[00:00:00] Speaker A: Set a price on content and have people rent that.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Take action, even if it's something little every day.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: If everyone could feel the way I felt, we would not have as many wars.
[00:00:10] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gerhart.
[00:00:11] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhart. You've just heard some snippets from our show. It was a great one. Stay tuned, especially if you want to start a new business.
[00:00:21] Speaker D: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it heart. Now get it in gear. It's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearharthe. I'm Richard Gerhart, founder of Gerhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:39] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhardt. Not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart law, and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:45] Speaker D: Are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business or already a business owner? Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business. Welcome to passage to the road to entrepreneurship, where we learn why and how ordinary people, just like you, started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations. We have an amazing guest, Bob Bowden, founder and CEO of Vid Affair. He's also a broadcast journalist and a former executive director of Choice Media.
[00:01:17] Speaker E: And then we have two amazing guests. We've been talking to them before we started recording, and I could tell this is just gonna be a really fun show. Today we have Cindy Witteman with just a lot of wonderful things she's doing. She's a coach. She does charity work, the podcast host and a beekeeper.
And then Abe Gurko, who has written a book. He's an author, an advocate, a podcast host, and a second generation Holocaust survivor. So congrats to you.
[00:01:45] Speaker D: But before we get to our distinguished guests, it's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans want to start a business or are already business owners, and they have lots of questions about starting a business. So we're here to answer some of those with our guests today. So the question that I want to ask our guests is, what is the nightmare business scenario that affected you most in your new business journey? I'd like to go to Bob. Bob, welcome to the show. Tell us about your nightmare business scenario.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: You know, it's pretty easy for me, and I would say, in a nutshell, it's hiring the wrong people. And when you start out as an Internet tech startup, you oftentimes have to hire people that have skills you don't have. It turns out most of us are pretty good at hiring people who do things we've done before that we fully understand the flow of the needs of that job, an assignment. But when there are things that we haven't personally done before, it's a little harder to hire the right person.
[00:02:45] Speaker D: Finding the right people in the entrepreneurial world to work with is a never ending quest. Right. And when you find somebody that works, you will grab onto that because, you know. Yep, finding somebody else may be difficult. Cindy, what is your nightmare business scenario?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: I'm going to go with Bob, too, on the same thing about hiring the wrong people. Yeah, I did the same thing. I ended up hiring someone to take care of something for me. I was so excited. I went out and got contracts. I'm going to have this delivered. It's so amazing. Everything's wonderful, everybody's happy, and it doesn't come out. So then I had to hire someone else. Can't get the money back from the other one. In the midst of this, the person I hired also hired someone else. Still not getting it done. So I had to double pay to actually get the work done. It was terrible. So that is my nightmare story.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: And it always takes twice as long and costs twice as much. Right. Abe, what is your nightmare business scenario?
[00:03:39] Speaker C: I started won't be silent as a film project in 2018, and we were filming a documentary. It was going beautifully. I raised the funds we were filming and hope it happened. It was either going to be the end of this project or I had to figure out how to salvage what had been such, this beautiful experience to that moment. And it's when I decided, since we were all locked down and there was an election coming up, was like, what better way to say I won't be silent than by voting? And I got very involved in voting rights organizations and took the message and made it relevant and still to this day.
[00:04:21] Speaker E: That's excellent, Elizabeth. Wow. I was remodeling our podcast studio. That's great. Except that, has anybody ever had to deal with a city on a remodel of a business?
Dealing with a city is, it's a little bit of a nightmare. Maybe it's a small part of a bigger nightmare, but I could tell the story real quick. I went down to pick up the permit and they were open till 430. And I got there like at five to four. And they had put in this new regulation in New Jersey. There was a guy arguing with the woman at the desk, trying to figure out how to fulfill what she wanted. By the time I got up there, it was a minute after four. And she's like, I'm sorry, our register closes at four, so we can't take your check and give you the permit today.
[00:05:04] Speaker D: I even know they were open until 430.
[00:05:06] Speaker E: They were open till 430. So that was a little tiny nightmare.
[00:05:10] Speaker D: There you go. I mean, insofar as my nightmare scenario goes, we had one a couple of years ago, same stuff that Bob and Cindy were talking about. We were doing a software transition and we had the wrong people and we had been in business at that point for 17 years. We had all of this data that had to be migrated and it just didn't go right. And the frustrating thing for us was that we couldn't send out our invoices to our clients because the software wasn't working, which meant we weren't getting paid. And so it was a really stressful time for us. When we had started the project, we were told that it would be like upgrading from Windows ten to Windows eleven because we were just going to a newer version of the software. Well, that wasn't true at all. Everything had to be redone. The whole team had to relearn a whole new software package. And what I learned from that was, before you do anything like that, you really have to do a lot of due diligence and make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into and that you have a very clear project. So that's it for your new business jury. And now it's time to go to our featured guest today, Bob Bowden, founder and CEO of Videfair, and we're going to be hearing about that. He's also a broadcast journalist and he's the founder and former executive director of Choice Media. So tell us a little bit about vid affair and why it's important for creators.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: The concept is simply to allow content creators a way to make money from their work. I'd been a documentary filmmaker and I was touring the country, going to film festivals, and I noticed that most people who created films sometimes spent half their life savings or more into these projects, sometimes spent years of their lives into these projects. They would have nothing. Sometimes even get lucky enough to be in a local film festival, invite all their friends and relatives and coworkers and actors to come see the one screening, and then it's all over and they just all go home. The best they can do is put it on YouTube after that. And I thought to myself, why isn't there a way for someone to set their own price? Much like on airbnb, how you'd set a price to rent a condo. And people, if you set the price too high for your condo, that's on you. Maybe you won't get a lot of rentals, but you set a price to rent a condo and people have a way to rent your condo. Why shouldn't there be a similar way where you could set a price on content and have people rent that and you get paid for, whether it's a film or a comedian with a video, stand up comedy or skits or a cooking show or a music video for musicians who have a hard time monetizing music lately. So we created video fair, which is a way people can set their own fee on video and then have their social media followers or friends, et cetera, rent it and they get paid.
[00:07:59] Speaker E: I think this is a great idea. You know, quite honestly, Richard and I have watched everything we think we want to watch on Netflix, and there's nothing on tv. So, like, really some fresh content. Because I'd like a wider selection.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: I have had people approach me say, why don't you just curate this and make sure only the best videos get uploaded? And I'm like, no, I am. There are enough gatekeeper platforms. There are enough HBO's out there and Netflix is out there and Hulu's out there, and I can't even list them all, peacocks, etcetera, go on and on. With all these subscription platforms, I don't think we need more of that. I basically want to be the pay per view YouTube. I don't want to be yet another gatekeeper platform.
[00:08:39] Speaker D: Bob, how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it was really just like I said, being at film festivals and seeing people had no way to make, make a penny from their content. People said, well, your YouTube channel can be monetized. Well, that's if you already have a thousand followers and if you already have 4000 hours of people watching your content. And then. Drum roll, please. You get, on average, less than two tenths of a penny per view through an advertiser YouTube monetization plan that you get zero point one eight cents per view. I mean, that's a rounding error. You know, I mean, you could even charge, you could charge a very fair price. You could make, imagine you made twenty five cents per view and that was the fee that you set for your vidifair upload. Twenty five cents. I mean, that's 125 x. That's 125 times the purview compensation than you'd be getting by YouTube advertiser monetization. So, yeah, I felt like people needed a way to. And of course, it's not just films, either. Like I said, there's all kinds of content. People come up with new forms of content every day. Even just podcasts. Podcasts like yours, by the way. You know, people give away a certain amount of free content, and then it's not unusual for them to say, oh, now, if you're a fan already, you can look for my paywall content over here on Patreon, which is a subscription platform. We wanted a non subscription way to do that, since so many people are sick of subscribing to things, hash subscription fatigue. We wanted a way you could pay a la carte to support someone you liked without being asked to subscribe to yet another thing.
[00:10:11] Speaker E: So what percentage of that does the creator get?
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Well, it's not based on a percentage. In fact, that was a thing we tried early on. We thought, okay, we'll just make it a percentage. Like, you set your fee, and then we'll take a percent. But then we thought, why should we get more just because one person charges more for their work than another person? And they're both, say they're both 210 minutes videos. One person charges double, the second person charges double what the first person charges. Why should we get more for serving the bits, the ones and zeros of that second video if it's the same amount of data? And I kind of thought, you know, if fairness is the principle of our platform, we should be profitable, but we should be paid based on our storage and streaming, not based on what someone else charges. So our platform fee is purely based on the duration of the upload. It's not based. So it's not a percentage, to answer your question, it's not. It's basically works out to basically, a penny and a half per minute is our platform fee. If you charge a dollar, and let's say it's a ten minute video, platform fee would be $0.15 penny and a half per minute times ten minutes. So 15 cent platform fee, $1.15 would be basically the total. But if Richard charges $10 instead of $1 for the creator fee, it's still a ten minute video, it's still a 15 cent platform fee would be $10.15 retail. Rounding off, in other words. So our platform fee is based on duration, not based on percentage.
[00:11:34] Speaker D: Bob, if an entrepreneur wanted to create their own software platform, what steps would they go through in order to do that, and what advice would you have for them?
[00:11:47] Speaker A: I mean, one piece of advice would be do something different that isn't being done already. I do see a lot of people trying to be another provider of an existing paradigm that I see that already exists. And it's hard enough to be successful and kind of take on big tech. As I like to say, if you are doing something original, but if you're not doing something original, well, you should probably wait till you have a better idea. That would be one piece of advice I would give.
[00:12:10] Speaker D: And then in terms of the nuts and bolts of building the platform, what was that process like?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: What I did was I said, why don't I turn to somebody that knows this space really well and ask them to give me personal recommendations of people they think would be a good fit for what I'm doing. That made all the difference. And I'm actually lucky that was just the second iteration that I didn't go around with more iterations of that first failed attempt of trying to just vet people through talking to them and that kind of thing. When you ask people for their advice, I find most people take it very seriously. Like they really want to recommend somebody that they think really will be a good fit for this. And if they know the space extremely well, which is how you select the person from whom you asked advice, they'll generally give you a really good recommendation. That's how we solved it and moved on and ended up with somebody amazing. Like, we ended up talking to a person who ran a school for what's called full stack programming, somebody that can program everything from iPhones to Android to websites, et cetera, and does banking interactions, et cetera, as we do streaming services, a video. So we basically found someone who ran a school for that, who has seen hundreds and hundreds of people come through their school and end up hiring one of the professors of the full stacks programming school. It made all the difference.
[00:13:30] Speaker D: I love that answer because we're so quick now just to go to the Internet and read reviews, and that can only tell part the story. But if you can find somebody who knows somebody that they've worked with and understands their work ethic and their integrity and their capabilities, that's one of the most powerful ways to find the right people. So I'm really glad that you mentioned that.
[00:13:54] Speaker E: So I'm doing a deep dive in the podcasting space, and I feel like the podcasting space is 70% marketing. And I think for your site, marketing is huge. So my question for you about that is, do you personally market the site? Well, obviously, you're coming on the show. So you do, right. But then everybody that has something on there, are they marketing it too? I mean, is that part of the deal or can they just market it or not?
[00:14:15] Speaker A: They can just market it or not. We sort of advise people it's in their own interest to do so, because the more people that know about their film being available for rent or their video or whatever it is, comedy, et cetera, the more people that know about it, the more rentals they'll get. The closest analogy to what we do is Patreon, which I mentioned before. From a marketing point of view, we see it kind of similar. You don't see Patreon spending a bunch of money on the Super bowl ad to say, go to patreon.com to find random content. No, they use the actual content creators to tell their social media followers, go look at my content. Maybe there's an initial stage where we do need to do a lot of marketing to actually just get on anyone's radar at all, which is kind of the phase we're in right now. But that after that, it seems to me that it would make more sense for the content creators to basically tell their followers about their own content on our site.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: So who would you think of as your competition?
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Probably Patreon. It's probably the closest thing. I mean, you could. From the film space, you could say Vimeo, which is a publicly traded company. Vimeo has been around forever. There's a lot of ways I would argue we're better than they are. Like, for example, we'll start with the fact that you need dollar 120 a year pro level subscription on Vimeo to monetize anything, whereas we have a one time upload fee of $2. So it's a pretty big difference, $120 a year versus $2.01 time. But from a film space, I would say Vimeo. From a podcast monetization space, I would say Patreon.
[00:15:40] Speaker E: So do you envision maybe, because this probably hasn't had time to happen yet, somebody just like blowing it out of the water on your site and then getting picked up by NBC or, you know, peacock or something?
[00:15:53] Speaker A: That's the kind of problem I'd love to have. I would say bring that on.
[00:15:57] Speaker E: I think that's going to happen. We're going to speak it into existence.
[00:15:59] Speaker D: There we go. We're going to put good karma out there. So before becoming the CEO of Bit Affair, you were broadcast journalist and you also were the former executive director of Choice Media. How does what you're doing now differ from the previous things you did in earlier in your career.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: You know, I started out as an engineer with a master's in engineering, but I was never really a software guy in terms of even managing software development, which I do now. So that's how it's different. I would say most of my career is in the media, the nexus between technology and content. The combination of those two subject matters is one that my resume seems to emphasize.
[00:16:42] Speaker D: Passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart our special guest today is Bob Boudle, who is the founder and CEO of Videfair. And we'll be back with more right after this.
[00:16:54] Speaker F: Have you considered getting life insurance? But you smoke and youve been told more than once that you need to pay smoker rates and those rates are too expensive for you. Are you between the ages of 40 and 70 now? You can call our special toll free number at the term lifeline and learn how to qualify for a life insurance policy at non smoker rates. Thats right. Now you can get a life insurance policy even if youre a smoker. At non smoker rates, you can save significantly on a life insurance policy. Call right now. Ask our specialist how you can qualify for non smoker life insurance rates even if you are a smoker. We'll shop all the top life insurance companies and provide you rates that you can afford. Call now and ask our agents how you can qualify for non smoker life insurance rates.
[00:17:41] Speaker G: 805 652430 800 5652-4308-0056-5243-0 that's 805 6524. 30.
[00:17:54] Speaker H: Learn how thousands of smart homeowners are investing about a dollar to avoid expensive home repair bills. John, a former non customer, said, my air conditioner broke and I had to spend $1,900 to fix it. Jeff, a customer wrote, my air conditioner broke and I got a new one at no out of pocket cost. Mary, a former non customer, wrote, my heating system stopped running. I had to spend $3,000 to get a new one. Lisa, a customer wrote, my heater stopped working. I got it fixed at no out of pocket cost for about $1 a day. You can have all the major appliances and systems in your home guaranteed, fixed or replaced. Call now if the lines are busy, please call the call the home Warranty.
[00:18:37] Speaker G: Hotline now at 800 2554-9408-0025-5494-0800-2554-940 that's 802 five five, 4940.
[00:18:53] Speaker D: Now back to passage to profit once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our.
[00:18:58] Speaker E: Special guest, Bob Bowden and Bob has something we all want, whether we're a creator or a watcher of created content. And it is called benefher, and there's a reason for that name. It's fair to both sides. But he's also done something with the payment structure that I think is just phenomenal. So can you talk about your grains?
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Sure. So we realized early on, through some fits and troubles and anxiety and heartburn, that we really have two kinds of customers, in the sense of the renters, two kinds of renters. Some people want to pay the least, and for them, we set up a, what we call our grain tokens. And then there's another group that wants to keep it simple. They just want one price. They don't want to deal with any kind of tokens or kind of volume purchase paradigm. They want to just buy. And can you just give me, I have a cousin who said this to me. Can you just tell me the price? I'm not a cryptocurrency expert. I'm not a trader. I just want to rent this video. Can you just give the one price? And we're like, oh, okay. So we need both of those. We need to serve both of those potential renters. So we have two ways to rent the content. One is just an a la carte price. You pay once and that's it, nothing else. But for those who want to pay the least, we realize that, you know, when you're dealing in small payments, like sub dollar one level transactions, credit cards were never invented for this. That's why a lot of times you'll go into takeout restaurants and they'll say, like, if you want to use a credit card, you know, $15 minimum or something like that, you'll see, because the credit card fees are not designed for micropayments. The fees are too large to make micropayments work. So if you want to build a platform that allows micropayments, how do you do it? And what you do is you allow through. It's called an Internet wallet, basically no different than an Internet token you'll see on some other sites, but we call it our grain token. So you buy a package of grains once, and then you use a few grains with each purchase of a rental of a video. And what that does is that the credit card transaction fees happen once because you're buying the package of grains, and you pay the credit card transaction fee once, and then that way each rental, you have a fraction of the transaction fee associated with that rental. So you pay a lot, oftentimes half or less than half than you would pay with the a la carte price. We have a pricing model, in other words, that does all this calculation for you. So if you go to our website right now, you'll see two prices. Same with if you go to our iPhone app or Android app right now, you'll scroll down videos, you'll see two prices. One is the a la carte price, which is the one time cost, which incidentally, also Google and Apple, the App store on Apple and the Google Play Store have this weird requirement of 99 cent minimums, plus only $1 increments above that. So that's not us, that's Apple and Google forcing us to charge only either $0.99 or $1.99 or $2.99 or $3.99. So you'll see the one time price for the a la carte price on each video, but you'll also see the grains, which is you can think of in terms of the number of pennies you'll pay. So if you see like a grain symbol, 54, $0.99, that would tell you it's the equivalent of $0.54. If you buy our bushel grain package. Or if you see a grain symbol, you know, 112, that means 112 pennies or $1.12 versus $1.99 maybe on the Ala carte price.
[00:22:21] Speaker E: That is brilliant. And I got to tell you, I love the imagery of the grains. It's like you're feeding the creators a little bit of grain.
[00:22:29] Speaker D: Is this kind of an original approach to this issue?
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah. No one else has basically thought of this in terms of a way to monetize the whole world, win subscription model. The whole world. And you could also say advertising monetization is also, if you can see if you think of something like an old school broadcast television or if you think of something like YouTube, those are advertising models. But most of the Internet monetization, the whole world in subscription model. And I have always hated subscriptions. Again, as I said before, I hate forgetting to unsubscribe. If you google subscription fatigue, you'll see story after story about how at least half of the country now their brains shut off if you pitch them on subscribing to anything else. They're sick of being asked to subscribe to things. And so it just seemed clear to me that maybe that will. Maybe there will always be a place for the Netflixes and the HBOs of the Patreons of the world that want subscription models, but there should at least also be a place for the other half of us who don't want to subscribe but are happily willing to pay a buck or two.
[00:23:26] Speaker E: So I have to ask you, have you tried to patent this?
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Oh, no, we have. Yeah. It's patent pending. We have a patent application in good.
[00:23:34] Speaker E: I'm glad to hear that.
[00:23:36] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's great. That's great news. So, obviously, looking at it from the business company perspective, having reoccurring subscriptions kind of guarantees, I think, a certain level of revenue. Right. You're taking a risk, it seems, by kind of living it to the whim of the consumer to decide when they're going to access the content and when they're not.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: What do I actually want when I am a consumer? That's how this platform was designed. In a way. I can see that if you are a gigantic company with billions of spin in advertising, there's venture capital folks with money to spend. To the investing world, maybe there's value in having this recurring revenue. But I mean, I think about the gym memberships, right? The gym memberships that people join the gym and they go once and never go back again. Like a lot of times, subscriptions are a scam, basically, a way to get money for doing, for providing less services than people think they're signing up for because they stop using it. And so that's how I feel about it. I'm tired of subscribing to stuff. So I think you're right. We made a choice to put the customers interests, or at least our expectations for what the customer might want ahead of what potential venture capital investors might want.
[00:24:47] Speaker D: So, Bob, what kind of feedback have you gotten on this business model so far?
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Feedback we've gotten, I guess to some extent, people are confused by the word grains. So that's why now, you'll notice earlier in the interview, I say grain tokens, because if you say token, they go, oh, they just have better cognition of what that is. So that's one thing. Yeah, the people see both prices on a video, and they'll see, like, the little thumbnail of the video, and they'll see the two prices and they'll be confused by that. I would say that's the number one thing we get asked about. And yes, people will also ask the same question you did about percentage. They'll say, what's the percentage? What percentage do you get? I would almost love to just say, okay, it's 15%. Instead, I have to go through this whole thing. We don't charge a percentage. We charge based on the services we're doing, which is storage and streaming. So that's another thing.
[00:25:34] Speaker E: We get a lot listening to you. It's almost like all the subscription services are like all you can eat restaurants and you've got the culinary institute.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Don't we all see subscriptions as a thing that's sort of invading our lives in so many ways? I just want to make my own comedy video of someone going to like, order a hamburger at a restaurant. And they're like, well, we can give you our hamburger subscription. That means you get, you know, five per month and you have to sign up for like, who would want that?
[00:26:00] Speaker D: Media companies have been tying content together forever. Just look at your cable channel where you get 1500 channels and maybe you watch 20 of them at the most, right?
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Imagine if you had a competition of cables cable channels instead of a cable monopoly for those of us that remember the cable tv era, and one of them just let you buy channels a la carte. And the other said, no, we're not going to do that. We're only having this giant package. And you can only, you know, and that's all you can do. Can't you serve your customers the best? Why do you have to basically screw over your customers by making them buy content they don't want? I never made any sense to me. What do I actually want when I am a consumer? And that's how this platform was designed.
[00:26:40] Speaker D: Well, that was amazing, Bob, we really enjoyed speaking with you about Vidifair. And now it's time for ip in the news. So the question is, is it jelly roll or jelly roll? Well, everybody knows the famous country singer jelly roll. Well, it turns out that there was a band in Philadelphia, jelly roll, the Philadelphia wedding band.
[00:27:03] Speaker E: The Philadelphia band jelly roll got a trademark on their name quite a while ago and have been using it in Philadelphia and didn't really care that jelly roll, the country singer, used the same name because nobody really knew who he was. Well, now everybody knows who he is.
[00:27:18] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:27:19] Speaker E: Then they came back and said, hey, wait a minute, we had the trademark on that name. We've been using that name. You can't just take our name. And so they sued him for trademark infringement.
[00:27:27] Speaker D: They did. And they never actually got a decision from a judge. What they did was they settled the case. And now the jelly roll band in Philadelphia is called the Jelly Roll Band. And that's different, of course, than the country music singer.
[00:27:48] Speaker E: So they settled their differences. So now they both get to use the name so there can be happy endings. I'm hoping the jelly roll band in Philly. Get some sort of compensation?
[00:27:57] Speaker D: I hope so. The agreement was kept secret and the moral of the story, I think, is have a trademark. So the jelly roll band had a trademark and it gave them something to negotiate with. And they were suffering because of Jelly Roll's success. People were trying to find them and they were finding the singer instead. And so there was definitely customer confusion. And we're glad they settled their differences and we hope jelly Roll, the band got something out of this.
[00:28:26] Speaker E: There are different ways to use trademarks than you might expect.
[00:28:29] Speaker D: The lesson is get your trademark and protect yourself.
[00:28:32] Speaker E: And if people want to know more about trademarks, how can they find out more?
[00:28:37] Speaker D: Well, I'm glad you asked. You can go to learn more about trademarks.com and you can download the Entrepreneur's quick guide to trademarks. Or you can book a consultation with me, Richard Gearhart. So check it out.
[00:28:50] Speaker E: Passage to profit the road to entrepreneurship with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guest, Bob Bowden. And we will be right back.
[00:28:58] Speaker G: Do you hear that? That's the sound of uncertainty lurking under your hood. You know the feeling. I know I do. That sudden sinking sensation when you see a check engine light or your car unexpectedly breaks down and you're faced with sky high repair bills. It's time to shield against unexpected repairs with Carshield. Carshield is America's most trusted auto protection company and has an a rating with the Better Business Bureau. Don't let the fear of a breakdown keep you up at night. Trust the shield. Car shield and say goodbye to terra terrifying repair bills and hello to peace of mind. Your plan also comes with 24/7 roadside assistance, courtesy towing, rental car options, and so much more. Don't wait till it's too late. Call Carshield now before a breakdown. Protect your wallet. Protect your car with car shield. Get our best protection ever. Call now. You'll thank me later. 809 870-618-8987.
[00:29:58] Speaker H: If you're worried about losing your health insurance through Medicaid, we have great news for you. New government regulations have expanded the Affordable Care act, and now you may qualify. To get health insurance for you and your family through the Affordable Care act. Call now to learn if you qualify. We know the health care regulations regarding Medicaid, and we've helped thousands of people find quality, affordable health insurance. Plus, all our research is free to you. So call us with just one call, we'll shop from hundreds of different insurance companies to find you the right affordable health insurance plan. So if you're worried about losing your Medicaid insurance, call right now, speak with a licensed agent, and find how you may qualify for a new health insurance plan.
[00:30:41] Speaker G: 800 4105-9148-0410-5918. Hundred 410-5914. That's 804 150 914. Paid for by the health insurance hotline.
[00:30:58] Speaker D: Passage to profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. Coming up soon, we have secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. But before we get to that, it's time for Elizabeth's update. So, Elizabeth, what's going on?
[00:31:10] Speaker E: Lots of things are going on. I will say that I have a meetup group that I co host was Stacey Sherman and Mark Ronick as well. So they're both in the podcast space. Mark especially, and Mark does the zoom portion for us. It's a hybrid meetup, and it's called podcast and YouTube creators Community. And we're calling it pod experience. For now, we're not sure if we're going to keep that name. So if you go on meetup or event, you can find podcast and YouTube creators community. They're great events. We get a lot of people that come in person. A lot of people come on zoo, so that's one thing. And then I have a podcast with Danielle Woolley called the Jersey Pod Cats. And we talk about cats. And it was started because I had a cat that needed some help and was, I was looking for advice from a cat community. So I thought, I'll start a podcast. Danielle's a wonderful podcast partner. And right now we're talking to Mike Ham, who has been on this show. Mike is a Jersey guy, and he has started a channel, a tv channel all about people doing stuff in Jersey. So all his creators that are on his channel are people that are kind of Jersey forward. So we'll see if he wants a Jersey podcast. Might not fit with what he's doing because he's got a lot of music and stuff on there, but we will see. And then last but not least, we are remodeling our podcast studio, which made it really difficult to do this show today, because normally we would either go into I heart and record there, which is the easiest, or we would go upstairs to our podcast studio up above the law firm and record there where we had everything set up, lights, cameras, mics, the roadcast. Everything worked perfect. We've been doing up there for a long time. Well, we had to tear all that apart so we could remodel the space so that we can rent it out to other people to use. Now we're at home in Richard's study and struggling through the tech on this because it didn't quite work well today. But the podcast studio is going to be awesome when it's done, and I'm really excited. And we have a design from a designer that I just love. So that's it for me. So we will go on to our next guest now. Welcome Cindy Witteman. You are a presenter. You have cfuse driving, single parents, action mastery coach, speaker, tv show, podcast host on beekeeper. How do you do it all?
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Well, I guess the easiest answer is I run my calendar. I don't let it run me.
[00:33:16] Speaker E: Well, that's awesome. What is your favorite project that you're working on or what are you putting the most time into now?
[00:33:22] Speaker B: I would say it's force magazine. So I actually had a dream one night and because somebody had asked me several days in a row. Well, gee, Cindy, you know, you've already had, you know, started your own business. You have these four international bestselling books. You have all of these things going on in your life. Well, what's going to be next for you? And so I would write that down. I always write down questions to myself before I go to sleep every night. And so I wrote that down about three nights in a row. And then I had this dream that I founded this force magazine, where we highlight people who are a force to be reckoned with. And that's what I do now is I highlight people from all around the world in force magazine. And that's what I'm working on right now. And it's absolutely joyous.
[00:33:56] Speaker D: Can you talk about some of the people that you've talked with with Force magazine?
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. I love Russell Rogers. He's incredible. He was actually our cover for our June edition. He started a whole mission about getting people and families outside of their house on the second Tuesday of every month off their devices to go for a walk together for 2 miles. So really it's just a focused on family time and not being on our devices. So his mission is amazing. He's also an author.
[00:34:24] Speaker D: That's really great.
[00:34:25] Speaker E: I did want to ask you about something really cool that you're doing. It's called driving single parents. Can you talk a little about that?
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. I call this my heart work. Driving single parents is a nonprofit where we give away cars to single parents in need. All of this stemming from my departure from a domestic violence relationship. Once I left that situation, I got myself into a success, or a little bit of what you might consider success. I wanted to give back. And so I founded that nonprofit. We've been doing that for seven years now, and I absolutely love it.
[00:34:55] Speaker E: Great. So you're also a coach. Do you coach one on one with people or do you run workshops?
[00:35:01] Speaker B: I actually am on a waiting list, so I do one on one coaching. I also coach some groups of individuals or people who are trying to get their businesses, the people, to communicate more in their businesses. Really. I do a combination of things. I used to do life and confidence coaching, and then once I realized that journey is what we really need is to take action. But how do we do that? It's like the most difficult thing. So that's how I shifted off to action mastery, where I teach people how to come up with their wants, wishes and desires and take action, even if it's something little every day into actually achieving that goal.
[00:35:34] Speaker E: I think that's awesome. I think having a coach is important. I have a coach, and we come up with a list every other week, and she checks in with me. What did you mark off your list? Are you doing this or that? And having that accountability really helps.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: It really does.
[00:35:50] Speaker D: What would be your first step in beginning a coaching relationship?
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Well, I think listening is really important. You know, a lot of times we talk a lot and we listen a little. So I think it's really important to listen and hear the person out totally and fully and then ask the question, are you willing to see it differently? Because that's the key right there. You get a client, and if they're not willing to see it differently, then you really don't have a lot of coaching to do. You have to have a client that is willing to see it differently, and then you can set up a structure and a plan to help them achieve their goals.
[00:36:21] Speaker D: Have you ever talked with somebody who said, no, I don't want to see it differently?
[00:36:25] Speaker B: I have, and actually, I'm very selective with the clients I take on. I think that not every coach goes with every client. It really takes a special bond. You know, you can have a conversation with a thousand people, but there might only be five people out of that whole thousand that you really connect with. And I think it's so important for people to really dedicate their time and create change. You have to have that connection with your coach. So I always have a meeting with each person who wants me to be their coach and make sure that not only are they a good fit for me, but am I a good fit for them, because if they're not willing to see it differently and we're not connecting on that level, then it's not going to work. But that's okay because I always refer people to somebody else who probably can take on that role. And so, yeah, I have people that have flat out said, you know, I'm not willing to see it differently. I'm stuck in my ways. This is how I see it. And that's just the way it is. What it is is that everybody wants a quick fix. Everybody wants a magic pill. You know, I like to say a lot of people, like, think of it like a microwave. You know, you just push a couple buttons and boom. Desire, dream life, you know, beautiful car in the driveway. But unfortunately, that's not how it works. It takes consistent action.
[00:37:30] Speaker D: What kinds of behavior changes do you see with the people that you work with?
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I really think that it's a switch in your mindset. You know, I kind of like to describe it like, as if throughout our lives, we're picking up all of these pieces of clothing, right? And you just put them in your suitcases and just drag these suitcases around with you everywhere you go in your life. And those suitcases eventually turn into concrete. And what we don't realize is you have the choice to just stop and let go of those suitcases full of concrete and move on. So the biggest thing I see is when people realize, wait a second, I'm in prison in my own mind, but I have the key and I can unlock myself, and my potential is here. And that the powers within me, once they get that shift, that's whenever things really start to change. And that's when they really start to see that they can change the dynamic of their future.
[00:38:20] Speaker E: Right. A little bit at a time. So can you talk a little bit about your little give tv show?
[00:38:25] Speaker B: So I have a fear of public speaking, and I found that out when I started my nonprofit, driving single parents. And so, well, if you're starting a nonprofit, you really need to be able to speak and do all the engagements and meet people and, you know, network. But such a hard time with that. Well, fast forward years later, I decided I was going to kick this fear of public speaking. So I was just going to start saying yes to everything. Well, in that way, what happened was I ended up getting several book deals in a row. And as soon as, you know, I said yes to all that, then I got offered the potential to have this tv show. And at first I said, absolutely not. I have a fear of public speaking. I don't know anything about tv. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say I have no way I'm getting in front of a camera. Never going to happen. Can't do it. But then I remembered I made this stupid commitment to myself to get over public speaking fear. So they said, well, what if we let you pick the name of your show? What if we let you pick your guest? What if we let you pick the premise? What if we let you pick whenever it airs? What if we let you pick everything? Would you do it then? So with all the obstacles being removed, I thought long and hard about what would make it worth it for me to swallow my fear and do it afraid and smile and go through this whole tv show business thing. And, man, if I could show people that. You don't have to do some big grand gesture to give back. You don't have to write a check for 10,000. You don't have to give a week of your time and volunteer hours. You could do one little give at a time. And in that we could highlight ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help others and highlight nonprofits from around the world who are doing amazing things that really are moving the needle into a better place.
[00:40:03] Speaker E: That's great.
[00:40:03] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, I think if you're a content creator, I think that's a big part of it, you know, wanting to get different points of view out there and expose people who are interested in your content to new people, new thoughts, new publications, whatever it is. And by focusing on that and concentrating on getting the messages out, I think that, for me, at least takes a little bit of the edge off of the public speaking piece, because the focus is not so much on me, it's on the people that are transmitting the message, and I'm just a part in that whole process.
[00:40:37] Speaker E: Yeah. So what is your podcast about?
[00:40:39] Speaker B: I actually wrote the international bestselling book is manifesting with my two oldest daughters, because it was our first question when we heard about manifesting. And so the podcast is just basically a spin off of the book. So really, I just interview skeptics, critics, believers, people who have personal stories about it from all over the world, and we just have a 20 minutes chat about manifesting. And whether you're for or against it doesn't really matter.
[00:41:04] Speaker E: Have you thought about getting the two most ardent people on the opposite sides together on the same podcast?
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Well, I kind of have because it would be me and my husband, because we've done a podcast on his manifesting b's together, and he is totally against that. He thinks it's the stupidest thing in the whole world. And I believe that there, if you could put your mind to it, you really can achieve a lot more than what you believe you can.
[00:41:25] Speaker E: Excellent. So how do people find you?
[00:41:27] Speaker B: So I think the easiest way is Google. You know, my name's Cindy Witteman. You can find me on all sorts of different platforms or at Cindy Witteman. That's how you can find me on Instagram. And if you would just go to my
[email protected], you could find out all about my business and all the things I do to highlight people in the world doing great things. And littlegib.com to find the tv show.
[00:41:48] Speaker E: Excellent. And witamin is spelled w I t t e m a n. Thank you, Cindy. And now we have somebody really cool coming up. I'm excited to talk to him. Abe Gurkho, author advocate he is speaking his mind. Tell us what you're doing. I want to hear all about this.
[00:42:05] Speaker C: Well, currently my book won't be silent, just came out. It's on Amazon. You can go to won't besilent.com, read a little about before you order it. But it's a memoir. But it's really about my particular journey. Having survived many different challenges and finding purpose, I think it's really important to kind of figure out, it's the subtitle of my book. It's won't be silent, don't stop till it matters to really find what we're doing while we're here on earth that matters. And, you know, it's been a rewarding experience. It's kind of a, it was on my bucket list to finish this book, of course. And when I handed it in, the way I felt, having given myself permission and the love and respect to finish it, if everyone could feel the way I felt, we would not have as many wars. It's the journey to love yourself and to find that what you do has purpose. And I just feel many people just don't. And they're stuck in anger, you know, it's so sad.
[00:43:09] Speaker D: So, Abe, what is your purpose? When you talk about the things that are most important to you, what are the things that are most important to you?
[00:43:17] Speaker C: Well, you know, things kind of shifted in this current political climate with the war going on in the Middle east. My family survived the Holocaust, and the rise in antisemitism is something that I am vocal about and trying to be an advocate for. And it didn't work during World War Two. It's not going to work now. And to inspire jewish people to not be afraid and to remember that we've been on this trail for thousands of years. We were the slaves in Egypt. We kind of survived that. We survived, you know, the Spanish Inquisition. We survived the Holocaust. We keep surviving. So I try to be a positive messenger for the people that are afraid of what's going on with these people that are marching in the streets with their faces covered and being violent. That is one thing. And in addition to tell stories of people like my uncle who was killed in the Holocaust, and he wrote this piece of music in a concentration camp about at the song of resistance to the Nazis, and he was killed in 75 years. After his death, the Saul was discovered, and our family was contacted by the Holocaust museum. And it was like, wow. From the ashes of the Holocaust came this message that I wanted to make. Otherwise he would have been just one of the 6 million anonymous Jews. I wanted to give him a name, a face, and potentially a legacy. So I took this piece of music, and I've been turning it into a song of resistance to the moment that we're living in. So we've had it recorded in all different genres. We filmed it, and it's a project that will still continue. But, yeah, that, to me, matters. And of course, the name of my book won't be silent. Teach people to speak up, especially now where there's another contentious election looming. And no matter what side of the aisle you're on, you're an American. You have the opportunity to register and vote, and that it is your responsibility, it's your civic duty. So I think that stuff. I'm convinced that that stuff matters.
[00:45:29] Speaker D: Yeah, I think so, too. And we're glad that you're bringing this message. So what steps are you taking? Sort of on a more from a business perspective now to make sure that your message is getting out there. How do you promote your book, for example?
[00:45:44] Speaker C: Well, the world really relies on social media to message whatever project you're doing. I didn't do the traditional route of having a publisher, so I self published. And even new writers that do get publishers, they're kind of left to their own devices for marketing. I have a healthy platform on social media. Whenever I write an email or a letter, I always end the word peace. I've been doing in my whole life. I want to be part of bringing unity back. When we found my uncle's piece of music, the first thing that I said is, I don't want to do a documentary that's solely about the Holocaust. I wanted to use this piece of music as a clarion call because whether it's the concentration camp or the cotton fields or the inner city streets, people turn to music as a way of oath, as a way of feeling that life matters that day, you know, in the most dire of circumstances. I try to imagine my uncle and a friend of his who wrote with him the lyrics. Imagine you're in, like, a barrack of a concentration camp, and they were writing a piece of music that was the moment that they needed to have in order to feel a little bit of sanity and a little bit of hope. And I just think that it's such a powerful statement when you look at rap music from where it comes from, the slums, whether it's in Compton, California, or the Bronx, that's where the music comes from. That's where people need to feel like they have a voice. And what's interesting is my uncle's song was originally written as stay silent lyrics were don't let them take your tears, keep your dignity. And I didn't want to have him go down in history. And if I had was lucky enough to bring his story to the world with that. And I had a very well known songwriter redo the lyrics, and that's how we came up with won't be silent. So it just feels like I have a reason to be here and to keep forging through and, you know, I'll be damned if I don't find my way through the end of this. As it is, I've been able to use the title won't be silent for a documentary about protest music that airs later this fall. So I feel like I'm all about speaking up and not being silent. And I think that everyone owes that to themselves. And unfortunately, some will do it with anger, and I try to do it with humor and love.
[00:48:14] Speaker D: There sometimes are consequences to speaking up, and I think that's what people get concerned about.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:20] Speaker C: But there's nothing to fear but fear itself. I intend to just kind of be the best who I've been my whole life and only work towards making it better and more profitable, which is, of course, the issue of the day. Which is why when you go to won't besilent.com and you navigate to the top, you'll see the various opportunities that I'm trying to cultivate as part of it.
[00:48:44] Speaker E: What do you think could be helpful to people? That I feel like a lot of the division in politics today and a lot of the racism and misogyny and everything is people have this anger and they don't really know what it's from or what to do with it. You can disagree with somebody without going ballistic and calling them the enemy and calling for them to be killed and stuff. A lot of that's going on now.
[00:49:06] Speaker C: Ludwig van Beethoven said, music will save the world, and music is what brings people together. And if you go to a concert, you don't know if you're standing next to your enemy or your friend. You're there. You've been brought together through music. And that is part of the rallying cry of my project. Music is going to be what brings people together. And that's the journey I'm going to stay on until it's proven that it's not supposed to happen. Right? Like, things happen. And you have to, like, when Cindy says, say yes, I'm just saying yes to the process.
[00:49:41] Speaker D: Cindy, do you have any thoughts or comments?
[00:49:43] Speaker B: I absolutely love what Abe is doing, and he's been on my tv show, little give, and, yeah, it's just doing some amazing things. Abe, you got to keep it going. I know you will. And I can't wait to finish reading. Reading your book.
[00:49:54] Speaker C: The book's hilarious and very moving. Cause I've had traumatic experiences outside of parents who are holocaust, the virus, it's just forging through. And I think that we all have a chance to get through our challenges.
[00:50:09] Speaker D: I mean, my personal view is that it's not so much that people are so different. It's sometimes there are leaders that exploit those differences and exaggerate them and exacerbate conflicts to get what they want. We have to be wise enough to appreciate that that's what's going on and not let them get away with it. And if you get sucked into somebody else's dialogue, nobody really knows what the right decisions are for the world. Nobody can comprehend all of the things that are going on in the United States at one time. They take a position to gain support, and then they can use that power for whatever reasons that they want to. So I agree with you that music is a great way to bring people together because we all enjoy music. It reminds us of our shared experiences and hopefully sort of diminishes our differences. Yeah.
[00:51:04] Speaker C: And if you go to the website. Won'tbesilent dot. It'll go right away. Too little about the book. But if you navigate at the top of the website, you'll see a sizzle reel for the project about my uncle. Click on the word music, and you'll see all the various recordings we've done so far. You can also go to my substack and you can also go to my etsy shop to get your won't be silent t shirt.
[00:51:27] Speaker E: What both of you are doing. Cindy and a just wonderful things for the world. We'll be right back. Passage to profit with Richard elizabeth Gearhart. Stay tuned. There's still more to come.
[00:51:36] Speaker G: Do you feel like the cost of car ownership has gotten out of control? Take charge by refinancing your auto loan today, one called for rate genius can save drivers an average of $1,200 per year. The loan specialist at rategenius have helped people for more than 20 years replace high interest auto loans, lower their payments and spend less in interest. Rategenius works with over 150 lenders to find you the most competitive terms. Customers lower their rate an average of three percentage points. That's huge savings. It's absolutely free to apply for refinancing through rate genius. And when you refinance your auto loan, you won't owe a payment for 45 days. Make the five minute no obligation call today and and get on your way toward affordable car ownership. Call 800 4707-4488-0047-0748 that's 804 70748. Rate and payment values are calculated by using the average savings for customers from January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022. Not all applicants qualify for a loan or rate savings. Actual offer terms, including APR, are determined at the time of your application based on credit worthiness, value of the vehicle on terminal vendors it's passage to profit.
[00:52:38] Speaker D: Now it's time for noahs retrospective.
[00:52:42] Speaker E: Noah Fleischman is our producer here at passage to Prophet, and he never stops trying to make sense of the future by looking at the past.
[00:52:50] Speaker I: It just wouldnt have been my grandmothers home without life on the parlor table every week. The original Life magazine, the one with the great photographs and articles capturing our nation and our world. Oddly enough, when my grandmother left us, so did that original, iconic version of life. I couldn't imagine a childhood without TV Guide, that little digest we would buy in the convenience store every week that would tell us when your favorite movie would be on at 03:00 in the morning that you'd end up having to stay up for on Friday nights. I don't think I stayed up to catch a movie at 03:00 a.m. in many years, decades, in fact. The greatest innovations are not always the ones that are going to last forever, but it's the best entrepreneurs that know their market, know the culture, know when to get in, know when to get out, and they know when to give that creation of theirs life.
[00:53:38] Speaker D: Now more with Richard and Elizabeth. Passage to Prophet.
[00:53:42] Speaker E: It is time for secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. Abe Gurkho author advocate. Abe, what is one secret that you would want to share with people listening to this show about being successful as an entrepreneur, podcaster, book writer, whatever?
[00:54:00] Speaker C: I think the secret is just loving yourself enough to keep going. It's part of my whole way that I feel like I survive challenges in general. And when you apply it to a business, I mean, this part of won't be silent. I feel like I am young again. I've never written a book before. I've always wanted to. I had pages and notes and notebooks flailing around the house. But last April, when I made this commitment and worked through it and marketing through it, rotting through it, it's the secret of loving yourself enough to keep going. And, you know, again, success is subjective. I get unbelievable support from the people on my social media channel and emails all day long thanking me for my honesty, for that helped me like, especially through that last election in 2020 and 2022. I just am very honest with how I perceive what's happening in the marketplace. But that's just so rewarding. There's a richness to having people respond to the work, and that's the big secret. Wanting to make sure that people are perceiving what you're doing as beneficial.
[00:55:13] Speaker E: It's excellent.
[00:55:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:55:14] Speaker E: What's your secret? To success or to overcoming failure?
[00:55:18] Speaker D: Overcoming failure. Oh, my goodness. Well, I think one secret of the entrepreneurial mind is kind of what Abe said. I think I'll piggyback off of that a little bit. Defining success for yourself and understanding what is important to you. If you're thinking about things like your legacy, that's another thing to think about. If you're thinking about just making your car payment next week, that's another type of success. You know? For me, success is, you know, having enough money to meet my obligations and making sure that I don't have to stress too much about money. But for me, success is also the opportunity to meet interesting people and have interesting discussions. And success for me also is having a certain number of accomplishments. Even doing the smallest things, like cleaning off the deck, gives me a sense of accomplishment, and that makes me feel successful. And that fuels motivation to go out and do more stuff. And sometimes it's really just the small things that are most important. But understanding what success is to me, I think, is very important. And being less influenced by what I think other people have as their definition of success.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: It's very personal. You know, it's like you can't, like, even if we're in the space and podcasts and whatnot, celebrity to me, doesn't necessarily automatically make you successful. Having words in Hollywood on and off for years and been inside the looking glass, it's a lot of times it was like, you know, the curtain is revealed. You know what I mean? We see what's behind the curtain.
[00:56:54] Speaker E: Well, so my secret, I think you have to anticipate that it's not going to be Claire sailing. And you have to anticipate that if you're using a, any kind of tech, any hardware, any software, it's gonna screw up. You're gonna have a Zoom meeting, for instance, with somebody important, and you gotta get on there and Zoom decides to do an update that takes ten minutes. I mean, you have to know things are gonna go wrong and you have to be able to come back from that.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: Anything that can go wrong will, you know? And that's the premise that you should go with, so that when it does happen, you're like not left shocked.
[00:57:33] Speaker E: Excellent.
[00:57:33] Speaker D: Well, that's it for us. Passage to profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 31 markets across the United States. Thank you to the P two P team, our producer Noah Fleischman, and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey and Risikett Busari. Look for our podcast tomorrow, anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram x, and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gerhardt Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
