649 – Find your sponsor match: Tom interviews Richelle Futch

Episode 649 – Richelle Futch
[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, is Tom here with Episode 649 and Screw the Commute podcast? I'm here with Richelle Futch as part of Vetpreneur Month here on Screw the Commute podcast. Every September, we highlight our and we just fall in love with our veteran entrepreneurs. But really, we're honoring all veterans in the month of September here and screw the commute. This is my favorite military spouse, Marine veteran of all time. And she actually got me invited to the White House when it was good to visit the White House. I want to go there now, but we'll bring her on to minute. So I hope you to miss Episode 648 That was Patrick Burt and he's from what I would call a younger generation. And he renewed my will to live because he's not an idiot like some of the younger people coming up nowadays. He's doing big things at his young age and he's a marine veteran. So anytime you want to reach a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash and then the episode number that was 648 and Richelle here is 649. All right. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book. Just one of the tips in this book has saved over 8 million keystrokes for me. And the little mechanism that did that cost 20 bucks one time years ago. It's beautiful. And then that's just one of tons of automation techniques I teach you so that you can spend time with prospects and customers and developing products and services rather than fighting with your computer. It's got cell phone and tablet tips and all kinds of stuff in there. So pick that up. It's screwthecommute.com/automatefree and pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screwthecommute.com/app. You can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:02:22] All right. Let's get to the main event. Richelle Futch is a Marine Corps veteran and she is modest and says that she's a military spouse, but she was THE military spouse of the year at Fort Bragg. And so I don't want to downplay that because that's a darn big deal. And she's also a mental health counselor, and I think she wanted to be on the show because she thought I needed it. But I think we're having her on anyway. She's got 18 years of clinical experience. Again, it's hard to believe with her little baby face. They're working with government agencies as well as in private practice. And she's the founder of Her Ruck, which I had to ask her what that meant. And probably everybody listening to this can knows what that's that meant. She's provided speaking and training opportunities. I mean, it has has provided her speaking and training opportunities to serve military and first responder families all around the world. And she's also the co founder of and CEO of Sponsor Match. It's a digital marketplace that helps educate and connect sponsor seekers with sponsor providers. Richelle, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:03:41] Absolutely. Tom, always a pleasure.

[00:03:43] Yeah. Is this the third time you've been on? Maybe. Or second what?

[00:03:48] The third time, yes.

[00:03:50] Yeah. We always have great people on back. So it's been a while since we've talked to you. You're doing great things. And tell them about this. This new thing you got going.

[00:04:01] So sponsor match actually stemmed from my work with the her ruck workbooks and workshops and things like that. And Tom, you are a really big influence in that because I tell everybody what a great mentor you've been to me and thank you.

[00:04:17] I'm an influencer, huh? Maybe I should wear a bikini or something. No, I don't think that would work. But you know what? I was just thinking we probably should. You probably should explain what her Ruk is to non-military people.

[00:04:31] Absolutely. So her Ruck is basically was my signature workshop that was letting taking the mental health skills that I had out in the community and utilizing it with our military families because they're underserved. And so her book was really about the emotional weight that military spouses carry that's really going unnoticed or undiscussed. Undiscussed because we normalize stress in the military families. And then it sort of branched into just unpacking your emotional rock. So then I can work with not just female military spouses, because we do have male military spouses, we do have active duty, we have veterans, we have National Guard. And the skills really apply to all of them. It just started as her ruck because it was catchy, marketing, punchy. The riches are in the niches, they say. And so I started small in the special operations communities with other military spouses, and since then I've grown.

[00:05:27] But Ruck is a backpack basically, right?

[00:05:30] Is a military background.

[00:05:31] Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's probably why people say, well, yeah, ruck what is what is that? Yeah. So it's all the weight that you use, the metaphor of all the weight that all these different people are carrying because of the military service, correct? Right. Yeah. And that's how you got started. So so how in the heck did that lead into a sponsorship company?

[00:05:52] So you and I talked several times about what look like to get sponsors for book. I ended up with a sponsor that actually takes me and sends me to places for my workshops. It was such a great addition. It took so much off my plate because they plan the location, they mark it, they get all the people in the seats. They pay for me to show up. They even bring the lunch if there's lunch, right? So I just show up and teach and do what I'm good at. And I thought, Wow, this is amazing. There's got to be a better way to get sponsors quicker. And I was speaking with my friend Kristen Christie, who's also a resiliency speaker, global global speaker that talks about suicide prevention and resiliency. And she was looking for sponsors. And so we actually said there should be a space or a place that we could just kind of calm or a person we can go to that will help us guide us through the sponsorship process. And then we said, Yeah, let's, let's create something, let's build something. And we reached out to my friend Flossie Hall, who we were only like digital friends. So we knew, I knew of each other through like the military spouse community. And I saw an opening in her schedule, jumped on her schedule and said, I have something to pitch to you, because she has literally landed sponsorships with like Airbnb, total wine, all these partnership programs with amazing Amazon, Google, all these things that you can think of. And so she was just really this professional in this space. And so I met with her with a pitch deck, mind you to pitch her coming in to help helping found sponsor match with us.

[00:07:33] All right before you go for are you going further this is a perfect example a lot of people think you have to be a household name, Tony Robbins or or Rafael Nadal on the tennis world or, you know, know Djokovic or Maria Sharapova or somebody big to get sponsorships. You just blew that out of the water. That that lady Flossie. You know, I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but, you know, she's not a household name like a big celebrity. And she got all of those big places. So so you don't have to be a household name to pull in a lot of money from sponsorship.

[00:08:13] Absolutely. And she's such a pro and I've learned so much from her as well. And what's great about about forming a company, right. Becoming a founder is that I've had years of experience working with partnerships with other people. And what I've learned is don't seek out people in your business because you like them. Seek out seek out people that have the skills that's lacking in what you're trying to build. And and that's made a huge difference in the success of what we're building.

[00:08:44] You know, one thing about sponsorship that's such a mystery is the type of person in a big corporation that's in charge of sponsorships has like a million different titles. You never know who to contact. So how did you to figure that out for.

[00:09:02] So we are building relationships with all of those people. We're actually spending the time getting to know them. There are some competitors out there in the market and when we looked at their platforms, it's basically just a landing page with a link to somebody's LinkedIn that may or may not still work there. And they're getting tons of members in their site to have this data and this information. And so we want to do it better. And so we're actually reaching out to the companies. We're finding out we're spending all the time to actually have them in partnerships because we're solving a problem for sponsors as well. They get so many requests in that they have to funnel through them. They always have a gatekeeper that just kind of kicks you this automated rejection right back. Right. And so saying is, look, we're going to have a filtered system. We're going to make sure that people are ready and properly ready to pitch for you instead of coming at with garbage, because they get a lot of garbage if they have to send back because people know what they're doing. And so we're actually solving a problem for for the sponsors as well, let alone creating helping companies that don't think that they have those. Maybe they don't have $1,000,000 or $10,000 to create a sponsorship program or a community partnership program. We're saying, look, for as little as $100 or $500 or 1000. You can be a community partner. You can sponsor someone and let us show you what that looks like.

[00:10:23] Yeah. And shows it shows them the benefits too. Yeah. So so sponsorship is I had a the girl that did my book cover for one of my first books was pretty much, you know, just living hand to mouth. And she just put together an event for graphic artists. It was a contest, and she got like $60,000 from Apple to sponsor this graphic because they all used Apple computers, you know, so there's money out there like crazy. And we were talking before we started about how there's more money because TV and newspaper ads have tanked. So there's more. The people still have marketing budgets and they don't know where to put it. So if you put together a few, help them put together a package, your chances of success are going up all the time.

[00:11:16] Absolutely. And companies don't just want throw up my logo at your event. They actually want to interact and engage and they want to get in front of either their customers or build authority or name recognition and not just because they have a banner up. And so people need to get a lot more creative and what they're offering sponsors as well.

[00:11:37] Yeah. And if you do it right and do a good job for them, it gets so much easier to repeat, repeat, repeat with the same companies because they have a relationship with you and they know you're going to come through.

[00:11:49] And that's actually another place where sponsor seekers fail is that they don't give a lot of deliverables at the end. And so there's not really a tracking system for sponsors and the sponsor seekers once they've partnered together with what actually came out of that partnership. And so we are teaching that we're giving tools for that and it's, it's really, really amazing platform and I can't wait for it to officially launch because we're just taking beta users in right now.

[00:12:15] I know this is brand new, but have you learned from is it Flossie? You said her name was.

[00:12:22] Glossy.

[00:12:22] Glossy. Like depending on the amount of money, does that change the amount of time that it takes to from beginning to actual sponsorship?

[00:12:33] You know, every sponsor is different in how quickly that they will actually either release the funds, how long they'll work with somebody. And so it's really you have to get down to the specifics with each company. Some of them spending money in certain quarters of the year. Some of them are spending a little bit of money throughout the year. And so it really is dependent.

[00:12:54] Now, I took a grant writing course and I found out that 90% of the grant and foundation money goes to actual nonprofits. That's not the case in sponsorship. You don't have to go through all to jump through all the hoops to be a nonprofit to get sponsorships, right?

[00:13:13] Absolutely. In fact, nonprofits is such a small category that we work with. Most of it is for profit businesses. Think of athletes. Think about sports teams. Think about just small businesses that are throwing events or things like that. So there's so many different layers and aspects of sponsorship that unless you're sort of in the realm, you could get easily lost and swept away in it.

[00:13:41] Yeah, and I know this lady. She's a mommy blogger. She had all kinds of sponsorships. Now, none of them are enormous, but a lot of them are non competitive. So you can have multiple sponsorships.

[00:13:54] And you know, and we're tapping into these marketing dollars from these bigger corporations, not their philanthropy dollars. And so often sometimes maybe it is philanthropy dollars, but for the most part it's their marketing dollars. And they want to get they want to be trusted by the customers that you're serving as well.

[00:14:15] Yeah. And another thing, I don't know if you're addressing this or not, but I had technically a sponsorship, but I was a spokesperson, so I it was the easiest job I ever had. I got $100,000 from CBS. They owned one of the biggest websites in the world at the time, and I was a spokesperson for them. So I would just go and do speeches on their behalf and show their stuff. And and so that's also a thing that technically is a sponsorship. 100 grand is 100 grand for doing the things I was doing anyway.

[00:14:50] So absolutely. And you'll see that labeled a lot of times as influencer or nowadays. Yeah, yeah. I would say it's like influencer ambassadors and things like that. But yeah, isn't that a great way to do it? You're already there. You're already speaking. Hey, by the way, could you talk about us while you're there?

[00:15:07] Yeah. Yeah. And now are you going to use a lot of this stuff for your own? I mean, you're getting to know all these people. They ought to shovel some money to you.

[00:15:17] I mean, I wouldn't say no to that.

[00:15:21] And let me tell you another story about one of my students. He he had a friend that was a big executive at a big insurance company, which will go unnamed here. But this guy was doing this project for kids where he, you know, they're going to make bears. And I don't know all the details to it, but but his executive friend in this big insurance company told him to figure out of the budget how much money he needed and that the executive would help him tweak the proposal and get it to the right people. Beautiful. Right. So my student figured out he needed about $100,000 to do what he wanted to do. And so he takes it to his executive buddy and his executive buddy says, oh, man. If you don't come in at at least a quarter of a million, they won't even think you're serious. Wow. You know, these companies have more money than God. I did a speech one time for a big pharmaceutical company. They spent $1,000,000 on the lunch and I didn't get $1,000,000. But I mean, they had bands and stilt walkers and they were just courting all these doctors, you know, so. So you don't want to you've got to really be realistic with your budget and don't try to penny pinch where you can't come through, make sure there's enough money because to them it's nothing. You know, an extra ten, 20, 30,000 is nothing to a major corporate billion dollar corporation. But to you, it can mean success or failure if you don't get enough money.

[00:16:52] Right. And I think a lot of times, you know, you're getting a lot of ethical people in the door who want to provide great value to these sponsors. Right. And so they are underselling or undervaluing their offer just because they're trying to be good people. And they're saying, well, you know, this is a great opportunity. And then they don't end up with any money in their pocket from this experience. And so they're breaking even. And that's not the goal to break even when you're throwing an event or you're throwing.

[00:17:20] Things, especially with all the work involved to do it.

[00:17:22] That's your time, that's your energy, that's your expertise. And so you do want to actually make money in a for profit, right? That's what that's what you're there for.

[00:17:31] Okay. So now how is your new business structured? How do you make money? Do you get a percentage of the stuff or do they pay you for training or how does it work?

[00:17:42] So we are a membership platform we're launching with a free membership first for educational platform. And then what we'll do is we will bring in master classes and some other really specialized abilities like templates and things like that. And so we will be a membership platform. We'll also get a platform fee, we'll have a promotional products business on there. So we are going to make we're going to make money on this and we want to make sure that the people are utilizing what we're giving them so they're successful. We're only successful if they're successful because that's what's going to keep them coming back month after month to us.

[00:18:17] But do you get a percentage when they land stuff or not?

[00:18:21] When when they do, we will have a platform fee when they do the transactions on our platform.

[00:18:26] Yes. Yes. And are you going to bring in experts like me to help?

[00:18:31] I would love to. Yes, you are on my list.

[00:18:35] You know, I'll do anything I can for you and your your group. Boy, this is such an interesting thing because you're a mental health expert for 18 years and you're doing just the straight thing that really I mean, there's I'm sure there's a lot of psychology to it. There's going to be a lot of mindset of the people that, like you said, they're going to undervalue themselves. So when you put your mental health skills to get people in the right mindset and tie them into where they can get big money, oh, my God, what a great, great thing.

[00:19:09] Great. Well, I'm glad you see that connection, because it's hard to really show that on my LinkedIn or my website, these different arms that I'm in in business, because they do seem like they're like, what does a mental health counselor have to do with sponsorship? And unless you hear my story of I use sponsorships in my mental health business, then you may not know how that relates.

[00:19:34] And you know, I'd love to see I don't know if you have the website built yet, but a video that's telling that story, not only using sponsorships, but about undervaluing what you have that these big companies want. And that's a mindset thing. And that's and that makes you uniquely qualified to do this thing.

[00:19:56] That's a great idea. I do have a marketing video coming up soon. I'm heading to San Antonio with Warrior Rising for a business shower. And one of the things they're giving us is a marketing video so I could script something out.

[00:20:09] Yeah. So what I suggest is that you make half of your hair blonde and half red.

[00:20:17] That will really stand out, won't it?

[00:20:19] Yeah. I'm teasing her because I see her sometimes blonde and sometimes red. I don't know what I mean, but what's the range that you use your hair usually?

[00:20:32] So I'm naturally a redhead. And then sometimes in the summer I'll go blonde and I'll like it and I'll go even blonder and then eventually roll back to red. So you will see that transition around.

[00:20:43] Maybe the video people can make like a blinking, you know, it blinks blonde and red in your hair. Montage Yeah. Now you've recently I don't know how recent it's been, but you moved to the West Coast from where was where's Fort Bragg, Charlotte, or where is it?

[00:21:04] Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[00:21:06] Fayetteville. Yeah, Fayetteville. So was that a big. Well, you're from you're from there originally, but it's changed quite a bit since you were grew up there. Right.

[00:21:16] Yes. We moved back, I would say, December of 2020. And so we had two pieces, which is permanently a change of station for military folks. During the pandemic. So that was a bit of a challenge as well because back down it was really difficult, but we were coming home. So we're both from Washington State. It's really nice to be around family. It's nice to be in the Pacific Northwest. And there's also some challenges as well. My husband retires in less than two years and so we really need to decide what we're going to do next.

[00:21:48] Well, thank God you're home school and your kids.

[00:21:51] Yes.

[00:21:53] I'll tell you what. I don't have kids and I'm like thankful. I don't, because I'd probably end up getting arrested at some school board meeting. The stuff that we see and a lot of it's on the West Coast, I don't I don't know what people are thinking. My next I don't know if you know about my next book coming out it's the title is Highly Educated Idiots. That's the title of my next one. I've been working on collecting all these people and at Christmas.

[00:22:22] So for stocking stuffers.

[00:22:23] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I saw the governor of Oregon come out and say, you know what, we're not going to have kids pass any more math or reading tests to get their high school diploma.

[00:22:36] Me. Remember that? Yes.

[00:22:38] Uneducated idiot Baltimore. They did. They surveyed 600 high school kids. Only 12 out of 600 could read at their own level, and hundreds of them were at kindergarten level. I mean, so thank God your girls are are under your wing. Did you still have tutors coming in and stuff?

[00:23:02] I have not had a tutor come in for the last year. I've just been doing it with them. And my older daughter is about to be 11. And so there's some of the some of the curriculum that she can guide with the younger ones.

[00:23:17] Oh, that's nice.

[00:23:19] I always think it's good to give the older kids some responsibility, some teaching down just to to elevate their own skills and things like that and responsibility.

[00:23:29] I mean, yeah. So one of the things I rag on parents about is making things so easy on kids that they're entitled and they never have to to take care of anybody else and it's all about them. So you're just a model mommy over there? Yeah. As tough as you are a marine Corps vet. That's why I'm scared of you. Kind of. I know you have skills and a set of skills. It could hurt me.

[00:23:56] It's a good thing for good friends, right? We're all the.

[00:23:58] Same. Yes, that's for sure. Now. This one thing I always like to well know I'm going to get in this other thing. First, I was reading something. You were writing about moral injury. What is that?

[00:24:13] So moral injury is this sort of. Outcome. When someone is in a position that makes them act against their values or the morals that they hold dear, and then something happens. So maybe they have the value that they don't hurt other people, and that's based on their religion or whatever that might be. And then they're in war and they are called to to shoot somebody or kill somebody.

[00:24:41] Right.

[00:24:42] One of the things that they miss out on that a lot of times is a lot of the moral injury we're seeing is with toxic leadership. And so that's not just military specific. I've actually counseled people who've had toxic leaders and the the damage that it's doing to them to continue to show up for an organization that they work for military they're stuck with a lot of times until their their time is up. And seeing just horrible things happen to people and they're powerless against it. And the damage that that's causing that injury, that's causing their their mental health because of that.

[00:25:18] Yeah. Wow. Yes. And what a tough position to be in. How do you help people with that when they you know, maybe they're making a lot of money and they're needed for their family. So they they feel like they can't leave. Do you tell them go ahead and leave anyway or what?

[00:25:35] Well, as a counselor, we we don't make decisions for anybody. What we do is we settle in a lot of like let's talk about what the facts are and let's validate what's valid. And so it is a tough position to be in when something is conflicting like that. You're in a position where maybe you're that line of support for the people under you to show them that there's a different way and that you to see that that's an issue. And so you're bringing value in this other way. And I know you love to talk about dialectical behavior therapy or CBT.

[00:26:07] I call it dialectical because, you know, I was a psych major and I think it's been so long ago, I think I got kicked out because I really liked the electric shock treatment and I think they kicked me out.

[00:26:20] I don't even know if they do. I don't think they do those studies anymore. I think those are.

[00:26:25] That's how old I am. But at least they had electricity when I was younger. So of course you might not have it long. Apparently, from what I hear, all this blackouts and the West Coast.

[00:26:37] What's going on in California? Yeah, I saw that.

[00:26:39] Did you see that? I mean, this is going into my highly educated idiots. They're they're they're busting your balls to get an electric car. And yesterday they told you, please don't charge your electric car anymore because there's not enough electricity. Oh, my God.

[00:26:59] There's a lot of like, hey, we have a great idea. And then they just fail in the execution. Some people are trying people are really trying to do right. And they're trying to do right by the environment. They're trying to do right by their neighbors. And it's so confusing when things keep changing on us.

[00:27:15] That's for sure. But yeah. So anyway, dialectical so.

[00:27:20] So debate offers, especially when it comes to counseling people who are maybe in a position.

[00:27:26] And it is dialectical right, dialectical electrical. Yeah.

[00:27:33] Two opposing truths that both coexist at the same time.

[00:27:36] Right.

[00:27:36] And so one of the skills that they teach is this problem solving steps. And one of the things they say there's four options with dealing with a problem. One, you can solve the problem. Two, you can feel better about the problem. Three, you can change the way you feel about the problem. Or four, you can stay miserable. And so a lot of times if people are in this position where they have a toxic leader or something like that going on, I will ask them, can you solve this problem? And we'll go through the methods and problem solving techniques to see if they can even solve it. And if they can't solve it, then we kind of have to go to one of those other things. Can you just change the way you feel about it? Can you reframe what's going on and find the value in what you're doing, what you're bringing that brought you there to begin with? Can you just tolerate it or do you have to stay miserable? And this is going to be a moment in your life until you can make changes elsewhere in your life to pivot to something new.

[00:28:31] And I can think of a scenario the rotten leadership tells the mid-level manager right before Christmas to fire a bunch of people.

[00:28:43] Right. Right. People that they've worked with and they're friends with.

[00:28:46] Yeah. Yeah. If I was the therapist, I would say next, I wouldn't know what to tell them. Oh, my God.

[00:28:56] It's really tough. We see a lot in the military with leaders who whose command is forcing separation or punishment on young individuals who've had substance abuse issues or DUIs and things like that. One gentleman got a DUI coming from coming from a work party, like a military work party with other coworkers. And, you know, it's there is some responsibility in that individual to not drink and drive. And there's also some responsibility maybe in the command to not throw a party where everybody's drinking and and changing the culture of what the military is, because the culture in the military is a lot of drinking. And so we're creating this culture, we're feeding into this culture, and then we're punishing them when they're struggling in it.

[00:29:43] Well, yeah. And I remember several years ago, one speaker, I think it was a captain at some big fun party, told one line of a joke that was a little bit sexist, ended his career. You know, it's it's a changing world out there.

[00:29:59] It's a changing world. And you have to be you know, that's what I learned with that viral LinkedIn post is you you better be very specific in your words, because once it's out there, there screenshots, there's video, there's things and you just can't always pull it back. And you it's it's a it's a dangerous place to end up on the wrong side of an angry mob.

[00:30:20] Well, yeah, I forgot. I've been calling you Miss Viral because that's your your your post is 1 million, 300,000 so far. So tell them about it. Tell them and tell them what what you meant and what's happening.

[00:30:35] It's so crazy to think about. I post all the time. I don't post all the time in LinkedIn, but I'm posting some things that I just think are beautiful posts and they get like 1015 views reviews and I'm like, This is good stuff here, people. And so I go on LinkedIn of all places and I rant that I saw in a Facebook group, right? I just put, I put I seen in social media, military spouses just getting attacked and name calling for asking questions like should they have should they identify as a military spouse on their resume or on their LinkedIn profiles? Right. So I think it's relatable to LinkedIn because it's an employment and job seeking business platform. Well, I go on to say that being a military spouse is not stolen valor. We're not trying to say that our service members accomplishments are ours. What we're trying to say is it's difficult to be a military spouse. We have gaps in our employment. We have all these things that kind of show up. We might only be at a job for a year and a half and then have to change jobs because we move so often.

[00:31:49] And so the idea that putting a military putting that your military spouse is really a transparent thing for employers to see and go, oh, well, that explains why they were only there for this long. That explains why there was a gap here. Let's still give them an interview because we know that military spouses are resilient there. There are so many things that's amazing about them. They're doing all these things and so they're really an asset to a team. So let's bring them in for that interview. Well, I got a lot of thank you's and keep doing it. Hey, ignore the haters. Ignore the haters, that sort of thing. And very few people that were actually aware of the situation saying, yes, we appreciate our military families, we appreciate our military spouses, they are great employees. And we do want to see that on their resumes. We do want to see that on their cover letters. I do like seeing that on their profiles because that tells me this, which is what the point was. But it blew up and made me nervous. Tom, I almost deleted it after, like, 600 likes.

[00:32:49] Oh, my God. Yeah. People would beg for 600 lights on anything. The haters are jerks to me because I know. And not that I'm in there or pretending that I've even experienced it, but I've been around it enough. I live in the probably the biggest collection military on earth in the Norfolk, Virginia area. And these assholes, I mean, many times the military spouses are working harder than the military person because they're there doing the plumbing at the house. They're taking care of the kids, they're doing the home schooling, they're doing paying the bills. They're doing way more than a lot of the the the person in the service is doing. So they're assholes. So I'm glad it went viral. And I'm, you know, it's going to keep going viral and you're going to get way more positivity out of it than, than the idiots for sure.

[00:33:44] I will give credit to a lot of the veterans, a lot of the military personnel coming in and saying basically that, look, my spouse has done has it way harder than I do. I can focus just on the mission, just on the one thing in front of me. And they're doing all the other things. They're doing all this emotional thinking and all the whose appointments, where who's the doctor here, who's all these things?

[00:34:07] Amazing. I couldn't do it for sure. So again, to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll see what a typical day looks like for Richelle. And get a time frame on when when we can start applying for sponsorships because we're we like that money. So, folks, about 28 and a half years ago, I started selling online. And after about ten, 12 years, I got this sinking. You know, we're getting surrounded by scammers and just getting the legit people or getting lost in the noise. And I said, I got to set myself apart. So I went through three years of licensing to get license for the only licensed, dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And guess who's on the advisory board for the military part of it? Yes. Richelle Futch has blessed me with her presence on the advisory board. And I thank her from the bottom of my heart on that because things that I would have no clue about, she she would fill me in on. And so we give scholarships to military, first responder, law enforcement and nurses and their families. So we give a 50% scholarship. And then we also pledge that no military person will pay more than $97 a month to have the training that will get them a portable skill that's in high demand, because every business on Earth needs Internet and digital marketing, every single one, so they can take it with them wherever they're deployed.

[00:35:40] I don't know if that's the right term or not, but wherever they they are at, they can keep their clients and and build their family income. So so check that out at this will be in the show notes at IMTCVA.org/military. You don't have to live in Virginia. It's a distance learning school because so not only can you learn remotely, you can be hired and get a good paying job or start your own business remotely. So check it out.

[00:36:12] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We got Richelle Futch, tease her unmercifully about her varying hair color, but I love her to death. She got me invited to the White House. And and we talked about. Terry spouse employment. And she's got this beautiful new business that I'm really excited about. Got plenty of people to send her when it's full swing. So. So, Richelle, tell us when that thing is going to get going and then tell us what a typical day looks like for you nowadays.

[00:36:40] Sponsor Match is about three weeks away from being really live.

[00:36:45] And well then it might be playing by the time this thing goes. Yes.

[00:36:48] By the time you're there, by the time this plays, we do have a site up right now where you can just sign up for for our beta users. By the time this airs, I think we'll be taking people into the educational platform. And so please come check out its sponsor. Match us.

[00:37:06] Okay. All right. I'm sorry I said I think us. Us.

[00:37:11] And they will be able to check that out. And then a typical day for me is, honestly, Tom, I do a lot of time blocking. And so usually the mornings is is school like home schooling stuff.

[00:37:23] All right, go, go. Before that, do you get up early? Do you have a morning routine? What do you eat? What? How's how's it go lifestyle wise?

[00:37:32] I'm definitely not the help. So this is this is I'm not a health expert, so do not follow any.

[00:37:36] Of this.

[00:37:37] Because I'm probably not the healthiest person. I will wake up around 730. I will make sure the kids have stuff to eat. I'll start getting the house kind of ready and in a wake. We will do school for a couple of hours because when you're home schooling you only have to do a couple of hours because it's so one on one. Then I will. We'll get to the household chores. Everybody has their household responsibilities that they need to do. And then I go in and I do a lot of work. I take a couple of breaks and we go like a couple of days a week. We have the YMCA a couple of days, we have gymnastics in the afternoon or soccer in the afternoon, sports, things like that.

[00:38:18] So I didn't know you did gymnastics and soccer.

[00:38:21] Well, the kids I.

[00:38:23] Am the kids.

[00:38:24] Oh, I am the chauffeur until one of their driver's license.

[00:38:28] I want to see you flipping down the street. Yeah, that'd be interesting.

[00:38:32] You know, when I hit 40 time, I had.

[00:38:35] Never hit 40. You cool? You trying to kid? You look like you're 12 years old.

[00:38:39] Well, I appreciate that. I. Yeah, I think with my 40th birthday, I got all these ailments and injuries and joint.

[00:38:47] That's automatic. Yeah, that's part of life. Yeah.

[00:38:50] I don't spring. I'm not as sprung as I used to be.

[00:38:53] All right, so soccer and gymnastics.

[00:38:57] Yeah. Yeah. Each day might be a little bit different, but I have my work hours that are time blocked, and that's where the kids will do like their independent, like their math, their math workbooks that they need to catch up on or their English language things that they can do independently, like reading stories and rewriting the stories or doing their book reports or summaries that they need to do for that. So they have independent skills that they can do. While I'm in my office at home with my individual clients or working on sponsor match things.

[00:39:26] So you're an actual you're actually doing the home school work rather than some of the people that just pretend to do it and just so they don't have to go to school.

[00:39:36] Yeah. Yeah. I can't even imagine if, if I, if my kids weren't engaging in something like what would they, what would they be doing all day.

[00:39:46] Tick tock.

[00:39:47] Oh, no.

[00:39:49] Not. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's I found out recently that tick tock in the United States is not the same as tick tock in China. Like tick tock in the United States is all crazy, ridiculous stuff. And tick tock in China is like science projects and all studious kind of things, and they're only allowed to be on it like one hour a day. So somebody's trying to ruin our youth over here.

[00:40:17] We're doing it wrong, but there's lots of dancing. So I guess, you know, if their bodies are moving and they're dancing, that's great.

[00:40:26] And what else on how they're dancing and how much clothes they have on. Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:32] And it can't just be your only thing. There has to be something else. And so I always like to expand that and, and say and what else? What else are we doing?

[00:40:41] Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. You're really growing some beautiful young ladies. They're great. So like I said hopefully that'll be ready to roll sponsormatch.us your site is RichelleFutch.com right?

[00:40:56] Right.

[00:40:56] Yes. Ah, I see. At one time I was talking about that and I don't know, the audio quit out and the first two letters of her name and I said, f you know, it's f gutsy h so I'm so glad to catch up with you. I just love you to death and all the things that great things you're doing. And definitely I want to get involved in this help with this. Answer match thing because I've been been promoting sponsorship stuff for years and years and years. So this a beautiful service you're you're doing here. So. Thanks so much for coming on, kiddo.

[00:41:37] Thank you, Tom. And absolutely, I already have you on my list of professional experts to come in to do a master class.

[00:41:45] Well, I might come in and use your service, too, because I've got plenty of things that are sponsor bull and just I'd rather have somebody else pointing the way out so I don't have to spend the time figuring it out myself. So, so beautiful. All right, everybody, this is part of Vetpreneur Month. We love our veterans, all our veterans. And this is specifically veterans that are entrepreneurs. And we've got a lot more great episodes coming up. So check it out. We will catch you on the next episode. See you later.