548 – This unicorn will advance your business: Tom interviews Michael Grace

Episode 548 – Michael Grace
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode five hundred and forty eight of Screw the Commute podcast I'm here with Michael Grace and you know what? He's a unicorn. I'm a donkey, I guess, compared. But he's a unicorn and he's a tech unicorn anyway, and he's the host of the Tech Pro Unicorn podcast, so we're going to bring him on. He's going to talk about tech. You know, it's no longer any excuses to say, Well, I'm not technical, you know, I don't know technology. Well, learn it or get somebody to teach you or do something because the world is not going to wait for you. So he's going to talk about how we can use that in business. Now, I hope you didn't miss episode 537. That was Debbie Drum. And yes, that's her real name. So she quit her job 12 years ago and created a lifestyle information product business for passive income. And yeah, she's great. So. And she talks about making workbooks. So a physical product that you can send along with your coaching and the other things, because people do still love physical things to hold in their hand. Now, pick up a copy of our automation e-book and we're going to be talking about automation too. Mike was really into that and make it a, you know, make making your workload a lot easier. So I won't talk about that too much now other than you can get my free e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:01:51] And it's allowed me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and sixty five thousand customers without pulling my hair out and pick up a copy of our podcast app. While you're at it, it's screwthecommute.com/app, and we have instructions on how to use it. You know, some people give you an app and then you've got to try to figure out how the heck it works, and they have limited training inside the app. But we don't do that. We have videos, screen capture videos and and screen. Screen captures and screen capture videos to teach you how to use it so you can do all the fancy functions that it has. So check that out. It's screwthecommute.com/app. Now we're still going strong with our pilot program to help persons with disabilities get trained and get scholarships to my school and internet and digital marketing so we can get them not only in their own business but hired if they want to work for someone else or both. And I'm really excited about it because we're going to change people's lives. I mean, the the suicide rate is four times the national average. The unemployment rate is, I think, three point seven times the national average and and the depression rate is four times the national average. So I want to help people get out of that. And then I took a grant writing course after I proved the concept of getting these people hired and in their own business.

[00:03:21] Then I'm going to roll it out to foundations and big companies and really help loads of people. So if you'd like to help me out with this, I'd really appreciate it. And so would they. We have a Go Fund Me campaign helping to finance this whole thing. And we have three people in the program so far, and two of them are blind. So if you are crying the Blues, oh, I can't do videos, I can't. They do videos and they're blind. I've come on, you know, so check it out at IMTCVA.org/disabilities. Of course, that will be in the show notes. Anything you can kick in is great, and if you're really flush with cash, you could sponsor a person yourself. So that would really be something you could be proud of. I know I'm really proud of this legacy project and really excited about it. So there we go.

[00:04:10] Let's get to the main event. Michael Grace is an innovative technology leader who speaks, presents and writes about how businesses can achieve a transformation by leveraging technology. And several companies have called him, and this is where the unicorn comes in, a unicorn due to his ability to understand the business issue and solve it in partnership with the customer, leveraging the latest technology and process enhancements. So Michael, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:42] I love it. I'm absolutely excited to be here.

[00:04:46] Oh man, so you're the unicorn and I was privileged to be on your podcast tech pro unicorn, unicorn. I said Unicorn. I don't know where I got that, but but tell us, tell us a little bit about the podcast.

[00:05:00] Absolutely. Yeah, the podcast was really a way to put out a different form of information to get to folks and talk about things like business issues that that we're all facing today, especially in the event of a pandemic. How to leverage technology to help solve some problems, we highlight entrepreneurs such as yourself to give people an option out of the nine to five into into maybe other things, either supplemental income or perhaps a career change we've had career coaches on. We're really just focused on on the folks that are in business or running a business, leveraging technology to just make everything better and easier.

[00:05:47] Yeah. And it was, yeah, we had a lot of a lot of fun on on that. But you mentioned the pandemic. I've heard of that. But you know, I've been sitting here didn't mean anything to my business in two years other than I didn't have to get on an airplane, you know, so I didn't even notice there was a pandemic. And that's that's the kind of thing you can do when you're using this technology. You don't even have to leave the house. I mean, you do have to go to the bathroom occasionally. But but other than that, you don't have to leave. So give us some tips on how you can automate your business with technology.

[00:06:27] Absolutely, yeah, you know, before there used to be technology used to really be out of reach, right, it was either really large or really expensive or you had to find the right software and you had to install it and it was really complex. And technology's really transformed and become much more available to businesses of all sizes down to the sole proprietor, right? The advent of what we call cloud, which is really just software hosted on somebody else's computer that's really made large applications that previously you couldn't afford or you couldn't install and configure yourself. That's really made it accessible to to everybody. So now the smallest of companies can leverage some of the some of the most powerful software and their software now for for everyone in every industry and everything. So before they're used to just be a few finance systems, then kind of came QuickBooks more for the small business. And now, if you were to look at like a small business business software, there's over 400 targeted at the small business, right?

[00:07:42] I mean, the hardest thing is to pick the right one.

[00:07:47] Exactly. Right now you have choices and it depends really what you're trying to do, right? Are you manufacturing business and you need a little bit of some manufacturing mojo to track your widgets? Or do you need more? You're selling a service and you're you're looking for more service based functionality. And they're all different. So and they're very easy to like, compare and contrast all kinds of sites out there that compare them for you. So it's really a cool time to to leverage technology and software just because there's so much available now.

[00:08:21] Well, what the what are some of your favorite things for small business people?

[00:08:25] Yeah, for small business. You know, I leverage HubSpot. I use HubSpot a lot. It's a free CRM, free emphasis Blinky tax free up to about 100 customers, right? So if you're just getting started or you have a smaller business with with, you know, sure, you can pay to have more, but you can start and literally have full functionality for for 100 customers. And you can really do email campaigns and you can build it into your website or you don't know how to do that, but you use like a WordPress word site. It's very easy to do. Wordpress is another one of my favorites. No longer can people get away with saying, Well, I don't know how to create a website, right? It is so template based you literally can sign up and for less than $20 through a website out there that's pretty fully functioning as far as email and communication with customers don't get hung up or people get afraid of technology and they're like, I don't understand, you know, search engine optimization. Well, shit. I don't understand search engine optimization, either, so I click a couple of buttons and the website does it for me. So I really am a fan of that. Paypal is another one of my favorite. They have great integration tools to make sure that you get your money very, very quickly. Again, things you can build into your website or into your invoicing that customers can just click on highly integrated through tools like QuickBooks. So you send a customer an invoice. They click on a button, it goes to PayPal, they put it in their payment and voila, the next day, you know you have their cash now in your bank account for your service or your offering. So lots and lots of really cool software that if you just take a couple of moments and kind of read my other favorite, it's not really a software. But I'll tell you, if you're ever confused by any technology, just go to YouTube. Youtube is now the number one training tool leveraged by small businesses and individuals. Anything you want to learn, you're going to learn it on YouTube.

[00:10:40] Yeah, and it's more the biggest problem people have is a mindset thinking that they can't do it. I mean, it's it's no longer an acceptable excuse. Well, I'm not tech oriented rah rah rah. Yeah, I mean a little bit of tutoring and you'll be doing things you can't even imagine that you could have done.

[00:11:01] And I want to highlight your automation e-book, right, because I when when Tom is going to be on my podcast, that that was just I was I was super excited, right? I'm like, Tom is going to be on my podcast and I stock all my guests stock Tom. I signed up for all his, his free stuff. And and then when I got his e-book, it's not like, Oh, here's three pages of content. I give you a free e-book. I mean, it's like twenty five pages.

[00:11:28] I think it's six pages,

[00:11:30] Ok? Right. And it's got all these really. And I was like, Oh, I forgot about like keyboard shortcuts. Oh, I forgot about like things that I don't even use. And I'm like, Oh, I could use that. I could do that. And I put a couple of things into play to help streamline even my workflow, right? That that Tom taught me. And Tom is not the technologist, right? But he's got all these great automation tips, and you don't have to shoot for the Moon, right? You can take these little things that are technology based that just make you much more efficient and much more available to serve your customers.

[00:12:07] Yeah. And yeah, just one of the tips like for PC. It's called short keys and and on a Mac, you can do something called keyboard maestro as an as one. And it's called a macro program, and it saved me. We estimated it a couple of years ago, seven and a half million keystrokes. I mean, imagine if you if you could take the time that it would take the type, all that stuff I was supposed to type and put it just towards marketing or creating a new product or something. I mean, it's just amazing these things and it costs it costs 20 bucks. When I first got it, it was free and then they went to 20 bucks one time. Yes, it's just crazy. You're crazy. You're literally crazy not to use this kind of stuff.

[00:12:54] It's so funny we do at some of our larger customers, right, we always do. Well, how much time do you spend on that? And you might think like, Oh OK, a couple of keystrokes. What does that take you? Tom like three minutes a day? Come on, we're only saving three minutes a day, but then you go three minutes a day, and he does that five times a week. Ok, 15 minutes a week. Times 52. Right. And the numbers just start getting larger. Yeah, that's one thing. Yeah, that's just one thing.

[00:13:25] And you gave like a super unbelievably conservative estimate there. I mean, just just if somebody asked me. So my rule of thumb is, is if somebody asked me a question more than once, I make the answer into a short key. And that way, I don't have to go find it and try to lose my train of thought and go, find, where did I keep that answer? And I just hit these two keys and boom. It types the whole answer and instantly, you know? So that's how we figured seven and a half million keystrokes because I get questions all day long for seven days a week, for the last 23 years. And and it's just totally just one thing like that'll change your life. Hey, Michael, even going to a second monitor will change your life, you know, because you. Yeah, I mean, in my office there we run four monitors so I can have email open on one working on a website or another document on another and watching the tennis channel on the other one. Yeah, there's something like that. But, you know, I was just going opening and closing browser windows all day long, which just one extra monitor just saves you tons of time, you know? So there's just all kinds of things like that.

[00:14:44] For even people that use maybe you're not sitting in an office or have a desktop, much like like Tom and I, that's usually where we work from. But if you have a laptop situation, you can even get a monitor extender. They're out on Amazon for like ninety nine dollars that essentially just plugs in and clips onto your laptop, and it gives you a second screen about the same size as your laptop screen and extends it right. So now you you have that double screen, whether you're sitting in a coffee shop or on an airplane. Maybe they're putting a bad analogy unless you're sitting in first class.

[00:15:24] Does it clip on top or to the side or what

[00:15:27] It clips to this side? Yeah, clips on the back. And then it extends to the side, and it's a great, a great way to increase your productivity so that you can be monitoring your email or your communication tools while while doing other tasks.

[00:15:43] The USP or what is it?

[00:15:45] It is.

[00:15:46] Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great idea and even know that existed. Now there's things that I can. I forget what it's called, but I got this 72 inch TV on the wall in front of me and I can click a button and it sends whatever's on the laptop to that to that giant TV. I don't know. I forget what it's called, but that's yeah. Yeah, cast some type of casting. Yeah, yeah. So but there's just tons of this kind of stuff, and this is why I keep, you know well, prior to the pandemic. Yeah, you know, the one difference in the pandemic is I don't have young people around the house here with me. And I learned a lot of this stuff because these young kids are just so great with technology, and I would complain about something. I had this one kid that was he was a little Russian smart alec kid and he would stand behind me and watch me work and he would be ready to explode. He's like, I can't believe somebody's making so much money. It's so stupid when you just click here. And he was always right. So he just saw it. By the way, he just sold his third startup for $340 million, the kid that I I recruited in 1997. So but yeah, these young kids are so great. Just if somebody just points something out to you that none of this stuff is that hard, if somebody would point it out.

[00:17:13] And sometimes, right, I always say one of the top technology skills you can have is the use of Google, right? So if you're trying to solve a business problem, chances are you're not the first person that's trying to solve this problem. So you ever notice on Google, when you type into the search box, you start typing and Google fills in the rest of what you wanted to search, right? It's because somebody else has searched it, not only somebody else, but thousands or tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people have searched it. So if you're trying to figure out like, how do I do this? Just ask Google. And chances are there's there's going to be a link to a YouTube video or a link to an article. The other tip that I always say, right, maybe you you're setting up a home office and you're like, Oh my gosh, I just don't understand how to get three monitors to work. If you post out on all these new community sites, right next door is probably the the top one out there. If you go out on a next door to your local community, right, you're not asking strangers from afar to come into your house, but you go out to next door and you say, Hey, I'm trying to set up my home office. I bought a bunch of stuff. Can somebody help me? You're going to get all of these helpful neighbors that are way more tech savvy, perhaps, than you that are willing to come over for sometimes even free and just know and help you do it. So leverage those types of things if you're just not tech savvy and can't figure it out. And then while they're doing it, stand there and like Tom, like you said, right, you learned right, he showed you. So then then take the time and invest and learn because these types of tech people, they want to help. But they're they're also happy to teach you.

[00:18:56] Yeah. And but there's a funny site out there because so many people call tech support and ask something they could have just googled. So there's a website called Let me Google that for you. You know, and and you know, that's the thing. It's that's the first thing you want to do. Rather than sit on hold for an hour waiting to ask, you know, yeah, there is dumb questions, folks. Trust me, all right. But but you could have googled it. And even if you do call tech, support Google it anyway and then hang up if you get your answer from Google, which you probably will if you, if you, if you look for it. So we've got to take a responsive break. And when we come back, we're going to ask Michael, what's a typical day look like for him? Does he have like a morning routine, how early he gets up and all that kind of stuff and and how he stays motivated? So folks, probably about twenty three years ago, I can't remember now. Twenty four. I can't, you know, time flies when you're having fun. I kind of turned the internet guru world on its head and pissed them all off because guys at my level were charging 50 or 100 thousand bucks up front to small businesses that teach them what they knew.

[00:20:20] And I know a lot of these, these guys, mostly guys at the time. You give them 50 grand. You'd be, you know, chasing around Mexico, trying to get them to try to find them after you give them that much money. So so I said, I'm going to fix this, and it's not really fair to small businesses. So I I charged an entry fee, which was way lower. And then for me to get my 50000, you had to net two hundred thousand, well, people love this because they knew I wouldn't disappear on them and they didn't have to pay the big money unless they made big money and everything was fair. And so 700 students later, the program is still going. It's one of the longest running, most unique mentor programs ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. You have an immersion trip to the retreat center here in Virginia Beach. You have a second trip to our TV studio where we shoot tons of videos for you and edit them and put the graphics on for you. And then you also get a scholarship to my school, which is the only licensed, dedicated internet marketing school in the country, probably the world.

[00:21:27] And you can either use it yourself for extra training or gift it to someone which could save you hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sending your kid to some stupid university that's going to teach them how to protest. And then they they get their MBA and they're competing for jobs at Starbucks. All right, so this is a highly in-demand skill internet and digital marketing, and they love computers to start with, so it's all included in the deal. No, I Triple Dog dare people to put their programs up against mine, and nobody will do it because I'm a crazy fanatic and and you have one on one training with me and my entire staff whenever, you know, unlimited for a year, you know, so so it's there's nobody can compete with. So check it out at GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com. We'd love to hear from you.

[00:22:21] Let's get back to the main event. We got a unicorn here. We got the tech unicorn. Michael Grace is here host of the Tech Pro Unicorn podcast. And so, Michael, what's a typical day look like for you?

[00:22:35] That's a great question, I've really spent a bunch of time trying to balance work life, right? So usually I'm typically up pretty early. I'm an early riser and not quite the five am club, which is a great book that I strive for, but usually by by six o'clock, I'm stirring. I like to check email, right? See what's coming in. If anything's hot, check my messages and such. And then I kind of unplug from work, right? So I hit work. Is there a burning fire? If not, I refocus, and I focus pretty much on family, right? Give me a call. I'm sure that everyone's getting where they need to be, that the kids are good. The wife is plugged in before I start my commute

[00:23:16] A little bit. Wait a minute. What exactly does that mean? Plugged in.

[00:23:25] Yeah, she she's working from home and, you know, sometimes she'll struggle with technology.

[00:23:30] Ok. All right. All right. I thought you were going somewhere else for that.

[00:23:38] That's that's tech pro unicorn after dark.

[00:23:41] Oh, OK, we're going to start that new podcast.

[00:23:44] Yeah. So then then usually, you know, it's a commute to the office. I try to leverage my time on my commute. I'm either listening to some sort of e-book or I might be on a call with again, friends and family, right? I try to build that time into my routine, maybe a call with my mom or calls with my family down in Tucson or good buddies. I get here and the first thing I focus on is customers. So I spend time with either sales pursuits that I that I'm interested in, or I will send notes to existing customers just checking in. Or or so I have this kind of customer focused. I then usually have a block of meetings, sadly, where I'm either speaking, providing some sort of insight, motivation or direction to it, to my teams. And then I usually end the day with what I call. We call it eminence, but to establish eminence in the marketplace. I always say you have to create some sort of value or content. So we do a lot of podcasting, a lot of webinars, a lot of blogging, which is our way of trying to give back to the community, right?

[00:24:57] So that, oh, see, I was confused there. I thought you made all your employees say your eminence, you know to you about that.

[00:25:05] That's great. I love that.

[00:25:07] That's it.

[00:25:08] Caroline, so I shall be addressed by my team. Is your ready? All right. Right. And I'll be out of the nine to five next week. Yes. And then again, on the way home, you know, never later than usually, you know, an eight hour a day. I pretty much unplug and truly believe that work will be here tomorrow, and I love what I do. And then, you know, I'm and then I'm on the way home talking again to friends and family, trying to stay connected to to everyone. I'm not a big fan of surfing. The Facebook, right surprised your friends and family and actually reach out and give them a call and be blown away. They'll be like, like, why are you calling?

[00:25:57] Right, right? Couldn't you have texted as a person? And that's your mother. That's your mother saying, That's right.

[00:26:04] That's right. She's like, Stop calling me.

[00:26:07] That was pretty funny because my mother was I went to college on a football scholarship, and my mother, my five older brothers, were never allowed to play because my mother thought they'd get hurt. And then finally, the whole town marched and forced my mother to let me play football. And so then she and my dad got to come to these collegiate games, and then she got totally, totally wildly immersed in football and then used to be I'd call her every Sunday, and then it got to the point where I'd call, you know, her baby boy calling, right? Hey, I can't talk to Steelers, she hung up on me.

[00:26:54] So, yeah, so so I know that. Hey, I heard you say about Tucson. That was the first time I saw the Constellation, the Southern Cross when I was in the Tucson. You know, you can only see it from the southern parts of the USA. I don't know if you ever noticed that when you were there, but Texas to Tucson is a great little city. You know, for folks looking, everybody gets hung up on the Grand Canyon in Arizona, which is beautiful, but it takes about half an hour to be amazed by this big hole in the ground, which everyone should go see. And then you're kind of like, Great, now I'm in Arizona. What do I do? And while Scottsdale and Phoenix are full of all kinds of cool things to do, Tucson often gets ignored and it's it's a great little sleepy, sleepy town, lots of art and it's just nature and such. It's a great town to visit, for sure.

[00:27:52] Yeah. Yeah, I like the. But when you're talking, it just reminded me when you're talking about the hole in the ground. Did you ever hear of Crater Lake?

[00:28:02] Yes.

[00:28:03] Yes. Yes, and so for those of you who haven't heard of it, it's this great big crater, this asteroid or something from millions and millions of miles. You know, what amazed me is it's it's slams into the Earth and it just missed the visitor center. That's awesome. So you said, you know, this is the kind of thing you can do when you work for yourself, you have a lot of time to think of stupid things.

[00:28:39] That's awesome. That's a that is a great. Yeah, it was. It was a meteor. And that's another place that you drive out to and you you kind of go, Wow, this is really big. And then you're like, What else is there to do? Ok, I guess I'm going to Tucson.

[00:28:52] Oh, yeah. Same thing happened to me. I went, I all my whole life. I wanted to visit the La Brea Tar Pits in in California, and I get there, you know, because it's supposed to be dinosaurs are there and everything. I get there and there's a fence around and I'm looking like it looked like a vacant lot. And then my whole life, I wanted this. But even worse than that, I'm really mad at the French people. I got to tell you, I spent my whole life wanting to go to the Louvre in, and so I get there on a Tuesday and it's closed. Who closes anything on Tuesday? I can't believe it. So I decided to piss them off and I went down to the French Riviera and I ate at McDonald's. You know, just as this was your way of getting back.

[00:29:45] Yeah, I'm not eating your your French food if you don't open a little one.

[00:29:49] Just just so you don't waste your your time going to the OK corral. It also is pretty anti-climatic. Oh, you're all this OK corral thing and you drive to tombstone. You're like, OK, I'm going to see the OK corral, and you have to pay some ungodly amount by like $20 to walk through a gift shop to a dirt lot. And it's literally, you know, a 20 by 20 dirt lot. And that's the OK corral. There's nothing else there. It's just dirt.

[00:30:21] Yeah, I mean, you're better off learning technology and visiting all these places online. You know, you can travel the world.

[00:30:29] We get a lot of lot of questions around, you know, do I need to put my business on the metaverse? And, you know, I'm like, I don't think we even know what the metaverse really is. That's one thing. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't really rush out there to be on the metaverse yet. You know, most people don't. Still, while most people have access to the internet now, many people don't. Not everybody has a computer, believe it or not. Still, and not everybody has great internet access on their phones and such. So, you know, it's still pretty far off. We haven't solved, you know, internet for everybody, let alone worrying about the darn metaverse.

[00:31:13] Well, the thing is, folks, the thing is, folks, you gotta you've got to do whatever you can within your means to make Zuckerberg more rich. All right. Because you know, he's got to eat. You know, I just I just saw a picture online of his new yacht. And it looks like something from outer space.

[00:31:35] So, yeah, he's going to do battle with Larry Ellison, I think. Yeah. Him and Larry Ellison from Oracle are going to take their yachts and they're going to have a war.

[00:31:43] Well, BS Bezos to Jeff Bezos is not.

[00:31:46] It's a pretty big. So. So yeah, so you you know, it's your civic duty. It really is to keep these guys rich. So how do they get a hold of you? And where do they find the podcast and all that stuff?

[00:31:59] And absolutely, yeah, the best. The best way to get a hold of me is through the website, which is where the podcast is as well, and it is at W WW Tech Tech, H Pro Unicorn Typekit, So Tech Pro Unicorn and that has contact forms and all kinds of ways to get a hold of me. Some blog articles out there on the latest and greatest around tech, and you can also find the podcast episode that Tom was a guest on it out there as well. We had a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever had a guest or been a guest on a podcast where I've enjoyed it and had so much laughter as I have with with Tom. So well, thank you.

[00:32:42] .But before I got on, I started listening to some of your other episodes and I'm thinking, Oh my God, I don't belong here. These guys are all brainiacs and they're talking deep stuff, and here I am. Well, we had a good time anyway, but I did get a good tip from today on the monetary extender for the laptop. I really haven't used the next door yet, but I don't know if I want people knowing where I live, when they come after me. But no, my neighbor uses it all the time and then loves it. And I just I just never had a need. I did go down to like for the podcast. I went. Out to the local music store and ask anybody if they freelanced, you know, to come help me set up stuff, you know, so there's always somebody out there that knows this stuff that can help you. And that's again, that's how I found that kid that that was helping me right from the beginning. Learning all these, these tips and technology things. So don't be afraid to go out there. It's not that hard, but if somebody teaches you, it really is much easier. So anyway, thanks Michael, for coming on, man.

[00:33:50] Absolutely, Tom. Thank you for having me.

[00:33:52] Okey doke. We're going to say goodbye to the unicorn and we will catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.

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