203 – She’s a podcast booker and animal rescuer: Tom interviews Margy Feldhuhn

Episode 203 – Margy Feldhuhn
[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 two hundred and three of Screw the Commute podcast. We've got a really great guest today. Her name is Margy Feldhuhn. And I just love her for her animal rescue work. And and she and her partner have built up a nice business helping people get booked on podcasts. And I'm going to introduce you to her in a minute. Now, I hope you didn't miss episode 202. That's my Monday training sessions. Of course, you know, on Mondays I do an in-depth training session on something that's either made me or saved me a ton of money. And it's on Amazon flash briefings. This is something you can get in on early and these are where you make very short tips on your subject. Then people can subscribe to them and and call them up or they actually say enable them on their Alexa Echo devices. So I hope you didn't miss that. Our podcast app is now in the app store. You can do lots of cool stuff with it. You can get it along with complete instructions on how to operate it at screwthecommute.com/app and as a thank you for listening to our show. Make sure you grab a copy of our e-book, How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips in this book has saved me over seven and a half million keystrokes. It's allowed me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and forty thousand customers without pulling my hair out. And we sell this book for 27 bucks, but it's yours. Free is my thanks for listening. And once you're at the download page, make sure you grab a copy. I'll go ahead and tell you what it is since we've got Margy on today. It's what I learned after doing 120 now over 200 quality podcasts. And some people were charging it four five and six thousand bucks for this. So check that all out at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And of course, everything we talk about today will be in the show notes for episode two hundred and three. And of course, you go to screwthecommute.com/203 and you'll go directly to Margy's episode. All right, our sponsor is the Internet Marketing Training Center, Virginia, it's a distance learning school which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for someone else or starting your own online business or both. And you can check that out at IMTCVA.org and I've been living this lifestyle since the commercial internet started around nineteen ninety four and it is real, but you can get ripped off because loads of people that never made a nickel on the internet are trying to tell you how to get rich. So, so be careful who you deal with there. But check out our school at IMTCVA.org.

[00:03:26] All right, let's get to the main event. Margy Feldhuhn is a co-owner of Interview Connections. It's the first and leading podcast booking agency. Margy and her business partner, Jessica, lead an in-house staff. Listen this. She's got 12 employees in their Rhode Island office and have successfully scaled the agency to seven figures. Now outside of work. And this is what really drew me to her. Margy is very active in animal rescue and she just told me she nabbed a cat for somebody that had to go to the hospital and stuck her mother with it. So the cat will be there forever, I'm sure. And she was recently recognized for her fundraising efforts with the Humane Heroes Award. Margy, are you ready to screw. The commute.

[00:04:19] Hey, Tom. Yes, hi.

[00:04:21] All right. So so. Oh, I'm thrilled that we finally crossed paths here. And because we both have a really deep caring for animals and and podcasts. So it's a perfect match. So tell everybody about what you're doing now and then we'll take you back when you're a little girl and see if you were entrepreneurial doing lemonade stands.

[00:04:42] All right. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me on, Tom. Like he said, I'm the co-owner of Interview Connections. So we are the leading guest booking agency. We book entrepreneurs on podcasts. And yes, we are in Rhode Island. We have an in-house staff of booking agents and we have show researchers and we have a manager. So we've really grown out that team. My business partner founded the business in 2013. And since then, we've scaled very rapidly, which has been really exciting, anything. It's exciting to be in Rhode Island doing something that's so at the forefront of marketing and new media. Because Rhode Island is definitely not known for that.

[00:05:23] I was going to say, you know, I don't you don't hear too many people say, wow, it's so exciting to be in Rhode Island.

[00:05:30] Yes. We're trying to change that.

[00:05:33] So in podcasts, I mean, I I have to admit, I pooh poohed podcasts for a long time because in the early days, everybody was doing it as an ego and nobody was making any money. But I kind of wish I'd had started earlier because it's really exploding.

[00:05:50] Yeah, absolutely, podcasting is amazing and it looks like it's just going to keep growing and people like you who have a great consistent show, who you know, their audience, who knows what to expect. They have great guests, they have great content. It's such an incredible tool for your business.

[00:06:08] Yeah. And and I have a little bit different monetization model than most because I have such a big product base. A lot of people want to make, you know, twelve to twenty dollars per thousand downloads as their revenue model. And man, that's not easy to get a thousand downloads, I got to tell you. So, yeah. So with me a my and my stuff is the sponsor for every episode. So, so and sometimes people kick in affiliate commissions that are the guests. So that's a it's a better revenue model that's with less downloads. You can make more money.

[00:06:43] Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I love what you said. It's not easy to get a thousand listeners. And that's what a lot of our clients who come to us sometimes don't understand, because since download numbers aren't public, they're like, great, can you book me on podcasts that have, you know, one hundred two hundred thousand downloads per episode? I want to be on 20 shows like that. And there's a lot of education that we do that people outside podcasting might not know that these are small engaged audiences. They're so valuable because they're so engaged. They love the hosts. They trust the hosts. They're so targeted. But this is not you're not really getting in front of the masses. There's a couple obviously shows that are gigantic, but in terms of interview shows that we book our clients on. And they're seeing great results from its generally mid-range shows. And a thousand listeners per episode is a lot.

[00:07:34] It's it's a lot. In fact, that was listening to, you know, I host with Libsyn. You know, there's other places. They have a podcast every every couple of weeks. And they give their figures and they said, if you get a hundred, the last one I remember hearing, if they get 100 hundred and if you get one hundred and forty two downloads over the first 30 days, you're doing better than 50 percent of the twenty thousand podcasts they host. So a hundred thirty two downloads per episode over thirty days, not even right as it's dropped. So. So you can make pretty quick inroads if you work this.

[00:08:13] Absolutely. And it's you really do have to work it. It takes a lot of commitment. And I think that's why the people who are so successful with their either their own podcast or guesting. It's because they really commit because it takes a lot of commitment. And I'm sure you've seen as we have, a lot of people will start podcasts and then they'll kind of pod fade. And because it's just it's a lot of work. If you're not passionate about it and committed to the strategy.

[00:08:38] Yeah, and it's even more work to do a quality podcast with quality sound. And you know, there's certain places you can't get in. If if the sound quality is good, like for instance, Amazon Alexa has very strict rules on your sound quality and some people just throw something up on some of the services that like in the next fifteen minutes I could start a new podcast on my cell phone and be out there. But it would sound like crap. And you know, you really you're competing with high quality audio with the better ones. So if you take a little time and do a better job, you'll get more attraction for sure.

[00:09:17] Absolutely. And I love that you. I love the email you sent me to be a guest on your show and you really spelled it out clearly, like make sure you have headphones, make sure you have a microphone. If not, let's schedule it for a time when you do. Right. It's so important. And guests who go on podcast need to understand that, too, because they need to have quality audio as well to support the host and support the show.

[00:09:40] Yeah. Because for instance, I hate to admit this, but I have personally edited all 200 shows or two or three. And when the guest comes on with crap sound and and a lot of even verbal mistakes like lip smacks and audible breaths, things like that, I got to edit them out. And so it increases my editing time enormously. And it's like, do I want to ever have them back? No. So it's it's really important to do a good job on both ends of the podcast spectrum. So tell us more about how your your company works.

[00:10:23] Sure. So we work with seven and eight figure entrepreneurs primarily who want to use podcast guesting as a revenue stream for their business. So some of our clients have their own podcast, which is great because then they really get what it takes to be a good guest. But a lot of them don't have their own show and they want to be out there on a podcast a week or more without producing their own show. So they're leveraging other people's audiences and bringing value to other shows and also obviously growing their thought leadership. Getting new leads and new clients.

[00:10:58] Well, I can I can tell just from my perspective is that it's if they want to have their own show, it's a good idea because it opens up a lot of avenues to reach people who couldn't reach. For instance, I'm only accepting guests that have a reciprocal podcast that I can be on because I got enormous number of guests because of my connection with the professional speaking industry. So I got thousands of people with big mouths talk anytime you want. So but having your own versus having my podcast, let me get into a whole industry that I was trying to tackle just by offering to interview some of the leaders of the industry. And within a couple weeks, I'm speaking at their big conferences from having your own podcast. So if you have both, that's the gold standard.

[00:11:52] Absolutely. And what you're saying about, you know, networking with the guests you have on is so important, because I think people get really focused on the audience, which, of course, is important.

[00:12:03] But one of the biggest ROIs we see our clients have are these strategic partnerships. They form with the hosts who shows they're going on. So the audience is almost an added bonus because that relationship with the host is so amazing and can turn into so many cool things for their business.

[00:12:20] Yeah, it kind of worries me with you because you're probably going to stick with a bunch of cats that I'm going to fall in love with and then we'll never get rid of.

[00:12:31] That's What I'm known for.

[00:12:32] Will you foster this just for three days and then three years later, I'm taking the cats to the vet in the park. And so. So tell us a little bit more about your your work with animals.

[00:12:46] So animals have been my passion forever. I'm an only child my parents always had. So but yes, I've always been passionate about animals. My mom is a big animal lover and I've been getting involved. I've been taking home pets without my parents explicit permission for a really, really long time and basically running a rescue out of my house. And then when I was in college, I was living in a dorm so I couldn't take pets back. So I but I was still involved in rehoming because people would just that you get a reputation and people that know to come to you. Right, have an issue like, oh, they can't keep their pet or there's some type of emergency. And so from my dorm room, I was placing pets in foster care with, you know, like my friends' parents that I could find them a new home. So it's it's definitely my passion. I have my own pets, of course. And actually, my partnership with Jessica for Interview Connections is based on a cat rehoming.

[00:14:10] Oh wow. A whole business came out of this.

[00:14:14] It really did. So what happened was Jessica and I worked together. We worked door to door fundraisers for an environmental group, which if you can do that, you can do basically anything that is the best sales training ever. So we we you know, we worked together for probably like nine months, not that long. We lost touch. I moved to Asia I was traveling all over the world, just got married. She had kids. We had lost touch. But we were still connected on Facebook. And when my dad passed away in 2015, I was living in Asia and I was faced for the first time where I needed people to rehome pets because I needed people to come foster his pets until I could get back to the US. And he had a lot of pets, a lot of whom I had were my fault. Like I hadn't taken any pets, kind of left them with my parents. So I take responsibility for that. But I did a post about it that I was looking for people who could come pick up a cat and foster until I could get back to the US and Jess reached out to me and said, Hey, I'll foster a cat. So she came. She picked up my dad's cat kitten and actually ended up adopting cat and she still has her and she's doing great. I know they know about the Fosters are kind of like, quote unquote. Right. But and that's how we got really close. And then she started interview connection. She had contractors. I actually in Screw the commute, you know, mentality. I really wanted to work remotely and kind of didn't care what I was doing. And I saw that she was hiring contractor booking agents. I was living in Colorado at the time. And I was like, wow, I'd love to, you know, stay home with my pets in my pajamas and work remotely. And so I started as a contract booking agent, became the first employee, and now I'm 50 percent co owner. But the whole thing was really built on cats and not wanting a commute.

[00:16:08] Perfect. Yeah. I was telling you earlier about my Iamnotapoodle.com website where we we adopted a Bichon Frise because in my retreat center here in Virginia Beach I needed something. That was what they call when they they don't shed kind of like hypoallergenic because the guests can be allergic and so forth. So so we adopted one, adopted another and then we got known for adopting little white dogs. And then I I get a call from Norfolk, Virginia Rescue or no ASPCA. And they have this thing they say I do. We don't know what this is.

[00:16:50] And and it's blind incontinent And that had been kicked where it's it's breastplate was broken and grew back in crooked. And some guy wanted to have it euthanized. And I said, I'll euthanize you. Give me that dog. And it wasn't a Bichon. It was a poodle. And I was blind. And incontinent, I said, give me that thing. And it was so loving it. I had to put a sheet around me and tie it to me for two weeks because I couldn't get any work then because it would moan if you weren't holding it. And then then we we learned how to handle a blind dog. So we got essential oils and put a different essential oil on the baseboard of different rooms so the dog would know where it was, you know. And so that was a little pixie. And she lasted she lasted a few good years before she she went to doggy heaven. So, yeah, totally, totally into it. So let's let's take you back to when you were a little girl. Were you entrepreneurial then?

[00:17:48] Yes, I was. I mean, I didn't think of it as entrepreneurial because I was just always trying to make money. Now I realize that it was entrepreneur.

[00:17:58] What age, what age and what you do.

[00:18:01] Oh, a lot of things. So I would say like as early as 3, I remember making things like and they were good like I would like take a pipe cleaner and make it into like a twirly shape. And then I would be like, Mom, will you buy this for a quarter? These all have a dollar. And she was like, well, I don't think anyone would want to buy those. So because it doesn't have any use. And then another time, I think I was also three or four. At that point, you know, kids don't have that moral compass that you developed later.

[00:18:37] We hope that they develop later.

[00:18:41] So in theory, they like I came home from I was probably three or four. I came home from pre-school and I had money. And my mom was like, well, why do you have money? And I was like, oh, we'll call him Eric. You know, I knew something that Eric wanted to know. So I said, you know, give me five dollars and I'll tell you.

[00:19:04] You're a consultant. You were a pre-school consultant.

[00:19:07] I know. But my parents were like, oh, my God, she's selling secrets. They were like, horrified. And I was really surprised because I was like, no, I did great. I got this money. He's happy. He's got the information. I've got this money. But they were like, horrified.

[00:19:22] What kind of information?

[00:19:24] I don't even remember. It was like some secret that he wanted to know about. I think it was probably pretty harmless. But, yeah.

[00:19:34] All right. So then what? Where'd you move from there.

[00:19:38] So that's a good question. I had a landscaping business with my best friend that lasted about a day because I don't like landscaping at all. But it was called. Thank you very mulch.

[00:19:53] That's good.

[00:19:55] And then from there, I would say I think the door to door fundraising was really what kind of put everything together for me entrepreneurially because I realized that spending four and a half hours knocking on strangers doors and asking them to write me a check often in the middle of dinner was something that I was really, really good at and really, really enjoyed. And I found I was connecting with people. And it was just wonderful that it was a great experience. And you have to be kind of a freak to loves that work. Yes. Right. So that was that was a realization I should have. Oh, I'm an entrepreneur.

[00:20:34] You should have sold them a vacuum cleaner. Also, while you were there.

[00:20:38] I know. A little upsell. If I had known then what I know now, I brought it upsell.

[00:20:42] Ok. So. So let's talk about your company and so growing from Jessica to you as a 50 percent partner, but then adding 12 people. Are they contractors or are they employees or are they remote? How does. How did you grow that?

[00:20:59] That's a great question. So when Jess started out, it was just her and then she started hiring part time contractors. And then I was hired on as a contractor in twenty seventeen. We changed the model. And this was a very bold move. We got rid of all the contractors and changed it over to only using in-house W2 employees. So our team is all in person and there are employees, not contractors.

[00:21:27] All right. Why would you make such a move when that would dramatically increase your expenses with payroll taxes?

[00:21:34] Great question. Yes. And they also I mean, they have health insurance, they have PTO. So the expenses are much higher on employees, but they are much better in many ways. And because we have a high end service, we really needed to control quality control, make sure everyone is getting the same great experience. We needed everyone to be working, you know, Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 5:00 with a contractor. You legally can't tell them when to work.

[00:22:02] So we needed more control in order to keep up leveling the service and improving it so that investment in employees was really worth it for us. And now we invest so much in developing our team and developing our agents were constantly doing trainings we're promoting. So it's been wonderful. It was absolutely the right move. But that first year, the changeover was very challenging.

[00:22:27] Yeah, you are correct in saying that's a bold move because I recently went the other way, took a lot of full time employees and and made them contractors. So this is these are big things and that the both of your young ages. That was a pretty big, pretty big move in the first year. So what what was the first year way tight financially because of it?

[00:22:54] Yes. I mean, it wasn't terrible. We were still profitable, but. So the business. In 2013, it was the beginning of twenty seventeen when we got rid of all the contractors and there was a seven to 10 contractors at that point, it was a pretty big team and then started hiring in-house employees. So yes, there was a lot of upfront expenses and then we also needed to have a big office space. So then there was expenses associated with that. So, yes, we definitely had to invest that year, but it has been very much worth it in the years following in what we've been able to do and how we've been able to scale, because that infrastructure is so solid and it's definitely not the right fit for everyone. Like what you're saying that sounds like going in the opposite direction was perfect for you. Not every business needs in-house employees like this, but for us it really was the right fit.

[00:23:50] Yeah, it makes sense. I keep thinking, oh boy. But her accounting fees went up tremendously too. With that kind of move.

[00:23:58] Yes, absolutely. We have an amazing accountant tax plan or remote CFO who is in Rhode Island actually who works with us. And he's wonderful. So he handles that. And we also have a remote H.R. person, because when you have a number of employees, you want to make sure you have someone in H.R. who's writing the handbook and who you can call when stuff comes up. And stuff will come up.

[00:24:22] All right. So tell tell us how a person would actually work with your company, how it works.

[00:24:28] Yes, sure. Absolutely. So we have an application process because we do work with a really specific type of entrepreneur.

[00:24:37] They're all at least small 6 figures in revenue or seven or eight. We have a lot of agency owners, real estate investors and coaches and consultants. So the way that it works is when we've spoken to them and both parties have determined that it's going to be a good fit working together. We start with a discovery process. So that's where our agents really take a deep dive and make sure they fully understand who their target audience is, what their goals are for podcasts, who their peers are, if there are any deal breakers, certain types of shows that they just don't resonate with and don't want to be on. We make their one sheet with their bio and topics and talking points. And after all that discovery, work is done. And that's when we start researching and pitching and we have in-house show researchers who all they do all day is find great shows for our clients. So they're constantly expanding our database of shows. And then the agents are reaching out to those shows, sending customized pitches to pitch our clients and following up to get them booked.

[00:25:38] Yeah, that's that's great. Because, you know, there are places springing up that claim to do this. But, you know, they don't know. They don't go too deep and do like you just described them. And one thing I've found to be successful, I don't know if any of your folks do this, but I make a custom page on screw the commuter landing page for the host and tie my affiliate link to it. So I end up sending money to people that have me on the show when people buy stuff so they like that.

[00:26:12] Yes, that's I love that a lot of our clients do have landing pages setup. It really depends on their goals and their call to action. So I think landing pages are an amazing call to action for a lot of people. We do have some people, however, who have a thriving community maybe on Facebook. Sending people there is like the best call to action for them to nurture them. We also have people if they have their own podcasts, we'll have them send them right directly to their show, which can be a great way to get to know them and to keep nurturing those lead. So but yeah, I love landing pages. Absolutely. And it's so great to be able to track that, especially if you're doing affiliate stuff.

[00:26:51] Right. And speaking of Facebook pages that you have either a new one or one that's rolling for your folks.

[00:26:59] Yes, absolutely. So we have an amazing Facebook group we just started in the last few weeks and it's been growing rapidly. We're sharing Jess and I are both in there almost every day. We're going live, we're sharing helpful stuff. And we have this great insight from our clients. So stuff that they're learning on their interviews and stuff that we've learned over the last six years, we're sharing we're really excited about that. And it's been really fun to have that community, because I think that was missing for us because we're all in-house, but our clients are all over the world. So getting clients and just potential clients and leads and just people, entrepreneurs who are interested in podcasts, guesting, getting all of us together in a community has been so wonderful.

[00:27:44] So this doesn't have to be a client to get into the group.

[00:27:48] No, it doesn't have to be a client. We do have an application to get into the group because the conversation is really only relevant to multi, six, seven and eight figure entrepreneurs who are leveraging podcasting. I think if they're not quite at that point, the conversation it takes just won't be relevant to them. So we are curating it to to be a specific group of people. But yeah, absolutely, they do not need to be a client. They just need to be interested in learning how to leverage podcast guesting as part of their long term marketing.

[00:28:19] Ok. So we've got to take a brief sponsor break and we come back. We're going to ask Margy, what's a typical day look like for her and how she stays motivated. So, folks, I'm down on my knees begging you to check out a particular webinar or pass it on to someone who could use it. It has to do with higher education. Now, if you're considering considering getting retrained because you hate what you're doing or you you want a better life for yourself or your family, or maybe you have kids or nephews or nieces or even neighbors who are wondering, hey, should I burn up hundreds of thousands of bucks and then end up broke with mountains of debt and no marketable skills? I mean, I've seen MBAs competing for jobs at Starbucks. All right. So you just got to watch this webinar. I got to tell you, though, you're gonna be mad when you see it, especially if you've mortgaged your house to send your kid to a school where were average kids spend an eight hours a week total going and preparing for class. What do you think about that? They did a survey of like 2000 kids across a whole bunch of different schools. Most of the time is eating and partying and shopping. So I don't know if I'd want to mortgage my house for that. But you also see how they inflate grade point averages to make it look like the kids are smarter when the testing is shown they're actually dumber. So I don't know if I want to spend a lot of money for this. And this isn't just me hawking my school my vocational school where you can, you know, have a marketable skill in a very short period of time. It's high level education, people telling what's screwed up about the system. So I don't want that to happen to you so you can check it out and screwthecommute.com and then click on webinars. You can either watch the webinar with all the visuals or you can download the MP3 file. And then if I can help you get out of that mess and get a marketable skill and no time at all, then get in touch with IMTCVA.org and I'll be glad to talk to you about you or your child's future.

[00:30:26] All right, let's get back to the main event. Margy Feldhuhn is here and I just love her in part because of her love for animals and what she's been doing for them most of her life that I can tell. And also for her entrepreneurial spirit. And she's built, along with her partner, a nice big business that's also helping a lot of people. So. So, Margy, what's a typical day look like for you now?

[00:30:51] Good question. So I wake up. I exercise in the morning because I've realized I will not do it at the end of day.

[00:30:59] How early you get up?

[00:31:01] I do not get up that early. I get up probably 7 or 7:30. So I get up, I don't have kids, too, so I don't I. I would probably need to get up earlier if I kids. But I do have to get up at 7:00 or 7:30 to feed the dog. And then I exercise at 10:00 a.m.

[00:31:20] At the crack of noon almost. All right, great.

[00:31:24] So that's been one of the nice things about being a business owner is being able to set hours because I am not. I like to be up in the morning and exercising and doing my routine, but I do not like to be somewhere before 10:00 a.m. if possible. So Jessica and I both get into the office at 10:00 a.m. and my day can look really different depending on the day. I do a lot of the operational stuff, so I do a lot of team trainings. I do a lot of working really closely with our manager, working really closely, developing our agents. So the way my day looks can change a lot depending on how everyone's KPIs are looking, key performance indicators, the metrics that we use for our employees to determine productivity, pitch success, all that fun stuff. So working with them so it can change day to day. And then some days I'll have a podcast interview like this, which is exciting. So there's a lot of variety which I really like. I find I'm someone who gets really bored if I don't have variety, so I appreciate that. And then I leave at 4:30. And then I do work at home in the evenings as needed. So, Jess and I will both still be working on and off on the weekends and in the evenings, but those are the hours that I'm in the office.

[00:32:45] All right. So you take your dog with you.

[00:32:48] I have taken him into the office. So I thought it was so interesting. You were talking about your blind dog. And I need to try the essential oils. I have a blind dog, so I don't take him in every day because she's not always super comfortable in new places. But I have taken him into the office and he did really well. So I do love having an office dog.

[00:33:08] Devoted time is not going to bother anybody else. So it just it only needs to be like a little bit on your fingertip because the dogs can smell, you know. I don't know, a million times better than humans. So different one in each room.

[00:33:24] Yeah. That's a great idea.

[00:33:25] So the twelve employees that work there now, do you have some type of monitoring system to record their calls so for quality assurance and all that?

[00:33:36] Great question. Yes. All of our calls are recorded. We use Vonage, but most call services will do that. So all calls are recorded, all their outgoing emails are recorded in our CRM. High rise. Yeah. Yeah. We've used it forever. It's like I'm not passionate about high rise, but it's worked well for us. I know there's a lot of good services out there. But yes, we're monitoring everything. And I have multiple time blocks throughout the week where I am in high rise, looking at outgoing emails, looking at outgoing pitches, reading through them, making sure they're great and they're representing our clients well. If I catch anything, I'm talking to the agent. I'm developing them. I say, hey, I think if you rephrase this, it would be more customized or more successful to get your client booked. So we're checking that we we track there. As I said, are metrics. So the number of pitches they send out, the number of bookings they get so that I can see their success percentage. And if I see the success percentage going lower than I know, hey, these pitches aren't effective. I'm going to read through a bunch more pitches. We're going to sit down together, do a retrain. So I'm constantly monitoring performance that way and also listening to recording recorded calls. Our manager does quality assurance calls every month with every client. I listen to recordings of those. So yes, there's a lot of that.

[00:35:03] So so when you said you're reading transcripts, you're talking and you're not talking about the calls or being transcribed.

[00:35:09] Oh, no. I'm listening to the recordings of the calls. And then I'm looking at the outgoing pitch emails.

[00:35:15] I say, oh, OK. The transcripts of those now. So you're happy with Vonage? Because I've been you know, Uma Office has been bugging me to death lately. And. And I tried vonage years ago, and it was just not reliable enough. So I guess if you're using a with twelve people, you must be OK with it, right?

[00:35:33] Yeah, I like vonage. We haven't had any issue with it. I love the recording feature and it's really nice if you have a bunch of people in-house because they all have vonage desk phones. So that's been really nice.

[00:35:46] So what kind of internet connection do you have to have to handle 12/14 people?

[00:35:51] I mean, we just have like standard Verizon internet and it's very good. We don't have any issues.

[00:35:57] Is a Fios the fiber optics.

[00:36:00] Yes, I think so.

[00:36:02] Yeah, because you can buy different speeds in fact, tomorrow. I'm getting set up for the gigabit speed, which is like as fast as it comes in. And I'm going to enjoy that because, you know, we do a lot of video stuff and upload and download and that'll really increase the productivity. But but like I said, I've been considering going to some voice over IP but haven't made the jump yet. So how do you stay motivated?

[00:36:26] That's a great question. I think having a business partner helps a lot because we really balance each other out. So if one of us is hitting a wall and getting frustrated, we're never both there at the same time. So one person will be super optimistic and the other person will be like, I'm so tired. So that helps so, so much.

[00:36:47] Ever argue?

[00:36:49] Not really. No. Have you heard of the landmark forum?

[00:36:53] Sure.

[00:36:54] So we love the landmark curriculum. We did the entire curriculum, the forum advanced course and self expression and leadership together in twenty eighteen. We did the whole thing. We send our employees to the forum if they want to go. So that has been amazing because we really don't fight. There will be times where we'll get in a disagreement or a miscommunication. But we have the language that we learned in Landmark to really not instead of making up a story and saying you did this and you did it because of this being like, wow, you know, when you said this, I mean, I need this. And then it's always resolved immediately because the other person's like, oh, my gosh, that's not what I meant at all. Here's what's going on. You get in their world and then we resolve things so quickly. So that communication we've gotten from Landmark has been amazing and really integral in the business success.

[00:37:45] Well, I wonder if that works for when you're like I sit here by myself if I was arguing with myself.

[00:37:52] That's right. I think that would be good.

[00:37:57] So tell everybody again how they contact you and about the Facebook group and then and then we'll get some parting thoughts here.

[00:38:06] Absolutely. So you can find the group at InterviewConnections.com/group. Check it out. We would love to have you.

[00:38:14] That's so that's on your Web site that tells you where to go to get the Facebook group, right?

[00:38:20] Yep. It will redirect right to the Facebook group.

[00:38:23] Ok. But if they just want to consider being a client, then directly to the home page.

[00:38:29] They can go to interviewconnections.com and apply and we will schedule a consulting call with you to talk about podcast guessing as a strategy for your business.

[00:38:38] That is awesome. So you're fairly young young woman, but sounds like you have a lot of experience, especially. I didn't know about your international travel. I think what people listen is we call them screwballs. They're either either wanting to start a business or in a business and want to improve it. Give us some bird's eye view ideas of how they can be more successful in their business.

[00:39:02] I think one of the biggest things it really is personal development, landmark or books, because as a business owner, you are the source of revenue. Always you need to develop yourself and be constantly developing and getting better so that that's the only way that your business can develop and grow. So that would be my biggest thing.

[00:39:25] That's yeah. I mean, the skills can always be acquired, but that internal stuff is the one that makes you or breaks you.

[00:39:33] Yes, definitely.

[00:39:35] So thank you so much for. I'm glad we finally crossed paths and people are going to love this. We're going to go in the show notes. This is episode two hundred and three folks through to get the links to all the stuff that Margy talked about. What do you suggest, then, for animal rescue? Where would they go if they wanted more information about that?

[00:39:56] Like what groups do I love?

[00:39:58] Yeah. Mm hmm.

[00:39:59] Oh, boy, it's hard to pick, but vintage Pet Rescue is an animal retirement and hospice home in Rhode Island. That's where I got my dog from. I loved them. And they have an amazing Instagram. If you love cute pet pictures, you should follow them. And then Defenders of Animals is another group in Rhode Island that I'm really involved with and I love.

[00:40:22] Oh, yeah. And, you know, I just got reminded when you said about the pictures. So we went down and and videoed some animals, told about their personality and so forth. And they all got adopted like overnight. You know, so if anybody's out there that wants to volunteer and has video and for photography skills, that's a great way. Rather than just walking the dogs and giving them water to give him a home. That's the goal here. So if you could use those skills to make people want them, they'd be great.

[00:40:58] Yes, I love that. And I think marketing animals who needs homes is a great marketing practice for anyone. And it does help them get adopted so fast. I love that.

[00:41:08] You know, what you should have done when you were going door to door is take a couple animals with you and say here, hold this for a second. I got to go for the car and then leave. There's another angle on it, so anyway thanks, Margy. Tell Jessica I said hi. Hope to meet her one of these days. And for everybody else. We will see you all on the next episode. Catch you later.

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