441 – Marketing doesn’t have to be that hard: Tom interviews Tim Fitzpatrick

Episode 441 – Tim Fitzpatrick
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.

Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 441 of screw the commute podcast. I'm here with Tim Fitzpatrick. Now, this guy claims that in six months of business, he learned as much as he did in four years of college. And I can go along with that in his day. However, now today you could probably do it in six minutes. So the way they're doing to people now, of course, unless, of course, you're in the field of professional field of protesting, then you're kind of in a work study program. So. So anyway, we'll bring him on him and he's going to give you a bunch of ways you can plan simply for your business, for the best success and a lot of great stuff. He's been through the through the ringer and knows what he's doing. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode for 40. That was Mickie Kennedy. He is a press release expert, has a press release service. And I built my entire career long before the Internet on publicity, been on over a thousand programs, radio, TV, anything you can imagine all over the world. And I'm a big believer in publicity, but press releases are different animal now than they used to be because you can use video and audio and you're going directly to the public. So that's what we discussed on Episode 440. And of course, if you want to find a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com and then slash the episode number 440. All right. So how would you like me to send you big checks? Well, I've been in this business a long time and spent a lot of money to a lot of people because of our affiliate program. So this is where you can join and refer my products and services and get big checks. Now, we have commissions that listen to this. I hope you're sitting down anywhere from eight dollars and fifty cents up to now. Now you can stand up 5000 or so. So in everything in between. But if you the eight fifties for a lot of little stuff, but you know, you sell 100 books of mine, you get 850 bucks, you know, so, so love to send those checks out to people. So check that out and contact me if you want to get involved. All right. Grab a copy of our Automation eBook. This ebook has allowed me to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and 40000 customers without pulling my hair out. And just one of the tips, one of the tips in this book has saved me. We actually figured it out a couple of years ago, seven and a half million keystrokes, and allows me to ethically steal customers from people because they're too darn slow getting back or sitting at the beach with their feet up or hiding in what Tim calls blowhards showing you around their rented house and making you believe they own it.

So no, I take their customers because we're real and we actually take care of people in a hurry around here. So grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and pick up a copy of our podcast app while you're at it at screwthecommute.com/app. Hey, all right. You've heard me talk about my school before, but there's something very special going on right now and that we're doing a pilot program for persons with disabilities. The school is perfect for people that have physical challenges because not only can they legitimately learn from home, they can legitimately be employed from home. And of course, I've been preaching that for 23 years. But nowadays with the pandemic, everybody is like, oh, you can work from home. Yeah, yeah, I think you can. I've been doing it for actually forty four years since before the Internet, long before the Internet was around. So so yes. You can so check that out at my school at IMTCVA.org. It's the only licensed dedicated Internet marketing school in the country, probably the world license to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia.

You don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning and it's high quality distance learning as opposed to these colleges. Now that all of a sudden with the pandemic, they got to a distance learning program so they can, I don't know, rip you off from a distance rather than locally. So check it out, because we only teach hard core skills that are in high demand and we have people making money before they even graduate. So check that out at IMTCVA.org. A little later, I'll tell you how you can get a scholarship to the school and how you can participate in our crowdfunding campaign for three people with physical disabilities. And we'll be announcing that shortly. So watch for that.

All right. Let's get to the main event. Tim Fitzpatrick is an entrepreneur, business owner with expertise in marketing and business growth. And he knows business growth because he grew one business 60 percent a year. That's pretty serious. He's got 20 plus years of entrepreneurial experience with a passion for developing and growing businesses. He currently owns Rialto Marketing and helps service businesses simplify marketing so they can grow with less stress. Tim, are you ready to screw? The commute?

Tom. Yes, I am. I said screw you. Screw the commute a long time ago.

Yeah, I love it. And, you know, my my bio looks like B.S. to people because when you when you're not sitting in traffic making somebody else rich, you can live like two or three lives. Yeah, that's that's right. So what I'm confused about is you went to college and then you got into this wholesale marketing thing, but it wasn't clear to me. I've been checking up on you exactly how that happened. How did you get in from graduating college to a business that then you grew by 60 percent and this was back when flat screen TVs were 15 grand?

Yes, yes. How did you do it? The short answer is nepotism.

Oh, that's always a handy thing.

The answer is when I saw my dad had been a manufacturer's rep in the consumer electronics industry for a long time. And shortly before I graduated, I he had started a wholesale distribution company. There were some shifts that were happening in the market at that time and distribution served the the dealer base very, very well. They needed products just in time. And rather than buying direct from manufacturers, it made a lot of sense to buy through distribution. And when I graduated from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was a math major figured, hey, math is applied in all kinds of different business aspects. I'm just going to do that and I'll figure out what I'm going to do later. When I got out of college and my dad had no full time employees in the company at that point. And I said, look, let me let me help you for the summer. I know you need some help. While I figure out what I want to do, I can interview some person jobs and figure it out. And he said, sure. So, you know, I work for the summer and after three months I was like, listen, I don't know if you'll have me. I don't want to go anywhere else because I love this. I'm having so much fun. I'm learning a ton. And he said, yeah, I would love to have you doing a great job. So that was that. And I was so I was the first full time employee and I manage the company on a day to day basis. We had some other partners that were involved in the company, but, you know, so I worked with them from a strategic standpoint. But day to day, I was the person there that was running the ship. And that's how that's how I got started.

And you made it grow by 60 percent a year and then it got acquired.

Yeah, we got acquired in 2005, and there was certainly a lot of things that that fell into place there, I think. I certainly can't take all the credit and anybody that takes all the credit is full of it because there's all kinds of things beyond our control.

Yeah, I mean, I'm to take some of the credit for it since you're giving it out. So, yeah,

We got into the business at a good time. Like you said, when, when I got involved, flat panel televisions, 50 inch Fujitsu plasma television was fifteen thousand dollars, you know. So obviously there's been a lot of price compression in the market since then, but it was a very good time to be in the business. And we ended up. Partnering, really, we had very strong relationships with other distributors like ourselves in other markets, and we ended up partnering with. Other distributors, so that we could form nationwide access and nationwide distribution into the market we were serving, which was very which was a very fractured market, it was hard. It was a hard market for four manufacturers to call on. And so when we partnered together, we were able to go to a lot of manufacturers and say, hey, if you want a nationwide instant access into this market, we can offer it to you. And it was it was right place, right time. And we ended up picking up a lot of really strong product lines to sell because of that. And that was that fueled our growth for a long time.

And I love the fact that there were people like you and still are in the world. Would I want any part of it? Absolutely not. When I could sell electrons and not worrying about dropping a 15 thousand dollar TV, I'm thrilled to death about it. So. So you got out of that and then you got into a business that let me let me characterize it that I think you hated it. Real estate and you had. Well, it cracked me up, as I heard you talking about this on other podcasts. You had a mentor that had been hit for a year and a half of twenty seven years online. And I'm a mentor, but a year and a half. But but you didn't like the real estate stuff?

I did not like it. It was not it was not my thing

Because everybody is like, oh, real estate. Real estate. This and that. But and I have real estate. But I don't want anything to do with it.

Yeah. I think, you know, it's a great profession for some. For me it was not as you just mentioned, I still I love real estate from an investment standpoint, but it was not my thing for my day to day work,

Let's put it that way. Yeah. And especially with a very experienced mentor of a year and a half.

Well, what I'll tell you, he he was killing it. He was doing amazing work in the short sale and foreclosure space, which, you know, in 2010 was a very hot market. And I learned a ton from him. And I was constantly putting myself outside my comfort zone, which which pushed me. And I learned a ton to it.

Yeah, well, that's good. But I mean, he was killing it. But, you know, you weren't you said you were doing more work than you ever did for less money.

I was. I was. And I was you know, I was door knocking foreclosures. I was knocking on people's doors who were about to go into foreclosure. And, you know, I was I had some success, but it was not where it needed to be. And I just felt like I was spinning my wheels.

Well, I'm glad you got out of that, because we need you in the in the marketing space. And and you said the marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. Tell us about that. Why? You know, I know from being in this forever that every day something new comes out then and it's easy to get distracted for people. So how do you simplify this for your clients?

Yeah, Tom and I'm sure you see this. When when I was in distribution, there was not I mean, marketing was primarily offline with just coming out, they were more like informational brochures online. Now, there's so many different marketing channels, there's so many different tactics. There's no shortage of the latest gurus pitching the latest thing that you must do if you want to be successful. I just find that so many people are battling information overload when it comes to marketing. And when they're in that place, they're just overwhelmed. And when you're overwhelmed, you can't create a plan. But if you don't have a plan of what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. Everything looks like an opportunity, and so people just end up chasing the next shiny object and then they chase the next shiny object and they just never get traction. And to me, the way you simplify marketing and eliminate the difficulty that so many people have is you've got to take it back to the fundamentals first. And to me, the fundamentals are you've got to know who your target market is. You have to have great messaging that's clear and engaging for that market. And you have to have a plan of how you're going to get that message in front of that audience. And when you've got that plan in place, you know where your priorities are. So you know what you're going to focus on. And when you have you when you know what your priorities are, you have clarity. And when you have clarity, you start to you eliminate stress. When we're not clear about what we need to do, that's when stress starts to become a problem. And, you know, we can't make progress.

Well, how do you how do you build in flexibility into a plan? Because, you know, I've been around a long time. You've been around a long time, too. I remember MySpace when it was the end all be all head, that somebody focused their plan only on MySpace, that they're going to run into a wall at a point. And yes. So how do you help people build flexibility in without running for every shiny object?

Yeah, the so the plan we use is a 90 day marketing plan.

Ok, good.

Six steps. It's so it's the thing I love about 90 days is it's long enough to start seeing whether you're gaining traction, but it's short enough where you can make adjustments and course corrections and then continue moving forward or quit.

If it's a total bust then you've only lost 90 days.

Right. You know, but see, the problem is a lot of people try things and they don't give it long enough.

Oh, I totally am into that. I know. You know,

So you have to give it enough time. And if you do, then you can start to make those corrections. But, you know, I mean, I talk about it all the time. You know, people spend money on a year long marketing plan or longer and they're just too complex there. And when they're things are complex, we just don't implement. Well, you know, if we had spent thousands of dollars on a year long marketing plan last January, you know what would have happened for most of us come March? You know what? We would have burned it and it would have been a total waste of time. So let's keep it simple.

Yeah, like I said, I think that guy that wrote in Search of Excellence, I think this was the guy that said, you know, you're crazy for making a long term strategic planning because, you know, by the time, you know, what you were going after is obsolete and there's new stuff that hasn't even been invented yet. So he's in favor of short term plans to.

There's just too many there's too many unknowns when you start looking longer term. So let's focus on sprints and making adjustments and course corrections and then sprinting again, I just find it works so much easier and it's much more digestible for people to use. And they end up making more progress because. They actually do what's in the plan. Mm hmm.

They'll tell us about your storytelling, marketing. You seem to really enjoy that. And the what's the what's the details of that?

Yes, we use we use a storytelling framework to help clients create messaging. You know, what they're going to say and how they're going to say.

This is part two of your plan, that we're kind of going backwards a little bit.

Yeah, it's OK. We're working our way back. Yeah. But, you know, with and I didn't come up with this. Right. It was popularized by a company called Story Brand by Donald Miller. But the storytelling framework that he used and he's kind of modified into the marketing world has been around for a long time. And when it was introduced to me, it just, you know, it made sense. I was like, gosh, there's so many people out there that struggle with. How to communicate their value and what they do. This just made sense to me, and when I started talking to clients about it, it made a ton of sense. And the whole premise behind the framework is, look, when you think about most stories, there's a character or a hero. They have a problem. They need a guide that gives them a plan. They call it the calls them to action, so they avoid failure and they reach success, and so we take that same framework and we use it from a marketing perspective where we're inviting the customer into a story where they are the hero and our business that is serving them is the guide.

Mm hmm. Right. Our customers, they're not looking for a hero. They're looking for a guy that knows how to solve the problem that they have and can help guide them on the steps that they need to take to get from where they currently are to where they want to go. Mm hmm. And when you use frameworks within your business. Right. It just keeps things structured. And it's something that you can go back to systematically so that you don't miss things. I think too many people with their messaging, they make it hard for people to understand what they do. OK, and if we confuse people, we're going to lose them, and the second thing they do with messaging is they focus too much on themselves and our customers don't they don't care about us. They care about what we can do for them. How can we help them? And when you use this framework, it really steers you in the direction of focusing what you're saying on the customer and not yourself. You're only talking about yourself enough to position yourself as the guide. And that's it.

Now, are you putting them in the story or are you telling stories of other people you've helped?

No, you're putting them in the story.

Ok, give us an example of the kind of language you would use to put, say, somebody like me in a story.

Well, so.

So because it's all about me, you go, yes,

Look, I started this we started this conversation and I started talking about how we find that so many customers are battling information overload when it comes to marketing information overload. In the story that we are inviting our clients into is is the villain in the story. And when they're battling that villain of information overload, they feel overwhelmed. That's the internal problem that they have. The external problem that our clients are dealing with is they don't have a plan or they don't have the right plan, so they don't know what they what the heck they should be focusing on. Right. So that's how we're we start the way we invite people into the stories, talking about the problems that they're experience and what they're battling. And then from there, we can start to paint the picture of. What we can help them avoid from a failure standpoint, what consequences they can avoid and start to paint the picture of what? Success looks like what benefits are you going to experience, what results are you going to experience when you work with us? And that's what we're doing. And every time we need to create a message, whether it's for, you know, a social media campaign or an email campaign or ads that you're going to write, you come back to your playbook with this framework and you just pull the elements that you need to create a message. You're not reinventing the wheel each and every time.

Now you typically do things backwards. So your three fundamental marketing secrets were target messaging and plan. So we talked about plan we backed up to. Now you just finished messaging, but both of those are worthless if you don't do number one, right? Yes, they are. Tell us about number one,

The number ones, your target market, which is, you know, who are you going to serve and how are you going to serve those people?

And most of are all over the place.

Yes. Two broad. Right. And unless, you know, the example I always bring up is Amazon. Right. Because people look at Amazon today, go, my gosh, they target damn near everybody. But they didn't start out that way. Amazon was an online book retailer.

I remember their ads, the radio ads when they first started. It was like the biggest bookstore in the world. It was something, that kind of thing

That was their niche. Right. And once they nailed that niche, then they started to expand out from there. And now they're so large. That's great. They have plenty of money to do that. But most small businesses do not have the money that they need to target broadly. You have to focus. And when you when you end up focusing on those people that you're you're going to serve, it becomes so much easier to, one, understand them and the problems that they have. And when you understand them, well, it makes it that much easier to create messaging. That's going to be clear and engaging. But the other thing that it allows you to do is start to identify where they are. If I'm going to target, you know, specialize in serving chiropractors, right, well, knowing that fact, I can now start to enter the conversation that they're having in their head as it relates to what I do. But I can also start to create a list of where are they? Where are they online? Where are they offline? What associations do they belong to? What people do they follow online? What podcasts do they listen to? What email list are they on? What associations? And as I create that list, I am creating a list of all the potential places that I can start to be to get my message in front of that, those chiropractors.

And then as a spinoff of that, you're bringing in higher quality leads. Right? I know you're really helping people do that because you've already it's easy, easier to convert somebody when you know all about them than if you just don't know about.

Yes. When you know all about them. Your messaging is much clearer, much more engaging to that audience. And because of that, you attract more leads. You convert more leads. So we've got to you know, some people say you've got to go super narrow and really deep.

I think you could go broke by the time you get done with that, too. Yeah.

If it's too there to go, I think you need to go narrow enough where you can start to. You're I think you're narrow enough when you communicate a message to that target market and they say, oh, Tom's talking to me or Tim's talking to me, if they can if they can relate to what you're saying, I think in most cases you've gone

Deep enough and both of us are talking to them. One of us is going to get them right. So. So how did you come up with the marketing hourglass? What was that all about?

Well, so the marketing hourglasses, something I did not come up with that it was the marketing hourglass was a creation from from John Jantz over a duct tape marketing super smart guy. He's been in in small business marketing for I don't know how many. Thirty plus years, something like that. But the concept of the marketing hourglass is how he has described the buyer's journey. And so when we talk about the buyer's journey from a marketing standpoint, we're talking about that experience that a prospect has from the moment they think about working with a company like yours all the way through, buying and doing repeat and referral business. And so we all know what an hourglass is, right? You've got the sand and then you flip it over in the sand at the top and it slowly works its way down, back down to the bottom. And with the John talks about the buyer's journey in seven phases. So you starting at the top, the beginning of the buyer's journey or the beginning of the hourglass, you have no, like, trust. Try by repeat and refer. So many people look at the buyer's journey as a funnel and the thing I love about the hourglass is down at the bottom of the hourglass, you've got repeat and referral business, which repeat and referral business is incredibly important to every business.

So if you really if you only look at the buyer's journey as a funnel, I think you're missing a really important half of the equation. And that's why I love how John has positioned it. But when you think about marketing and what the job of marketing is, to me, it's it's getting someone who has a need or a problem you can solve to know, like and trust you. And when we get when our marketing helps people get to know they can trust us right then. Then it's so much easier for them to raise their hand and say, yeah, I'd like to try and then I'd like to buy and then I want to do repeat and referral business. So when we look at the buyer's journey or the marketing hourglass, what we're doing is looking at each of these phases and we start to identify, hey, what are the expectations and the actions that our prospects and customers are taking at each of these phases. And then what can we do at each phase to meet those expectations, to address those needs? And when we can meet needs at each phase, we can logically just help people move through the buyer's journey in a very strong and efficient fashion.

Now, they can help you with this, right? Because I think you're a proponent of client interviews. Tell us about that.

Yes, so client interviews are it's a tool that we use when we're starting to work with clients on the fundamentals, super important from a messaging standpoint, but it's also oftentimes we as business owners have a very hard time articulating our value and what we do and why we're different, because we can't see the forest through the trees were so in our business, it's difficult to think objectively about it. But when you sit down and interview past and current clients that are ideal clients for you. The information that you can gain from that is invaluable, even if you were to sit down and have a conversation with eight to 10 of your clients and you ask them questions like what was the problem that you had when you started before you started working with us? How did you find us? You know, what's what terms did you search for? What have you loved about working with us? What what about working with us is different than anybody else that you've worked with in outer space, you know, things like that where you can just start to get into their head and they can help you understand what makes you so valuable. Man, you can take that information and just turn it around, and that's it's one of the things that really can help you get in the head of your ideal clients.

Exactly. Exactly. So great. Great information so far, folks. We've got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask Tim, what's a typical day look like for him as he's screwing the commute, which he's been doing for a long time. So that's why I like it. So, folks, about 23 years ago, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head. And the people at my level were charging like 50 or 100 grand up front to teach you what they knew. And I knew a lot of these guys. You give them 50 grand up front, never see them again, take off with it and not even help you. So I thought, man, this is this is not right. And, you know, I've been selling on the Internet since it started in 1994. And I thought, you know, that's just not right to put small business people in that position. So I turned everything upside down, made them all mad by just Chargin, I don't know, about 10 percent as an entry fee into the program. And then I tied my success to their success. So for me to get my 50 grand, they had to make 200 grand. Well, people really like this and they still do because seventeen hundred plus students later in 23 years, it's still going strong.

It's the longest running, most successful, most unique mentor program ever. And I have no trouble saying that because, you know, I triple dog dare people to put their programs up against mine and what they can do for people. So, for instance, you have unlimited one on one tutoring with me and my entire staff. Well, what does that mean to you? Well, you're not lumped in with people that are too advanced and you're lost. And if you're advanced, I can talk to you at your level and not make you bored while I'm talking to a beginner. So they said nobody, nobody at my level even talked to you at all, let alone help you do anything. A quite a quite a fanatic. Then you have an immersion weekend where people come in from all over the world to study Internet marketing in the lap of luxury at the big Internet marketing retreat center. So you come here, you're immersed, you live in the the state with me. We have a TV studio. We shoot marketing videos for you, edit and put the graphics on form, you know, so these are things you just can't get anywhere else. Plus you get a scholarship to the school I was telling you about earlier, which you can either use yourself or gift to someone else.

And we have one guy gifted to his daughter. She's four months in the school. She's making six thousand dollars a month as a side hustle. All right. So this is stuff that you just cannot get anywhere else. And I'm a crazy fanatic and you know, I'm not going to disappear on you because I won't get my degree. So I want my 50 grand. So anyway, check that out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com, and I'm very accessible. Who can talk about your future online? And also, the school would be such a legacy gift for grandchildren, nephews, nieces or your own kids because it's actual skills that are in high demand by every business on Earth. So you can either work for somebody else, start your own business or both. And so we have plenty of people that have done it already. All right. So check it out.

Let's get back to the main event. Tim Fitzpatrick is here from Rialto Marketing. And we want to see what a typical day looks like for him. But before I hear about that, I want to hear about the name. How did you get the name?

Great question. Two reasons. One, my wife and I started our honeymoon in Venice where the Rialto Bridges.

So, OK, that's one.

The second is when you when you think about bridges, I think they are symbolic of getting you from where you currently are to where you want to go. And I see marketing is doing that for for business owners, you know, without you can have the best product or service in the world. But if you don't have marketing bringing in leads and customers, then none of it matters for sure.

And the dumb joke about Venice is really stupid. It's so dangerous in Venice, you can't walk down the streets anymore. So if you didn't get that, folks, you probably went to a four year college. So. So what's a typical day look like for you?

Typical days, I the way I structure my weeks typically is Monday and Fridays are our planning days or days.

Ok, hold on. Not just business. Tim, do you have like a morning routine like of. We'll talk about. Tell us about that.

Yeah. So my days, my weekdays I get up at five o'clock. Wow. OK, I've always been an early riser. I am married, I have two kids, two dogs. Five to seven o'clock is like the only quiet time. And so I get up at five o'clock, I meditate for ten to 15 minutes and then I exercise for about 45 minutes to an hour. And that's how I start my day is it gets me in the right frame of mind. I get the blood flowing a little bit and then I have breakfast and and start my day. So that's how I start every every weekday. And then from there I'll get into to doing my work where

The kids home from school because of the pandemic and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, they have. And you know, I'm fortunate to have enough space in the house where, you know, we all have dedicated space. So that's been that's been OK. And we're able to work through that, you know, because you got to have you've got to have quiet time. But, yeah, you know, from there, I you know, I usually leave the mornings open to focus on the important things that I need to do to to move the needle. I would say some days I'm better at that than others. But if, you know, if you let the the tyranny of the urgent get in the way of the important, you never going to. Have success, so I try and block out the mornings to focus on what I need to and then in the afternoons. I'm doing things like this, interviews, client work, client meetings, prospekt course, those types of things. So that's that's sort

Of do you have a staff or doing this on your own?

I have three remote people that work with us. They are all overseas, OK? And but, you know, they're so they're contractors, but they're you know, they work for for us full time. And, you know, I treat them like they were their employees because in my mind, they are all in the same country.

I have two in the Philippines and one in Croatia.

Yeah, because we were total big proponent of the Philippines. Yeah. But never, never tried Croatia.

Yeah, there's really what I found is the Philippines, when people in the Philippines work very, very hard, there's some very talented people there.

They speak better English than I do.

Some of them do. They speak very good English. So and their work ethic is is very, very good. Eastern Europe. There are some really, really qualified people in Eastern Europe. You, especially from a technical standpoint, so I actually when I hired the. Person that I have the lives in Croatia is our project manager and client support person. And when I hired him, it was actually right is the pandemic was hitting and I hired him from through a website called Job RACT You. Phenomenal website, highly recommended, if you are looking at hiring people from Eastern Europe, use it. They made it so easy for me and there's tons of qualified people on there. So when I need to hire somebody from that area again, I will definitely. Using them again,

Yeah, so yeah, so we've had a lot of success with the Philippines, I mean, the last person I had doing writing for me was was an executive director of a bank who was on maternity leave and just desperate for something to do is her. And I didn't pick this amount. She was getting a dollar seventy for an hour and just thrilled to do so. And she was just brilliant. Of course, after a maternity leave, she went back to the bank. But but yeah, we've had great success with them. And they don't try to rip you off there. They don't even want to be in business. If you know their culture in the Philippines, they're like if they told their friend that they they wanted to start their own business, their friends would be like, what's wrong with you, you crazy? But it's really cool to have a foreign boss. So they they don't want to lose that job. Sure.

Yeah, I, they just they want stability and they want full time work and something that they can take some meaning from. And I think I think the biggest mistake people make when they hire remotely is they just they look at it as you know, oh, I'll hire this person. And if it doesn't work out, no big deal. And most people I shouldn't say most when things fall through, it's because they just they don't treat people properly. You know, it's like I mean, there are people to just because they're live, you know, multiple countries away doesn't mean that you shouldn't be treating them like any other human being.

Well, also, it's really important to learn their culture like. Yes, like I failed miserably and I treat everybody nice. But I didn't understand the culture in the Philippines until I took some training on it. And I found out about what's called the 13th month. Yes. And just bringing that up when I was talking to people, they like their whole eyes, like lit up, oh, my God, this guy is not going to cheat us in December. And also that does have a heavy Asian influence in the concept of losing face. And so they don't want to admit that they can't do anything. And so if you ask them to do something, then they can't do it. They've been known to just disappear because it's embarrassing doing so. So I treated them like kid gloves, like I know I'm going to teach you how to do this. It's going to be a good learning experience. Don't worry, you know, and then they stuck with me longer because they didn't they didn't have to feel embarrassed. So just a lot of cultural things. I don't know about Croatia, but if I was going to hire somebody, I would go learn about the culture wars and you'll have much greater success.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's, you know, just having an open line of communication, you know, and making.

Speaking of communication, how do you communicate with them?

What what I communicate to one I use loom like a screen capture software. Yeah, I don't even know how many times a day. It's a lot. Loom is a life saver, but then we communicate through our project management software. I have a staff meeting with them every couple of weeks. So we're communicate even though we don't, you know, sit there and pick up the phone. We communicate daily. And I just I find that video is video and screen capture is such a is a much easier and quicker way to communicate so many times. I mean, if I had to sit down and type out an email like that, it would take me, you know, 30, 45 minutes, whereas I can just say it and show people exactly what I need done on the screen. It's just so much more effective.

Yeah, I've been using that camp since it began around the year 2000, like twenty one years, and I use it for a lot of other things too. I do affiliate marketing with it where I show a software and then they have to, you know, click through my affiliate link to buy the software, to be able to do what I showed them on the The Campagna and then also for new hires. Instead of saying the same stuff all the time, I just say, watch these campaigns are videos and then I don't have to sit there and hold their hand through basic stuff. So that's just really a great, great tool. And Loom is like the email version, right?

Yeah, I guess you could put it that way, I don't you know, it's all cloud based. I mean, I've got you know, I do have a desktop app, but there's also a Chrome plug in.

Yeah, I think Blue makes it easy to transmit. The video camp is great at capturing screen capture, but and there's a lot of other things. But yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about Lub now you got some giveaways for folks. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking about that, Tom I we put together some resources to help your listeners with some of these fundamentals that we talked about today. So if they go to our website at RialtoMarketing.com/screw-the-commute. There's a ton of stuff there, you know, the the marketing plan template we use the Customer Insight survey you asked me about, you know, the messaging framework template that we use. All that stuff is right there. They can take advantage of it if they get it run into some roadblocks as they start to work on this. Just click to get a free consultation and be happy to sit down and chat for a few minutes and help you push through those those roadblocks to help you get to where you want to be beautiful.

We'll have that. That's Rialtomarketing.com/screw-the-commute. And of course, that'll be in the show notes. All you have to do is click on it and go take advantage of all those great things Tim's provided. So, Tim, thanks so much for coming on and giving us these really great insights.

Thanks so much for having me, Tom. It's been fun.

Ok, everybody, we will catch you on the next episode. Get over there and click on the link for Rialto Marketing. Catch ya later.

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