December 4, 2024 • 51 mins
Unlock the keys to reclaiming your time and enhancing productivity with podcast systems coach Joe Casabona. In this episode, Joe shares his insights on balancing automation and delegation, helping entrepreneurs optimize their workflows without falling into the trap of constant busyness. With over a decade of experience, Joe reveals when to adopt new tools or hire a virtual assistant to streamline operations. From his symbolic hourglass hat to actionable strategies, this conversation offers a roadmap to true productivity, freeing up time for what matters most.
The discussion also touches on balancing technology in family life, exploring how screen time impacts parenting and personal habits. Joe shares his evolution from micromanagement to effective delegation, using tools like Loom for clear communication and task management. Whether you're looking to boost your efficiency or improve your work-life balance, this episode delivers practical tips and relatable stories to inspire meaningful change.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"I'm here to save you time, the only thing you can't buy more of." – Joe
"Being busy is a badge of honor and it shouldn't be." – Joe
"Bored people are creative people." – Joe
"Unfortunately, while AI is a buzzword and AI has so many great things to it and can do so many awesome things, it's starting to eliminate that critical thinking." – Philip
"If you are sending data from one app to another, perfect candidate for automation." – Joe
"When the inputs and outputs aren't clear, you probably need somebody with critical thinking skills, and so that's really the dividing line for whether you should automate or delegate." – Joe
"I'm not running my business to scale huge. My business is a relationship business." – Joe
"If you want to grow and scale, you're going to have to start automating and delegating." – Philip
"There's times that we're doing things that don't even need to be done. We're just doing it because we thought we needed to do it." – Philip
"What you want to focus on is your area of expertise." – Joe
"I don't want parents to have panic attacks because they don't feel like they can handle everything that they have to handle." – Joe
"Work is not everything, no matter what Gary Vee or Alex Hormosi says." – Joe
"Why I started my business, too, is to help myself, but then it turned into helping other people out as well, to be able to get that time back." – Philip
RESOURCES
Joe
Website: https://casabona.org
Streamlined Solopreneur Podcast: https://www.streamlined.fm/sessions
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcasabona
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcasabona
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creatorcourses
Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up guys?
Welcome back to another episodeof the Speaking Sessions
podcast.
We've got Joe Casabona.
I almost butchered it again.
We just talked about thisoffline about how we'll ask and
we'll butcher it.
But hey, we're here, we'regoing to have a lot of fun with
this, but we're going to teachyou ways to not butcher your
business here in a minute.
But he is a podcast systemscoach who helps busy
(00:24):
solopreneurs take back theirtime.
Some even say he perfectlyblends content creation and
technology, like it's the bestcup of coffee you've ever had
and really he says that.
But we're not judging there thebest out there.
But Joe's strategies come fromhis many years of experience
(00:45):
over 10 years creating podcastsand more than 15 years teaching
and over 20 years as a webdeveloper.
And today we're going to talkabout, essentially, delegation
how do you automate things?
When do you automate newsoftware versus when do you
delegate to a person, such as avirtual assistant, things like
that.
But we're going to have a lotof great conversation today.
(01:08):
Before we get into that, joe,welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for that great intro.
I'll say the best cup of coffeepart is the thing I made up
because I love coffee,technology and content creation.
So you know it's a way for meto get a lot of things in there
in that one sentence yeah, yeah,no, I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I love the, the humor there as well.
I can't help but think aboutwhen you see, like uh was, I
think it's the elf movie.
There's some movie that theymade fun of that, where there's
like some character he's like anadult technically but he has
the mind of a child and he goesoh my gosh it's number one
coffee, like coffee or pie inthe world and he goes and tries
(01:49):
it out.
He's like, oh my gosh, he's likeso excited.
And it's like everybody saysthat, oh, we're the best, we're
number one, when really, who arethey?
Who are they doing that?
Who do they sample for that?
And most likely, and for me,usually, when I say I'm the best
, it's because my mom told me Iwas so just don't tell my
(02:09):
brother hey, no, mom's the way.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm the oldest of four boys, so mom's the word
yeah, yeah, exactly she, sheknows best.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
She's right, you know , my mom's the best but awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
As an italian, I do often say that I'm like my
mother makes the best chickencutlets, you know so love it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I love the accent and everything there.
That's, that's awesome, yeah,especially the italian thing.
I I don't have any of the theuh nationality like that to be
able to share those things uh,unfortunately but yeah, that's
awesome.
Well, dude, I'm excited to gethere and talk here.
Before we really get into it,for those that are actually
watching right now, I want totalk about your hat real quick
(02:50):
and the symbology behind that.
We talked about it offline.
I think it's really cool, likethese three arrows kind of
coming up and out.
So tell us what does that mean,which I think will go into your
business, and I would love totalk about what your business is
exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so I'll start with this.
I've been podcasting for 12plus years, and my most
successful podcast wasoriginally called how I Built it
, where I would interview webdevelopers.
I stopped doing web development, I stopped talking to web
developers, and so earlier thisyear, as we record this, I
decided it was time finally forme to rebrand my podcast to fall
(03:25):
more in line with what I amtalking about, and that's
helping solopreneurs save time.
And so I wanted to come up withthis concept for a really clear
piece of art for the podcastartwork.
And I thought what about if thesand in the hourglass, in an
hourglass, is going up insteadof down?
Right, you're getting your timeback, and so that's what the
(03:49):
three hour.
You know you can't really tellwith the hat because it's black
on yellow.
I have a lot of navy blue hatsbecause I'm a Yankee fan, so
it's a different color there,but it's sand going up through
the hourglass to signify I'mhere to save you time.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
The only thing you can't buy more of.
Yeah, and we need to save time,especially in this busy world.
I've had conversations withplenty of business owners.
Actually, I was talking withone the other day.
We had a scheduled call.
He was late to the call.
We had to call him to bring himin and then when we're on the
call, he's sitting there doing20 other things because he has
so many things going on at theexact same time and actually,
(04:30):
ironically, I was making somevideo content today, kind of
going through that, and I had aplay on the whole Kamala Harris
thing where she was on the phoneand her camera was on, and so
I'm going to make a post laterabout that and and the fact that
she or like for me that youknow, if you're a busy business
owner and you're just trying tolook busy, this is what it looks
(04:51):
like, kind of thing, somethingalong those lines, but like
showing that you see the camera.
But I'm trying to act like I'mbusy and that's a lot of times
what we do and it's almost likea badge of honor that, oh, I'm
so busy, I've got so many thingsgoing on and yet here I am,
faking that I'm on a phone callbut you can see the camera and
everything.
So I'm going to go along thoselines on that post when it gets
(05:11):
posted out.
So it might be before thisepisode goes out, might be after
, but that's, I think, whathappens a lot of times.
So what have you seen,especially from the podcast side
?
Uh, well, I guess, before we,we get to that, talk to me about
what your, what your servicesare, and then we'll go into what
you, what you, the commonthings you see with most
(05:32):
podcasters that they're doingand how you kind of help them
fix that yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So I think the I mean to go back to that line in my
bio right combine contentcreation and technology, or I
think that's what it is.
I don't have it up in front ofme and I wrote it a long time
ago, but that's really.
I think that's my.
I believe that's a specialskill of mine because of my
background in programming aswell as the fact that I'm an
extrovert and I did drama cluband so I'm good at the
(05:59):
performative side of things too.
But I noticed exactly whatyou've noticed.
Right, being busy is a badge ofhonor and it shouldn't be right
, it's good when business isgood, but we shouldn't be so
busy that we're not present inthe moment right, and when
(06:24):
you're not present with astranger, the impact doesn't
feel as big.
But I've got three kids and oneday I was on my phone and my
daughter said Daddy, why are youon your phone all the time?
And I was like this is such Idon't have a lot of time where
(06:45):
my kids actually want to hangout with me and I'm wasting it
like doom scrolling or whateveror like checking email on a
Saturday, and so I want tocreate that space so that people
, especially business owners whoare also parents, can be
present in other aspects oftheir lives, and I do that
(07:08):
through helping them buildsystems and processes so that
they don't have to perform everytask in their business, because
the truth is, most of thethings that you do for your
business, somebody else orsomething else could probably do
better.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And yeah, I've got athree-year-old and an
eight-month-old and mythree-year-old, of course, she's
got her own fake phone andstuff.
And that really hit me becauseI think it was yesterday, that
yesterday, the day before one,it was this week for sure where
she had her phone.
I had mine and I was looking atit and she's like, hey, let's
put our phones down.
(07:47):
And she put hers on the table.
I'm like, okay, I'll put minedown.
I'm like, man, she's noticingthis.
I know my wife gets on to meand I know I'm not great about
it and there are times wherelike, hey, I'm actually trying
to drum up some business andknow there's definitely excuses,
some valid, some not.
Depends on how you look at itand everything.
But yeah, when the, the child,that baby, tells you, that's
(08:10):
when it's tough.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And how old are your kids by the way, my oldest is
seven, my middle list is, my boyis four and my youngest will be
three right around the time.
I think this episode is comingout, if my math is right so she
was born on on christmas eve.
So okay uh, yeah, so she'll bethree on christmas eve man, man.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So yeah, you're right there in the sink of it with me
.
But but you're right, you know,as they start getting older
they're not wanting to be aroundyou near as much.
Uh, that's not making me feeltoo good that it's at seven but
so I'll say, at seven she'sstill very much.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I mean, there was, you know, I took her to like a
daddy daughter dance and shewent off with her friends, but
she's not too cool yet.
I think this was like last yearor two years ago where she was
like why are you on your phone?
But it's like the wisdom of achild is devastating, right.
So that was, that was a reallybig wake-up call for me and,
(09:05):
like the other, the other thingI'll say is, you know, we took
our kids out to dinner and wehave a very like for the littles
, if, like, dinner's getting toolong and you know they're just
like getting antsy, like we'llgive them a screen.
But for my seven-year-old, Ithink we implemented this like
when they turned six them ascreen.
But for my seven-year-old Ithink we implemented this like
(09:25):
when they turned six no screens.
When we're out to dinner and wesaw a family of five, the
parents were on their phone andeach kid was on their own kindle
fire thing and I'm like, yeah,what is the point of being here
if you're all just gonna sit andnot talk to each other?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
yeah, yeah, and I think that's been the detriment,
a lot been the detriment, a lotof the detriment to the family,
one of the many things outthere and it is sad to see my
wife and I talk about that a lot.
And, yeah, we are the same way.
We hate giving that phone, but,yeah, if it goes late or you
know, the service is really slow, whatever it may be, we're like
, okay, we're going to finallygive it and usually we're pretty
(10:06):
good about getting out, butit's like waiting until that
service happens and sometimes ittakes 20 or 30 minutes.
Unfortunately, we're like, okay,we've been trying to get her to
sit here, let's just give herthat screen for a little bit,
but then we take it away becauseit is an important thing that
they can sit there and sit still.
So I like that.
Yeah, six, I definitely think,is a good age to get them to
finally stop being on thatscreen and using that as a
crutch.
That I mean for me, like I'mguilty of that, like, oh, I've
(10:28):
got two seconds, hold on, let me.
Let me look at my phone and dosome doom scrolling while I wait
for the next thing.
It's like what?
Like why can't I just sit hereor do?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
something different yeah, I my, my, I mean we're on
a tangent now so I'll wrap thisup but she recently my oldest
recently said to me like I'mbored, and I said, good, bored
people are creative people.
Like, if you're just like, youknow, I know people who don't
think for themselves becausethey always have something in
(10:59):
front of them telling them whatto think.
Or I was talking to a guyrecently who, um, he like he
would share links but he doesn'tread the links.
He has ai summarize the linksand I'm like my dude, like
you're not even going to takethe time to read a 400 word news
article to get the facts andform the opinion yourself.
(11:19):
Like you're gonna outsource thecritical thinking part to a
robot Like that's, that's bad,and so I don't.
I want to teach my kids to bebored and to critically think.
Uh, and limiting screen time, Ithink, is a really important
part of that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh, completely agreed .
Yeah, cause you can get zonedin on that screen and, yeah, you
lose that critical thinking in.
Unfortunately, while AI is abuzzword and AI has so many
great things to it and can do somany awesome things, it's
starting to eliminate thatcritical thinking rather than
having to think about it.
And, yeah, there's differentways you can really streamline
(11:55):
your processes, but at the endof the day, you still need to be
able to critical think, andthat's really sad.
I've never heard somebody goingthat far, but I'm not surprised
either that somebody would dothat.
I guess at least, rather thanjust reading the headline and
saying, oh my gosh, I'm gonnasend this to my friends, they're
at least letting ai go throughit so they can actually say
something about it, because, Imean, I've been guilty of that
(12:17):
probably a time or two too many.
Uh, that I'm like, oh my gosh,I can't believe this and I send
it without reading the fullstory myself.
But yeah, it seems crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Here's a quick hack for that, right, because, like,
ai could hallucinate stuff,right?
So you're not even.
It's like, not even likesecondhand source, it's like
fourth hand source.
If I see a headline that seemsboombastic, we'll say clickbaity
, I guess is the word we use.
Now I will scroll to the verylast two paragraphs, because
(12:48):
that's usually where they tuckin the actual facts and a quote
from an actual expert, and so ifI want to understand an article
quickly, I'll usually scroll tothe last two paragraphs to see
what they have to say.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, they're never.
Yeah, I shouldn't say they'renever, but most likely they're
not going to have it near thetop, because they want yeah,
they want it to be clickbaity.
They want you to say this andshare it because that's alarming
, which, unfortunately, is a lotof what marketing is nowadays.
But let's get into the podcastsystem.
(13:30):
So I know this is somethingwe're going to talk about is
when to automate versus when todelegate.
So talk to us about, especiallywith a podcast, because there's
so many things that we can doand definitely different routes
we can go.
We could literally delegate itto somebody and, depending on
their services, it could be veryexpensive, but we could also
use software and, depending onthe software and I'm sure
there's different softwares outthere that are better than
others, but they're alsoprobably a little bit pricier
but typically the software ismore affordable than hiring a
(13:52):
person to do that work.
So talk to us about this,especially from the podcast side
, some of the things that yousee that people are doing, that
they could really startautomating or delegating.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, for sure.
So, I mean, I think the biggestthing right is you and I were
connected on Podmatch, I believe, and Podmatch is an amazing
tool for finding and bookingguests right.
Instead of you having to scourthe internet and do research and
then reach out and holdoutreach to that person, you are
(14:25):
getting a at least lukewarmconnection right.
Like I get a lot of pitches, Iknow that there are people who
just pitch every podcast that'srecommended to them, but, yeah,
you're at least getting like alukewarm list of potential
guests or a potential podcastthat you can guest on right, and
, and the really nice thing thatthey've done at Podmatch right
(14:46):
is they've streamlined that flow.
So you put in your booking linkright, and they almost require
you to have one right, becausethat's the next step in the
process, and a booking link isso much better than going back
and forth via email, right, yeah, what I love about the booking
link, though, is because this iswhat every surface-level
(15:10):
podcast expert will tell you oh,you need to use Calendly, right
, that's going to save you somuch time.
Yeah, I say that, but then Isay, but the real magic is that
Calendly is the first, orwhatever.
Calcom, acuity, whatever right.
The scheduling link is the firststep in a long line of
(15:31):
processes, because when someoneputs in data into one of those
scheduling links, you can takeit using Zapier or makecom and
send it to other places likeNotion, like Google Docs.
And now you're not justautomating the booking process,
you're automating the planningprocess, you're organizing,
(15:51):
you're looking at your pipelinein a place where you always hang
out, and so I always say if youare sending data from one app
to another, perfect candidatefor automation, in most cases
right, especially like Zapier.
Zapier integrates witheverything, right where the, and
(16:11):
so the way I word that at ahigh level is are the inputs
clear and are the outputs clear?
Do you always put in the name,an email address and a time
you're going to meet and do youalways get a calendar invite out
of that right?
When the inputs and outputsaren't clear, you probably need
somebody with critical thinkingskills, and so that's really the
(16:34):
dividing line for whether youshould automate or delegate.
I can automate the bookingprocess, I can automate, you
know, when I drop files that areready for my editor into
Dropbox, he automatically getsan email and my Notion board is
automatically updated to episodeis out for edit, but when it
(16:55):
comes time to publish my episode, I want the format a certain
way.
I want to make sure the shownotes are right.
I need to put it in my podcasthost and also on my website,
which uses a custom way.
I want to make sure the shownotes are right.
I need to put it in my podcasthost and also on my website,
which uses a custom template.
The inputs are clear, but theoutputs are not, and so my VA
does that.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that's super ultrarepetitive tasks.
That's literally going to bethe same, no matter what.
That doesn't need that specialtouch or that that little extra
polish here and there.
Those are the things for surethat we can automate, and I like
that you said, especially asoftware.
If it's a software to anothersoftware, there's probably a way
that you can make it talk forsure.
(17:35):
And then, yeah, using the VA forthe other side.
I completely agree with youthere and that's yeah, I like
that you explained it that way,because a lot of times we don't
think about it that way.
But even then, on the otherside too, when it comes to
getting that VA, a lot of timeswe just want, oh, just do it,
just get it done, but we don'teven know clearly what that is
(17:58):
and everything.
So how do you help clientsbreak down, how to find out
their process?
Because that's the other sideof the story.
Okay, cool, I want to be able toautomate this, or I want to
delegate this, but then theydon't really know what that is
like.
Oh, I want to, I want to, youknow, automate booking podcasts.
Okay, cool, that sounds greatin theory, but what are all
those steps?
Like you said, there's probably10 steps there, even though
(18:20):
we're thinking, oh, it's justone or two, because we tend to
just do it.
So how do we, or how do you, goabout clearly defining that and
how can the audience start toclearly define their steps so
that they can figure out?
Can I automate this to asoftware or do I need to
delegate this to a virtualassistant?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, this is a great question.
I have a framework for it, sofeel free to interrupt me at any
point if you want to dig deep.
But this is really where mybackground in software
engineering oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh because they weremismanaged.
(19:02):
And knowing this caused anumber of software developers in
2000 to write the AgileManifesto, and so the way that
software used to be developed isokay.
Well, we need to build softwarethat allows people to put in
orders, manage inventory andthen send an invoice to a
customer.
Each of those things I justmentioned there have a bunch of
(19:25):
steps underneath, and the reasonthat those projects would fail
is because the steps underneathwould get missed.
Nobody would really thinkthrough the process and budgets
and timelines would blow up.
The Agile Manifesto says everymajor feature essentially I'm
paraphrasing heavily here Everymajor feature can be broken down
(19:49):
into smaller steps and as youapproach what you do in your
business, you should think aboutthis the same way.
So I have the PER P-E-Rframework for everything that
you do in your business.
I want you to break it down.
So I want you to perform thetask that's the P and as you're
(20:11):
performing, write down everystep you have to take as you
perform that task.
So booking guest is not justbook guest, it's determine the
topic, find an expert on thattopic, reach out to them, see if
they're interested.
If they are, book them, do someresearch on them.
(20:32):
Probably do that before youreach out to them, but do some
research on them, figure out thequestions you're going to ask
right, write down all of thosethings and then the E is
evaluate For that task and foreach step in that task, evaluate
.
Do I personally have to do this?
The answer is going to be nomost of the time.
(20:55):
Then ask yourself do I want todo this?
Because we're in business,because we are autonomous and we
want to work the way we want towork and we've selected the
type of work.
We're in business because weare autonomous and we want to
work the way we want to work andwe've selected the type of work
we're doing.
And so I don't personally haveto find guests for my podcast,
or I don't have to personallyfind sponsors for my podcast,
(21:16):
but I choose to do that becausethe relationship building is
critical to me.
So that is something that Ipersonally don't have to do, but
I choose to do because thebenefits of me doing it outweigh
the time that is saved by menot doing it.
So do you have?
(21:36):
Do you personally have to do it?
Do you personally want to do it?
Then you can ask yourself arethe inputs and outputs clear,
like I just said, if they arealways the same, you ask
yourself does a person actuallyneed to do this?
Because the answer, there isprobably no right.
If the inputs are always thesame and the outputs are always
(22:01):
the same, then you can set up anautomation in zapier or notion
or wherever to say when you getthis information, when this
thing happens, do this and do itevery time.
If the inputs and outputs arenot clear, that's where you go
to hire a VA, and then the R isremove it for you.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Before we get to that , real quick, I want to add one
other thing I like when I thinkabout the evaluation side is
does it make me money?
That's something that I mightput off actually delegating or
automating.
Well, I guess delegatingbecause now I'm probably going
to pay more the automation sideof it makes a little bit more
sense.
But I always look at that Isthat going to make me money?
(22:46):
Because I mean, we think aboutlike a sales call.
Maybe I hate sales, but thesales calls make me money.
So I might not want to delegatethat right away.
So I like to throw that in onthat evaluation.
I like the way we're breakingthis down so far, but I just
want to kind of throw that inreal quick.
Is uh, is it make me money ornot?
And maybe you're gonna put thaton a different order on that
(23:07):
list too.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So yeah, that's a really good point, right, like
we can tuck that right in with.
Do I want to do it or like,should I?
Should I personally do it?
Maybe is the better question,because you're right, I uh I had
a?
Um, a remote assistant, right?
Um, a friend of mine who was onmy podcast.
I I hired her and her agency todo some stuff for me and I
realized that she was doing someoutreach to start sales calls
(23:33):
and I was uncomfortable withthat and so every time I got on
a sales call they would saysomething from the conversation
that she was having on my behalfand I wasn't as prepared.
So I'd be like I got to behonest with you, it wasn't me
who did the outreach and I Ialways felt like that hurt the
relationship a little bit.
Yeah.
And so that you're right Like Ican have somebody do outreach to
(23:54):
sponsors or people on LinkedIn,but I'm not running my business
to scale huge.
Yeah, my business is arelationship business and so,
yeah, that's that's the calculusyou also have to make.
Yeah, my business is arelationship business and so,
yeah, that's the calculus youalso have to make yeah.
Sales calls and discovery callsaren't my favorite thing, but
having good conversations abouthow I can help people, they're
great right.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, are you just trying to sell a widget too with
that?
So if you're just trying tosell a widget and no big deal,
you don't want the relationship,then maybe that works for you.
But then, like you said, itsounds like you're really
wanting to build a relationship.
So that was you realized.
Oh that's, I need to take thatback, because I can't really
build that relationship the sameway if I don't do that task.
(24:35):
So, yeah, we got to reallythink holistically on this as
well, cause like, okay, cool,yeah, you can delegate
everything you want, but is thatthe way you want to run your
business too?
Cause there's no right or wrongway.
We're not saying that you haveto automate and delegate, but
it's probably gonna be betterfor you.
But it depends on where youwant to be at in business.
If you want to be a solopreneurand doing every single thing
the rest of your life hopefullynot.
(24:56):
But if you do, then yeah, don'tautomate or delegate anything.
But if you want to grow andscale you're going to have to
start automating and delegating,for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, it's so important.
I decided before I was marriedand had kids, I would say I
don't care if I'm married orhave kids, as long as I'm a
millionaire by 30.
And then I met the woman whowould become my wife when I was
26.
And I was like, oh my God, Idon't care about being a
millionaire, I just want to makeenough money to support my
family, and I can support myfamily on way less than a
(25:27):
million dollars a year.
A million dollars profit.
A million dollars revenue couldbe zero dollars profit.
Negative dollars profit.
My goals changed and my approachto my business changed too,
because, instead of trying toscale and get a huge audience, I
want a handful of clients whoknow I'm not available nights
(25:49):
and weekends to help them growand have an impact, and that
makes more than enough money forme.
So it's all about your goals.
The R in per is the easiest one.
It's remove it, right, if youhave determined that you don't
have to do it.
You don't want to do it, youshouldn't do it and it could be
(26:11):
um done by a robot or anotherperson.
Send that.
Send that off into the ether,take it off of your plate and
relish in the amount of timeeach week that you're saving by
not doing that task I like that,and even then, maybe you don't
even need it at all.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I mean, it's something as well.
There's times that we're doingthings that don't even need to
be done.
We're just doing it because wethought we needed to do it.
So even with that remove, Iwould add that in there too,
which I think would go back intothe evaluation.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
It doesn't need to be done.
Also, but, yeah, I like that,remove it from.
Yeah, that's, that's a reallygood point.
Yeah, either, yeah, remove it,either give it to something or
someone else, or completelyeliminate it, because you're
right, like we.
There are some things that wejust did when we started and we
keep doing it and we never takethe time to be like why am I?
Why am I doing this?
Yeah so always good to thinkabout that Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So, out of these three phases, or, in this
framework, the perform, evaluateand remove, where do you think
most people spend most of theirtime, or they should spend most
of their time?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I think it should be in the evaluation phase, right?
The perform that's basicallygiving you your standard
operating procedures.
You're documenting your process, which is great, and you should
definitely do that foreverything, and having a VA can
help that a lot, because you'regoing to have to for someone
(27:44):
else.
Right, they can't just downloadyour brain.
You need to tell them what todo and, depending on the level
the VA is at, you might need totell them this is always step
one, this is always step two,this is always step three, but
it's the evaluation phase whereit's almost like I know that, oh
(28:05):
my gosh, the Katamari method.
Marie Kondo, I know she doesn'tpractice that anymore because
she has kids and most advice formost people is for those
without kids.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, it changes as soon as you have kids.
It's just like throw it out thewindow, start over.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, right, exactly.
Someone asked Tim Ferris abunch of years ago like, hey,
how do you get so much done?
And he's like, well, I wake upand I meditate for two hours and
I'm like cool, you don't havekids.
I wake up and I slam coffee inhopes that my kids don't leave
their room before their clockturns green, like that's, that's
my morning routine, right?
Um, so that's not entirely truebut.
(28:42):
I know it is for a lot ofpeople right.
I wake up early to beat my kids.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Sometimes I'm like oh cool, I'm going to get up at
four and be up before my kids,and that's the day they're like
oh, I'm hungry.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I want to clarify that I, I want to.
I wake up early ahead of my Isaid to beat my kids.
Uh, and I don't't.
If I ever run for office oneday, this is going to be the
sound clip that sinks me.
Uh, I wake up early to wake upahead of my kids so I can enjoy
a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
But thank you for that correction for those that
were confused out there.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, unfortunately yeah, this guy sounded like a
real guy, sounded like a reallygood dad in the beginning.
Yeah, yeah, uh, but anyway, youguys sounded like a really good
dad in the beginning.
Yeah, but anyway it's screentime.
But in the evaluation phase it'salmost like the Marie Kondo of
(29:39):
like does it spark joy?
I imagine a lot of people startlike everything sparked joy for
them, right, and so they didn'tget rid of as much as they
hoped.
Everything sparked joy for them, right, and so they didn't get
rid of as much as they hoped Inthe evaluation phase.
I really, really want you tothink about what it is that you
have to do, because when itcomes to podcasting, there's
three or four things right.
(29:59):
One is talk.
Obviously, it's your podcast.
Don't outsource that to ai.
Yeah, there's actually podcastsout there.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That are ai podcasts, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, it's bad, but but, like you know what like
those are, no one's gonna listento it.
Like, no one's gonna listen tothose unless it's just like a
straight like, unless you'rejust looking for like a straight
reading of facts.
Yeah, okay, fine, great, right,it's like the same people who
listen like the fan noisepodcast because they don't want
(30:31):
to sit in silence.
Um, yeah, there's like a lot ofthose out there, so, but that's
not right, that's not the goalof podcasting for a lot of
people.
Yeah, when you start to think,well, I need to edit it, because
no one's going to edit it likeme, there are people who are
going to edit it way better thanyou I, I, unless you are
(30:53):
yourself an editor, I and eventhen, right, because you're
going to be more critical ofyour work than someone else.
So, like, editing is somethingI strongly recommend you
outsource.
Oh, I need to publish itbecause my process is
complicated.
My process is complicated.
(31:13):
It's even more complicated thanit was when I hired my VA
because I publish it in multipleplaces, and so we just wrote
down the steps for everything inorder, and now my VA does it.
And my VA does that better thanme now, because she actually
refers to the list and I don't.
I'm just like whoops.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I forgot.
I think I got everything.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, it's like hubris,right, like I've been doing this
for 12 years.
Of course, I remember how topublish my own podcast and I'm
like, shoot, I forgot to writefill in this one field.
Um, so, if you think it's toocomplicated, it's probably not
like.
If you're like a competenthuman being, another competent
(31:55):
human being can do it.
What you want to focus on isyour area of expertise.
What are the things that you dobest, and that could be
relationship building.
It's definitely talking, right.
It could be figuring out theclips or writing the questions.
Those are all fine, right,because no one knows your
audience as well as you do.
But, by and large, you can takemost of that stuff off of your
(32:20):
plate.
So, in the evaluation phase,really think and then prioritize
.
Right, because you're also notgoing to take everything off of
your plate all at once.
That's too much change, toofast.
Things will fall apart.
So pick the two or three mosthighest impact things and start
with those.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
How do you go about evaluating, especially, I would
say on more of the VA side?
I mean, you can also look andsee, based on the automations,
whether they're working or not.
Obviously, but when it comes tothe VA side, how are you
evaluating if the work's gettingdone properly, because that's
definitely something that itfeels like you're almost
micromanaging if you'reconstantly like trying to jump
(33:00):
in and check on these things.
So how do you go about thatwithout going to that
micromanagement side of things?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, this is something that was really hard
for me, because I don't thinkI'm a micromanager, but I was
definitely a person who was likeno one does the work better
than me.
And, to be fair to past Joe,past Joe was the guy in college
who had to do the group projects, or would delegate something to
(33:30):
someone and it didn't get done,so he'd end up doing it Right,
um, and he, you know, past Joeis a bad manager, but I had, I
had life experience reinforcedthat thinking, and so here's
what I do with both my editorand my VA.
My editor I've been with forlike seven years or something
like that now, um, so I don'teven check his work.
(33:52):
Really, you know, um, I don'tactually check his work at all,
and my VA will let me know, youknow, if something seems off,
because she also transcribes theepisodes.
Uh, with my VA, what I'll do isand I should say here that my
va is like an entry-level vashe's based in the philippines.
(34:13):
Uh, I believe english is hersecond language and so I'm gonna
assume english is her secondlanguage because she's in the
philippines, um, and so, um,this is how I work with her when
you, if you work for a higherlevel va, right, someone?
You're paying 25 an hour orsomething like that.
Um, you know, you, your approachcould probably be different
because their tasks are going tobe different, but for my va,
(34:36):
what I'll do is I will recordmyself performing the task as I
narrate it, and then I have hertranscribe the video and write
out the steps.
And so the first check is I'llreview the steps that she wrote
out and if the steps are wrong,I'll review the transcript
(34:58):
because maybe I forgot something.
And if she has any questionsbecause the benefit of the video
too is she can see when I don'tsay something, right, she could
see me do something and I mighthave not said it.
So she can always ask like, hey, you didn't mention this, but
you did that thing.
And I'm like yeah, I'm, I'mdumb and forgot to say it.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
um, are you using loom?
What are you using to record?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
yeah, I use loom for that.
Yeah, um, I use both loom andtella.
Uh, tella is really more forlike client facing stuff because
it's nicer.
Loom I have for free because Iworked at the university of
scranton for a while and theygave away free edu accounts so
hey, yeah, so, um, I think if Iwas like picking one today and I
(35:39):
didn't want to pay for both, itwould be tella, because tell is
nicer, but it's neither herenor there.
Loom is very well known and andpretty easy to use, right, and
I I think it's probablyembeddable in more places.
So that's the other thing.
I have a I have a VA taskmanager thing built in Notion
(36:00):
and I will embed the video thereand then she knows to put the
transcript and the steps there,and so that task board is also
like the Goodhouse Media that'sthe name of my company Goodhouse
.
Is Casabona, translated fromItalian to English, the
Goodhouse Media Handbook, right,yeah, company.
Good house is casabonatranslated from italian to
english, uh, the good housemedia, the good house media
(36:20):
handbook, right, yeah, um, sothat's the first check and then
the first few times she performsa task, she'll ping me to let
me know it's done and I'll go inand check and if she does it
right three times in a row,three is a arbitrary number
that's commonly used ineverything.
So if she does it properlythree times in a row, then I
(36:42):
kind of let her do her thing,right.
So right now we're going throughthis process with initial
research for potential guests.
A lot of my guests come fromPodmatch, but people can also
pitch themselves to me, and so Imake them fill out a form.
That form goes into Notion.
My VA gets pinged and she knowsto look for five things that I
(37:07):
want to know about this guest,including the transcripts of two
recent podcast episodes, andthen she'll put all of that into
a Google Doc and I'm going toget a little extra here.
I'll finish my thought first.
So I've been reviewing thatbefore I decide okay, this is
(37:27):
something that you candefinitely do, but so far so
good.
I mean, she's also been likehey, just so you're aware, most
of these are AI-generatedtranscripts.
Is that okay?
And I'm like yep, I just reallyneed the broad strokes.
What I'm really looking forthere is what did they talk
about on their last two podcastappearances?
Because I don't want to talkabout that.
I want to talk about somethingdifferent.
(37:48):
So far, so good on that.
I'm ready to just let her runwith that task, because that's
then that does save me time,right?
I don't.
People are pitching me and Idon't have to go off and figure
out if I actually want to havethem on the show To bring the
(38:11):
worlds of virtual assistant andautomation together.
My next step is when shecreates a Google Doc.
I'm going to have her do it ina specific folder that's being
watched by Zapier, and thenZapier will take the content of
that Google Doc and send it overto ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to
(38:32):
summarize the transcripts.
What are the things they talkedabout?
What are some questions I canask that weren't asked, and put
that back into the Google Doc,and I'm reasonably sure I can do
that.
I haven't done it yet, but allof the pieces I need are there.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I like that.
You're going to automate someof that as well and obviously on
your end, you're going to readthrough those questions and then
, okay, I wouldn't ask it quitethis way or whatever, but you
can get a good idea of what thatquestion would be that you
could ask.
That would be different andeverything.
So, yeah, I like that a lot.
I think that's awesome.
And then, like you said, kindof going back and forth and
(39:11):
actually have a controlsbackground.
So I'm an electrical engineerby degree, so I think about that
.
It's always easiest if you canautomate things.
You have automation workingwith automation versus kind of
semi-automatic, so you havehuman intervention with
automation.
That's the hardest thing tocombine, which is essentially
what you're kind of trying to dothere.
So you've got some inputs froma human and then it goes to your
(39:35):
VA who's then going anddeciphering through, and then
she tries to put it in and nowyou're trying to automate
another part.
To come back to you andeverything, that's always the
hardest part.
I mean, you know that fromcomputer science side to having
human inputs, how do youautomate that?
Or figure out how tosystematize I guess probably be
a better way to say thatsystematize it where then you
(39:55):
can go and do more computationsand everything it, where then
you can go and do morecomputations and everything.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yeah, and the big benefit there is AI, like
ChatGPT, has the potential tohave the full context of my
podcast.
My VA does transcribe everyepisode, but she doesn't.
As far as I know, she doesn'thave an eidetic memory and so
she doesn't remember everything,surely?
But ChatGPT also knows the kindof things I'm thinking through
for an eidetic memory and so shedoesn't remember everything,
surely?
Yeah, um, but chat gpt alsoknows the kind of things I'm
thinking through for futureepisodes and so it has the
(40:25):
context of my thinking process.
Hopefully, um, and it, you knowit it will do, I think, a
better job of summarizing theparts that are important to me
in the context of the prompt Igive it, uh, whereas you know,
my VA is really good at a few,uh, at a bunch of things.
(40:47):
Right, if she left, honestly, ifshe left, I'm like the wheels
would fall off pretty fast, um,but I like she's been like sick
this week and so I'm like, oh, Igot to publish my episode, I've
got to do it.
Oh, man, that's why thatexample was fresh in my mind.
But you know, she doesn'tnecessarily know what I'm
(41:08):
planning for the future the kindof topics I want to cover.
Her doing the initial gatheringis great, and then feeding that
into an AI that has the fullcontext, um, will get me closer
to where I want to be by thetime all of that stuff gets to
me, and then and then,ultimately, I'll use all of that
(41:28):
to make a decision on when Iwhat if I want to have them on
the show or not.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, I like that great system there.
I appreciate you explainingthat, something that we've
talked about a little bit.
I would love to kind of go backinto this because I think we're
all guilty of that, and I'dprobably say more so as men,
because you know, we can't askfor directions.
We just know where we're goingand stuff like that too.
But when it comes to thebusiness and trying to let go of
(41:51):
things, you know that's ourbaby, that's the thing that we
do.
So what was finally a catalystfor you to start to let go of
those things, whether it wasthrough the VA or through
automations?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
In November 2020, I had a panic attack.
That's really what it was,because my wife's a nurse.
It was the middle, I guess, ofthe pandemic.
Maybe it was the height, right,it was flu season and whatever.
She was working a lot.
The height, right, it was fluseason and whatever.
Yeah, she was working a lot.
Uh, my oldest was three and mymiddle list was the youngest and
(42:23):
he was just a few months old atthat point and because school
was closed and she still had towork, I was watching the kids
and I was running my businesspart-time, but my business was
still the one bringing in mostof the income.
And so one day, my son threw upand my oldest is having a hard
(42:48):
time and I hadn't worked in afew days and I had my first ever
and only panic attack.
I'm sitting on the floor of mykitchen, I'm crying and my
daughter brings me a bottle ofwater and a towel and she says
it's going to be okay, daddy,and I thought this isn't okay.
(43:10):
My three-year-old shouldn't betaking care of me, and so I got
myself together and I made apromise to myself that I
physically couldn't do it atthat time, and so fast forward
(43:46):
about a year later it wasNovember 8th I had, so it was
like we just passed.
As we record this sorry, I'mlike timestamping your podcast
the four year anniversary, rightOf this my first and only panic
attack.
And fast forward a year latermy youngest is born and I took
an entire month off uh,paternity to spend time with my
family.
Um, because I had thoseprocesses in place and so I'm
(44:11):
doing this.
This is also when, like, thescope of my podcast changed.
I don't want parents to havepanic attacks because they don't
feel like they can handleeverything that they have to
handle.
And it was a really importantkind of nexus in my life and I'm
(44:34):
not happy.
I had the panic attack, but I'mhappy.
Something finally forced me tobe less hands-on in my business.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, and unfortunately that's how that
happens.
Sometimes Things that are maybeout of our control a little bit
happen and it forces our handto do something, and good thing
you had that perspective.
I've heard of business ownersthat crazy things will happen to
them and they're like oh, Ijust keep going, no big deal,
rub some dirt on it, keep going,it's sad that we do that.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
I know guys who had heart attacks.
I'm 39.
They were younger than me andthey had heart attacks and died
because they were so stressedabout their business.
My kids and my family are myprime objective, like the be
there and take care of them, andso, yeah, I mean the
perspective.
(45:25):
Like you said, everythingchanges with kids.
It's easy.
It was easy for me to to makethat change.
The last thing I'll say here Iwas listening to.
I don't want what I'm about tosay to be construed as a
political statement.
I listen to a lot of differentpolitical podcasts on both sides
of the aisle, but one of myfavorite is the Remnant by Jonah
(45:45):
Goldberg.
I just think he's a reallysmart, down-to-earth guy who's
very consistent in his views,and he was doing an interview
with a politician and he quoteda philosopher that basically
said and he was doing aninterview with a politician and
he quoted a philosopher thatbasically said hey, most people
(46:06):
need to feel the pain to makethe change, and that's a
paraphrase, but it's absolutelytrue.
Right, in web development,whenever I tried to get people
to take preventative action toto save their data and not have
their site hacked, they wouldsay no, and then their site
would get hacked and then they'dend up paying me twice yep um,
(46:29):
and so I don't want people tofeel that pain.
I hope my story was enough forpeople to be like oh man, I got
to do less.
For whatever reason, if youdon't have kids, maybe it's just
like can you sit on your patioand read a book without picking
(46:49):
up your phone?
Can you go visit your parents?
Maybe your parents are gettingolder?
Can you go visit your parents?
You just take a vacation, right, yeah, those things are so
important to our like work isnot everything, no matter what
gary v or alex hormosi says,right, like work is not
(47:11):
everything.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, and I'm on a mission to to help people see
and internalize that I love it,and that's a lot of why I
started my business, too, is tohelp myself, but then it turned
into helping other people out aswell, to be able to get that
time back, because we only haveso much time, especially as
being a parent also, it's suchan important thing to be able to
(47:33):
still get things done even whenI'm not doing it.
And so this is, joe.
I appreciate you sharing that,especially that story, man,
that's.
That's something that's hard toshare, for sure, but it's
definitely something that needsto be shared so others can know
that, hey, you need to make achange, things need to happen.
This is there's somethingpossible.
You don't have to be the onlyone to do it, and I think, as
(47:56):
business owners, that's thehardest thing is to let go of
that piece of your baby, becauseyou think you need to do every
single thing and you don't, andyou can't, not for the long run.
Yes, at first you're going todo that because you don't have
the resources to do it orthere's not that much work, but
eventually you have to startletting some of that go so you
(48:17):
can be able to do the thingsthat you want to do, like for us
spending time with our childrenand and our wives, of course,
as well but yeah, with ourfamily.
Yeah, that's a second though,yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, that reminds me of like ryan.
Ryan reynolds said when hisfirst daughter was born like uh,
he said that he thought like uh, his wife blake lively.
Uh, he said like oh, before mydaughter was born, like I would
take a bullet for my wife andthere was nothing that would
change that.
As soon as my daughter was born, I realized that I would use my
(48:52):
wife as a shield to protectthat child.
And I know he's's joking, butit's kind of funny that.
It's funny how much yourperspective does change.
And I'll end with this becausethere's something not that I'm
wrapping up your show, but I no,we were getting there, man, so
you're right there on the rightpath.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, yeah, I delegated the wrapping up of my
show to you.
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Perfect.
It bums me out when I talk topeople and I ask them what
hobbies they have and they say,oh, my work is my hobby.
And some people will look atthat and say, great, you're
doing what you love for your job.
But I look at that and I say,when do you stop thinking about
work?
But I look at that and I say,when do you stop thinking about
(49:48):
work?
Isn't there something else thatyou could do to work a different
muscle or part of your brain orgive you a different
perspective on way?
That, I think, gives you a verynarrow worldview and you need
to make time for hobbies.
Right, I play the drums, I doLego with my kids or without my
(50:11):
kids, because I like doing Lego.
I smoke cigars, I watchbaseball, I smoke cigars, I
watch baseball and all of thosethings exercise a different part
of my brain.
And let me think about adifferent problem.
And the side effect of that isthat when I come to do my job, I
(50:32):
have maybe a different way ofsolving my own problems that I
wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah, I love it.
You know we definitely need toget outside of our jobs or our
businesses, for sure, and dothat.
But yeah, that comes with, likewe said, the delegation and the
automation.
But for those of you that arelistening right now, I know you
got something out of this.
Make sure that you go take someaction on that, whether it be
(50:59):
deciding that, you know what Ineed to start figuring my life
out.
I'm figuring this business out.
It doesn't matter Automate,delegate, whatever you need to
do, but at least use thatframework, the PER framework,
perform the task, evaluate itand remove it in one way, shape
or form.
But, joe, once again, thank youso much for coming on the
podcast.
(51:19):
If people want to get in touchwith you, where's the best place
for them to go?
Speaker 2 (51:24):
You can check out my podcast, streamlined Solopreneur
, where I talk about all sortsof stuff like this.
If you go to streamlinedfmslash sessions, I will have the
subscribe buttons real easythere for you.
But I also have a subscribebuttons real easy there for you.
But I'll also have a freeresource for you if you want to
get my automations database tosee what's possible.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Awesome.
Well, Joe, thanks for that andthank you again for coming on
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
This was great.
What's up guys?
Welcome back to another episodeof the Speaking Sessions
podcast.
We've got Joe Casabona.
I almost butchered it again.
We just talked about thisoffline about how we'll ask and
we'll butcher it.
But hey, we're here, we'regoing to have a lot of fun with
this, but we're going to teachyou ways to not butcher your
business here in a minute.
But he is a podcast systemscoach who helps busy
(00:24):
solopreneurs take back theirtime.
Some even say he perfectlyblends content creation and
technology, like it's the bestcup of coffee you've ever had
and really he says that.
But we're not judging there thebest out there.
But Joe's strategies come fromhis many years of experience
(00:45):
over 10 years creating podcastsand more than 15 years teaching
and over 20 years as a webdeveloper.
And today we're going to talkabout, essentially, delegation
how do you automate things?
When do you automate newsoftware versus when do you
delegate to a person, such as avirtual assistant, things like
that.
But we're going to have a lotof great conversation today.
(01:08):
Before we get into that, joe,welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for that great intro.
I'll say the best cup of coffeepart is the thing I made up
because I love coffee,technology and content creation.
So you know it's a way for meto get a lot of things in there
in that one sentence yeah, yeah,no, I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I love the, the humor there as well.
I can't help but think aboutwhen you see, like uh was, I
think it's the elf movie.
There's some movie that theymade fun of that, where there's
like some character he's like anadult technically but he has
the mind of a child and he goesoh my gosh it's number one
coffee, like coffee or pie inthe world and he goes and tries
(01:49):
it out.
He's like, oh my gosh, he's likeso excited.
And it's like everybody saysthat, oh, we're the best, we're
number one, when really, who arethey?
Who are they doing that?
Who do they sample for that?
And most likely, and for me,usually, when I say I'm the best
, it's because my mom told me Iwas so just don't tell my
(02:09):
brother hey, no, mom's the way.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm the oldest of four boys, so mom's the word
yeah, yeah, exactly she, sheknows best.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
She's right, you know , my mom's the best but awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
As an italian, I do often say that I'm like my
mother makes the best chickencutlets, you know so love it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I love the accent and everything there.
That's, that's awesome, yeah,especially the italian thing.
I I don't have any of the theuh nationality like that to be
able to share those things uh,unfortunately but yeah, that's
awesome.
Well, dude, I'm excited to gethere and talk here.
Before we really get into it,for those that are actually
watching right now, I want totalk about your hat real quick
(02:50):
and the symbology behind that.
We talked about it offline.
I think it's really cool, likethese three arrows kind of
coming up and out.
So tell us what does that mean,which I think will go into your
business, and I would love totalk about what your business is
exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so I'll start with this.
I've been podcasting for 12plus years, and my most
successful podcast wasoriginally called how I Built it
, where I would interview webdevelopers.
I stopped doing web development, I stopped talking to web
developers, and so earlier thisyear, as we record this, I
decided it was time finally forme to rebrand my podcast to fall
(03:25):
more in line with what I amtalking about, and that's
helping solopreneurs save time.
And so I wanted to come up withthis concept for a really clear
piece of art for the podcastartwork.
And I thought what about if thesand in the hourglass, in an
hourglass, is going up insteadof down?
Right, you're getting your timeback, and so that's what the
(03:49):
three hour.
You know you can't really tellwith the hat because it's black
on yellow.
I have a lot of navy blue hatsbecause I'm a Yankee fan, so
it's a different color there,but it's sand going up through
the hourglass to signify I'mhere to save you time.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
The only thing you can't buy more of.
Yeah, and we need to save time,especially in this busy world.
I've had conversations withplenty of business owners.
Actually, I was talking withone the other day.
We had a scheduled call.
He was late to the call.
We had to call him to bring himin and then when we're on the
call, he's sitting there doing20 other things because he has
so many things going on at theexact same time and actually,
(04:30):
ironically, I was making somevideo content today, kind of
going through that, and I had aplay on the whole Kamala Harris
thing where she was on the phoneand her camera was on, and so
I'm going to make a post laterabout that and and the fact that
she or like for me that youknow, if you're a busy business
owner and you're just trying tolook busy, this is what it looks
(04:51):
like, kind of thing, somethingalong those lines, but like
showing that you see the camera.
But I'm trying to act like I'mbusy and that's a lot of times
what we do and it's almost likea badge of honor that, oh, I'm
so busy, I've got so many thingsgoing on and yet here I am,
faking that I'm on a phone callbut you can see the camera and
everything.
So I'm going to go along thoselines on that post when it gets
(05:11):
posted out.
So it might be before thisepisode goes out, might be after
, but that's, I think, whathappens a lot of times.
So what have you seen,especially from the podcast side
?
Uh, well, I guess, before we,we get to that, talk to me about
what your, what your servicesare, and then we'll go into what
you, what you, the commonthings you see with most
(05:32):
podcasters that they're doingand how you kind of help them
fix that yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So I think the I mean to go back to that line in my
bio right combine contentcreation and technology, or I
think that's what it is.
I don't have it up in front ofme and I wrote it a long time
ago, but that's really.
I think that's my.
I believe that's a specialskill of mine because of my
background in programming aswell as the fact that I'm an
extrovert and I did drama cluband so I'm good at the
(05:59):
performative side of things too.
But I noticed exactly whatyou've noticed.
Right, being busy is a badge ofhonor and it shouldn't be right
, it's good when business isgood, but we shouldn't be so
busy that we're not present inthe moment right, and when
(06:24):
you're not present with astranger, the impact doesn't
feel as big.
But I've got three kids and oneday I was on my phone and my
daughter said Daddy, why are youon your phone all the time?
And I was like this is such Idon't have a lot of time where
(06:45):
my kids actually want to hangout with me and I'm wasting it
like doom scrolling or whateveror like checking email on a
Saturday, and so I want tocreate that space so that people
, especially business owners whoare also parents, can be
present in other aspects oftheir lives, and I do that
(07:08):
through helping them buildsystems and processes so that
they don't have to perform everytask in their business, because
the truth is, most of thethings that you do for your
business, somebody else orsomething else could probably do
better.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And yeah, I've got athree-year-old and an
eight-month-old and mythree-year-old, of course, she's
got her own fake phone andstuff.
And that really hit me becauseI think it was yesterday, that
yesterday, the day before one,it was this week for sure where
she had her phone.
I had mine and I was looking atit and she's like, hey, let's
put our phones down.
(07:47):
And she put hers on the table.
I'm like, okay, I'll put minedown.
I'm like, man, she's noticingthis.
I know my wife gets on to meand I know I'm not great about
it and there are times wherelike, hey, I'm actually trying
to drum up some business andknow there's definitely excuses,
some valid, some not.
Depends on how you look at itand everything.
But yeah, when the, the child,that baby, tells you, that's
(08:10):
when it's tough.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And how old are your kids by the way, my oldest is
seven, my middle list is, my boyis four and my youngest will be
three right around the time.
I think this episode is comingout, if my math is right so she
was born on on christmas eve.
So okay uh, yeah, so she'll bethree on christmas eve man, man.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So yeah, you're right there in the sink of it with me
.
But but you're right, you know,as they start getting older
they're not wanting to be aroundyou near as much.
Uh, that's not making me feeltoo good that it's at seven but
so I'll say, at seven she'sstill very much.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I mean, there was, you know, I took her to like a
daddy daughter dance and shewent off with her friends, but
she's not too cool yet.
I think this was like last yearor two years ago where she was
like why are you on your phone?
But it's like the wisdom of achild is devastating, right.
So that was, that was a reallybig wake-up call for me and,
(09:05):
like the other, the other thingI'll say is, you know, we took
our kids out to dinner and wehave a very like for the littles
, if, like, dinner's getting toolong and you know they're just
like getting antsy, like we'llgive them a screen.
But for my seven-year-old, Ithink we implemented this like
when they turned six them ascreen.
But for my seven-year-old Ithink we implemented this like
(09:25):
when they turned six no screens.
When we're out to dinner and wesaw a family of five, the
parents were on their phone andeach kid was on their own kindle
fire thing and I'm like, yeah,what is the point of being here
if you're all just gonna sit andnot talk to each other?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
yeah, yeah, and I think that's been the detriment,
a lot been the detriment, a lotof the detriment to the family,
one of the many things outthere and it is sad to see my
wife and I talk about that a lot.
And, yeah, we are the same way.
We hate giving that phone, but,yeah, if it goes late or you
know, the service is really slow, whatever it may be, we're like
, okay, we're going to finallygive it and usually we're pretty
(10:06):
good about getting out, butit's like waiting until that
service happens and sometimes ittakes 20 or 30 minutes.
Unfortunately, we're like, okay,we've been trying to get her to
sit here, let's just give herthat screen for a little bit,
but then we take it away becauseit is an important thing that
they can sit there and sit still.
So I like that.
Yeah, six, I definitely think,is a good age to get them to
finally stop being on thatscreen and using that as a
crutch.
That I mean for me, like I'mguilty of that, like, oh, I've
(10:28):
got two seconds, hold on, let me.
Let me look at my phone and dosome doom scrolling while I wait
for the next thing.
It's like what?
Like why can't I just sit hereor do?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
something different yeah, I my, my, I mean we're on
a tangent now so I'll wrap thisup but she recently my oldest
recently said to me like I'mbored, and I said, good, bored
people are creative people.
Like, if you're just like, youknow, I know people who don't
think for themselves becausethey always have something in
(10:59):
front of them telling them whatto think.
Or I was talking to a guyrecently who, um, he like he
would share links but he doesn'tread the links.
He has ai summarize the linksand I'm like my dude, like
you're not even going to takethe time to read a 400 word news
article to get the facts andform the opinion yourself.
(11:19):
Like you're gonna outsource thecritical thinking part to a
robot Like that's, that's bad,and so I don't.
I want to teach my kids to bebored and to critically think.
Uh, and limiting screen time, Ithink, is a really important
part of that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh, completely agreed .
Yeah, cause you can get zonedin on that screen and, yeah, you
lose that critical thinking in.
Unfortunately, while AI is abuzzword and AI has so many
great things to it and can do somany awesome things, it's
starting to eliminate thatcritical thinking rather than
having to think about it.
And, yeah, there's differentways you can really streamline
(11:55):
your processes, but at the endof the day, you still need to be
able to critical think, andthat's really sad.
I've never heard somebody goingthat far, but I'm not surprised
either that somebody would dothat.
I guess at least, rather thanjust reading the headline and
saying, oh my gosh, I'm gonnasend this to my friends, they're
at least letting ai go throughit so they can actually say
something about it, because, Imean, I've been guilty of that
(12:17):
probably a time or two too many.
Uh, that I'm like, oh my gosh,I can't believe this and I send
it without reading the fullstory myself.
But yeah, it seems crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Here's a quick hack for that, right, because, like,
ai could hallucinate stuff,right?
So you're not even.
It's like, not even likesecondhand source, it's like
fourth hand source.
If I see a headline that seemsboombastic, we'll say clickbaity
, I guess is the word we use.
Now I will scroll to the verylast two paragraphs, because
(12:48):
that's usually where they tuckin the actual facts and a quote
from an actual expert, and so ifI want to understand an article
quickly, I'll usually scroll tothe last two paragraphs to see
what they have to say.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, they're never.
Yeah, I shouldn't say they'renever, but most likely they're
not going to have it near thetop, because they want yeah,
they want it to be clickbaity.
They want you to say this andshare it because that's alarming
, which, unfortunately, is a lotof what marketing is nowadays.
But let's get into the podcastsystem.
(13:30):
So I know this is somethingwe're going to talk about is
when to automate versus when todelegate.
So talk to us about, especiallywith a podcast, because there's
so many things that we can doand definitely different routes
we can go.
We could literally delegate itto somebody and, depending on
their services, it could be veryexpensive, but we could also
use software and, depending onthe software and I'm sure
there's different softwares outthere that are better than
others, but they're alsoprobably a little bit pricier
but typically the software ismore affordable than hiring a
(13:52):
person to do that work.
So talk to us about this,especially from the podcast side
, some of the things that yousee that people are doing, that
they could really startautomating or delegating.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, for sure.
So, I mean, I think the biggestthing right is you and I were
connected on Podmatch, I believe, and Podmatch is an amazing
tool for finding and bookingguests right.
Instead of you having to scourthe internet and do research and
then reach out and holdoutreach to that person, you are
(14:25):
getting a at least lukewarmconnection right.
Like I get a lot of pitches, Iknow that there are people who
just pitch every podcast that'srecommended to them, but, yeah,
you're at least getting like alukewarm list of potential
guests or a potential podcastthat you can guest on right, and
, and the really nice thing thatthey've done at Podmatch right
(14:46):
is they've streamlined that flow.
So you put in your booking linkright, and they almost require
you to have one right, becausethat's the next step in the
process, and a booking link isso much better than going back
and forth via email, right, yeah, what I love about the booking
link, though, is because this iswhat every surface-level
(15:10):
podcast expert will tell you oh,you need to use Calendly, right
, that's going to save you somuch time.
Yeah, I say that, but then Isay, but the real magic is that
Calendly is the first, orwhatever.
Calcom, acuity, whatever right.
The scheduling link is the firststep in a long line of
(15:31):
processes, because when someoneputs in data into one of those
scheduling links, you can takeit using Zapier or makecom and
send it to other places likeNotion, like Google Docs.
And now you're not justautomating the booking process,
you're automating the planningprocess, you're organizing,
(15:51):
you're looking at your pipelinein a place where you always hang
out, and so I always say if youare sending data from one app
to another, perfect candidatefor automation, in most cases
right, especially like Zapier.
Zapier integrates witheverything, right where the, and
(16:11):
so the way I word that at ahigh level is are the inputs
clear and are the outputs clear?
Do you always put in the name,an email address and a time
you're going to meet and do youalways get a calendar invite out
of that right?
When the inputs and outputsaren't clear, you probably need
somebody with critical thinkingskills, and so that's really the
(16:34):
dividing line for whether youshould automate or delegate.
I can automate the bookingprocess, I can automate, you
know, when I drop files that areready for my editor into
Dropbox, he automatically getsan email and my Notion board is
automatically updated to episodeis out for edit, but when it
(16:55):
comes time to publish my episode, I want the format a certain
way.
I want to make sure the shownotes are right.
I need to put it in my podcasthost and also on my website,
which uses a custom way.
I want to make sure the shownotes are right.
I need to put it in my podcasthost and also on my website,
which uses a custom template.
The inputs are clear, but theoutputs are not, and so my VA
does that.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that's super ultrarepetitive tasks.
That's literally going to bethe same, no matter what.
That doesn't need that specialtouch or that that little extra
polish here and there.
Those are the things for surethat we can automate, and I like
that you said, especially asoftware.
If it's a software to anothersoftware, there's probably a way
that you can make it talk forsure.
(17:35):
And then, yeah, using the VA forthe other side.
I completely agree with youthere and that's yeah, I like
that you explained it that way,because a lot of times we don't
think about it that way.
But even then, on the otherside too, when it comes to
getting that VA, a lot of timeswe just want, oh, just do it,
just get it done, but we don'teven know clearly what that is
(17:58):
and everything.
So how do you help clientsbreak down, how to find out
their process?
Because that's the other sideof the story.
Okay, cool, I want to be able toautomate this, or I want to
delegate this, but then theydon't really know what that is
like.
Oh, I want to, I want to, youknow, automate booking podcasts.
Okay, cool, that sounds greatin theory, but what are all
those steps?
Like you said, there's probably10 steps there, even though
(18:20):
we're thinking, oh, it's justone or two, because we tend to
just do it.
So how do we, or how do you, goabout clearly defining that and
how can the audience start toclearly define their steps so
that they can figure out?
Can I automate this to asoftware or do I need to
delegate this to a virtualassistant?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, this is a great question.
I have a framework for it, sofeel free to interrupt me at any
point if you want to dig deep.
But this is really where mybackground in software
engineering oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh because they weremismanaged.
(19:02):
And knowing this caused anumber of software developers in
2000 to write the AgileManifesto, and so the way that
software used to be developed isokay.
Well, we need to build softwarethat allows people to put in
orders, manage inventory andthen send an invoice to a
customer.
Each of those things I justmentioned there have a bunch of
(19:25):
steps underneath, and the reasonthat those projects would fail
is because the steps underneathwould get missed.
Nobody would really thinkthrough the process and budgets
and timelines would blow up.
The Agile Manifesto says everymajor feature essentially I'm
paraphrasing heavily here Everymajor feature can be broken down
(19:49):
into smaller steps and as youapproach what you do in your
business, you should think aboutthis the same way.
So I have the PER P-E-Rframework for everything that
you do in your business.
I want you to break it down.
So I want you to perform thetask that's the P and as you're
(20:11):
performing, write down everystep you have to take as you
perform that task.
So booking guest is not justbook guest, it's determine the
topic, find an expert on thattopic, reach out to them, see if
they're interested.
If they are, book them, do someresearch on them.
(20:32):
Probably do that before youreach out to them, but do some
research on them, figure out thequestions you're going to ask
right, write down all of thosethings and then the E is
evaluate For that task and foreach step in that task, evaluate
.
Do I personally have to do this?
The answer is going to be nomost of the time.
(20:55):
Then ask yourself do I want todo this?
Because we're in business,because we are autonomous and we
want to work the way we want towork and we've selected the
type of work.
We're in business because weare autonomous and we want to
work the way we want to work andwe've selected the type of work
we're doing.
And so I don't personally haveto find guests for my podcast,
or I don't have to personallyfind sponsors for my podcast,
(21:16):
but I choose to do that becausethe relationship building is
critical to me.
So that is something that Ipersonally don't have to do, but
I choose to do because thebenefits of me doing it outweigh
the time that is saved by menot doing it.
So do you have?
(21:36):
Do you personally have to do it?
Do you personally want to do it?
Then you can ask yourself arethe inputs and outputs clear,
like I just said, if they arealways the same, you ask
yourself does a person actuallyneed to do this?
Because the answer, there isprobably no right.
If the inputs are always thesame and the outputs are always
(22:01):
the same, then you can set up anautomation in zapier or notion
or wherever to say when you getthis information, when this
thing happens, do this and do itevery time.
If the inputs and outputs arenot clear, that's where you go
to hire a VA, and then the R isremove it for you.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Before we get to that , real quick, I want to add one
other thing I like when I thinkabout the evaluation side is
does it make me money?
That's something that I mightput off actually delegating or
automating.
Well, I guess delegatingbecause now I'm probably going
to pay more the automation sideof it makes a little bit more
sense.
But I always look at that Isthat going to make me money?
(22:46):
Because I mean, we think aboutlike a sales call.
Maybe I hate sales, but thesales calls make me money.
So I might not want to delegatethat right away.
So I like to throw that in onthat evaluation.
I like the way we're breakingthis down so far, but I just
want to kind of throw that inreal quick.
Is uh, is it make me money ornot?
And maybe you're gonna put thaton a different order on that
(23:07):
list too.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So yeah, that's a really good point, right, like
we can tuck that right in with.
Do I want to do it or like,should I?
Should I personally do it?
Maybe is the better question,because you're right, I uh I had
a?
Um, a remote assistant, right?
Um, a friend of mine who was onmy podcast.
I I hired her and her agency todo some stuff for me and I
realized that she was doing someoutreach to start sales calls
(23:33):
and I was uncomfortable withthat and so every time I got on
a sales call they would saysomething from the conversation
that she was having on my behalfand I wasn't as prepared.
So I'd be like I got to behonest with you, it wasn't me
who did the outreach and I Ialways felt like that hurt the
relationship a little bit.
Yeah.
And so that you're right Like Ican have somebody do outreach to
(23:54):
sponsors or people on LinkedIn,but I'm not running my business
to scale huge.
Yeah, my business is arelationship business and so,
yeah, that's that's the calculusyou also have to make.
Yeah, my business is arelationship business and so,
yeah, that's the calculus youalso have to make yeah.
Sales calls and discovery callsaren't my favorite thing, but
having good conversations abouthow I can help people, they're
great right.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, are you just trying to sell a widget too with
that?
So if you're just trying tosell a widget and no big deal,
you don't want the relationship,then maybe that works for you.
But then, like you said, itsounds like you're really
wanting to build a relationship.
So that was you realized.
Oh that's, I need to take thatback, because I can't really
build that relationship the sameway if I don't do that task.
(24:35):
So, yeah, we got to reallythink holistically on this as
well, cause like, okay, cool,yeah, you can delegate
everything you want, but is thatthe way you want to run your
business too?
Cause there's no right or wrongway.
We're not saying that you haveto automate and delegate, but
it's probably gonna be betterfor you.
But it depends on where youwant to be at in business.
If you want to be a solopreneurand doing every single thing
the rest of your life hopefullynot.
(24:56):
But if you do, then yeah, don'tautomate or delegate anything.
But if you want to grow andscale you're going to have to
start automating and delegating,for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, it's so important.
I decided before I was marriedand had kids, I would say I
don't care if I'm married orhave kids, as long as I'm a
millionaire by 30.
And then I met the woman whowould become my wife when I was
26.
And I was like, oh my God, Idon't care about being a
millionaire, I just want to makeenough money to support my
family, and I can support myfamily on way less than a
(25:27):
million dollars a year.
A million dollars profit.
A million dollars revenue couldbe zero dollars profit.
Negative dollars profit.
My goals changed and my approachto my business changed too,
because, instead of trying toscale and get a huge audience, I
want a handful of clients whoknow I'm not available nights
(25:49):
and weekends to help them growand have an impact, and that
makes more than enough money forme.
So it's all about your goals.
The R in per is the easiest one.
It's remove it, right, if youhave determined that you don't
have to do it.
You don't want to do it, youshouldn't do it and it could be
(26:11):
um done by a robot or anotherperson.
Send that.
Send that off into the ether,take it off of your plate and
relish in the amount of timeeach week that you're saving by
not doing that task I like that,and even then, maybe you don't
even need it at all.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
I mean, it's something as well.
There's times that we're doingthings that don't even need to
be done.
We're just doing it because wethought we needed to do it.
So even with that remove, Iwould add that in there too,
which I think would go back intothe evaluation.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
It doesn't need to be done.
Also, but, yeah, I like that,remove it from.
Yeah, that's, that's a reallygood point.
Yeah, either, yeah, remove it,either give it to something or
someone else, or completelyeliminate it, because you're
right, like we.
There are some things that wejust did when we started and we
keep doing it and we never takethe time to be like why am I?
Why am I doing this?
Yeah so always good to thinkabout that Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So, out of these three phases, or, in this
framework, the perform, evaluateand remove, where do you think
most people spend most of theirtime, or they should spend most
of their time?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I think it should be in the evaluation phase, right?
The perform that's basicallygiving you your standard
operating procedures.
You're documenting your process, which is great, and you should
definitely do that foreverything, and having a VA can
help that a lot, because you'regoing to have to for someone
(27:44):
else.
Right, they can't just downloadyour brain.
You need to tell them what todo and, depending on the level
the VA is at, you might need totell them this is always step
one, this is always step two,this is always step three, but
it's the evaluation phase whereit's almost like I know that, oh
(28:05):
my gosh, the Katamari method.
Marie Kondo, I know she doesn'tpractice that anymore because
she has kids and most advice formost people is for those
without kids.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, it changes as soon as you have kids.
It's just like throw it out thewindow, start over.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, right, exactly.
Someone asked Tim Ferris abunch of years ago like, hey,
how do you get so much done?
And he's like, well, I wake upand I meditate for two hours and
I'm like cool, you don't havekids.
I wake up and I slam coffee inhopes that my kids don't leave
their room before their clockturns green, like that's, that's
my morning routine, right?
Um, so that's not entirely truebut.
(28:42):
I know it is for a lot ofpeople right.
I wake up early to beat my kids.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Sometimes I'm like oh cool, I'm going to get up at
four and be up before my kids,and that's the day they're like
oh, I'm hungry.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I want to clarify that I, I want to.
I wake up early ahead of my Isaid to beat my kids.
Uh, and I don't't.
If I ever run for office oneday, this is going to be the
sound clip that sinks me.
Uh, I wake up early to wake upahead of my kids so I can enjoy
a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
But thank you for that correction for those that
were confused out there.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, unfortunately yeah, this guy sounded like a
real guy, sounded like a reallygood dad in the beginning.
Yeah, yeah, uh, but anyway, youguys sounded like a really good
dad in the beginning.
Yeah, but anyway it's screentime.
But in the evaluation phase it'salmost like the Marie Kondo of
(29:39):
like does it spark joy?
I imagine a lot of people startlike everything sparked joy for
them, right, and so they didn'tget rid of as much as they
hoped.
Everything sparked joy for them, right, and so they didn't get
rid of as much as they hoped Inthe evaluation phase.
I really, really want you tothink about what it is that you
have to do, because when itcomes to podcasting, there's
three or four things right.
(29:59):
One is talk.
Obviously, it's your podcast.
Don't outsource that to ai.
Yeah, there's actually podcastsout there.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That are ai podcasts, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, it's bad, but but, like you know what like
those are, no one's gonna listento it.
Like, no one's gonna listen tothose unless it's just like a
straight like, unless you'rejust looking for like a straight
reading of facts.
Yeah, okay, fine, great, right,it's like the same people who
listen like the fan noisepodcast because they don't want
(30:31):
to sit in silence.
Um, yeah, there's like a lot ofthose out there, so, but that's
not right, that's not the goalof podcasting for a lot of
people.
Yeah, when you start to think,well, I need to edit it, because
no one's going to edit it likeme, there are people who are
going to edit it way better thanyou I, I, unless you are
(30:53):
yourself an editor, I and eventhen, right, because you're
going to be more critical ofyour work than someone else.
So, like, editing is somethingI strongly recommend you
outsource.
Oh, I need to publish itbecause my process is
complicated.
My process is complicated.
(31:13):
It's even more complicated thanit was when I hired my VA
because I publish it in multipleplaces, and so we just wrote
down the steps for everything inorder, and now my VA does it.
And my VA does that better thanme now, because she actually
refers to the list and I don't.
I'm just like whoops.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I forgot.
I think I got everything.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, it's like hubris,right, like I've been doing this
for 12 years.
Of course, I remember how topublish my own podcast and I'm
like, shoot, I forgot to writefill in this one field.
Um, so, if you think it's toocomplicated, it's probably not
like.
If you're like a competenthuman being, another competent
(31:55):
human being can do it.
What you want to focus on isyour area of expertise.
What are the things that you dobest, and that could be
relationship building.
It's definitely talking, right.
It could be figuring out theclips or writing the questions.
Those are all fine, right,because no one knows your
audience as well as you do.
But, by and large, you can takemost of that stuff off of your
(32:20):
plate.
So, in the evaluation phase,really think and then prioritize
.
Right, because you're also notgoing to take everything off of
your plate all at once.
That's too much change, toofast.
Things will fall apart.
So pick the two or three mosthighest impact things and start
with those.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
How do you go about evaluating, especially, I would
say on more of the VA side?
I mean, you can also look andsee, based on the automations,
whether they're working or not.
Obviously, but when it comes tothe VA side, how are you
evaluating if the work's gettingdone properly, because that's
definitely something that itfeels like you're almost
micromanaging if you'reconstantly like trying to jump
(33:00):
in and check on these things.
So how do you go about thatwithout going to that
micromanagement side of things?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, this is something that was really hard
for me, because I don't thinkI'm a micromanager, but I was
definitely a person who was likeno one does the work better
than me.
And, to be fair to past Joe,past Joe was the guy in college
who had to do the group projects, or would delegate something to
(33:30):
someone and it didn't get done,so he'd end up doing it Right,
um, and he, you know, past Joeis a bad manager, but I had, I
had life experience reinforcedthat thinking, and so here's
what I do with both my editorand my VA.
My editor I've been with forlike seven years or something
like that now, um, so I don'teven check his work.
(33:52):
Really, you know, um, I don'tactually check his work at all,
and my VA will let me know, youknow, if something seems off,
because she also transcribes theepisodes.
Uh, with my VA, what I'll do isand I should say here that my
va is like an entry-level vashe's based in the philippines.
(34:13):
Uh, I believe english is hersecond language and so I'm gonna
assume english is her secondlanguage because she's in the
philippines, um, and so, um,this is how I work with her when
you, if you work for a higherlevel va, right, someone?
You're paying 25 an hour orsomething like that.
Um, you know, you, your approachcould probably be different
because their tasks are going tobe different, but for my va,
(34:36):
what I'll do is I will recordmyself performing the task as I
narrate it, and then I have hertranscribe the video and write
out the steps.
And so the first check is I'llreview the steps that she wrote
out and if the steps are wrong,I'll review the transcript
(34:58):
because maybe I forgot something.
And if she has any questionsbecause the benefit of the video
too is she can see when I don'tsay something, right, she could
see me do something and I mighthave not said it.
So she can always ask like, hey, you didn't mention this, but
you did that thing.
And I'm like yeah, I'm, I'mdumb and forgot to say it.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
um, are you using loom?
What are you using to record?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
yeah, I use loom for that.
Yeah, um, I use both loom andtella.
Uh, tella is really more forlike client facing stuff because
it's nicer.
Loom I have for free because Iworked at the university of
scranton for a while and theygave away free edu accounts so
hey, yeah, so, um, I think if Iwas like picking one today and I
(35:39):
didn't want to pay for both, itwould be tella, because tell is
nicer, but it's neither herenor there.
Loom is very well known and andpretty easy to use, right, and
I I think it's probablyembeddable in more places.
So that's the other thing.
I have a I have a VA taskmanager thing built in Notion
(36:00):
and I will embed the video thereand then she knows to put the
transcript and the steps there,and so that task board is also
like the Goodhouse Media that'sthe name of my company Goodhouse
.
Is Casabona, translated fromItalian to English, the
Goodhouse Media Handbook, right,yeah, company.
Good house is casabonatranslated from italian to
english, uh, the good housemedia, the good house media
(36:20):
handbook, right, yeah, um, sothat's the first check and then
the first few times she performsa task, she'll ping me to let
me know it's done and I'll go inand check and if she does it
right three times in a row,three is a arbitrary number
that's commonly used ineverything.
So if she does it properlythree times in a row, then I
(36:42):
kind of let her do her thing,right.
So right now we're going throughthis process with initial
research for potential guests.
A lot of my guests come fromPodmatch, but people can also
pitch themselves to me, and so Imake them fill out a form.
That form goes into Notion.
My VA gets pinged and she knowsto look for five things that I
(37:07):
want to know about this guest,including the transcripts of two
recent podcast episodes, andthen she'll put all of that into
a Google Doc and I'm going toget a little extra here.
I'll finish my thought first.
So I've been reviewing thatbefore I decide okay, this is
(37:27):
something that you candefinitely do, but so far so
good.
I mean, she's also been likehey, just so you're aware, most
of these are AI-generatedtranscripts.
Is that okay?
And I'm like yep, I just reallyneed the broad strokes.
What I'm really looking forthere is what did they talk
about on their last two podcastappearances?
Because I don't want to talkabout that.
I want to talk about somethingdifferent.
(37:48):
So far, so good on that.
I'm ready to just let her runwith that task, because that's
then that does save me time,right?
I don't.
People are pitching me and Idon't have to go off and figure
out if I actually want to havethem on the show To bring the
(38:11):
worlds of virtual assistant andautomation together.
My next step is when shecreates a Google Doc.
I'm going to have her do it ina specific folder that's being
watched by Zapier, and thenZapier will take the content of
that Google Doc and send it overto ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to
(38:32):
summarize the transcripts.
What are the things they talkedabout?
What are some questions I canask that weren't asked, and put
that back into the Google Doc,and I'm reasonably sure I can do
that.
I haven't done it yet, but allof the pieces I need are there.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I like that.
You're going to automate someof that as well and obviously on
your end, you're going to readthrough those questions and then
, okay, I wouldn't ask it quitethis way or whatever, but you
can get a good idea of what thatquestion would be that you
could ask.
That would be different andeverything.
So, yeah, I like that a lot.
I think that's awesome.
And then, like you said, kindof going back and forth and
(39:11):
actually have a controlsbackground.
So I'm an electrical engineerby degree, so I think about that
.
It's always easiest if you canautomate things.
You have automation workingwith automation versus kind of
semi-automatic, so you havehuman intervention with
automation.
That's the hardest thing tocombine, which is essentially
what you're kind of trying to dothere.
So you've got some inputs froma human and then it goes to your
(39:35):
VA who's then going anddeciphering through, and then
she tries to put it in and nowyou're trying to automate
another part.
To come back to you andeverything, that's always the
hardest part.
I mean, you know that fromcomputer science side to having
human inputs, how do youautomate that?
Or figure out how tosystematize I guess probably be
a better way to say thatsystematize it where then you
(39:55):
can go and do more computationsand everything it, where then
you can go and do morecomputations and everything.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yeah, and the big benefit there is AI, like
ChatGPT, has the potential tohave the full context of my
podcast.
My VA does transcribe everyepisode, but she doesn't.
As far as I know, she doesn'thave an eidetic memory and so
she doesn't remember everything,surely?
But ChatGPT also knows the kindof things I'm thinking through
for an eidetic memory and so shedoesn't remember everything,
surely?
Yeah, um, but chat gpt alsoknows the kind of things I'm
thinking through for futureepisodes and so it has the
(40:25):
context of my thinking process.
Hopefully, um, and it, you knowit it will do, I think, a
better job of summarizing theparts that are important to me
in the context of the prompt Igive it, uh, whereas you know,
my VA is really good at a few,uh, at a bunch of things.
(40:47):
Right, if she left, honestly, ifshe left, I'm like the wheels
would fall off pretty fast, um,but I like she's been like sick
this week and so I'm like, oh, Igot to publish my episode, I've
got to do it.
Oh, man, that's why thatexample was fresh in my mind.
But you know, she doesn'tnecessarily know what I'm
(41:08):
planning for the future the kindof topics I want to cover.
Her doing the initial gatheringis great, and then feeding that
into an AI that has the fullcontext, um, will get me closer
to where I want to be by thetime all of that stuff gets to
me, and then and then,ultimately, I'll use all of that
(41:28):
to make a decision on when Iwhat if I want to have them on
the show or not.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, I like that great system there.
I appreciate you explainingthat, something that we've
talked about a little bit.
I would love to kind of go backinto this because I think we're
all guilty of that, and I'dprobably say more so as men,
because you know, we can't askfor directions.
We just know where we're goingand stuff like that too.
But when it comes to thebusiness and trying to let go of
(41:51):
things, you know that's ourbaby, that's the thing that we
do.
So what was finally a catalystfor you to start to let go of
those things, whether it wasthrough the VA or through
automations?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
In November 2020, I had a panic attack.
That's really what it was,because my wife's a nurse.
It was the middle, I guess, ofthe pandemic.
Maybe it was the height, right,it was flu season and whatever.
She was working a lot.
The height, right, it was fluseason and whatever.
Yeah, she was working a lot.
Uh, my oldest was three and mymiddle list was the youngest and
(42:23):
he was just a few months old atthat point and because school
was closed and she still had towork, I was watching the kids
and I was running my businesspart-time, but my business was
still the one bringing in mostof the income.
And so one day, my son threw upand my oldest is having a hard
(42:48):
time and I hadn't worked in afew days and I had my first ever
and only panic attack.
I'm sitting on the floor of mykitchen, I'm crying and my
daughter brings me a bottle ofwater and a towel and she says
it's going to be okay, daddy,and I thought this isn't okay.
(43:10):
My three-year-old shouldn't betaking care of me, and so I got
myself together and I made apromise to myself that I
physically couldn't do it atthat time, and so fast forward
(43:46):
about a year later it wasNovember 8th I had, so it was
like we just passed.
As we record this sorry, I'mlike timestamping your podcast
the four year anniversary, rightOf this my first and only panic
attack.
And fast forward a year latermy youngest is born and I took
an entire month off uh,paternity to spend time with my
family.
Um, because I had thoseprocesses in place and so I'm
(44:11):
doing this.
This is also when, like, thescope of my podcast changed.
I don't want parents to havepanic attacks because they don't
feel like they can handleeverything that they have to
handle.
And it was a really importantkind of nexus in my life and I'm
(44:34):
not happy.
I had the panic attack, but I'mhappy.
Something finally forced me tobe less hands-on in my business.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, and unfortunately that's how that
happens.
Sometimes Things that are maybeout of our control a little bit
happen and it forces our handto do something, and good thing
you had that perspective.
I've heard of business ownersthat crazy things will happen to
them and they're like oh, Ijust keep going, no big deal,
rub some dirt on it, keep going,it's sad that we do that.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
I know guys who had heart attacks.
I'm 39.
They were younger than me andthey had heart attacks and died
because they were so stressedabout their business.
My kids and my family are myprime objective, like the be
there and take care of them, andso, yeah, I mean the
perspective.
(45:25):
Like you said, everythingchanges with kids.
It's easy.
It was easy for me to to makethat change.
The last thing I'll say here Iwas listening to.
I don't want what I'm about tosay to be construed as a
political statement.
I listen to a lot of differentpolitical podcasts on both sides
of the aisle, but one of myfavorite is the Remnant by Jonah
(45:45):
Goldberg.
I just think he's a reallysmart, down-to-earth guy who's
very consistent in his views,and he was doing an interview
with a politician and he quoteda philosopher that basically
said and he was doing aninterview with a politician and
he quoted a philosopher thatbasically said hey, most people
(46:06):
need to feel the pain to makethe change, and that's a
paraphrase, but it's absolutelytrue.
Right, in web development,whenever I tried to get people
to take preventative action toto save their data and not have
their site hacked, they wouldsay no, and then their site
would get hacked and then they'dend up paying me twice yep um,
(46:29):
and so I don't want people tofeel that pain.
I hope my story was enough forpeople to be like oh man, I got
to do less.
For whatever reason, if youdon't have kids, maybe it's just
like can you sit on your patioand read a book without picking
(46:49):
up your phone?
Can you go visit your parents?
Maybe your parents are gettingolder?
Can you go visit your parents?
You just take a vacation, right, yeah, those things are so
important to our like work isnot everything, no matter what
gary v or alex hormosi says,right, like work is not
(47:11):
everything.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, and I'm on a mission to to help people see
and internalize that I love it,and that's a lot of why I
started my business, too, is tohelp myself, but then it turned
into helping other people out aswell, to be able to get that
time back, because we only haveso much time, especially as
being a parent also, it's suchan important thing to be able to
(47:33):
still get things done even whenI'm not doing it.
And so this is, joe.
I appreciate you sharing that,especially that story, man,
that's.
That's something that's hard toshare, for sure, but it's
definitely something that needsto be shared so others can know
that, hey, you need to make achange, things need to happen.
This is there's somethingpossible.
You don't have to be the onlyone to do it, and I think, as
(47:56):
business owners, that's thehardest thing is to let go of
that piece of your baby, becauseyou think you need to do every
single thing and you don't, andyou can't, not for the long run.
Yes, at first you're going todo that because you don't have
the resources to do it orthere's not that much work, but
eventually you have to startletting some of that go so you
(48:17):
can be able to do the thingsthat you want to do, like for us
spending time with our childrenand and our wives, of course,
as well but yeah, with ourfamily.
Yeah, that's a second though,yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, that reminds me of like ryan.
Ryan reynolds said when hisfirst daughter was born like uh,
he said that he thought like uh, his wife blake lively.
Uh, he said like oh, before mydaughter was born, like I would
take a bullet for my wife andthere was nothing that would
change that.
As soon as my daughter was born, I realized that I would use my
(48:52):
wife as a shield to protectthat child.
And I know he's's joking, butit's kind of funny that.
It's funny how much yourperspective does change.
And I'll end with this becausethere's something not that I'm
wrapping up your show, but I no,we were getting there, man, so
you're right there on the rightpath.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, yeah, I delegated the wrapping up of my
show to you.
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Perfect.
It bums me out when I talk topeople and I ask them what
hobbies they have and they say,oh, my work is my hobby.
And some people will look atthat and say, great, you're
doing what you love for your job.
But I look at that and I say,when do you stop thinking about
work?
But I look at that and I say,when do you stop thinking about
(49:48):
work?
Isn't there something else thatyou could do to work a different
muscle or part of your brain orgive you a different
perspective on way?
That, I think, gives you a verynarrow worldview and you need
to make time for hobbies.
Right, I play the drums, I doLego with my kids or without my
(50:11):
kids, because I like doing Lego.
I smoke cigars, I watchbaseball, I smoke cigars, I
watch baseball and all of thosethings exercise a different part
of my brain.
And let me think about adifferent problem.
And the side effect of that isthat when I come to do my job, I
(50:32):
have maybe a different way ofsolving my own problems that I
wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah, I love it.
You know we definitely need toget outside of our jobs or our
businesses, for sure, and dothat.
But yeah, that comes with, likewe said, the delegation and the
automation.
But for those of you that arelistening right now, I know you
got something out of this.
Make sure that you go take someaction on that, whether it be
(50:59):
deciding that, you know what Ineed to start figuring my life
out.
I'm figuring this business out.
It doesn't matter Automate,delegate, whatever you need to
do, but at least use thatframework, the PER framework,
perform the task, evaluate itand remove it in one way, shape
or form.
But, joe, once again, thank youso much for coming on the
podcast.
(51:19):
If people want to get in touchwith you, where's the best place
for them to go?
Speaker 2 (51:24):
You can check out my podcast, streamlined Solopreneur
, where I talk about all sortsof stuff like this.
If you go to streamlinedfmslash sessions, I will have the
subscribe buttons real easythere for you.
But I also have a subscribebuttons real easy there for you.
But I'll also have a freeresource for you if you want to
get my automations database tosee what's possible.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Awesome.
Well, Joe, thanks for that andthank you again for coming on
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
My pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.
This was great.
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