[00:00:00] Speaker A: How do we maximize our humanness in the content that we create?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: I teach stylists to generate multiple six figures behind a chair.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: Business is about relationships. People aren't buying widgets, they're buying you.
[00:00:12] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gearhart.
[00:00:13] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You just heard some snippets from our show. We had amazing people on. Listen for the rest of it.
[00:00:21] Speaker F: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard. Now get it in gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:32] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:39] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law. And I am the founder of Gear Media Studios, a full service podcast studio.
[00:00:48] Speaker D: Welcome to Passage to Profit the Road to Entrepreneurship, where we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and their business ventures. We have a very special guest, Rob Greenlee, and an early inductee into the podcaster hall of fame. He's been podcasting since streaming only referred to rivers. And Rob is an expert in the realm of artificial intelligence and media. And today he'll be talking about how AI will impact you and the content you consume in the future.
[00:01:21] Speaker E: Don't go away after that because we have the amazing Tania Crawford, who's a beauty specialist, and she's teaching other beauty specialists how to make a lot of money.
[00:01:31] Speaker D: Always a good thing.
So everybody wants to see. Nothing wrong with that.
[00:01:35] Speaker E: Yeah. Wants to hear what she has to say. And then Matt Tamayo. This is an amazing story. He's a software guy. He found a gap and really dove into it and is just blowing it out of the water.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: So he's grinding it out. I can tell you that.
[00:01:50] Speaker E: You don't want to miss them. And coming up later on, it's Noah's retrospective along with Secrets of the entrepreneurial Mind.
[00:01:58] Speaker D: But before we get to our distinguished guests, it's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans are thinking about starting a business or are already business owners. And so we want to ask our panel, what was the biggest risk you took when starting your business and how did it pay off or not? Rob, welcome to the show.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: It's great to be here, Richard. Thanks.
[00:02:19] Speaker D: Tell us, what was the biggest risk you took?
[00:02:22] Speaker A: I would say back in 1999, walking into a radio station, which is kind of ironic. Here to plunge forward and create a radio show about an emerging technology called the Internet and the Web. I Just walked. I had no background in creating content or being on the radio and just took that risk and went in and surrounded myself with a bunch of fun people to create a show that was entertaining plus informative about the growth and development of the Internet. So it was a big risk and it changed my life.
[00:02:53] Speaker D: How did it change your life?
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Well, it got me into the media business. I was a marketing executive prior to that and was putting media out, right, creating media that other people were creating. But I got into it myself as a host and started creating a nationally syndicated radio show and built it out and it became a podcast about probably four or five years into the process. And that sparked a whole new career for me, and that was working and helping other people start a podcast and create online media back in 2005. So that was about a year after podcasting kicked off. And it was an up and coming area that nobody really knew much about. So it was one of those opportunities kind of like AI is today.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: Congratulations on doing that. Tamia Crawford, what was the biggest risk you took?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Well, where do I start?
The first one. Definitely not continuing college. I'm the first in my family that does not have a college degree. I did not get one. I decided that wasn't for me, took off to America. So I'm a first generation of immigrant and decided I wanted to be in the beauty industry. I knew I didn't just want to be a stylist. I wanted to be a lot more. And anyone that is kind of in that mindset that you have to have a college degree to become successful, like, as long as you're good and you keep reinventing your wheel and you're passionate about what you do and you give 100% every single day, you can be whatever you want. I'm so glad I took a leap of faith, honestly, and just worked harder just to probably prove to myself that I can do that.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: Well, congratulations.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:04:30] Speaker D: That's great and inspiring. Matt.
[00:04:32] Speaker C: I think as an entrepreneur, you have to really become resistant to failure because this isn't my first business, but this is the first business that has actually made me money, which I think everyone can relate to. So a lot of the time it takes a long process drawn out to get things up and running, and we like to get them running as fast as we can.
[00:04:48] Speaker D: So that's great. That's all about what is important in business is taking those kinds of risks. So awesome. Well, today's guest, Rob Greenlee, he's been podcasting since most of us knew the Internet. Talked back Rob is a true podcast pioneer and early inductee of the Podcaster hall of Fame. He's launched more shows than Netflix.
And if there were a Mount Rushmore of legendary podcasters, Rob Greenlee would be right up there, probably with headphones on. And Rob, we want to talk to you today about AI in the media. So how is AI reshaping the future of media?
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Well, I think it's taking it in a bunch of different directions. It's making things more efficient.
It's actually able to create content that in a way that is increasingly becoming more and more professional on the video and audio side. But I think the real revolution is on the video side. I think the audio side is still going to be an area that's going to be still strong with humans, but I think it is going to be as good as a human eventually. I think there's two different conversations. It's AI created audio and then there's cloned AI supported audio. Cloned of humans. And its ability to replicate what an actual human being would actually create is, I think, going to be a challenge for AI to actually do that. But that doesn't take away AI's ability to create audio. That sounds great, it's professional sounding, but is probably going to be lacking in flaws. Right. Which is going to be its flaw is that humans are going to be able to detect a lack of flaws or, or a lack of errors. Right. That will really make it stand out.
[00:06:34] Speaker D: You've listened to AI voices and I.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Actually had them on co hosts of my shows.
[00:06:40] Speaker D: So yeah, we need to get to that.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, Right.
[00:06:42] Speaker D: But you've had AI and interacted with it. How do you feel knowing that it's not human?
[00:06:48] Speaker A: I'm not really that worried about it. I think at the end of the day, it's the value that it can bring and the information that it has access to.
And I think that is the key thing that we all have to think about. Also with the video side, I think it's going to create things that humans would never create. Right. So there's going to be fantasy, there's going to be all sorts of representations that are created in the AI generated video that will just be beyond our scope of our imagination. And I think that's where it's going to stand out. I think AI generated video is going to be huge. I think humans are going to consume it at scale. It's already starting to happen and I think it's going to change the landscape. Now, humans need to focus on the aspects that make them human when they do video that can't be replicated by the AI. And I think that's what we need to start really honing in on is how do we maximize our humanness in the content that we create as a kind of a way to come back from the increasing dominance of AI created content.
[00:07:50] Speaker D: If you're having an interview or discussion with somebody, if it's not from a human being, how's there any credibility there?
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Well, that's the hard part about it. It's, it's really keyed on trust. Are we going to trust the information that AI is going to create for us? Does it have bias in it? Is it truth? Is it honest?
[00:08:08] Speaker D: Well, I mean, people can lie, right? I mean, so can AI.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, AI was trained on humans, so of course it's going to have that capability. And a lot of people, people think that eventually AI is going to have emot and it could get offended. So there's aspects of this that we just don't know yet because it actually hasn't happened yet. But the impacts of this are going to be pretty profound. I mean, I saw this kind of back when I was doing my nationally syndicated radio show about the Internet in the early years of the Internet, about its potential impact on the world. And we talked about that on the show. And I think it's easy to just kind of look at it and say, ah, it's never going to be that significant or it's not going to have that big of an impact.
And I look back on what I did with my radio show about the Internet and I think to myself, God, what kind of monster did I create? I mean, really. I mean, it's impacted all of our lives. But there's also a downside to all these technologies that we all have to be aware of. So it's not always a rosy picture, but there's opportunity that comes from it too.
[00:09:07] Speaker D: But can AI ever really compete with human storytelling?
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Yes, but it'll be different. It's going to be a compilation, not a unique story from a human perspective.
[00:09:19] Speaker D: So it kind of goes out there and it collects data from a lot of stories related to the one that you want to tell. And it mashes it all together and it comes up with something.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Is that even a real story?
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Doesn't have to be. I mean, I think AI has had a reputation for hallucinations. I don't know if you have heard that as well.
[00:09:39] Speaker D: I have friends who have suffered from those too. Right.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Humans have hallucinations when they eat mushrooms. So, I mean, it's safe to say that AI is going to have that kind of experience as well at some point. It's not like AI is going to eat mushrooms, but it's going to learn from human experiences.
[00:09:59] Speaker E: I do think it's going to get harder and harder to tell between human generated content and AI generated content. I don't know which people are going to prefer, to be honest with you. And I do think it might be important for people to have in person gatherings. We were talking about this last night at the meetup, so that you know that it's real.
Right?
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Well, live is like live streaming and things like that is, is another kind of confirmation of life.
[00:10:25] Speaker D: Right, right.
[00:10:27] Speaker E: Confirmation of life.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: I think that's going to be a term that's increasingly used, is that we're going to have technologies that will flag things as this is, this is real, this is live, not AI generated. And so we'll have to see how this plays out.
[00:10:42] Speaker E: Rob, we touched about this a little bit last night during the meetup. So what is going to happen to media advertising and monetization as a result of AI? How will AI change advertising and media?
[00:10:54] Speaker A: I think it's going to change it in a couple different ways. It's going to make the ability to create advertisements much more quickly and get them also created in a way that maybe targets audiences better. And that's going to be on the audio and video side, because currently, right now, it's a pretty laborious process to create an ad spot or something like that where you have to bring talent in the studio. They have to be scripted, they have to have a performance element to them where that can all be done in AI and it can be done on the fly. So I think around targeting, you know, the podcasting industry has been moving more and more towards automatic advertising, which is called programmatic advertising.
And so that's where there's an insertion point in your content and the computer and the servers input those ads. But those ads have to be prerecorded by a studio, by talent, all these kind of things before they can be injected or they host reads that are prerecorded. So AI is going to generate those ads is the simplest explanation. And they're going to be done professionally, they're going to be done in the precise way that the brand wants them represented, because there's lots of examples where talent will come in and create a spot and it just won't be just what the brand is really looking for. Right. And they'll be have to redo it over and over again to get get it right. And that slows down the process, adds a lot of costs. And these platforms want to be dynamic, right? They want to be able to create campaigns on the fly precisely how they want to have it presented. And this will be a way that it can do that.
[00:12:26] Speaker D: Rob Greenlee, he's been podcasting since most of us knew the Internet. Talked back Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt for our listeners. If you want to get more Passage to Profit, you can listen to other episodes or follow us on social media. You can catch our past episodes anywhere you get your podcasts or you can go to YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or X I guess, as they call it now, and check us out there. So we'll be back right after this. Commercial break.
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[00:14:53] Speaker F: Now back to passage to profit once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:14:58] Speaker E: And our special guest, Rob Greenlee, the grandfather of podcasting.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: The great grandfather. The great, great grandfather of podcasting.
[00:15:08] Speaker E: So you did say something that really made us wonder about something. You said that you have a co host on one of your podcasts who is an AI generated co host.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Well, I did an episode with Chat GPT and I, I, I asked him to play a role as my co host on a show. Chat GPT knows my podcast tips live show that I do. And so this was a live streaming show.
And so I prepped him, I plugged him into my mixer through my phone and just brought him into the conversation and introduced him. And, and he, he joined me in my conversation. I asked him questions like a, like a host would ask the guest and he answered the questions.
[00:15:54] Speaker E: Oh my God.
[00:15:55] Speaker D: What questions did you ask him? I'm curious. I mean, what did.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Well, the whole podcast is about podcasting. So it was all about what he thought that the future of podcasting was and the direction it was go and the impact that video was going to have and, and what he saw on the horizon for podcasting. And it gave me very, very succinct and very thoughtful answers, I thought. So it created an amazing dynamic in the conversation. He's, there's sometimes there can be a little bit of a delay in his answer, but I called him a guy. Could have been a girl. I could have, you know, and I'll probably do that. I'll probably have another conversation in one of my other shows with a woman who's from Chat GPT. But he's probably going to give me the same answers. It's just be in a different voice.
[00:16:45] Speaker E: Our chatgpt suggested that we ask you this. Okay, the rise of AI voice. Is that the end of the human host?
[00:16:56] Speaker A: No, I don't think so. It's going to have an increasing role. The AI voice is going to have, just like I've experienced because it can create an interesting conversation. And the Google platform, the Notebook LLM platform does have the ability to have two AI co hosts do a show together.
[00:17:17] Speaker E: I did that. I had it do a show about cats because I have a show about cats. I gave it like three sentences. It did a 10 minute podcast with a man and a woman about cats and brought in stuff from all over the Internet and stuff from my query. And it was good and it even.
[00:17:34] Speaker D: Introduced a few flaws. Oh, so just to make it. Yeah, make it sound like.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Is that like an extra little toggle you have to do to the setup?
Please include some flaws, a few filler words, Ohms and Oz, please.
Yeah, I think that that's probably going to happen though. I think the thing is different with audio. I'm not sure that the audio AI is going to have the same impact as video AI.
I think the video AI is going to have a much bigger impact on society. The audio AI is going to play a supportive role or maybe a co host role. Humans are going to, I think, dominate on the audio side, continue to dominate.
[00:18:15] Speaker D: Why do you think that is?
[00:18:16] Speaker A: I just think that the inflection, the ability of humans to share unique stories that are not maybe contrived. I think AI can be a little bit too fluffy in its commentary.
I think it's been programmed to be positive about everything and not come across as authentic and real with human like emotions and the inflections and how it's how the audio is presented where video can create almost like a fantasy experience that's almost like eye candy. Right. And that's, that's kind of a different experience.
So, yeah, I think the future of audio with humans is strong still.
[00:18:58] Speaker D: Good.
[00:18:58] Speaker E: Well, that's good.
[00:18:59] Speaker D: Yeah. Good for us, I guess. You know, when I think of it, sometimes part of the service that communicators provide to an audience is showing people different slices of life from different people and that creates some relatability. So this person had this happen to them and this is how they felt and this is what came out of it. Right. You're telling that story and if it's coming from a person, then it's relatable because it's another person that experienced that. If it's coming from a computer, it's just, it lacks the credibility and the authenticity, I think.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think AI also is very factual. I think AI is good as like a color commentator on a sports program. Right.
Where the host just like what we're doing with this radio show, it's.
I'm sharing stories, I'm sharing kind of futuristic projections that are based on my own human experience.
And that's what's different than what AI will present to you.
So when I use AI, I usually use it to just deliver the facts, right, the research. So I would ask it, you know, what research have you seen and cite it in your comments that tells this story.
It's very good at looking up data.
And so if you use AI for what it's good for and then play up the strengths of the human capabilities in your content then I think that's the good balance.
[00:20:33] Speaker E: I had one more point that I really wanted to bring up with you today. And I think you explained this beautifully last night.
We're starting to hear the term agentic AI and AI agents.
Can you please explain what those are for the normal person?
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Well, an agent in the AI realm is really, if you take this analogy of like a virtual assistant, right, that's, that's where AI is going to take us next, is that they're going to string together functional processes that are run by AI bots of sorts, right? That can do like a, like a workflow. It can actually accomplish something. It'll actually take this input or it will go out and do research, pull that input in and generate a report for you, or it will actually create a tangible action in the real world.
So that's the path of this, is that the intelligence can gather all the information and then funnel it into, let's say, booking a trip to Europe, right? You can tell the AI to find the best flight at this price point in this date range and go ahead and book it. And here's my credit card number and it'll go out and actually find the best deal, it'll find the best dates, it'll, it'll configure it based on your preferences and what you want to do and maybe even book hotel rooms for you too. So that's kind of where this is going, is that it will actually do things for you in the real world.
[00:22:04] Speaker E: I love that. I mean, we're going out to Portland to visit our daughter and I was racking my brains, trying and using AI and everything, trying to find a really high quality hotel that didn't allow smoking anywhere on the grounds. And you can't find that on TripAdvisor. It doesn't say whether hotels are non smoking or not all the time.
So I had to rely on AI for that. And I think I found one. I hope so, because I put this there.
[00:22:28] Speaker D: I hope you did too.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: By the way, the other use of this same technology is that kind of is a replacement for a human. Right? So you're, you're probably with this technology going to put some people out of work maybe.
[00:22:40] Speaker D: But I mean, most of that is automated now anyway, right? So they're just making it, you know, that's true.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: And they're going to need to have people to manage these agents too, to some degree.
So, you know, I don't know that we're going to be 100% trusting of them.
[00:22:54] Speaker D: Do you think creators should be obligated to acknowledge that AI helped create part of their content?
[00:23:01] Speaker A: I don't know. I think that is a big question. I think each creator needs to answer that for themselves to some degree and the audience has to step in and make a choice about this too. And I think that's probably what's going to happen. But you know, there's different levels of adding AI to your content creation process and I'm not sure all those areas need to be disclosed.
So, you know, I think up to this point it's really mostly being used in pre production, post production type of processes. There's not a lot of it being used in the actual production of content.
So. But that is going to change.
And when, when that changes, I think a big debate that needs to be had is is there going to be labels that are going to be put on this kind of content? Kind of like, you know, rating labels have been around TVs, TV and film for many years.
[00:23:55] Speaker D: Well, when they first start marketing AI movies, they're going to be proud to put it on there because everybody's going to want to see the new AI movie, right?
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Everybody's going to be able to make an AI movie if they understand how to do it. It's not going to be expensive. It's going to be like. I think the current quote right, right now is to make a, a movie like a Hollywood blockbuster will cost you $17.
[00:24:16] Speaker E: Richard, that's our nice answer.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: So is that an opportunity or is that that disruption? And, and it's probably both. It's an opportunity to create content that is compelling.
[00:24:29] Speaker D: We're already saturated with so much content. I don't know if I can handle.
Seriously.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: That's a different, different argument, right?
[00:24:36] Speaker D: You know, it's just to be so much. Anyway, we've got to move on to another AI topic. So Rob, where do people find you if they want to learn more about you?
[00:24:45] Speaker A: I think the best way to find me
[email protected] and I'm also on, on YouTube. I have a, I have a YouTube channel as well at Rob Greenlee. And then I'm on all the social platforms. I'm easy to find. And I also have a podcast network called adornetwork.com so there's a bunch of my podcasts that are up there, audio and video podcasts.
[00:25:07] Speaker E: Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:25:10] Speaker D: It's time for Intellectual Property News. And guess what? We're talking about AI Complete. As if we haven't Talked a lot. But this is an interesting case. Now we've been talking about AI in the courts for a long time.
And yesterday, just yesterday, a court in San Francisco, Federal District Court in San Francisco, Judge William Allsup handed down a major ruling that is going to have a huge impact on the rights of creators. If you're an intellectual property geek like me, this is important stuff. So Anthropic is a AI platform. They make the AI Claude and they were sued by a bunch of creators because Claude was using their content and regurgitating it as AI stuff. Right. And the court was asked to decide is the use of this content considered fair use under the copyright laws and so is it justified? And so this was a big question out there is like, could copyright holders, artists, creators block the use of AI if it was using their copyrighted material? And the court decided no. This is a big deal because it really kind of clears the way for the AI platforms to use content from people and transform it.
[00:26:30] Speaker E: Right. But then they said also kind of reverse themselves almost that Anthropic did violate authors rights by saving pirated copies of their books as part of a central library of all the books in the world that would not necessarily be used for AI training.
So I think that's a little bit different. I think what this is saying is it has to go through the courts. And if I were the creators here, I would appeal this.
[00:26:59] Speaker D: It's inevitable. I think you'll have the Supreme Court making a decision on this. But anthropic took 7 million books that they pirated, didn't pay for, and uploaded those books and used that as the basis for their data set, which is where all the AI stuff is generated. And so the court said, well you have to, there's damages that go to the creators for this because you can't just steal their books.
[00:27:27] Speaker E: How did they even do that? Because I pay for all my books on Kindle.
[00:27:30] Speaker D: Well, they went to, they literally went to the pirate website and downloaded all the books from that.
[00:27:36] Speaker E: Well, that's terrible.
[00:27:37] Speaker D: I think it is too.
[00:27:38] Speaker E: I mean, because if, you know, anybody.
[00:27:40] Speaker D: Should take them to court.
[00:27:41] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean authors put a lot of their own self and time and energy. I mean your, your time is your life and they put their life into these work, creative works and somebody shouldn't just be able to take it.
[00:27:54] Speaker D: I don't think I agree. So let's ask our panel here what your thoughts might be on this situation.
Matt, I'd be happy to.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: So I have an IP out there called Sabbath and it was a comic book that was made into a book. And we also have a screenplay. So someone who invested a lot of money and time in making something, I would have serious issues with that.
And never mind being fair, it's stealing. So I'm against it. If you want to use it, license it for me. Otherwise, go create your own content.
[00:28:26] Speaker D: I think ultimately they're gonna kill the golden goose because a lot of people who are professional creators wouldn't create because they can't get paid for it, they can't pay their bills. Where's the incentive?
[00:28:37] Speaker E: Or you keep it super private, don't put it on the Internet. So maybe it spawns a whole new industry.
[00:28:43] Speaker D: Tamia.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: I kind of agree with Matt. I feel the same way, especially it takes a lot for content creators to create that type of content and for them not to be protected and they can just be replaced. I mean, that's how they make their livelihood. And I obviously deal a lot with content creators and my type of industry. I mean, I'm a content creator, too. So it's very frustrating when you put all your hard work into it and then it's not really protected. And AI can twist what you're saying and, like, it can be reused. There is a fine line.
[00:29:19] Speaker D: Right? Yes, I agree. I mean, the judge in the case said that, you know, well, people have been kind of doing this for years in that they would read a book and a couple of books, and then they would write a new book based on what they read. Right. So AI is kind of doing the same thing.
But in this case, you had to buy the book, or somebody had to buy the book first. Right.
And then if you're writing something new and you copy a section of the previous book and put it in yours, then you give credit to the person. Otherwise, it's called plagiarism. Right. So I think there's some differences. And I've seen AI content that includes paragraph by paragraph, lifting from an actual source. So, Rob?
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's some history around these issues with the Internet. And one of them was very early with Google and Amazon. They actually scanned printed books back in the early years of the Internet and put them online.
So all those scans were made available online, and they were. They were building this world library of sorts is what they were doing. They were digitizing all these books. And in some ways, that's kind of similar to what's going on now is that they're taking an existing piece of content and converting it into something new and then creating the opportunity to create derivative content from that same content.
And so this is just a new twist on an old business strategy of taking content from others and creating derivative content, making it available and putting it under a subscription. That's what Audible does. That's what Amazon has done for a long time as well. I was fortunate. About a year and a half ago, I got paid by an AI company to take all of the 600 video episodes, audio and video episodes of the. Of the new media show that I do. And they actually paid us to get that content so they could scan it and use it as training data to put into conversational AI is what they called it.
[00:31:30] Speaker D: Right.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: This was a couple of years ago.
And so there has been a pass. And one of the things that they pitched me at the time was that we're. We're an ethical AI company. Right. So we pay for the content that we use to train our AI.
But I think over time that that ethics has kind of gone away because.
[00:31:48] Speaker D: They don't want to spend the money to do it. And then going around getting everybody's permission seems almost impossible.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah, And I think they've just abandoned that now.
[00:31:55] Speaker D: Yeah, but at least you got paid.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: For it, though, at that time. Yeah, because it was still very early in the process, I guess.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: You know, to Elizabeth's point, this is one court, one decision. It adds some more information now to the legal mix.
It'll certainly be appealed, and other courts may have different views on it. But as it stands right now, it seems like the general consensus is that the. The AI platforms got a step ahead, and so we'll just have to monitor it.
[00:32:26] Speaker E: Well, if you let the tech guys run the world, then that's what's going to happen.
[00:32:31] Speaker D: That's what's going to happen. So, speaking of intellectual property, if you have an idea or invention that you want to protect, contact us at Gearhart Law. We work with entrepreneurs worldwide to help them through the entire process of obtaining patents, trademarks, and copyrights, too. And you can visit learn more about Patents.com or learn more about Trademarks.com for a free consultation, or you can download your free Entrepreneur's guide to Patents or trademarks. And we'd love to hear from you if you have any questions about intellectual property. So we have to take another commercial break, but stay tuned. We have Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind with Elizabeth Gearhart coming up very soon. We know you don't want to miss that.
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[00:34:58] Speaker G: 8007-3853-3280-0738-5332 800, 732-5332. That's 800-738-5332. Paid for by zero debt passage to.
[00:35:13] Speaker F: Profit continues News with Richard and Elizabeth.
[00:35:16] Speaker D: Gearhart Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show heard on 38 markets across the U.S. we'd like to do a shout out to our listeners in Erie, Pennsylvania WPSE AM 1450 and 107.1 FM. Thanks for tuning in and our podcast is also ranked in the global top 3% of podcasts. We've also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters database as a top 10 entrepreneurial interview podcast. So subscribe to the Passage to Profit show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and on the iHeart app. And yes, you can get back editions of Passage to Profit anytime if you just Go to any place where you get your podcasts. You can also check us out on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, not to mention the Iheart app. So now it's time for Elizabeth Spotlight. So, Elizabeth, fill us in on what you've been up to.
[00:36:15] Speaker E: Well, I still have my meetup called podcast and YouTube creators community. Sonia Satra is helping me with that, and we had it last night, and Rob was our featured guest. We had quite a turnout. We had people in person at the studio, and we had people on Zoom, and there were a lot of questions, and there's just a ton of interest. It was about podcast marketing, but of course it got kind of overrun with AI.
There's no way to separate the two.
[00:36:45] Speaker D: It's our AI obsession.
[00:36:46] Speaker E: I think marketing was one of the first industries to really embrace AI, and podcasting would not be where it is today without AI. And so we did talk quite a bit about that along with podcast marketing. And the studio's up and running. After the meetup, Sonia Satra and I did a podcast episode with Meldrine. Meldrine interviewed Sonia for her podcast. So that's her first episode. So now we're gonna take that and send it to the editor and put music behind it. All the fun stuff that you can do with all these software editing programs for podcasting and get it ready for YouTube. I think she's going to start with it on YouTube. So a big part of what I'm doing with the studio is consulting and, as I said earlier, just getting people over that hump. Like, how do I start? Because Mildrine has a lot of really great stuff to share and a lot of really interesting people to talk to. So that was great. And the Jersey Podcast Podcast is still going a little bit. Danielle's kind of had to take a break, but I really want to keep that going because we just got the two kittens, and there's just so much to say about kittens and so many things.
[00:37:49] Speaker D: So many kittens and not enough podcasting.
[00:37:51] Speaker E: And so much software to use that I could take little videos of the kittens playing and put them over the top of the podcast and, you know, just all sorts of stuff like that. So if you like playing with AI software with podcasting, you can have a lot of fun, which I do. But enough about that. I'm going to talk briefly about AI and medicine, and then we're going to go into interviewing Tania. So I was at a conference on Sunday at the Visual Arts center in Summit, New Jersey, where it's a place for Photographers, but it was all about AI and they had people from different industries talking about how AI was affecting their industries. And one of the people was a radiologist from Overlook Hospital, Dr. Patel. He was very good, and he said radiology was the first part of medicine to adopt AI because they're looking at all your scans, right? And it makes sense, right? Because AI can look at things much more closely than the human eye can. And he said, it's going to go into other parts of medicine. But the radiologists are the pioneers. The problem with using AI for interpreting medical scans is that only does what you tell it to do.
So he said there was a scan that they had done of a certain part of the body, and that's what AI was supposed to look at. But when he looked at it, there was something almost off the screen up in the corner that wasn't really related to the problem, and it didn't look right to him. And so they took a further look, and this person did have something else wrong with their body.
So could the AI have caught that if they had said, yes, look for any other anomalies, or maybe look at this too, or whatever. But it didn't because it was so focused in. So it's still only as good as what you put in it.
[00:39:31] Speaker D: So did he think AI was a good thing then, for medicine?
[00:39:35] Speaker E: He did think AI was a good thing, working in conjunction with the doctor. It'll catch what the doctor can't catch. The doctor will catch what it can't. And I do think, though, the AI could come up with a lot of false positives, right? Because it's going to see every little tiny speck, like, oh, you have one cell that looks, like, bad, right? I mean, and that's probably not going to kill you. So it has to be carefully managed by the doctors. But he also showed, he said they had AI make the anatomy of, like, your torso.
And in one part, whose torso I was just.
[00:40:07] Speaker D: I don't know, just a random torso for one part.
[00:40:10] Speaker E: I think it was the esophagus. It ended in a leaf, like a tree leaf. And there was another part you thought.
[00:40:17] Speaker D: It was modern art.
[00:40:19] Speaker E: So he's like, yeah, we're not quite there yet with this either. So what really came out of this conference, though, on AI and not just medicine, but everything, is that AI does not have the curiosity that humans have, and that's going to be the big differentiator. And I think AI, of course, loves to learn, but humans love to learn, too. But I think humans are very curious okay, so enough about that. I really want to hear from Tania. So Tania Crawford, I mean, I just think it's amazing what she's done. So she's does hair extension, she's a beautician, but she's training other people how to make real money from it. So welcome, Tania, Please tell us everything you're doing.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: You know, beautician is such an old school way of describing my industry, and there's like so many more avenues that you can take at this point. So I am in the business of making money and teaching people how to make money. So. So I developed a system that I teach stylists to generate multiple six figures behind the chair and generate monthly sales from 20, 30, 40, or 50k a month as a sole proprietor. I also have a online platform that teaches people the tools to be good at doing extensions and transforming people. And I do personal business consulting and I created a beautiful brand online, so I have a big brand recognition as well.
[00:41:45] Speaker D: Wow. What motivated you to get started?
[00:41:47] Speaker E: I was gonna say, how did you get started doing this?
[00:41:50] Speaker B: So obviously, like I mentioned before, I kind of went against everything that my family stands for, like get a college degree, go and do something with your degree. I did not do that path. I ran off to America. I had to pretty much relearn everything and reinvent the, the wheel. I am very proud of where I am today, but it took a long time to really figure out the systems, how they are in place. But what I truly love is that you can pretty much do whatever if you put your mind to it. And so at a very young portion of my career, I decided that I did not want to work just behind the chair. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dad is an entrepreneur, so I kind of grew up with that mindset. And so creating different streams of income within your industry is key to get to that type of point and just reinventing the wheel, always being 10 steps ahead of your competition and seeing a need in the industry. I am in an industry where people are driven by emotions, not so much by logic most of the time.
So I bring that portion of how to run a business, how to do sales, how to really figure people out that are sitting in your chair or that you're talking to how their purchase patterns are. I do use AI a lot actually, so love that.
But yeah, there's just so many avenues of what other industry professionals haven't even tapped into in my field. And so I like to open those doors for them. And that's why I created Retreats that are limited to the top percent of my industry, and that creates mastermind groups, and that's something that wasn't really available or accessible in my industry before. My industry doesn't talk about making money.
People have never really taken us seriously. We're kind of like the girls and guys that play in hair and makeup for fun. And, you know, we like to party hard, and then we show up kind of hungover at work. And that's not how it is anymore.
It's about, you know, creating generational wealth, having niches that give you money when you're not behind the chair, that protect you when you can't work. Because we work with our hands, and so creating online avenues to offset that.
[00:44:19] Speaker E: It sounds like embracing technology really helped you move this company forward. But not everybody is good at technology. So for the people that you're training and that you're helping, what's their level and are you helping teach them technology or just giving them the tools and telling them to use them? How does that work?
[00:44:37] Speaker B: So the people that come to my retreats, they have already tapped into the 8 to $10,000 revenue a month. They just don't know how to manage their overhead or what it takes to get to that next level. There are so many cookie cutter schemes out there that teach you. I'll make 100k behind the chair. There you go. You made it. But really, you don't walk away with it. So it's like, it's what you keep, right?
They're like flexing on Instagram, like, I'm a baddie. I make 100k behind the chair. But, you know, what do you have to show at the end of the day?
So we simplify systems that help them, and Anyone can make 100k behind the chair, but it takes a lot more to make more and then also to keep it and not fall into the purchase patterns of spending at all. We teach how to really make your money work for you and keep your overhead so low that you walk away with 90% of your profits.
[00:45:34] Speaker D: I was just gonna say really good. Yeah, I mean, I never appreciated that you could make so much money as like a stylist or beautician or $100,000 a year. That's. That's a pretty good start.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: There is stylists that make seven figures. Like, there is no limit in our industry if you're really good and you know how to work the system.
[00:45:53] Speaker D: So what do you tell people to improve their efficiency?
[00:45:57] Speaker B: It's like the total package. It's not just like, you obviously have to be good at what you do, but you also got to know how to sell and how to appropriately price yourself with the value that you think you have.
So we teach systems how they can figure out what their own value is, how to price their services correctly without ripping a client off, but still making a profit and time management and running your books and then creating streams within your field.
[00:46:26] Speaker D: So a lot of business basics.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:46:28] Speaker D: Because I want to know what my stylist is selling to me.
How do stylists.
So how does a stylist promote products or something in salon or other services?
[00:46:40] Speaker B: So I think it goes back to the basics. First of all, I would have to ask your stylist if you're her or his ideal client, because a lot of times when they have clients in the chair, they're actually not their ideal client with the purchase patterns that they would like. So we teach to really attract those type of clients and market to them. Because when you have different types of people that come into your chair, they all act differently, obviously. And you have to know how to manage them and what content will attract them. Hence why we go into content creation.
[00:47:15] Speaker D: Right. So some people are going to be much more concerned about their appearance. They're going to be more open to trying new things or, you know, enhancing their appearance in whatever way they can. And it's important as the business owner that you focus your marketing on the people that are going to respond to.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: I think the biggest thing how you either keep or lose a client is if they don't want to be bored with the BS and you bore them with the BS and you don't give them the facts, they're going to be so annoyed, they're just going to leave.
[00:47:48] Speaker D: You mean when it comes to products or just general small talk?
[00:47:50] Speaker B: All of it.
[00:47:51] Speaker E: You had mentioned earlier that you were using AI to kind of see what your clients want. And so it was really interesting when I was at this conference, you know about the ideal client and the client Personas and everything in marketing, they're actually creating an AI person.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:48:09] Speaker E: Is that what you're doing, too?
[00:48:10] Speaker B: So we do that, but we have them figure it out. So every time they are at a standstill, they can put that into AI and they can help them figure out their next moves. Like, if they feel like they're not getting their ideal client in their chair, that is a missing link in their marketing funnel. So they have to go in and really figure out, okay, where did I miss that train? And you have to refigure it out and you really have to break it down back to the basics.
[00:48:40] Speaker E: So how do they get clients? Is it word of mouth? Is it Internet advertising?
Is it trade shows? What's the best way for a stylist, one of yours, to get clients?
[00:48:50] Speaker B: So that again, depends on their ideal client. A lot of times it takes three times for them to see your content or have a form of recommendation from someone to actually come to you.
So your online presence has to be really good. But a lot of times they need reassurance before they're coming. And there's two different types of purchase patterns. Like they either already made up their mind coming to you before they started looking you up, or they've heard about you and they're following you and they're watching your moves. So your content has to be able to transfer for them to make that final purchase pattern in that marketing funnel. And if you're missing that, then you're missing something in your marketing transfer.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: Rob Greenlee, question or comment?
[00:49:33] Speaker A: How are you using AI technology to help advance the industry of what you're trying to do?
[00:49:39] Speaker B: I use it for everything.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: Everything, Just everything.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: From client communication, from dealing with staff that you hire, from marketing that you're going to do, knowing your ideal client, typing it in so AI already knows who you're trying to target.
Create me some ads that I can run, or what type of posts should I be putting out, what event should I be going to to meet my ideal client, what kind of engagement schedule should I have, what TikToks are gonna be attracting my right clientele, or what reels are trending in that specific client.
[00:50:16] Speaker E: Marketing is that the main value that you give to your clients that are learning from you is all the marketing or do you tell them how to do the makeup and hair as well?
[00:50:26] Speaker B: So they learn technique too, but it's like a total package because they run their business, they're sole proprietors, so they have to do everything themselves. And then once they get bigger, obviously they gonna hire out. I mean, that's what I do. I don't have the time to run five businesses. Like I need some help in the background, you know, to manage it, because otherwise I won't sleep. So. And I have a son, so I gotta manage my time efficiently. But I think people often lack having knowledge in multiple areas. And when you have a business, you got to know everything that goes in and out. And in my business, a lot of people don't even know that they overspend or the way that their price, their services, they're actually losing money every single day.
And so we help simplify that and then we help them with all the tools that they need to take it to the next level. When you're taking a class like that and you're part of a mastermind that you're getting support afterwards, it's really on you to do the work at home and like, get to that next level with anything. You can put pearls in front of a pig. But if they're going to do anything with it, you know, like, it's the same type of deal. It's your own initiative that brings you to the top and makes you a 1% earner.
[00:51:40] Speaker D: What do you think is the biggest challenge that people who are running their own beauty parlor face?
[00:51:47] Speaker B: Overhead is the number one. What does it take to keep your daily business running? They don't know like you ask them, and they think about, Oh, I used $15 of color worth on them. Well, how much was your phone? How much was your daily chair rental? What's your hourly valued ad like? Are you actually making up your product that you're using? Are you paying an assistant? Are you having a cleaning person that comes once a week? What does it take you to get to the salon? How much continuing education do you you take?
They don't think about that.
So it just opens like, their mind of thinking broader than what they were ever taught. Because we don't get taught that in beauty school. That comes with life skills and how you were brought up. Are you investing in your future? Are you putting everything towards your kids? You got to feed yourself first before you give to your children so you can take care of them.
So take care of your own retirement before you start putting money to the side for your child and then, you know, just nurturing your clients, having a skill set, knowing how to market.
[00:52:48] Speaker E: Wow, that's interesting. Do you tell them to do video? Is that what you would suggest?
[00:52:53] Speaker B: I think the market is very oversaturated with video, so I think there is a fine line. Pictures are making a huge comeback, but it's about viral, maybe even a little bit of polarizing content where people feel like very black and white about. And that's what's going to push your content out.
[00:53:10] Speaker E: It sounds like you know, way more about this industry than any anybody I've ever spoken to.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: Well, thank God, because I'm teaching. We don't want to be the blind leading the blind.
[00:53:19] Speaker E: So how do people. Yeah, how do people find you?
[00:53:24] Speaker B: So they find me on social media at Tania, Underscore Crawford or Through my education that I offer. We offer shadowing on demand which is a little bit more of a lower price option for people to watch me work behind the chair. We do in person shadowing and then we also have our 100k plus luxury retreats that we host once a year. It's a four day intensive boot camp to get all the basics.
So they can find that@tania crawfordedu.com Great, thank you.
[00:53:54] Speaker D: Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.
[00:53:56] Speaker E: And now we're going to kind of switch gears because I just feel like software, software, AI, AI is all we've talked about. So we're going to talk to the software person. So we're going to talk to Matt Tamayo now and he has SL advisors and it's SL advisors.net and he is going to tell us how he is helping other business owners. And it's really an interesting business model that he has. As he said earlier, he's the only one doing it. So. Matt, welcome. Tell us what you're doing.
[00:54:24] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And you did an excellent job by the way.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:54:29] Speaker C: You really hit the nail on the head. And you know, I do something similar to her but in a different space. I work with electricians, plumbing, H Vac contractors, security integrators. And I have clients in one of two buckets either five years or less where they understand that reoccurring revenue is really the holy grail of their business. Or I have a client now that is hired me, has been in business for 50 years and still hasn't figured out how to really implement a service agreement program properly. Now what is a service agreement? Right. So a lot of people want to be in the installation business. You want to be in the reoccurring revenue business for. For a couple of reasons. One is money, right? So a lot of people don't understand, like you said earlier, about how much money you get to, to keep. So say I install an H VAC system for 300 grand, which sounds like a lot of money but. But it's not. You know, imagine what it costs this building and say my margin is usually around 40% well after it's installed. With margin erosion is probably closer to 20 and that's without any discounts or reoccurring revenue. On the other hand, margins are much higher. You're also getting paid for services yet to be rendered. So I have a lot of clients that get paid a year at a time, five years at a time, because we always start with multi Year agreements. And it's not just about the money. It's about increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, which a lot of businesses don't understand. Right. So business is about relationships. You know, people aren't buying widgets, they're buying you. And if you only want a transactional relationship with your customer where you install it and you don't talk to them again until there's a critical service issue, you have an unhappy customer, a sourced out technician that was on his way to Applebee's to have riblets with his girlfriend. Now at 5:00 clock on a Friday, he's got to drive out to a customer site. And the worst part is he is not going to be able to resolve that issue. And the reason is they haven't been doing any preventative maintenance which is a big part of service agreement programs. So I really love helping my customers build these programs because it really changes how they do business. And I only deal with ownership because if you can't implement this because it's a program, but the program isn't stressed out a long period of time. I always say to my customers, you know, a lot of consultants take off your watch and tell you what time it is.
So I'm a typical New Yorker. I have, I have zero patients. So I only meet with my customers a total of four times. It's eight hours. And then I give them a reference guide and then I coach them. And I'm very happy to say that all of my clients have sold service agreements during or shortly after training. And now my average clients, 10xing my fee, usually within three months.
[00:56:42] Speaker D: That's great.
[00:56:43] Speaker C: And once the program is in place, it keeps building up. And to be frank, I was surprised. I'm like, I did this. Entrepreneurs, I think, deal with a lot of self doubt, right? You're like, is this going to work? Did I, did I pick the right thing? And that's why I said earlier, you know, I've fallen on my face a couple of times and I thought I was going to be a security consultant because I came from the electronic security and AV industry. And then I have friends of mine in the industry like Matt, like, you know all about this reoccurring revenue. Can you help us? So I said, sure. And that's how service level advisors were born. And now I appliance all over the country. I'm a guest speaker, keynote speaker. I'm like, what? Like how did this even happen? But a big challenge for me is that the industry I work in is very old school. And what I Mean by that is most of the owners are getting ready to retire, and either they're going to sell the business or their son or daughter's going to take it over. And the sons and daughters are the ones who literally, we have a conversation, and I'm usually hired on the spot. And listen, I'm not saying I'm the best closer by any means. They see the value of it. And then I'm like, if you don't believe me, go speak to my customers. You can hear how much money they're making.
[00:57:40] Speaker D: That's really the best thing. When we were talking before the show, you were telling us that you have really only been at this for a few years now.
[00:57:47] Speaker C: Two years. It's really the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I work seven days a week. But I love it, and I love it because it's mine. And the harder I work, the faster the business grows. But I will tell you, if you're not willing to do things that a lot of people would be scared to do, it might not be for you.
[00:58:02] Speaker D: Give me an example.
[00:58:03] Speaker C: I'll give you a great example. I was in Atlanta last week. I was supposed to leave on a Tuesday, and I ate something and I got very ill, so I had to reschedule meetings. But because of that, I got an email that day while I was recovering, where someone I've been looking to meet now for a long period of time said, hey, Matt, let's get together.
And this guy is a sales trainer for the industry. Very successful guy. And I'm like, you know, we can help one another out through synergies here, right? So they ended up going the next day, and I was literally there to convince a central station company to introduce me to their customer base. I met with the owner, and one of the things you really have to do is you have to leverage relationships with other companies and kind of hit your caboose to them. Because if you try to do everything on your own without. I call it forced multiplication, like partnering with other companies where their customers are going to be your customers, the amount of time it's going to take you to build your business. So it was a day trip, and I literally, when I got out of the airport, the plane was late. When it landed, we were on the tarmac. I had to run to my meeting, and the cab driver was like, doing 100 miles an hour on the highway to get there. Because imagine I'm meeting this business owner who's setting aside time for me for the first time, and I'M late. That's a big no. No. So I was texting in the guy who set it up, and then on the way back, the plane was delayed like three times. So I didn't get home till like four in the morning. And I had to get up and train a client the next day remotely. And it doesn't matter how you feel. If you have an appointment with that client, you have to whatever has to be done. And a lot of people aren't just willing to do that.
[00:59:23] Speaker E: That is so true. The reliability and consistency in building a business is so important. And customers always do have to come first. I mean, they're not always right, but they have to come first, right?
[00:59:33] Speaker C: You know, it's funny you say that my customers aren't right. And I always say to them, if you could do this, you'd already be doing it. And my biggest challenge is it's like, well, so and so's already doing this. I'm like, they're not. So as I said earlier, relationships are ongoing. So service agreement creates a set of standards, right? So without standards, how can you meet or exceed expectations? And that's why Fortune 500 companies and Fortune 1000 companies have customer experience, managers, chief customer officers. Because if everyone's selling the same widget, what differentiates you? What differentiates you is your customer experience, right? And customer touch points. That's one of the things I do. I'm a fractional chief experience officer for my customers because I'm like, how are your technicians interacting with people? Are you doing customer surveys? How do you know? How do you know this is the right technician for that customer? Say there's this abrasion going on, this friction in the service relationship. You don't know it. Just because you're running a business doesn't mean that you can't improve upon it or do better.
And one of the first things I asked my customers, I'm like, how much are you charging per hour for your technicians? 150 an hour. I'm like, well, what's your burden rate? They're like, what does that mean? I'm like, what does it cost you per hour plus to roll your truck to get that tick? And I shut out the door. And like you said earlier, most of them are losing money and they don't even know it, right? So one of the first things I do is that I have them raise their rates through the roof. And then another thing it does, it weeds out customers that aren't profitable. And then it also forces people to transition from time and Materials which is not profitable to service agreements.
[01:00:56] Speaker E: Right. I think Rob has a comment or question.
[01:00:58] Speaker C: Sure, please do. Yeah.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: I was just curious, in your dealing with your clients, whether or not you ever have in the back of your mind telling your clients what they want to hear versus what they need to hear.
[01:01:08] Speaker C: Never, never in a million years. Because I'm doing my customer a disservice.
[01:01:12] Speaker D: Right.
[01:01:12] Speaker C: You know, I'm a trusted advisor. I'm there to help them make money. Like she said earlier. And a lot of businesses owners understand your job is to make people with money more money. If you can do that, the world's your oyster. And that's what business is all about. And my customer pain is they can't do this on their own. And it's not easy. And you know, that's where my writing background come in. So when I do my training, I have like a 65 point PowerPoint slide that I created from scratch that I keep updating over and over and over. And the hardest part is it's not that I run out of information to put in it. I have something called the rule of five. I don't have more than five bullet points on each slide. Otherwise the customer, it's too much information to digest.
And that's why I keep my training usually to no more than two hours a pop unless I'm traveling like to California where I'll do like two four hour sessions because I want the customer to implement what we train them on the next day. And then a lot of my customers now are ongoing me for hiring me for ongoing sales and operations support because their employees are not sticking to the script. And then I'm like, you're leaving money on the table and it's a lot of money. Like, for example, like a salesperson might be afraid of losing a sale because the customer doesn't want the service agreement. Me, because it's always at the time of sale. And I'm like, just don't uncheck that box. I'm like, the sale doesn't start till there's an objection. I gave you the ability to answer every objection because I've heard them all. Customer says this, you say this. And you know, it's funny marketing too. It's like to get the customer to buy the way you want them to buy because they might be buying from you now, might not be profitable, if that makes sense.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: Do you ever face pushback from your clients on your directions?
[01:02:37] Speaker C: No, actually I've had them fire employees who didn't get with the program.
Yeah. So you know, they're investing in me and they understand this is the future of their business and why. I'm sure you guys know what EBITDA is.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:47] Speaker C: So investors don't buy stale customer lists. They buy streams of recurring revenue.
[01:02:51] Speaker D: Right.
[01:02:52] Speaker E: Can you. Not everybody listening will know ebitda.
[01:02:55] Speaker C: Oh, sure.
[01:02:55] Speaker E: What?
[01:02:55] Speaker C: That is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Yeah, I think I'm pretty close to that. Right? Yeah. I did not go to business school. I could barely use a calculator. I just use it as a talk track because I tell them, hey, you know, say you're doing 10 million a year, what is your company really worth? But if you're doing 10 million a year in RMR, a reoccurring monthly revenue, you get a 20x, a 28x multiplier. And that's what people buy. They buy contracts. They don't buy still customer lists. They don't care what you've installed. And as soon as you understand that as a business owner, and that's why I said, I have two buckets, young customers and older customers eventually want to retire. And they know that if they have that additional RMR coming in, their business valuation goes through the roof.
[01:03:36] Speaker D: Right. So what do you see for the future of your company? How would you like to take it to the next level?
[01:03:41] Speaker C: So the next level is, and I didn't mention this yet, as I license my program to my customers, I own it is. It's proprietary. Right. And they have to sign two hefty, ironclad nondisclosure agreements. And I say, hey, you know, you're sharing everything with me but your books. You won't be sharing your proprietary info with your competitors. Right. I said, well, I don't want you doing the same thing to me. I will not work with someone who refuses to sign it. And no one's had a problem with it yet because they understand it. But I'm going to license this just like eos Entrepreneurs Optimization System, where I want to be able to empower other entrepreneurs to start a profitable business where they can help people make money.
[01:04:14] Speaker D: That sounds like a real plan.
[01:04:16] Speaker E: Matt Tamao. How do people find you?
[01:04:18] Speaker C: They can go on LinkedIn. I post there all the time. This is Matthew Tomayo.
[01:04:21] Speaker E: Or you can spell your last name.
[01:04:23] Speaker C: It's like tomato without the other T. T, O, M, A, O, O.
[01:04:26] Speaker D: That helps the second T, not the first.
[01:04:28] Speaker C: Yes, correct. Or then go to my website, SL advisors.net and you know, one thing this has taught me, I need to use more social media. I do. And you know what I realized it could be a lot of fun and perceptions, reality. And if you think it's fun, it's fun. And seeing how these people use it and how excited they are and having a social media person here, you know, my wife's my social media person. It enables you to tell stories and connect with people on an emotional level because people buy emotionally and they justify it logically.
[01:04:53] Speaker D: We'll be back with more Passage to Profit, in particular Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. So stay tuned.
[01:04:59] Speaker H: I am a non attorney spokesperson representing a team of lawyers who help people that have been injured or wronged. If you've been involved in a serious car, truck or motorcycle accident or injured at work, you have rights and you may be entitled to money for your suffering. Don't accept an offer you get from an insurance company until you talk to a lawyer. And we represent some of the best personal injury lawyers you can find, tough lawyers that will fight to win your case. And they're so good they stake their reputation on it by only getting paid if you win. So if you've been in a serious car, truck or motorcycle accident or hurt on the job, find out today for free what kind of compensation you may be entitled to. Call the legal helpline right now.
[01:05:45] Speaker G: 8004-9270-1480-0492-701-4800 4927014.
That's 800-492-7014.
[01:05:59] Speaker F: It's Passage to Profit.
[01:06:01] Speaker D: Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
[01:06:04] Speaker E: Noah Fleischman is our producer here at Passage to Profit and he never stops trying to make sense of of the future by looking at the past.
[01:06:13] Speaker I: My day as a kid always started with the TV on and every day there was this little feature from the local church with the meaning of the daily word. Well, recently the annual word according to Merriam Webster dictionary was authentic. It used to be little more than a term of embellishment. Now it's fast becoming a classification.
Technology is getting better and better at synthetically reproducing what's real.
Our landscapes, our objects, our voices. It's opening up a lot of legal and sociological questions. Definitely not our parents world. The best thing we can do in this cyber orbit we live in is to keep our objects, our relationships and our value of them and ourselves as real as we possibly can. We can all be in a virtual room, but let's all be in it together for real.
[01:07:00] Speaker F: Now more with Richard and Elizabeth. Passage to Profit Ourselves.
[01:07:04] Speaker E: Special guest today. Rob Greenlee, we have had amazing presenters today and certainly AI has reared its ugly head or beautiful head, depending on how you look at it, many times throughout. But we've had some real solid business advice come through here, too. So go to our podcast and hear what you missed. But now it is time for one more segment called Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. Rob Greenlee. Rob, what is a secret you can share with our listeners?
[01:07:33] Speaker A: I think to really focus on putting out knowledge, putting out what makes you unique in the world and what value you can bring to other people's lives is the secret that I try and focus in a lot.
[01:07:46] Speaker E: I agree. That is a really good one. Tania Crawford, what is your secret?
[01:07:51] Speaker B: I'll share two. One on a business standpoint and one on a personal level. As a business standpoint, don't listen to the noise of what you people tell you as possible or not. Just go for it and don't overshare. And then on a personal level, when dating as a high performer woman, it's extremely hard. Try not to think about it in a emotional way in the beginning. Think of it as a logical standpoint and choose the people that you go on a date with. Almost like a business interview.
[01:08:23] Speaker E: Yeah, that's good.
So, Matt Tamayo, what's a secret you can share?
[01:08:28] Speaker C: 2 secrets to one personal one business. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without my wife Antonia. I have tunnel vision a lot. I'm that type A guy. I'm focusing on the task at hand and sometimes I can't see the forest or the trees. So she helps keep me on track. So if you have a partner to help you, you can go so much farther, so much faster. And it's tough. You need someone there, you know, shoulder to cry. And sometimes you want to give up and they're like, no, you can't do that same thing with her. My wife has in Tony's Promise, which is her business, which is her Christian jewelry line in her podcast and, you know, I said to myself, she supported me. Why wouldn't I support her? So I don't care what I have to do. We're going to succeed together. Now on the business side of things, you have to figure out what your customer type is right off the bat. And you have to be able to come up with a bunch of qualifying questions because people love to waste your time and not everyone is for you. And they're called no questions. Would you be against hiring me now or is now a bad time to build your service? Agreement program. Those questions have such power and get people to respond because people are usually polite and sometimes you won't hear from them. So you want to get to the meat and the bones, because if you're wasting your time here, you could have missed an opportunity here. And time is money.
[01:09:33] Speaker E: I agree.
[01:09:34] Speaker D: Richard Gearhart, Gearhart Law Expect to make mistakes. Got to factor that into the equation. I've been running Gearhart law for almost 20 years now, and last week I just realized I made a whole boatload of mistakes, that after 20 years I was just shocked that it happened. But it happens. And you know, I think as you go along, you get more experience, you make fewer mistakes, and hopefully you don't make the same mistakes over again, but you make new ones. And, you know, part of the entrepreneurial journey is getting yourself out of them.
[01:10:06] Speaker E: My secret today is born of what happened yesterday, which I have alluded to.
I used a new company and I had forgotten that we had used another company who I should have called. And last week I hired them to fix the air conditioning and they blew me off at the last minute. So my learning from that is if you have something important coming up, use a trusted source. Develop those trusted sources, right? So if I had been using somebody that I had a relationship with or had a service agreement with, this probably would not have happened to me. So if it's something really important, you can go to that trusted person and they will help you.
[01:10:43] Speaker D: Usually that's great. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer, Noah Fleishman, and our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey, and our social media maven, Carolina Tabata.
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. Gearhart 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.
