong and got sprayed by a skunk. And why is this important? It's important because often we stick our noses in places where we should not be sticking it and we get sprayed as well. Whether it be talking smack on someone, whether it be whether it be doing something business wise. So like for example, in business, my team loves the fact that they have not just autonomy they have decision making skills well
We have, we have a we have basically a code in our business that that we are a manager, everyone's a manager of one. So you're able to make your own decisions, things like that, and everyone is able to do just about everything but for me, I don't run the day to day operations. And so very often when I try to stick my nose in the business that my staff is doing, often I get sprayed by them or by or by the client, right? They they will let me know right away that they got a handle that that or that I'm actually mistaken. And time and time again, that happens and it reminds me that okay, I'm going to focus on being the business owner. I'm going to focus on business development. I'm going to focus on strategic operations, I'm going to focus on things that only I can do.
Because the more I stick my nose into other people's business, including the people who work for me the I'm only going to do damage to them do damage to my business or do damage to myself. Right? So it's important to to have the courage to stick with what you know.
Hold on one second. Luna. Luna come Hey, no, no, no Come, let's go. She just went outside the gate. We don't go outside the gate. No, no. No. went inside. You're gonna take a nap.
All right, so, you're going to hear some echo in here. But we're right now. Are you sticking your nose where it shouldn't be long? The biggest thing right now? Where are you sticking your nose in where it shouldn't be long. Get in the habit. Get in the habit and have the courage not to do that and to trust the people that love you trust the people that work for you the trust the people that care for you. The more you do that, the more you're going to see that they are going that the that they are going to thrive when you worry just about the things that you should worry about is Dean Soto freedom in five minutes go check out freedom in five minutes calm if you want a virtual systems architect someone that you can choose you can show how to do something in five minutes and have them completely transform your business and work for you for less than what you would pay for a I don't I don't I was gonna say a cup of coffee. That's not true.
That but less than what you would pay someone here in the States. That is minimum wage, depending on where you're at. Go check out freedom. Go check out prosulum com PROSULUM.com and I will catch you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode
To be successful means to work with only those you want to work with. It is entirely dependent on the whole team effort and full cooperation. But what if there is someone in the team or a client that you do not feel working with. Is it worth to take the risk or is it better to let him go?
In this podcast episode, Dean Soto will talk about how it is okay to work with only those you want to work with. Stay tuned!
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of prosulum.com and freedom in five minutes.com and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this it's okay to work with only those you want to work with that more coming up. Well, good morning we hear some Helens barking off in the distance, man. They must wonder what they're barking at. Moon is looking Luna what's going on over there? Sounds like a ruckus. Over here in the country we have ruckuses ruckuses and so not sure what it is. But it might be actually a pack of dogs you never know. Back well done. coming after me. Oh no. Oh, cool. So Good morning. Morning. Wow. Well 2020 has proven to be a very good year so far, business has boomed which I'm very happy about. And one of the things that that has bred is kind of I want to say this is the feeling or the ability to work with those I want to actually work with. So this is this should always be The case but it's harder. It's harder at times when things aren't going so well. Alright, so here's the deal. So to want to say I actually was back in September, back in September, there is no this is not this is not just this, this particular client. But back in September, I had a client who my one of my business partners introduced me to super nice guy still is very nice guy. And he still is, at least as a recording, this is still a client. super nice. But, but so my brain just stopped my brain just stop guys. So anyway, back in September, my business partner introduced me to this this person who eventually ended up becoming a client. So we're talking with the person that this person back in September. And it is what we do with our virtual systems architects, where you can take five minutes out of your day, just you know, just as if you were going to go make some coffee or just if you're going to go and meditate or pray, or read the Bible or do whatever it is that you do five minutes a day, you can find if you spend those little five minute creating a video, your dedicated virtual virtual systems architect will then go document that whole thing you just showed them, and then go and do it. And so this person works in this specific industry that where, where his clients that he's bringing into this particular industry, they have to create documented systems, they have to create documented processes, and often these guys are spending weeks, months, sometimes even years creating these documents and then they become outdated and they have to do it all over again. Right? When they could have been spending that time on much, much more important stuff, right. And so and so all that being said, the, the, the thing is I just remind remind myself, I needed to do something today. Anyway, thank you, thank you brain. So this, this so when these people come into this industry, they have to do that. That's, that is a big part of this industry. Because if you don't, then you are going against the system. You know, it's the franchise industry, right? It's it's franchising in whether it's restaurant or whatever, you know, he he's bringing people in to into certain franchises.
And that is a huge right that is something that is that that if you do not follow the system in a franchise, you potentially break not only the brand or the franchise, you can break your own stores and profit profitability because why do you buy a franchise in the first place you buy it, you buy into a franchise because it's a proven system right? As long as the numbers are correct, as long as nobody's lying you know exactly what numbers you know the EVA you know all that that that jazz you know what you what you're getting into with these stores right. So when you get into like multi unit franchise or whatever you you are looking at following the system and making the same amount of money. relatively the same amount of money well as soon as you go against that you are ruining the system you'd like literally You're ruining the system because now you're doing something that's completely unproven Sure, there are times where a franchisee has done something that has skyrocketed business but that's very very rare and so if a franchisee wants to start using a different supply chain or a franchisee wants to start using different marketing material wants to set up their employees structure a different way. What do you think the franchise or the person who owns the actual franchise the actual brand is going to do? They're going to say no, don't do that. And if they keep on if the franchisee keeps on asking questions or keeps on doing things that are against the franchise system, the franchise or is good a Going to start flipping out. Right. And so this particular this particular client that we had. So we started back in September with with them sent to send them a draft agreement, showed them how long you know, in the agreement talks about how long it takes to get a virtual systems architect and also their stuff. And every now and then, every now and then, boom, the like, they'd have some kind of worry that and that had already been addressed. And so eventually they ended up going dark for a while, and they can't and they came back in around the December timeframe, and said, Okay, we're ready to go. Let's do this. And I Reese, we reset them the draft agreement. And then they were like, they were like, Well, why is it Why does it take two to four weeks to get a via via via say, I wish you would have been more upfront about this with me. Like a ello. We, we told you this, we sent you this same exact agreement, the same exact agreement in September, and it said the exact same thing. And we told you, that's how long it takes. And didn't hear it from them for a little I think it was like a week or whatever. And then all of a sudden, it was like, All right, let's do this. And so they they paid, they started moving forward. We actually found them vs. Say like right away. Right away. In fact, I was kind of like to my guys, I'm like, like, why did you do that? Because we do have a queue of other people. But technically the way my guys do it, this person was in the queue for a while because of back in September and the way they wanted it. Do it I don't, I don't, I'm not gonna I like the way my guys do things, you're not going to ruin their little system that they've developed either. So anyway, so they, they go and so he gets his vsa and and and part of what happens when someone gets a virtual systems architect is that they have to agree to follow our system. So they get an email saying Hey, welcome to the family, here's what you're agreeing to, if you choose to move forward, otherwise, we're going to cancel and refund I have no problem canceling and refunding because I do not want to work with someone who's not going to follow the system because it's going to tarnish my brand. It's going to you know, imagine given a Ferrari to somebody who's literally just going to drive drive down and down the block to get some milk and then come back like and, and,
and let him let him borrow the keys to your Ferrari for that. No, I'm not going to do that. I want to see that Ferrari friggin flying around, I want to see that Ferrari going all over the place, right? So, he agrees to the fact that we do not like training one on one training. We do not do one on one training in our system, maybe in rare cases, but we do not do one on one training. Everything is based off of five minute 10 minute videos. Okay? Because it's much more effective. It's much more efficient, they get documented and then they move forward. Right? Training is a four letter word we hate training training sucks. Because it's so ineffective no one remembers it anyway. Right. And yet, yet they agreed to follow the rest of the system as well. So he gets his virtual systems architect in a couple days after the person starts. My one of my guys does a little check in just here. We always Do a little check and see how everything's going. And, and he starts, the first thing he says was, oh, things are going really well, which I was like, Oh, that's great. He said, I wish I would have had some kind of pre onboarding, pre onboarding so that essentially that I didn't waste the day training this person. And I might have read that wrong. I could have I could have totally read it wrong. How he how he said it, because maybe it was a little bit. I'm not sure. I could have totally read it one and I could be totally I've just as I'm, as I am saying this as I'm on this podcast, I could be totally 100% mistaken in what he's saying. Okay, but I'm so protective of what I've built. I'm so protective of what I built. And we have such a large queue of people who are waiting for their vsa That I want to work with those people who absolutely 100% get it. And, and so he knew when so part of his question was, I wish there was a pre onboarding. So I didn't spend most of the day getting her up to speed. I hate that because it means you're, you're training you're training you're not. Because typically what customers do is they will have five minute videos that they've already done, like maybe, you know, 5,10 of them already done, and they hand them off to the to the VSA, the VSA documents, all of those in the first few days, and then says, Okay, go ahead and start doing pop up, up, up, up, up. So in the first week, they're already doing real work without having to go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and train and spend a day training and or anything like that. So I'm like, as soon as I see that I'm like, oh boy, oh great. This is not what I this is not what I wanted. And so he comes. A couple of other questions were things like, you know, a couple of other things where, you know, what, what, what, what what did they do before working for prosulum? What are their skill set? What are their specialties? what's the what's their what's their specialty? And and so you know, these are things that so what did they do before personal and we sent we send the BIOS to these people before we even before they even accept them as as they're via say like detailed BIOS on what they've done in the past and everything like that questions that where I'm like, I'm like, why are you Why is this being asked again that doesn't that doesn't make sense. And then especially when I see when I personally when I see what is their specialty, then I'm like, okay, you don't get it. You definitely don't get the system Because who the heck cares about specialties in our system because we hire the who we hire blank slates, who literally can clone you. And that's a big part of our onboarding processes, a big part of our philosophy, a big part of all of that. So, I immediately Look at all that on and go, I go, he does not understand the system. And so I write back this whole thing. This answering all of his things, and I say, at the very end, I'm totally open to scheduling a refresher call with you. You can use this calendar right here. You can use the calendar here to make that happen.
However, I'm going to have essentially, essentially what I said was a good to have my team checking on you next week. And if it looks like the system's not being followed then I also asked like, how many process videos have you created for them to document but I said, If by you know, next week if it looks like the system's not being followed I'm going to have to cancel and refund. Okay. And send it in a nice way. I think I did at least and and he you know, he wrote back and he said, Oh, I don't think you're gonna have to cancel and refund these were just questions. And in and it's true, they were they were just questions. But but their questions such as their questions that show that something is not being understood a big part of in the inside because imagine Imagine if, if I'm trying to think of a good analogy. Imagine if you are Imagine if you're working at McDonald's or Burger King, and someone comes up to the counter and says, Hey, do you have Do you guys have a positive adorno? Do you guys have a penny rustica Do you guys have you know a? Any Hollandaise sauce? Hey, do you guys do you guys? Do you guys? Do you guys have a whopper here? You're working at McDonald's or do you have a whopper? You're gonna immediately think, wait, this person doesn't. This person like is totally confused like this person is either playing a prank on me or does not realize that they're at McDonald's doesn't know anything about McDonald's. Right? So yeah, they might be questions. And they are, they might be questions, but they're very telling questions. And so, going to a Ferrari dealership, you're not gonna say, you're not going to say like a Lamborghini and Ferrari. From what I've been told that you have to sign an agreement. You have to sign like things saying that you will not do certain things you will you will not drive it in certain ways you will not do this, you'll not do that. And they're very serious about who buys their cars that you don't go. So if you went to a Ferrari dealership and you said hey, Hey, do you know how do you deal with? How do you deal with people with bad credit? Immediately they're gonna they're going to look at you and go. Yeah, I don't think I want to work with you. Right now. It's just a question. It's just a question. So you go up and you say, hey, yeah, I how do you get Do you? Do you work with people who've trashed other Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They're gonna look at you go, get up, get out. And you're gonna say, Oh, it's just a question. These questions are very, very telling. And so when I heard these, I'm like, I don't, I don't think this is going to be a good fit. I'll give it I'll give it another shot. I'll give it another I give under floon is up there I'm not seeing Luna in a while anyway I'll give it another shot but uh, but but it might be and it's fine. I even said you know if it No hard feelings, you know iron sharpens iron. If If it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit. But it might be where we have to part ways. So what's, what is the whole purpose of this? Why am I sharing this? I'm sharing this because you should never be. It's very hard not to be in a mode where you want to take everybody in as a client
and The The thing about it is that the thing about it is that you got into this for a reason, right business for a reason. And a lot of the times it was taught to not work for a boss, who was just constantly, you know, getting your face, not work for a company that's just annoying and boring. You wanted to be able to use your skill sets, right? Well, you should never put yourself in the same situation with a customer who does not appreciate what you're giving them. Even if they understand the system, even if they understand what you're doing, if they're not appreciative and if it's not a relationship where it's back and forth, mutual respect Then, then often it's better just to cut it. Often it's better not to have that relationship, because it causes stress it causes like I literally was writing that email, it took a, you know, half hour of my time 20 minutes of my time, my time is extremely valuable. And so, so that that in and of itself like that shows that that it's are that this relationship is already making it so so I'm not able to give the value to them that they need. Because to my other clients that they need because I'm getting I'm getting stuck with in answering someone whom I might be like I said, I might be totally mistaken. However, however, from the onset from what I saw, and from what I see, looked as though they did not understand What, what the system was and so it made it a very tenuous situation. So you never want to be in that situation. Okay? I know I wouldn't longer than most of the other podcasts like this, but it's it's a very, very important thing. All right. Same thing goes with relationships. Don't be in a relationship with someone that takes that constantly is not giving value. Right doesn't understand you doesn't want to understand you. That's something that's a recipe for disaster. So this week, think about some of the things whether it's a client or relationship, something that you're in where where you feel like that you obviously they obviously don't understand you or they don't understand what's what's going on. And and And do something about it It might be cutting it might be just talking about it might be just raising up and communication okay but don't work with people that you don't want to work with I this Dean Soto freedom in five minutes go check out freedom in five minutes com. Also, check out prosulum.com PRoSulum.com got some awesome stuff there if you want to actually create a course there as well it's a it's a four video series course. If you go to prosulum.com and you try to leave there is a pop up that comes up for a for video series course that you can join. It's actually really good shares all my secrets when it comes to systems and, and also virtual systems architects things like that. So go check that out as well. So prosulum.com. Alright, so there's the instead of freedom in five minutes I'll catch you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Bamboos are considered to be the most flexible grass in the world. Because of this, it just sways during storms and that keeps them alive and strong. And this applies to humans too.
Dean Soto shares his experience on how important flexibility is and the lack of it can bring a lot of pain over time.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and pro silom calm PR o su lm calm and we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this lack of flexibility brings a lot of pain over time. That and more coming up. Good day Good morning. Good evening wherever you are as you are listening to this. It is a nice, chilly somewhat frosty morning here in California. Out with the Luna Mr. Out with the Luna my my beautiful big Connie Corso who is running around our property trying to find some mountain lions right now. Hopefully she does not because I don't know Want to be attacked by a mountain lion so uh so if you've been listening to this for a while you know that one of the things that I've been practicing for a bit has been jujitsu Jiu Jitsu, and that has been such an amazing saving grace for me something that I just I absolutely love I, I really can't get enough of it. It is it is such a fun and amazing sport that I just absolutely love it. However, over the past two weeks, I have not been able to do it. And it's, it's been it's been really tough actually. Because I am Jones and for it. I'm craving it. It's one of the only real things I do for exercise. And the fact that I'm not able to do it right now is is really really bothering me and the reason being is so over the I mean for the past I want to say few years gosh and when was the last time yeah I had yeah so it had to be maybe the last five or six years I would get these really bad lower back pains. So back in back, I want us I want to say was about five, five or six years ago I was I was doing squats I want to say was 220 pounds squats or something like that? Nothing like too fancy in and I was always good and my yes awesome. You know the get a great workout there was over at Anytime Fitness and in Southern California. And I was like, This is great. You know what I'm going to try and max out. I'm going to try and max out so I started adding weight and adding weight and anyway I want I want to say I got up to I've never been super great at weightlifting but I think I got up to like 260 or 280 which for me was was pretty dang good. So So I go and I I think I did like two or three squats and then at the very last one as I was trying to get get up to my max was trying to get to my max. I like I just felt a pop in my back I'm like, Oh my gosh, and so I was able to actually lift the the bar back up and put it back and put it back up. And I was like, oh, wow, okay, I'm gonna stop. And it didn't I didn't really feel anything at the time, but I obviously knew something was bad if you feel any type of pop or whatever. The next day, oh my gosh. I felt like I was literally gonna pass out. Whenever I stood up to walk, every time I stood up into a standing position, it felt like my, like my back was just being crushed it it was being it. As soon as I got flat on my back, it's still hurt. But man as soon as I got up, it felt like I was I was it was it was just getting crushed and and I could not do anything I would I could meet I could walk a walk to the bathroom and that was about it. And even if I sat down it's still felt like it was getting crushed. So that was not comfortable having to having to relieve myself which with no relief at all. So enough potty talk. So fast forward.
So during that time actually went to a chiropractor and the guy is like, well let me see your range of motion and and he was he was like dude, you are The most inflexible guy I've ever met. He was he was he was, you know, doing doing hamstring stretches and everything he's like, I'm pretty sure it's because you pretty sure it's not you didn't get like a slip disc or anything like that. Pretty sure it's because you are inflexible and it's doing something to your hips. And so I started doing some exercises, getting flexible, trying to get as flex more flexible, and so on and so forth and got adjustments and everything. And guess what, lo and behold, it was working. I wasn't feeling that pain anymore. And it was pretty awesome. So I started running, I started running as my primary source of exercise, so that I could kind of move my hips a little bit more and kind of get them all nice and flexible and everything like that. So I was kind of running long distance and doing stretches and and things were great things were fancy. pastic and I just kept on, kept on doing that. Well, a few years later. Same thing happened again, not not with the squatting or anything like that, but I just started feeling, man, my back is starting to hurt. It's getting all tight and everything like that. And then it started getting to the point was feeling like I was getting crushed. Yet again earlier this year, went to a massage therapist who was also a kinesiologists. And she said the exact same thing she's like, you have no flexibility whatsoever. And speaking of which, I stopped doing all the stretches and things like that beforehand and so made myself pretty inflexible. She's like, you really have no flexibility whatsoever you what's happening is your hips are getting out of place because of how inflexible you are. And so she started working on me and helped me ministry. Dratch and I went from feeling like I was gonna pass out again to, to going back to going back to being normal, right? Because I started doing all the stretches started doing everything I should do and at that time is when I started going back and going and starting jujitsu as well which made me flexible. And what did I do? What did I do after a few months, I stopped stretching. I stopped getting flexible again. And my body is very, very rigid. And so I stopped getting flexible again and lo and behold, what do you think happened? Lo and behold, what do you think happened? About two weeks ago? Two weeks ago, I I was down on my floor, not able to move anytime I got up I felt like my back was being crushed. And I missed out on several days of work jujitsu. I've missed out on a whole bunch of stuff. Stuff that I could have been doing with my family. It was horrendous again. And lo behold I went to, I went to the massage therapist, she helped stretch me out, I began my stretches again, I use an app called ROM WOD. rhomboid stands for rate range of motion workout of the day. And I love it is like 13 bucks a month or whatever, 14 bucks a month. I love it because it's just daily routines for for getting more flexible. And once again, I'm sitting, I'm walking, I'm here with you. I'm feeling great. I'm not 100% because I definitely have to get back to the flexibility that I was before but I'm able to move around and able to do things, right. Well, what was causing all this pain? what was causing all this suffering? Was it some major catastrophe where I broke broke my spinal column or, or because I have a slip disc or, or or because I have I have some kind of rare disease? No, it literally was because I was so inflexible. my hamstrings are tighter than a tight rope. They are crazy tight all the time. Right. And so,
it is it behooves me to be as flexible as possible because my body is literally telling me Hey, if you do not treat me well, if you do not, bend me around, and make sure that I am Little bit more limber. I will make you aware of how wrong things are in your body to the point where I will make you lay down on the ground for a day or two and be in a tremendous amount of pain. All of my pain and suffering came from the simple fact that I did not spend time becoming more flexible. Now, why is this important? It's important because very often, we in business, in life, with your family, with your spirituality, with everything, we become so inflexible, we become so inflexible and that causes a lot of pain, unnecessary pain. course there are things that you have to hold fast to, you know, if you're Christian, you have to hold fast to certain beliefs. If you have a family, you have to hold fast to certain things like you're not going to go and go and find, you know, a mistress. Hopefully, you, you are going to treat your family well you're going to you're going to treat your wife, your husband. Well, right you Those are hard, fast rules. However, often we don't listen well to our kids or our wife or our husband, or our spiritual director, or, or, you know, our business partner or our customers, right. We are very, very inflexible. In fact, in my business with virtual systems architects and My business, I get to deal with a lot of industries that are very, very inflexible simply because that's the way it's always been done in our industry. Right. So like clients like Matt from camera rock, he is amazing, because he's taken the oil supply industry and completely revolutionized it in using our RV essays. So that so that these v essays are able to do the work of other companies, you know, to, to V essays are able to do the work of what would be 20 other people in his particular industry, not just because of the V essays, but also because of different systems that that he's put in place. But the point is that he's become so flexible in not in not staying so and he's not so rigid that Well, because this is the way the industry's always done it, it's the way that we're going to do it. Right? He's been able to do that and completely thrive in his business. Right. And so this is where this is where even with your body, even in your with your health, your flexibility matters. My body is a perfect example of that because if I do not stretch, I will feel pain. So it's important that you are flexible in certain areas that you are flexible in what you do, because the more flexible flexibility you have, it doesn't mean you have to go and do everything that everyone says or any I just all these different ideas that pop up but it does mean to actually take them into account and think about them and go, you know, yeah, maybe we will implement that. Maybe we won't, we will, we won't, whatever it might be. The more flexible you are, the more success you're going to see. Right? The more success you're going to see. The more happiness you're going to have, the more health you're going to have. Imagine yourself at 8090.
And either your body's really limber, and you can hold your grandkids and you can sit with them, you can stand with them, you could do all those different things. Or you can choose not to be flexible and be in a wheelchair and, or, or not be able to bend over. Those are the realities and those realities are the same. With your body, your spirituality, your family, and your business, so become more flexible. So what's one thing this week that you can do to be more flexible? One thing that you can do to get out of the rigidness to get out of the coldness, the freeze that comes with being inflexible is Dean Soto with freedom in five minutes. Go check out freedom in five minutes.com we have a lot of cool stuff over there. Business Process scorecard, we have a master class. If you want to systemize your business and automate your business in as little as five minutes a day. By using a virtual systems architect, someone overseas who is at a fraction of the cost of somebody, somebody here in the States, somebody overseas that can literally transform your business in five minutes. De go to freedom in five minutes calm or you can go to pro silom calm PR o su lm calm and I will see you in the next freedom in five minutes episode
Communication can be very hard sometimes. There are times that you feel what you are saying and what I’m saying is very different. And these communication barriers hurt.
Dean Soto shares his experience in this podcast episode on how he addressed his communication barriers with his wife and how this will help in business.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and pro silom.com pr o su LUM calm. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes episode. Today's topic is this communication barriers that hurt and why what you are saying and what I'm saying is very different. That and more coming up. Well, good morning good evening, good afternoon, wherever you might be or whenever you might be listening to this. It's good, good to good to be able to connect with you hope you are doing well during this Christmas season. So the wife and I and all of our kids went to Hillcrest tree farm. Hillcrest tree farm. My, my wife and I are very different. Very, very, very different. Christmas time comes around Advent starts, you know a couple of days ago. And my wife is like we are late. We are late getting our Christmas tree. We are late what is going on and and it on? For all intents and purposes it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks or she's not the only one that thinks I'm late because our normal place where we get our tree was completely sold out. Well, apparently Christmas comes early, early, early nowadays. And so my wife is like you late. What is going on? You better get this tree going. Let's go. So yesterday we went to the Hillcrest tree farm. It's it's it is interesting because it is it's definitely further away from where I thought we were going to go. But we had a really cool experience so on the drive there was it was more than time we stopped by this really cute little American diner that that my kids loved. I was surprised that they loved the diner so much it really it was just like a small little diner and they serve food just like good like a Denny's is very Americana and, and my, my daughter who's gonna have her birthday next next month or next week, she she's like Daddy, can can we come here for my birthday? I'm like, Sure. Okay. So totally surprised. And then after that, we went to the tree farm and it was a cute little. It was a cute little spot. It was there was there was there were some there was a train. They had a Santa and whole bunch of trees that were overpriced. And they had kind of a treehouse, but it was fun. Because the treehouse upon inspection was not really built on a tree they it was had a tree underneath it, but they they cut out the tree for whatever reason. So it looked like it was sitting on the tree but they had these metal pylons and stuff like that. And now that I'm building stuff now I'm building treehouses. Now I'm building all this other stuff. I'm definitely inspecting going, how they did this and then I saw that they actually did not build it on a tree. It was they saw a big part of it was not even touching the tree that was underneath it. And so anyway, I don't know why they did that. But say lovey, it is why they did it. So, all that being said, we were just done with all the fun and festivities and everything like that we had to choose our tree. Well, my wife, she knows she knows our house really, really well. We have 10 foot ceilings, the 10 foot ceilings Maybe 11 foot ceilings might be 11 foot ceilings. And so she knew that we should probably get a tree around seven to eight feet with the tree be more on the eight foot side along along that side. So I'm like, Yeah, that sounds great. So we start looking and the kids are kind of going crazy all over the place. And not all of them but but the younger ones especially. And I'm telling my wife wow, you know this, she's showing me the some of the trees and I said and I and I said, Yeah, that looks great. That looks great. And we even looked at this bigger trend. I said, Yeah, you know what, we might want to go bigger this year just because we don't know right? We don't know if they get it with our ceilings and everything like that. What if it's too small and then it just makes it look scrawny? And, and I'm sitting there agreeing with her and whatever I would give my opinion. She would, she would kind of ignore it. She was just
kind of be like, Okay, and then move on to the next and then asked for my opinion and then kind of tell me, hey, you're not really you know, you're not really giving me you know, any feedback? And I'm like, What are you talking about? I am giving you feedback, I'm telling you that this one looks great. I like this one, this is great height, and, and all these other things. And the same thing went with with my other daughter who communicates very similar in a similar way that I do. So here I am saying that these these ones look great. I think that I think you should actually go with this one and so on and so forth. Well, in the meantime, my wife is communicating that she wants my feedback, but is also giving this aura of you're not giving me the feedback that I want. And so what ensued was a disagreement of epic proportions. She got hurt because she felt like she wasn't getting the feedback. I got hurt because I felt like she was ignoring me. And when it all came down to it, she ended up just go grabbing it treed asking two of the kids that she really, really communicates well with us to the kids, what their favorite tree was got that tree and got it all set up to go and everything like that. And we ended up we ended up having a quite a bit of a bit of an argument and there were tears. There were actual tears over a Christmas tree. And when all said and done it was it was actually pretty cute because we had to go to we had to go to Target so we can get some food for church because we're going to church that night. And we were bringing food for after the service and everything like that. And we went to Target. I felt bad. And so I said, You know, I left all the kids in the car with the older older one watching them. And I went and got her in myself a Starbucks. And, you know, I'm feeling bad about the whole thing. And I definitely communicated, didn't communicate well. And then she went and got all the stuff that she needed a target. She pulls up to the van. So I go back to the van to surprise her with a Starbucks. She hasn't she's she's inside the Starbucks, by the way. She went by herself to go get a whole bunch of stuff. I just went out real quick to get a Starbucks. For us, came back, I came back I put the Starbucks into the center console. And she came back and she had a Starbucks, for me and for her as well. which showed that, you know, she was feeling bad about it. I was feeling bad about it. And we apologize to each other and we We made up for sure. But when it all came down to it were like, We came to the realization that we were both saying essentially the same thing. We were both. So she was saying, I need your opinion, I need your help. And I and I was actually, I was saying, I would love to help and I'm giving you my opinion. But but in both cases, it was received in the completely opposite way. In both cases, it was received in a negative. I thought that she had her own what she had in mind, she wanted her own way she had her own thoughts. She didn't want my opinion, every time I give my opinion, she would shut it down. And she thought that I was that I was just saying, well, you you pick since you know the house and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And and after analyzing and looking at it, going Going No, that's not that's not what I was saying at all you come to I've come to the realization and this is this always happens this happens with any type of interpersonal communication is that you could essentially be saying the same thing, you can essentially be saying what your customer wants, you can essentially be saying what your coworker would like all of these, you can you can be saying things the way that is positive and edifying and all other stuff, but if the other person doesn't receive, how that how that is transmitted, kind of like the mode and medium and, and if it's translated translate, translated to them, how it's how it's actually said to them is not the way that they want it to be.
or, or, or it's a way that's kind of abrasive. Even if it's positive, you can actually even if it's positive, even if it's something that would normally in a different circumstance, make them extremely happy, you can actually lose them. You can actually make them angry or sad or mad or whatever it is. And so when you're dealing with customers, some of them might love text messages. Some of them might not. You could have the same message in a text message that you put into an email like this exact same message. And one customer is going to like it when customers not. Some might like I had one I have one customer because I send gifts in the mail. I have one customer who was like, love that you're sending gifts in the mail, but you're sending too much sweets. You're sending too many sweets and And so for them like my other customers like, yeah, keep sending the brownies Kansas keep sending this stuff is great. So depending on how you are communicating, and how your trans had translating, or or transporting or transposing that communication can really depend whether a customer is going to appreciate what you're doing or not. It's really good to tell it's going to it's going to determine whether that customer is going to get the actual true message that you're trying to give them or not. They're either going to feel loved, or they're going to feel like you do not know me
and it's through that Through that, that you're able to determine and you're able to give a ton of value to your client in a way that in a way that you would not be able to do otherwise, if you did not know how they like to be communicated, you run the risk of destroying that entire relationship, even if you are giving them what you feel what you believe, to be nice things to be value added things.
So what are you doing right now? What do you know about your customers? What do you know about the people who whom you serve that allow you to differentiate and segment and personalize On a scalable business basis, your relationship and the things that you in the value that you want to give them. challenge you this week to see how well do you know your clients? And not just from Oh, I know them in my head. How well do you how much data do you have on them in your CRM, your customer relationship manager? How much data do you actually have on them? Do you have their spouse's name? Do you have their birthday? Do you have their likes and dislikes? do you have? You have where they where they live? Do you have their mobile phone? Do you have their opt in to for letting you do mobile? Do you have Do you have their anniversary date? Do you have how much they've spent with you how recently they spent with you? how frequent frequently they spend money money with you Who are your top 20 and 20% clients? These are this is all data that allows you to scale that attention that you otherwise couldn't scale. So I challenge you this week to make all of that a reality that challenge you that this week to make all of that all of this together as much data to see what Elysee what you have, and see where you can start gathering that will differentiate you from everyone else. Alright, so this is Dean Soto, thank you so much for being here with me is a pleasure. And I will see you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Every customer wants to be valued and delivering a more personal connection makes a huge difference.
In this episode, learn how to automate cold emails in mass that can build rapport, foster relationship and open up business opportunities.
If you want your sales and lead generation to become more powerful, this podcast is for you.
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Automated Transcript Below
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, what is up? It's Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com and we're here again for another freedom in five minutes episode. Today's topic is this, automating lead generation can still be personal. That and more coming up.
Good evening guys. Wow, this has been awesome. So this is a, so I'm down in Southern California and, in the Orange County area and we've been doing some talks at WeWork. The topic is on cold email lead generation and really neat, really, really neat topic. In, so, over here in Costa, so we're doing these talks in Costa Mesa and I was getting up and talk, I was, is interesting. So, the first time we actually even talked, talked about this particular subject had these real estate guys who were super. They, they, they were dressed super nicely, but they were also like checking their phone and, and so on and just kind of were not really engaging well in the presentation.
And so, so long and the short is that, so I asked this question, I said, Hey, you know, what do, what do buyers care about the most when someone's buying a service from you? What do buyers care about most? And so I started picking some people and so eventually I picked on these real estate guys. And the real estate guys were like, Oh, well, you know, they want you to know your stuff, the market, they want a value, they want all this other stuff, you know, right?
So, so as I'm as I'm like, yeah, that's great, that's great, that’s great. Sounds good. And I said, so I said, well, that those are great answers. But what if you know your market? What if you are able to deliver value and so on, but you are a jerk? And I did not use the word jerk, I use a much harsher word that I cannot say on here without it being explicit. But what if you're a jerk? Are they going to wanna work with you? More than likely they will not. Because they don't like you. So buyers, we people, because you're a buyer, I'm a buyer. We like working with people who we like, who we feel care about you, right? And so the more that you can give that feeling, the more that you can show that you actually truly care. The more that you, when you're reaching out in lead generation when they're reaching out in different ways. The more that you can, the more that you can convey that you truly, truly care about the person that you're working with. Plus, you're able to give them what they want and all the value and everything like that, the more powerful your sales and lead generation will become.
So, in this presentation, I showed that you can use cold emails in mass. Like you can literally automate and mass send out emails in a system and still make them personal, okay? And they can still show that you actually care about people. Now, it doesn't mean that you personally have to sit there and write a personal, you know, personal email, but that you can develop systems. You can do it in five minutes or less. We go to freedom, freedom in five minutes.com or Pro Sullum.com but you can develop systems where your team or outsource team, or whomever you want can, can literally reach out to people in a systematic way. Import, you know, a spreadsheet full of just customized information into something like Close™ CRM or Mailshake or Yesware and send out cold emails that are extremely personal. So, in this presentation, I show, I show a couple of emails that I had sent the previous, previous week. And the emails will say, you know, hey, Eric, I saw you know, your blog post on 529s and saving for college. And I love where you say, where you say that yadda yadda yadda, whatever, whatever it might be. You see that’s personal and then the response back, I show the response and the responses of people who set up meetings because of it. To the point when they, where they want to have a meetup and said, hey, I'm so glad that you read the article before sending the email. That's really impressive.
And I'm like, Well, I didn't read the article. Well, someone on my staff did, someone that, that's, that's paid a lot less than I am. Who's super valuable, super amazing, but you know, arbitrage overseas, you know, overseas, they, they are the ones who did it, right?
And so, so I'm showing this and you, and people's eyes just and their jaws literally, literally drop. That you can create these massive systems that would normally people would just shoot thousands of emails that are completely unpersonalized and be marked as spam and, you know, end up, end up going into the junk folder. You can send these really high, powerful emails to the point where on average, we're getting about 50% open rates on our emails, which is unheard of even for warm emails, right?
So, why is this important? It's important because no matter what you're doing, in any setup that you have, when it has to do with business, people want to feel valued. The more that you can give value ahead of time, the more you will win, the more you will make sales. And so, just because you systemize something, just because you make it so, you, you make something that works with or without you. Something that works automatically does not mean you need to sacrifice that custom. That, that personal attention. What, what one of my mentors calls, Jermaine Griggs, he calls scaling personal attention. It does not mean that you need to sacrifice that. You can set up systems that truly meet people where they're at and give a ton of value on a mass scale. And the more that you can do that, the more you are going to make sales.
So what's one thing right now? How is your lead generation right now working? How, how are you reaching out to customers? Is it in mass or you’re just sending spammy LinkedIn messages? Or is it truly customized to people? That's what we want to see, right? That's what I challenge you to do this week is make something truly customized. Something that reaches out to people and something that is in a systematic format.
Alright, so, Dean Soto, freedom in five minutes. Go check out freedom in five minutes.com. You can also check out Pro Sullum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and get a virtual systems architect. A virtual systems architect that they could show how to do something in five minutes. They document the entire thing step by step, and then they do it for you. That is amazing. You never have to do it ever again, if you don't want to. You can literally outsource and offload and automate your entire business in five minutes a day in 30 days or less.
So, this is Dean Soto, freedom in five minutes.com and I will see you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Systems describe how things are done and then provide the focus for making things better.
In this episode of freedom in five minutes, learn how building a system helps you resolve problems faster and let you empower others. Empowering not only yourself to improve but also other people making it easy to optimize and determine how successful the outcomes will be.
If you want to know more about the benefits of having a system in your everyday work no matter how small or big it will be, this podcast is for you.
Automated Transcript Below:
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes.com and ProSulum.com. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes podcast. Today's topic is this, how systems help you empower others and fix problems faster. That and more coming up.
Oh, what is up? What is up? What is up? So, today, interesting topic, interesting topic. So, over the last few days, I've been working on my homestead. And one of the things with working on the homestead is that you have two choices. You have two choices. When it comes to doing anything on any type of land, any type of acreage.
The first choice is to do as much as you possibly can manually. So for example, we have a chicken coop down, I want to say 300, 400 yards. And I talked about this in a video that I did. But we have a chicken coop 300 to 400 yards away. And the way that we get water to that because think about it, we have to feed them, we have to give them water. How do we get water to them? Well, one of the ways was to carry a four-gallon, you can either carry four, you know, four or five one-gallon jugs, or carry a four-gallon jug to each of the chickens or to, or to the chicken coop. And that works. But what happens when you need to start cleaning out some of the bowls. You need to kind of start cleaning out some of the water where you're, where you're storing the water and actually giving water for them to drink if you're trying to clean things with water. It gets really cumbersome because now you pour out the water to clean. Now you have to track all, all, all the way back up to the house, get more water, bring it down, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And then, on the flip side, one gallon is pretty heavy, pretty heavy for little ones, right? One gallon of something is significant, a significant amount of weight for some of my little guys which means that they're not able to help with some of the chicken’s chores, right? And that sucks. Because we need help sometimes.
And so you have that, that choice of doing the, doing it the manual way. And just, you know, hunkering down and lagging, doing things and so eventually it ends up being you, you have to do it yourself. Only I have the skills, or my wife has the skills, because we're the strongest ones, right? Carrying this water down, and it becomes very, very, very cumbersome over time, right? And it makes it to where we can't even have other animals because imagine if we have Llamas or we have other things. Now we're having bring, bring a four-gallon jug of water or four single gallon jugs of water down to each one of those places. Some of those, some of those troughs require much more than four gallons, right? Some of those animals need a lot more than that.
So you're just constantly, constantly having to bring water and it comes to the point where it becomes totally overwhelming because you, my wife and I would be the only ones able to do it. So the second choice is to build a water system. And does that take a lot of hard work? Heck yeah. It takes a lot of hard work. It is really tough. It is very hard to do, right? Because now I have to trench, I have to lay the PVC pipe, I have to burrow, the cement, the, the PVC, PVC pipe with that, with that special type of primer and cement and do all of this stuff that I wouldn't have to do otherwise. And it sucks because you know, at the same time, what are you having to do? As that's going on, you're having to give the chickens some water.
So you're doing double what seems to be double the work, right? Well, afterward, here's the difference. Yes, it's hard work doing that, you just added work, right? But what happens is during that process, an asset is being built. An asset is being built. How is that? How is that happening, right? Because literally almost, you're doing double the work right? You did. You're doing, you're bringing water manually, plus, you're doing this system, this water system. Well once it was done, it was glorious. It was at 12:30 am, I had my headlamp on and everything like that. Once it was done, I had four, I had five, installed five additional water spouts, water, water spigots, water, water bibs, one being right next to the chicken coop, where we have a hose for the chickens. And when I turn the knob to let the water flow, oh my gosh, it was rapture, it was amazing, it was working. Oh, it was wonderful.
And what was even cooler, was that the next day or a couple of days later, one of my kids, I told my kids and they were excited. But then I want to say two days, maybe three days later, my kids had to go and give some more water to the chickens. Before, they couldn't do it on their own. I mean, they could but it would take forever. And some of the little ones couldn't help. Now, all they had to do was go down there, turn the faucet, water comes out, they're able to clean out the, the chicken’s bowl and fill it up with beautiful clean, fresh mountain water.
How amazing is that? So cool. I love it.
So now, not only am I able to do it, all of my kids except for one who's, who's little Bonbon but he could probably even do it. Little Bonbon is the only one out of all my entire family that can, it cannot, cannot at least just because of his age, cannot water the chickens, give water to the chickens. Before, it was my wife and I that generally were the ones that did all the water in the chickens. Now, I have, I have literally six additional people, six additional hands, who can water, give water to the chickens. So they are empowered.
Now, here's the thing. As I was testing out everything, I noticed that there was a leak, there was a leak in one of the PVC, in one of the, in one of the water spouts. It was a leak that was underneath the ground. And, so it’s still was awesome because I could, even though there was that leak, I could still go and utilize the system. I just had to turn off the system after it was being done, after is being used.
Well, here's the deal. When you have a system, here's a really cool thing is that you, you're able to see, because there’s, you, you can see where the system is working and where it's failing. You can see where the leak is and you can fix that leak.
So, when you have a system, you're able to very quickly see what the problem, what's the problem? What's going on? Why is this not working? Oh, it's because of this specific section, this specific process, this specific area. This is what's not working. And, that is extremely powerful.
Whereas when you have a full bunch of people, you have a whole bunch of people who have everything in their heads, and things are getting messed up. Things are getting messed up, left and right, left and right, left and right, left and right, but it's because of human error. It's because of things that are unknown. There really is no process, no system, nothing written down. Nothing operationally that can be pointed to. You just have a constant mess. Whereas when I looked at the water system, I can see oh, it's leaking right here, it's leaking over here. I need to change this thing out. I need to move this thing around. I need to switch up whatever it might be. Very quickly I could tell, very quickly I could see where the problem was. And it got fixed.
So, for me it was this, yeah, I actually thought it was one, or it was the PVC pipe like the threading where the, where the steel pipe goes into the PVC pipe and it was the threading. I thought it was the PVC portion of it. Because it was, it was just leaking and, and I couldn't figure out why. So I actually, I hack, I use my hack saw, hacksawed off the PVC portion of it, redid the whole thing. Put the thread, the PVC threading portion on, put the pipe in and it did the exact same thing.
So I was like, oh, that's interesting. So maybe if I flip the pipe around, I flipped it upside down. So that the hose bib would be, have the different threading on there. I flipped it around and lo and behold, everything worked just fine for whatever reason. That, that end of the pipe did not like the PVC portion of it. It did like the hose bit portion of it. So I'm not going to judge. It's just the way it was. And it worked. And so very quickly that problem was solved and the entire system is working like a charm. And actually, my kids love it because they are able to do a lot of stuff that they couldn't do in the chicken coop because of that water supply and that water system.
So, wherein your business right now or in your life? Do you, are you, are you just doing things the way you do them because that's the way you always did them and you're the one doing them? Or you have somebody who has it just stuck in their head, they, they are the ones that should be doing this thing or that thing or whatever? Where in your business or in your life or in, in whatever organization, you might be a part of, where are you doing something manually without a system?
I want, I challenge you to take a look and see why or why am I doing this and actually create a system, create a process because when you do that, it empowers not only you to improve that process and to, to make it better and to see if there's any problems that need to be fixed. It empowers other people and makes it easy to optimize and make that thing better. So, I challenge you this week, challenge you this week, to look at at least one thing that you're doing. Create a system around it, create a process around it and give that thing whether it's to, to somebody else in your organization, or, or whatever it might be, give somebody else the, and empower them to use that system so that you can take one more thing off of your plate.
All right, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes. Go check out freedom in five minutes.com.
Also check out Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. Five minutes a day, five minutes a day, and you can outsource and automate and scale your entire business in 30 days or less. Alright, this is Dean Soto and I will catch you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
No man is an island. Each one of us needs a partner in life, may it be for business or in relationships. We need a partner because there are things that we are not good at. It is a give-and-take relationship so long as it is a win-win situation for both of you.
Dean Soto has personally experienced the need for a partner in his business. Let's all listen to this podcast episode recounting his experience with having amazing people as a partner.
"Automated Transcript Below:"
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and pro sulim calm. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes. podcast episode. Today's topic is this, how to partner with amazing people. That and more coming up. Oh, man. So back in the day when I first started my business, I was working 50 6070 hours a week. And part of the reason was I was trying to wear all the hats, right? I at the time, I didn't really know how to do this. Some of the stuff that we do now like with the virtual systems architects and with outsourcing and systems and all other stuff, didn't have any of that and so I I found myself just constantly, you know, I'm the one marketing I'm the ones doing sales. I'm the one posting, posting on at the time posting on Craigslist doing whatever I could. And then obviously, when I got a customer, or, or I got a client, I had to be the one doing all the work and doing all the projects and doing all that stuff. Right. Well, the thing is that, that after a while, I started seeing, not just that I was spending a lot of time on stuff. One thing that I started seeing very quickly, I mean, it was night and day I it was without a doubt. I could see really quickly that I sucked at certain things, or at least, at least at the time, I wasn't very good at certain things. So for me, it was marketing promotion, things like that. Especially like public relations, PR type stuff. Very difficult for me to do. And you might hear an echo I'm actually behind in like this alleyway. Wow, my son's doing some martial arts. Anyway. So I started seeing very quickly that some of that stuff was stuff that I really didn't even want to do in the first place. Right. And so not only did I was I'm not was not doing well with it, it just stuff that I didn't want to do in the first place. And so so after a while, once I started, I started doing things more online, I started getting more and more into more scalable things. One of the things I ended up doing was partnering with somebody who, who needed what I had, what I could do, so I was really good at building infrastructure, really good at building systems, operations, things like that. He was at the time selling on Amazon. And so I started partnering up real good and what happened was, while he was good, he already had it. He already had a crowd. He already had an audience. He already had a whole bunch of things like that, but he didn't have the website he wanted basically wanted, he wanted to sell stuff online, different courses teaching people how to sell on Amazon. And he didn't have a means to do that. And so it worked out really well because I knew how to do that I knew how to use WordPress and how to use Click Funnels, all this other stuff that was available at the time. And we started making a lot of money together. And it was cool because I was working way, way, way, way less and making a lot lot lot lot more money to the point where I was able to leave my job at the time. And so with that being said, With all that being said, the the the cool thing about it was that he had skills that I was not I just didn't get the time I just didn't want to do, I probably could have and it's interesting because I i would i would say I could have But it was just stuff that I didn't want to do. And so it made it super easy on my end because I enjoyed building out the operations and stuff, right. So we had that going on at the time. And eventually that partnership faded. And another partnership spawned, which was based around a piece of software. And that partnership was actually the opposite where I started doing a lot of the marketing the person who created the software, it ended up being kind of more of a three way type partnership person who created the software. He just wanted to build and build and build that end of the things. And then my buddy Brad wanted to he was doing a lot of the offer creation creating of of different offers. And in that particular situation. I knew that
I knew that our business model with That piece of software was not was not optimal. It was it was just not working out. And so I knew that we could offer it because basically it was like a month to month type thing. The software had a bunch of different features and so on. And I thought, you know, what if we did an annual, we did an annual type thing. And my buddy Brad, he went and created the offer, the the annual offer. I did, I did the emails for to that. And lo and behold, in a matter of a weekend, we, we did, we did six figures off of one launch over a weekend. And that was all because of different actually, you know, it was a four way four way partnership at the time because I was still with the other partner as well. I take that back. So it was a four way partnership at that time. And it was super easy it just it right away, right away. We were able to start capitalizing on that. And so. So what's the what's the whole point? Why am I sharing this story? I'm sharing this story because I'm serious sharing this story because a lot of the times, if you're doing something on your own, you can bring in if you want a quick way. And it's not always the case, you don't always want to do this and you don't want to give away your business. But you can do things where it's like sales or you can get a certain commission or things like that. But you can bring in a partner and essentially say, hey, if we do this thing together, that whatever it might be, I will give you x percent, I will give you x percent of commission, or whatever it might be, in fact, right now. With my virtual systems architect, I'm doing that with somebody who is absolutely amazing Mr. Paul Tran, who I've talked about in the past and and he is amazing at promotion, amazing business development. He is just phenomenal and he's been able to do in just just a few months what it has taken me a few years to do just on the business development side because that's where his strength lies, right? So he was a client of mine he's a friend and a client of mine and loved what was going on and it was like hey, I'm I want I want to evangelize this thing of what what you have with these virtual systems architects at freedom in five minutes, calm and pursue. com And so, so he and I partnered up and man, it has been amazing. We've been able to speak it. We were We've been in the franchise times we've been, we're speaking at spaces in not too long from now we're getting lots of lots of customers lots of partnerships things are super super just just meeting a ton of ton of people and the best part is we're helping so many businesses transform and do things in the new reality in the reality of, of being able to systemized your business being able to outsource everything in your business in five minutes or less in 30 days that you know, in less than 30 days if you do if you just spent five minutes a day doing our system, you can literally transform your entire business right and and we have so many people that are being affected in bed and are benefiting from this, that it's just, it is just an absolute monster of of a Change predominantly because of this partnership. So, all that being said, if right now, you're a one man show, and maybe you have a team, but you just you, I might, I would highly consider partnering with somebody in some fashion or another, whatever is a win win situation and start developing stuff based off of that partnership because there's a lot of times we'll you'll see, that's but that when you have somebody else who can pick up the slack where you suck, basically, you can completely transform your business almost overnight.
And obviously, like I said, you don't want to get rid of your equity or you don't want to do things that are going to take away from what you're already doing. But find a win win. And you can see some pretty amazing results when it comes to Partnering. So all that being said, Go Go give that a try. And then if you want to transform your business in 30 days or less, literally, it only takes five minutes a day, go to freedom in five minutes calm, or pro slim, calm, PROSULUM calm. And check that out and get in touch with me. We'll get on the phone and we will see if you're a good fit and help you to get your entire business, automated scaled and growing. And all it takes is five minutes a day. Five minutes a day. All right. This is Dean Soto freedom in five minutes and I will catch you later in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.
Yes, it is! Every little thing is provided for you, surprised?
In this episode, you'll learn how great God is, how He cares, how He loves us, and how he provides no matter how small or insignificant it is.
Whether you are Christian or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is the podcast for you.
Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00 Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and Pro Sulum.com, P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com and we're here with another freedom in five minutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this, every little thing is provided for you, that and more coming up.
Well, good morning from beautiful Huntington Beach, California. On travel, gonna be speaking at some WeWorks down here in Newport Beach, Irvine, Irvine, at Irvine Spectrum and yeah, it is a great morning. It’s about 9 o’clock so everyone is done with the public school rush. That’s crazy, it’s, it’s, it’s, the, I’d almost forget. Sometimes the, you know, we did a homeschooling thing and so, so there’s certain times that you don’t wanna be out in about. One of those times is when you’re in a public school or actually, when everyone is taking their kids to school and it’s only, it’s on really a rush hour in the morning and there’s this car who’s going all over the place so you can barely, barely even do a podcast coz they’re just constantly driving by.
Anyway, I don’t know why we’re on that hinget. So, so Monday, I spent the day, took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. Little education field trip there, Chuck E. Cheese. Make them do some economic business and different things that going, you know get tickets and spend, consume and produce, consume and produce, let’s go, let’s go, let’s get the skills up, right? They can, they can have some fun, get some tickets and then get a reward. How creative, how creative and then when you have add five of them, five of them at the time. So all those five had to barter and trade and see who was gonna do, who’s gonna get what at the very end. So I, so, so the reason why we’re down there is we went, we were gonna go to a, we were gonna go to the Pumpkin Patch and we got to the Pumpkin Patch around 1:30 pm and the guy said, even though the Pumpkin Patch was open, the guy said that the rides at the Pumpkin Patch were not available till about 3 or 3:30 at the latest. And so had to figure, we’re down, we’re down the city anyway. It takes about 45 minutes to get there and so I wasn’t gonna just sit there and wait for 2 hours, right?
Well, so I’ve decided, hey, let’s go to Chuck E. Cheese. So, we went to Chuck E. Cheese, had a, had a blast there and then we went to the Pumpkin Patch. Now, my oldest boy, Zoren, he, he really wanted to go on the first when we, when we finally got back to the Pumpkin Patch. I mean he has been talking about it for the last 2 weeks every time. He’s like, oh there’s the Ferris wheel, there’s the Ferris wheel, oh I love the Ferris wheel, Ferris wheel, Ferris wheel. And so, I got, every ride there is one ticket and I believe it’s like $4 per ride or something like that or $2 per ride. Anyway, whatever it was I got, I got enough for all 5 of them to do 5 rides. They had a big, big slide, they had airplane, little airplane things for the kids. The little cars that go around. They had the Ferris wheel. They had a couple of other bigger, big, more big rides and so it, none of the, the little, the, the thing that I didn’t really account for was me. I did not buy tickets for myself and I totally forgot that they, they were not going to let my kids go on the Ferris wheel without me being present, at least the younger 3 that I had and then my older 2, my, my, my older daughter was not wanting to go on the Ferris wheel because cos it’s was just soaring, cos she’s scared. So all that being said, due to as complications in who went on what rides, we did not have enough tickets to go on the Ferris wheel together and Zoren, super, I mean he was so good. He was, he was disappointed, obviously but he wasn’t throwing a tantrum or anything like that. But you can tell, he was just extremely, extremely disappointed. And so, so I was like, what do I do. We literally have no more tickets. So, we have like, I wanna say we have like 3, 3 tickets left. So I gave those tickets to my younger kids. They went on some, some of the younger rides and we literally had zero tickets left and they also found, they also met this one girl named Brooke who, who was the cousin of one of the ride operators and she give, she, she had her own tickets and so they were going on some rides with her and. And so, this, long and the short is, we basically had no tickets, and Brooke had no tickets either and there was just. It’s just, the Ferris wheel was not gonna happen. And my son, Zoren was highly disappointed. Super, super disappointed. So caveat before you freak out. I am Christian and so I believe that God wants to give us good things all the time and no matter how, how small or insignificant it might be because he is everywhere at every point in time and he is a good father, he wants us to have a good time. Just like any good father would. The, so I’m like, in my, my, in my mind, I’m like dude, Lord alright, alright Lord if you want, if you want us, then if you want Zoren to go on the, the Ferris wheel, you’re gotta have to make it happen cos I’m not gonna go back and spend with, I mean we’d just spend a ton of money at Chuck E. Cheese. We just spend a ton of money with, with the, the Pumpkin Patch and I’m just, I’m just not gonna go, you know, I’m not gonna go do that, cos we can always wait till next week, when the rest of the kids cos 2 of my other kids can’t go because they were sick. We could always wait till next week.
Well, about 5 minutes later, mind you, this is for 7 people if I’m including myself. 5 minutes later, we’re standing next to the Ferris wheel, Zoren comes up to me and says, hey, look dad I found 2 tickets and they were these yellow tickets and, and the tickets we had were white. And I’m thinking, Oh, maybe those won’t work but I’ve looked up and I saw people holding yellow tickets now so that must be that could do tickets that they, they had. He found 2 tickets that were on the ground, just sitting there, that’s 2 tickets. About a minute later I guy comes over to my, my oldest daughter and or not my oldest daughter, my older, my older daughter that was there, second oldest daughter. Comes over to her, says hey we’re, we’re gonna go, we don’t need this anymore, there’s 4 tickets. So that’s 6 tickets but we also have Brooke, right? So, the, Brooke is, is, is hanging out with us and I don’t it, like I’m looking at her and I’m like, wow, we have enough tickets for our family. We haven’t enough tickets for you and so I felt bad. I’m like yeah, I’m not gonna like that for, that would be pretty messed up and. And then so, Genevieve looks down on the ground and sees a, just a, a ticket with a tiny piece ripped off of it. Looks down on the ground and finds that out of all places, grabs it. We have 7 tickets. We’re all able to go on to the Ferris wheel, all of us. So, it was 3 in one cart and 4 in the, just 3 in one cart and 4 in the other, and had a blast.
And so, why is this important? Well, you know, whether your Christian or not, whether you believed in God or not, you know, He exists. And He cares about you and loves you and wants to provide for you. Just like a good father provides for his sons and daughters. And, and even in the little things, cos the first thing I thought about it, in my mind, I’m like, why would God even care about this. This is so like, really well why would God care about this? Because to Him and I know this is, this is not a full business thing, but, it’s not a business topic but it really is. Like it, this is, this is part of the spirituality side of things, right? You know, you have your body, you have your health, you have your business and you have your family and then you have your spirituality, right? So, and if you don’t have that, you’re just a one, one-dimensional guy or one-dimensional girl. And so, I’m like, why is He care about this? Like, that, that was a temptation, right? Why does he care about this? When He could worried about other things. Well, He’s everywhere at the same time. So, to Him, when He’s with you, doing stuff. He, as, as if you’re the only one who exists and, and anybody else that is around the world, it’s just that as if they’re the only one who exists and it matters to Him for whatever reason. So, just go with it, just go with it. There are times where we struggle, that He, that He seems like He’s far away. There’s times when, when we’re, when, like this, where we seems like He’s really close for whatever reason. I don’t know exactly why but that’s just the way it is and so it’s important because when you realize that someone actually cares about you, and wants, and wants the best for you, it makes a world of difference. Especially when that person is the creator of the entire world and the entire universe.
Alright, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes.com. Go check out freedom in five minutes. Five minutes a day and you can offload everything, just about in your life and I will catch you in the next freedom in five minutes episode.