Passage To Profit Economic Trends for Entrepreneurs in 2023 with Gene Marks

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, how's the autonomy. Theanswer is it depends. I'm all about
making yourself a priority. This isgonna sound weird, but we're actually making
it at a lower cost. Inour prices are going to be lower.
I'm Richard Gerhart. Now I'm ElizabethGearhart. You've just heard some great tidbits
from our show. Stay tuned forthe rest lunch of Patton your invention.

(00:20):
The chance is near. You've givenit part, now get it in gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard andElizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gerhart,
founder of gar Heart Law, afirm specializing in patents, trademarks, and
copyrights. I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, notan attorney, but I work at your
Heart Law doing the marketing, andI have my own startups. Welcome the

(00:42):
Passage to Profit everyone, the Roadto entrepreneurship, where we talk with startups,
small businesses and discuss the intellectual propertythat helps them flourish. We have
a returning guest, Gene Marx.He's a CRM and small business expert,
author, business owner, and acolumnist for The New York Times in the
Washington Post. So we're really lookingforward to hearing from him. And then

(01:03):
we have Jamie's Azzara. Cool stuffgoing on with Jamie. She's a life
coach, but she has got theseactivities going on that I can hardly wait
to try this summer, and I'mgoing to let her explain it. And
then we have Peter Man with theRamsey, which is air purification technology that
Peter has the most amazing story abouthow he overcame some difficulties in his life
to be a successful businessman. Ican hardly wait to hear this whole story.

(01:26):
But before we get to our distinguishedguests, it's time for IP in
the News. And who are wetalking about today? Well, we're talking
about Lord Apple, who come frombecause they lord it over everybody? Okay,
no, actually got it. Yeah. It was a band called Apple

(01:49):
Jazz Band back in nineteen eighty four, and Charlie Bertini was the one who
founded that and he has a littledispute with Apple over the name Apple.
That's right. So he had arecord label called Apple jazz Fest. And
everybody remembers how Apple Music and AppleComputer got into a big trademark fight because

(02:10):
of guess what the word apple,right, and so they got into a
trademark fight. They settled it,and eventually Apple Computer acquired all of Apple
Records assets, and so they filedsome new trademarks, and it turned out
that mister Bertini, who had thejazz Fest mark for musicians and for recording
labels, didn't really like the factthat Apple Music was starting to horn in

(02:32):
on his tiny little record label,so he filed an opposition proceeding at the
trademark office, which means that theycontested the Apple Music marks anyone. So,
I think it's a great story becauseit shows how even the small guy
can take on the big guy,and if you have the right legal rights,
you can win. Well, thenext business I start is not going
to have the name Apple. I'mgonna call it Banana Computer. Anyway,

(03:00):
I would like to hear from ourdistinguished guests about what they think about this.
Jane, do you have any thoughtson this situation. You really have
to be careful about doing this stuff, you know. You know, guys,
it's really interesting that when I've heardabout this case in Philly, where
I live, and I'm not goingto name names, but when you drive
to the stadiums in Philadelphia, thereis a cleaner on broad streets in Philadelphia

(03:22):
that had like the exact logo ofa Disney character on its sign, and
actually the cleaner is named after thatDisney character. I am not kidding.
And I remember it so well becauseeven when I was a little kid going
to Phillies games, I would driveby the cleaners and it's still there.
And I always felt like, man, it's amazing that Disney hasn't come after
them. Maybe Disney's got better thingsto do with their time. But then

(03:44):
I also think to myself, like, boy, that is a risky thing
to do, you know what,I mean, to run your business that
is so blatly based on a wellknown character. Maybe you're just waiting for
trouble Disney after this air. Whodo you think though came first? Oh,
it's gotta be Disney. And Ithink that's actually really good question.
I think the reason why it's becauseit looks exactly like the cartoon character from

(04:09):
a Disney movie that was named afterthe cartoon character. We're getting closer here.
You don't want to get anybody introuble like they dodged a bull.
It's so far now, like youknow, somebody from Disney's listening to this
podcast to be like, wait asecond, we're going after that guy.
I think that Disney did come first. And I don't know, I mean

(04:30):
maybe we all I know, maybethey got a waiver back in the day,
or the person's grandfather who started thebusiness was friends with Walt Disney.
I don't know. Could but it'sjust it's shockingly when you would drive by
it, it's shockingly familiar. Amazingstory, Kenya, what do you think?
Well, it's funny because I've heardsimilar stories and I've seen similar things
throughout my life where I'm like,that is totally something that they've swagger jacked

(04:54):
from somebody else, right, AndI just wonder, say, for example,
someone uses the likeness of a particularcharacter, how far would someone have
to go to prove that in likea trademark court or a patent case.
Well, usually it starts out witha letter. Somebody writes a letter to
the person who's using the intellectual propertyreportedly wrongly, and they list the reasons

(05:17):
why they think they should stop,and they go back and forth, maybe
one or two rounds, and thenif serious enough, they file a lawsuit
or try to stop it, andthen from there it just goes off the
rails. Sometimes these get resolved ata very early stage without going a court.
Sometimes you end up like what happenedhere, where they went all the
way up to the Circuit Court ofAppeals to get the case finally decided.

(05:40):
Jamie, what are your thoughts?I guess my question would be, so
before someone would even do that,is there a way to search which trademarked
already that logos were just the name? So that's right, you need to
check and protect, right, Soyou wanted first check question, Yeah,
and so you definitely want to check. And I guess the Apple people probably
checked him. Maybe they just thoughtthat this person was not going to stand

(06:03):
up. We're not going to worryabout it. There was some difference in
the names Apple Jazz versus Apple.They may have thought it was different enough.
So, yeah, that's a reallygood question. You always got a
search first and then use later checkand protect, Peter. I imagine Apple
has an army em lawyers, soI imagine they anticipated this as a possibility.

(06:25):
He just kind of curious from alarge company standpoint, how they viewed
the smaller guy. It seems likea lot of these don't go to court
like this. I assume most oftenthese are settled, and I guess the
takeaway messages. You know, checkand protect, So check for the availability
of your trademark and then if it'savailable, protect it. Right. So,
now it's time for our amazing guest, Gene Marx, and I think

(06:48):
this is the third time he's beenon the program and it's always a pleasure.
He is a wealth of knowledge forrunning and operating a small business,
and he's nationally recognized CRM and smallbusiness expert, and he's a keynote speaker,
author and columnist and the founder ofthe Marx Group, a small business
consulting firm, and so he's beenat it for thirty years and he has

(07:11):
a lot of great insights into whatit's like to run a small business.
You should check out his website.He's even helped us on a few projects.
Well. I love the name ofhis latest bestselling book and God we
trust everyone else pays cash. So, Jane, what have you been up
too lately? What have I beenup to? Pretty much the same thing
that I've been up to over thepast ten years or so. I've been

(07:34):
doing a lot of writing and alot of speaking. I was just in
Vegas earlier this week. I gothome yesterday speaking to the National port Portable
Storage Association. I've spoken to theAssociation of Walls and Ceiling Industry and Pooled
supplied distributors and skycasting manufacturers. Italked from about economy and labor issues and

(07:56):
some tech trends and regulations to beaware of. And eybody's running a business
right now, and they're very nervousand uncertain about twenty twenty three. So
we're all trying to figure that stuffout. What's the sort of the general
consensus or what opinions are you gettingabout the state of the US economy and
where people think it's going. Itell you what where I'm coming out of
the such is that, for example, like California's GDP Gross domestic Products,

(08:20):
it's the same as the entire UK, you know, the fifth biggest economy
in the world, you know,and Florida's is the same size as all
of Mexico, and Texas is thesame size as all of Canada. North
Carolina has the same size economy asSweden, which is my favorite country because
that's where abba is from. Youask, what does the US economy look

(08:41):
like? And you know, welive in a really big country with three
hundred and fifty million people and thirtymillion small mid sized businesses seven million employer
own businesses. It's hard to justsay, hey, how's the economy.
It's the answer is it depends.If you're in the technology industry, it's
terrible right now for a bunch ofdifferent reasons. If you're in the construction
industry, particularly commercial construction, itis not great right now if you're manufacturing,

(09:07):
and small business confidence is at veryvery low levels right now. But
services businesses right now are crushing it. Legal services, architectural services, other
businesses like even retail and restaurants hadbeen recovering pretty good. And when people
answer accounty to its economy going,I'm like, well, depend on where
you're located in the country, whoyour customers are. It's very tough to

(09:28):
generalize that the answer to that questionbecause there's so many conflicting signs. Do
you know what I mean? Yeah, Gene, I just wanted to make
an observation here, not that I'mtrying to show off my knowledge, but
no, but I do research.I don't have any knowledge, but I
look at other people's knowledge. ButI do research probably every year just for
the marketing department in your law andI look at what are the top entrepreneurial

(09:50):
states in the country California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey.
So all the places that you namedjust having these huge economy also have
the highest number of entrepreneurs, whichmakes complete sense. Because there are big
economies, they have lots of businessesthat support those economies. And you can
argue, you know, without gettingpolitical. I means people will argue,
like, oh, California and NewYork to Illinois, there's so much regulations

(10:13):
and higher taxes, and that istrue, and you know there are people
migrating from those states into states likeTexas and Florida which are more business friendly.
But putting all that aside, Imean, California's a beautiful state,
New York's a beautiful state. Illinois, I mean there are millions of small
businesses among those three states. There'spros and cons for operating there, and
many of them are doing quite well. So, like I said, it's

(10:35):
tough to generalize. So Jane,I had a question for you, you
know, should we be concerned goingback to the economy with some countries dropping
the use of US currency and likewhat does that actually mean for entrepreneurs going
into what this new economy could looklike. I think there is absolutely no
concern whatsoever. I mean, Ithink China and Russia to work with China

(11:01):
to ignore the dollar. Nobody's rushingto China or Russia, you know,
nobody's Yeah, we all know manyChinese, Russian people and great people in
great countries, but we all knowthe fact about their political systems. A
lot of American businesses get their toesinto China, actually more than that,
depending on the company, and they'refinding out that it was not a great
move to make. And a lotof companies found the same thing out in

(11:22):
Russia, and nobody's beaten down thedoor to get into those countries. Meanwhile,
one of our biggest problems in thiscountry is stopping the title wave of
immigrants trying to come into the US. Why is that? We all know
why. And if the same goesfrom an economic standpoint and the dollar,
there is nobody outside of China andRussia that would even think about risking unless

(11:43):
they're a speculator, would risk theirdollars, their savings, their retirement,
their financial background in a Chinese orRussian country over the dollar. The dollar
is the most secure and stable andsafe currency in the world. And there
are even other currency is like thepound in the euro, and you know,
I mean others that are even subordinateto the dollar, but still way

(12:05):
more safer than moving to the wantor the rule or anything like that.
So I don't think that any corporation, even a multinational corporation, even thinks
for a minute that the dollar,at least in the foreseeable future, is
going to be supplanted by some othercurrency. Yeah. Yeah, I was
going to say, it's a release, this clickbait, right for some journalists
who want to get some eyeballs ontheir blog. Right, It's actually funny

(12:28):
that you say it. I mean, I'm a journalist and I write for
a lot of different places every week. I see my colleagues, and I
see the environment that we're in,and you know, American journalism is looking
for views because that's how they getpaid. And boy, if you can
write an article saying, oh,the dollar is going away and the Chinese
are anything like that, that canthat can attract attention if there's some bit

(12:48):
of story behind it. I'm notsaying you've fabricated out of thin air.
Somebody's going to write about it becauseit's going to attract eyeballs. Somebody.
We just we're talking about it rightnow. So it doesn't that prove the
point? You know, if Ihave a company where I'm doing ceilings and
walls and construction is down and I'mseeing my profits go down, can I
pivot that into a service business somehow? Or what do I do with that?

(13:11):
As a business person in this environmentand then climate, people are always
looking for additional product lines to sell, and services always are a big component
of that. Of course, servicesis something that should always be considered.
I actually am seeing the opposite.See a lot of companies cut product lines
and cut services. I'm seeing thatin a slower economy unless there's some real

(13:31):
established opportunity, people are looking hardat their data, and you know what,
they're discovering that like twenty five percentof our products are generating ninety percent
of our revenues. I'm seeing someof my smarter clients saying, hey,
you know, because we expand,why don't we cut out some of the
fat, stop selling products or lowmargins or not making us any money,
and instead focus on the higher marginal, higher profitable things that we do sell,

(13:54):
and that includes you know, Icould include services because that's where the
money really is. And they lookat us lower economy as the time to
really hit their house in order.Don't see more of that than actually expanding
into other things. But I mean, if you can provide services on top
of the products that you sell,that's great and it's definitely something that you
should consider doing. The other thingI'm also seen a lot of companies do
just here is uh, I'm seeinga lot of shrink flation. You know.

(14:16):
Shrink Flation is where you sell alittle less of something but for the
same price. So like if yougo into a wal Mart and you buy
their paper towels, it used tobe like one hundred and sixty one hundred,
two hundred sheets per roll, andnow it's like one hundred and sixty
eight sheets. Just because this restaurantand Richard was like the piece of salmon

(14:39):
keeps getting small. Yep, yep, I'm getting one less potato. He
only got one pickle for my sandwich. What's going on here? Even if
you order like chicken wings from Dominoes, you're getting like less chicken wings than
you got before. You know,even like Doritos. Their bags used to
be nine point step in five ounces. Now they're nine point two five ounces.

(15:03):
You talk about services, and bythe way, for the same price.
You know, you go to hotelsnow and like, yeah, they
used to be like all these amenities. Now you have to like beg for
a house cleaning to come and cleanup your room and gild the little chocolates
and the soaps and the perfumes.That's all gone. You've got these big
containers in the showers but bumped outthe block. And yet they're not reducing
their prices, you know, they'rejust delivering just a little bit less.

(15:26):
So I'm seeing a lot of myclients across all industries look at what they're
doing and saying, you know,can we ship one less item in the
box that goes out? Or whenwe install, can we guarantee these services?
But no longer those services. Orwe used to offer free shipping across
the country, Now we'll offer onehundred mile radius. You know that kind

(15:48):
of thing, little cutting corners,you know what I mean here and there.
It's called trigflation. You might thinkit's unethical or immoral, but I
mean, these biggest brands are doingit all over the place, and I'm
seeing a lot of smaller mid sizedbusinesses doing the same because that's what people
do in a you know, inan increasing cost environment, end up slower
economy. I guess we could writepatent applications with fewer pages, right,
we can cut down the average fromthirty pages to twenty five pages in your

(16:18):
taste, I mean, you know, you guys write patent applications. You
can commit to a certain amount ofhours, but anything over that may incur
an additional hourly. See and maybethat's not something that you did before that
you're doing now, but it isa way to protect yourself a little bit
in this kind of an economy.That's what some service providers are doing.
So somebody must have figured out peoplewould prefer to pay the same price and

(16:41):
get less, then see the pricego up and get the same amount.
You know it stritos, I'm gonnanotice. Yeah, maybe it's for the
best, right, Maybe we shouldbe eating a little less doritos and one
less potato. That's really amazing.One question that I kind of wanted to
ask us a little bit off thetrack here now, but do you think
entrepreneurs should take the economy into considerationwhen they're trying to decide whether they should

(17:07):
start a business or do you thinkthey should just ignore that and move forward
when they're ready to move forward.It's funny did you bring that up,
because just talking about that with thecollege the other day, like Warren Buffett
and other super famous, super successfulpeople like him have only said the economy
and what government does should make nodifference on your business. You know what

(17:29):
I mean. If you're operating abusiness, you shouldn't care who's president or
who's in Congress. If you're startingup a business, it shouldn't make a
difference what the economy is. Soyou know, just go and do what
you're going to do. And numberone, to some extent, they're right,
I get that, But I gottatell you guys like maybe just because
I'm not rich and famous like thoseguys. So whatever I say right now,

(17:49):
who's ever listening, just do theopposite. But you know, I've
just played that hard to believe.You know, I've been on their round
enough businesses in the past thirty years. My clients who are generally family owned
B to B, you know,privately owned companies with ten twenty two hundred
and three hundred employees. They verymuch care who is president and who is

(18:11):
in Congress because those people make rulesand laws and legislation that like impact their
business. You know, like theyhave to pay attention because if they don't,
they could really cost themselves, youknow. I mean right now in
the Department of Labor is changing workerclassification rules and you know, changing overtime
rules. We have to be payingattention to that. And if you're starting

(18:33):
up a business, We've been readingall the news about the banking system.
I wrote in the Guardian that interestwas going to be the number one problem
for businesses. There's like less capitalavailable for you to sustain and grow your
business because you know, the financingenvironment is bad. I do think the
economy does make a difference when you'restarting up a business. Does it make
it all, I mean, probablynot, but it certainly makes an impact.

(18:56):
Of course, some of the greatestentrepreneurs in the world disagree with me,
so you probably want to listen tothem than me. I'm just telling
you what I'm saying. Well,that's great, Gene, and it's very
interesting comment. Gene. Mark CRMand small business expert back with more passage
to profit Right after this, Whatare entrepreneurs most valuable assets? They're passion
and ideas. We can't protect yourpassion, but we can protect your ideas.

(19:19):
Trust Gearhart Law to protect your ideaswith premiere patent, trademark and copyright
services. There's never been a bettertime to start your own business. Contact
us at Gearheartlaw dot com. AtGearhart Law we have years of experience protecting
entrepreneurs, ideas and brands using patent, trademark and copyright protection. So if
you have a new consumer product,a new software application that you're planning to

(19:42):
build or sell, or a brandor company name that you want to protect,
contact the experts at Gearheart Law wwwdot gearheartlaw dot com. Don't let
the wrong protection strategy ruin your business. All of our attorneys are passionate about
protection and are licensed and qualified torepresent before the United States Patent and Trademark

(20:02):
Office. Don't start your project withoutcalling us first. Contact Gearhart Law on
the web at g E A Rh A r T Law dot com.
Together we can change the world.This that has been read by another attorney
spokesperson. No back to passage toprofit once again. Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart
and our special guest Gene Marks,who is just an incredible businessman who's been

(20:25):
around the block a few times andis giving us some fantastic advice. Forty
years he's been around the block.Ye, fantastic advice or twenty twenty three.
So Kenya take it away with thefirst question for Gene. Yeah,
So Gene, I'm you know,we're going into what this new economy is
going to look like for new entrepreneursor people, you know, starting a
new idea for the first time.What are some tips and information that you

(20:48):
can share that might help them strategizeand just be well equipped for what may
it come. It's a great question. A couple of things. First of
all, you know, we weretalking to the last segre about financing.
It is a very difficult financing year. However, if you're don have a
business this year, the one reallygood trend that's happening is that the government
is really out there providing some moneyand some resources. For example, there's

(21:10):
something called the State Small Business CreditInitiative And I don't know attention if you've
heard of this or not, butit's a ten billion dollars program that was
authorized by Congress during COVID to helpsmall businesses during COVID, And of course
the money is just coming out thisyear. What it's ten billion dollars,
and what's happening is is that itis being distributed to all the states based

(21:34):
on a formula their GDP and thepopulation and all that kind of stuff.
So, like I live in Philadelphia, so in the Delaware Valley, which
is Pennsylvania, New Jersey, andDelaware, it's getting like something like more
than half a billion dollars in fundingfrom the federal government this year and next
year's coming in and the money isgoing to the states, and then the

(21:55):
states turnaround and they're distributing it toorganizations in their state that supports small and
mid sized businesses like community banks,independent banks, nonprofits that support businesses,
and organizations that make equity investments andsmall businesses. So it's like this huge
opportunity for a lot of businesses thatare starting up because it's free money.

(22:17):
It's like you can get grants foryour startup, you can get equity investments
from this money, or you canget lower interest or very competitive loans from
some of these organizations. We livein New Jersey, Elizabeth and I live
in New Jersey and they have theEconomic Development Authority, and I'm pretty confident
that that's the government arm that willbe distributing New Jersey's share of this.

(22:37):
And they have a mailing list andevery week I get an email from the
NJEDA, and there's like six orseven different ways to get money from the
New Jersey Economic Development Authority. I'msure most other states have similar communication tools.
And if you're looking for this,I think it was a really good
idea to sign up for the newslettersand you'll see what the states are offering

(22:59):
you if I get up there onthat one. Because I literally just wrote
about this, Richards. I writeevery week for the Affiliating quire and the
New Jersey Economic Development Authority is takingsome of that money. They have brought
on a handful of marketing firms inNew Jersey and they are paying those marketing
firms to provide services to New Jerseysmall businesses to launch their websites and to

(23:21):
go online and to get their ecommerce abilities up and running. To literally
paying these marketing firms to provide theseservices for free to New Jersey small businesses.
So you just mentioned an exact thingthat that money is being used for
right now. It's like out there, and that's going on all across the
country. So if you're listening tothis wherever you are in the country,

(23:41):
just google State Small Business Credit Initiativeand your state and you'll find the web
page of your state governments that's addressingthis and on there it will tell you
where the money is going to somenonprofit here, or some banking here,
or some whatever organization and there,and then go to those organizations say like,

(24:02):
hey, you know, I needsome money now. The other thing
is to make sure people are awareof this, particularly there's starting up a
business or growing a business. Thisis not a minority or a female ownership
thing. Necessarily, there is specificmoney that is targeted for minority business owners
and for female business owners, butalso there's plenty of money that's targeted for

(24:22):
existing businesses that don't fall in thosecategories that can still be eligible, and
for all sized businesses, not juststartup, which brings me to my next
topic. So, like the Presidentjust held a big forum just last week
with the Small Business Administration to helpfunding that all these women's business centers are
getting around the country. It isa great time to be a female entrepreneur,

(24:45):
to be a minority entrepreneur. There'sthe Small Business Development Centers, there's
SCORE, and then there's all thisfunding that is going out not only from
the federal government but from cities andstates to support female and minority entrepreneurs specifically.
And I I guess my point is, if you're starting up a business,
and honestly, if you're female,if you're black or brown or whatever,

(25:06):
I mean, sharpen your pencil orat least sharpen your computer screen,
get owners start doing some research becausethere is money available locally and from the
federal government that you're qualified for,and that will help you launch your business
in twenty twenty three in an environmentwhere financing elsewhere is pretty tough. Yeah.
And I would point out too thatthis is not the way it used
to be. Right. It usedto be to get government money, you

(25:26):
needed to be profitable and up andrunning and going for three years. All
of that's changed. Right now,You can walk in the door at a
very early stage of your company nowand the government wants to give it away,
right because these agencies are kind ofmeasured on how much do they give
away? Right, So it's agreat time to go looking. You're absolutely
right there mandated and people say,well, we're how we get loans?

(25:48):
You go. The banking environment isshaky and traditional banks are turning away.
The Small Business Administration has a sevenA loan program seven A or they're five
oh four loan program. You canborrow up to five million dollars at competitive
interest rates. You pay it backanywhere from three to twenty five years.
It's given out to a network ofsmall business lenders banks that get approved by

(26:11):
the Small Busin Administration and they arepushed to get this money out there because
it's guaranteed by the governments and theyhave mandaged. The SBA has to report
to the presidents of their activities andthey're measured by how money loans they've guaranteed
that year. Like the more themerrier. So these banks want to get
the money out and they're looking forbusinesses of all makes and sizes to get
that money out there. So ifyou're running into any trouble, go to

(26:33):
an SBA lender. You can findthem on SBA dot gov and you will
find it much easier to get financingsmost types of banks. Wow, that's
amazing because I remember in twenty tenwhen Richard and I bought a building for
the law firm. I cannot tellyou all the hoops we had to jump
through, and I was helping withthe paperwork, and it was a complete
nightmare. Now we finally did gethalf of the loan guaranteed by the SBA.

(26:56):
We were able to buy the building, but it took months and paper
or paperwork and paperwork. So whatI'm hearing from you is it may not
be that way anymore. I hope, Well you still have to I guess
you still have to do the paperwork, right, Yeah, it stills the
thanks that you're dealing with, andI think they're guaranteed like eighty or eighty
five percent of the loans, sothey still got a little bit of their

(27:18):
skin in the game. So theyare going to put you through some due
diligence and there will be paperwork involved. So there is that. I want
to warn you that it's not likeyou just call them up and you get
financing the next day. There willbe some hoops that you'll have to go
through. But even so, thefinancing is there and it's available for businesses
that otherwise may not be able toget it well. I think the most

(27:40):
painful thing I learned was if you'regoing to call your company an LLC,
you have to have it l LCor L period, L period, L
period or a limited liability company,whichever one you choose, it has to
be that exact name on every singledocument you ever generate. We had a
period missing on when we had toreach it was pretty tough. So what

(28:02):
about other things that early entrepreneurs needto keep in mind? For twenty twenty
three? There are a few things. It's never been better or easier for
a business to start a business andbe a big size business or at least
look like a big size business becauseof the technology that's available now. For
sure, there are some tech platformsthat I love and that we recommend me

(28:25):
everything in QuickBooks you guys use.Zoho zero is another one. There are
many really good tech options to do, and the sooner rather than later that
you can sign on for with agood platform and start building your database,
building your accounting systems, building yourcustomer relationships, management systems. That's a
better off you will be as youcontinue to grow. The same thing goes

(28:48):
with setting yourself up virtually at firstand then maybe having an office. But
if you're virtual, there's a numberof great hosted phone systems like Grasshopper and
virtual PBX, which allows you tohave everything online without having to build your
own internal communication systems. And there'sall the office collaboration systems that we know
of, you know, the businessapps and Microsoft Office three sixty five.

(29:10):
And a big consideration is is thatyou want to choose a good technology platform,
go all in on it because it'sa big data world and if you're
going to look for financing in thefuture or to grow your business, people
are going to be looking very hardat your data and you want to start
doing that sooner rather than later.Do you see remote working becoming more prevalent
or do you think people are goingto be returning more to centralized workplaces.

(29:33):
It's a hybrid world. On theone end of these spectrum, you have
companies like mine. I have tenemployees completely virtual. We've been since two
thousand and five. Very low turnoverI have, but I really do run
the world's most dysfunctional company. Well, the consultant that we got from you
to help us with SOHO was byfar the best tech person I've ever worked
with us. She is amazing.I can't say enough good thing. I'm

(29:56):
really glad to hear that, andthat makes me feel good. But I
get a were you that, like, we don't have an office. We
used to have an office, andI shut them down. This is like
twenty years ago, and like wedon't since then. You know, we
see each other on zoom, webump into each other our clients, but
we don't collaborate or share the wayI think we can. We don't have
a good company culture. I getjealous of companies that have a better culture
because they're in one place together.And organizations recognize this, and they also

(30:21):
recognize not only is a culture,but how important it is for younger employees
to be around you know, olderemployees that can mentor them and help them
learn and grow. So there's oneside them, there's the other side.
I mean, I was speaking acouple months ago in a Louisiana to like
a credit union association, and therewere two men in the room that were
adamant about everybody's got to come inthe office all the time and no work

(30:42):
from home, blah blah blah,and it's like, all right, well,
well, dude, you know,you're you're killing yourself because there's a
lot of really good talent out therethat's is not going to stand for that,
because that's not the way the workplaceis in twenty twenty three. So
the answers hybrid. Most of myclients have some type of a work from
a home arrangement one day a week, two days a week. You know,

(31:03):
it balances things out. They stillwant people to come in the office
for cultural collaboration reasons. But I'mjust saying, it's like everything else,
life is all about moderation and balance, you know what I mean. My
best clients have realized that they cando this in a moderated way where they
can still offer a nice remote workingenvironment but also get people in the office
because that's important. So Gene Mark, CRM and Small Business Expert back with

(31:26):
more passage to profit right after this. Hi, I'm Lisa ask LEAs the
Inventress founder, CEO, and Presidentof Inventing a to Z. I've been
inventing products for over thirty eight years, hundreds of products later and dozens of
patents. I help people develop productsand put them on the market from concept
to fruition. I bring them tosome of the top shopping networks in the

(31:48):
world, QBC, hsn E,vine Line and retail stores. Have you
ever set to yourself someone should inventthat thing? Well, I say,
why not make it you. Ifyou want to know how to develop a
product from concept to fruition the rightway, contact me Lisa Askles, the
Inventress. Go to Inventing atoz dotcom inventing a too z dot Com.

(32:12):
Email me Lisa at inventing a tooz dot Com. Treat yourself to a
day shop full of networking, education, music, shopping and fun. Go
to my website Inventing atoz dot Com. Passage to Profit continues with Richard and
Elizabeth Gearhart, special guests Gene Marx. He's just been absolutely amazing in every

(32:35):
respect. I love hearing him talk. I love hearing talk about how entrepreneurs
can get money. If you haven'thad a chance to hear the whole program,
make sure you go and find ourpodcast, Passage to Profit Show,
and it's anywhere you get your podcasts, So check it out and you can
listen to us over and over andover again. So it's time now for
Power Move Hey Ken you Hello,Hello, and who is power Moving Today,

(33:00):
Right, So for Power Move Today, we are going to be talking
about Malcolm Allen. He is anentrepreneur and a social activist and he came
out with a new book that hejust released what Forbes called stem X and
it's all about diversity, equity andinclusion at the speed of thought in the
STEM industry. So he's making surethat there's information available about the importance of

(33:24):
diverse contributors when it comes to STEMand all of those things. So I
thought that was interesting. STEM reallyneeds diversity because I think that when you're
in the scientific fields like that,new ideas come from a lot of different
minds working together that don't think thesame way all the time. Everybody's having
different experiences, right, and it'sgood to bring that to the creator's table,

(33:45):
especially when it comes to all thescience and science that I agree it
and there's definitely been a lack ofthat in the past. So I applaud
his efforts. Elizabeth, it's timefor Blue Streak plus. Yeah, tell
us what you're so. For thoseof you who don't know, Blue Streak
is a video directory of small businesses. It's gone through many iterations now it

(34:07):
is short video which I hadn't reallybeen telling people I'm having a website made
for it, because although there isa lot of short video out there,
it's not organized in any way,shape or form. If you have watched
YouTube shorts, it's like you canjump from political to how to make biscuits
and you know, So, what'sthe difference between short video and non short
video. Well, short video peoplewill actually watch short enough to hold their

(34:34):
attention. And so this is thefirst directory that is not based on the
open source software that all the otherones are based on, which is location
based. This is the first onethat is strictly serviced based. And my
tagline is it's not where you are, it's who you are that's powerful,
Yes, and who you are comesthrough in your thirty second video. So
that's number one. My second endeavoris a podcast with Danielle Woolley called the

(35:00):
Jersey Podcats Podcast, and we talkabout cats because I had a cat that
had a problem. So the podcastwas to try to get ideas from people
if they'd ever had a cat thathad the same health problem. But the
cat podcast is just a blast,and so I'll probably be doing that the
rest of my life. Great,So now let's go on to our next

(35:20):
presenter. Jamie's Azzara has JZ Heelsand wind Therapy retreats and just so cool.
Welcome Jamie, tell us all aboutit. Thank you. So my
name is jamie's Azzara, owner ofjay z Heels, which I'm a coach,
author, speaker, empowerment of mindsetand success coaching first and form a

(35:43):
semi educator of twenty two years.So it's my passion to educate. Mindset
is a huge part of what Ido, allowing and assisting people to tap
into the power that they have within, understanding themselves, finding what it is
that's holding them back to step intothe life that they want to live.
So coaching can be done on aone in one basis bi weekly, or

(36:06):
I also do an intensive healing whereI help someone understand what it is that's
really blocking them. A lot ofpeople don't understand that where you're at in
business and in life, it's adirect reflection of your thoughts and your interconditioning.
So I assist people in understanding whatthat is. So my empowerment events
in person events meditation is a hugepart of my own healing. Sound healing

(36:30):
specifically, which is chackrable crystal chakrables, which is sound healing. It basically
shifts energy within your body. Andso I host full Moon events in person,
and then I will be hosting iton the beach shortly starting next month
at the Jersey Shore. I wantto go, oh, it's the most

(36:51):
magical thing. So you tap intothe energy of the moon. But we
focus, really the core of itis focusing on what are we releasing,
what are we letting go of thatno longer serves us? So is it
our thoughts? Is it the storieswe tell ourselves as to why we can't
have the life that we want,the business we want, the relationship we
want, the health that we desire, and we set clear intentions and then

(37:15):
the meditation, of course, isso relaxing. My book is called Freedom
and Forgiveness, which is based uponmy personal story through divorce and choosing forgiveness
and letting go. A lot ofpeople don't realize the impact of holding on
to anger, resentment, fear,shame, guilt, all those low vibrational
feelings and how they affect you themind body connection. I also created a

(37:38):
journal called Let It Go, LetIt Flow, which is a twenty one
day guided journal. I actually havea book launching May seventeenth, where it
is Spiritual Awakenings Volume one, whereagain it's a collaboration of authors that are
sharing their awakening let's so to say, on their personal development path. Okay,

(37:58):
so WIN Therapy Wellness Retreats, sothat website is WIN THEIRPY Retreats.
So in the Jersey Shore over thissummer, we'll be starting in June.
It is a either sunrise sunset.We do three four five hour sales which
include seated yoga, guided meditation,mindfulness and I also play the singing bowls

(38:19):
on a sailboat. It fits upto six people, so it's a nice
intimate setting and it's just amazing.I'm all about making yourself a priority.
Self care is so important to justkeep yourself to line because if you don't
take care of yourself, you're notable to be productive or produced in what
you want in your business or anythinglike that. So I also host some

(38:39):
vendor events at the Jersey Shore inTom's River, So they're sippin shop events
at a local distillery for local entrepreneursthat have product base, and we have
it monthly. I'll be doing thatalso over this summer as well. It
sounds like you've got a lot ofthings going on, fun things, and
a lot of fun things too,sailing and yoga, all great stuff.

(39:00):
Sometimes people are calm, sometimes they'rein the middle of a storm, an
emotional storm. It seems like someof the techniques that you mentioned work really
well when things are going well,but you know, how do you make
sure that they work well when thingsaren't going well? So for me,
it's teaching people to just become selfaware. Life happens. So even if

(39:22):
you've worked through or healed through certainthings as to why you may react in
a situation, it's just understanding.This is why breath is so important.
Taking a deep breath in any timeof your day, just stopping take a
deep breath. It resets yourself.So instead of when you're thrown curveballs,
instead of reacting, taking a pauseand just thinking the right way you want

(39:45):
to proceed. It's a normal thing. You're not ever going to be fully
not reactive, I suppose to say, But when you focus on the person
you want to be daily, it'sa choice. Mindset is a choice.
Two people can experience the same situationand one person will thrive and the other
won't. And it's based upon howyou perceive. So I always say,

(40:06):
whatever is happening in your life,if you switch it to it's happening for
you, not to you. Wedon't see the big picture right away and
things that happen to us, buttypically it's for you. Just curious to
see what you think just about creationoverall, in terms of like how our
bodies are created and like how thingswork at a cellular level with us,
Like we're pretty intricate creatures and Ithink God was pretty smart when you put

(40:30):
us together. So I'm just curiousto see, like where do you think
these healing powers come from that allowfor things like this to take place.
People don't realize that whatever frequency you'reoperating it, you're attracting directly to you.
So people that worry, I don'tworry. So what if you took
the thoughts that you're worried about happeningand you focus on what you did want

(40:51):
to happen. So it's like Morphy'slaw, right what you think about this
is one of my favorite quotes.When you think about you bring around regardless
if you want it or not.So in relation to health, if you're
constantly worried that something is going togo wrong. Most times it does.
There is a huge and so muchresearch on the mind body connection. So
a lot of what I teach aboutis the mind body skills, so you

(41:16):
can really heal yourself within just fromyour thoughts. People don't realize the power
of your thoughts and everybody has it. Even just with business and attracting what
it is that you want, youcan attract things to you. Wow,
that's great, Jane, do youhave a commenter question? My biggest question
is just balancing work life with familylife. I struggle with that my entire

(41:37):
life. Now, wanting to knowif you've got advice for doing something like
that. Yeah, So balance issomething that it's a daily practice. Right.
We all have the same amount oftime in a day and we have
to choose and block out specific timesthat are non negotiables. So first of
all, I always tell people whereare you giving your time and energy away
that doesn't deserve it. So thinkabout any people, even in our lives

(42:00):
that we love, and I callthem energy vampires. They suck the energy
out of few. Honestly, Idon't engage in that anymore because I'm protecting
my own energy and how I wantto show up every day. So balance
for me, it's exercise, SoI make exercise a priority. My kids,
my family are a priority. Andthen you have Obviously when you're running

(42:22):
a business, something is always goingto be off balance, right because we're
not superhuman, so you can't achieveeverything at once, But your own self
care should be in there because ifit's not, all the other areas are
affected by that. Yeah, Imean it makes perfect sense. And you
know, like you said, youhave to make choices about where you invest

(42:43):
your energy and your time. Whatabout getting a good night's rest? Do
you have any recommendations for that?Because actually lately I have not been sleeping
well and so like this, Igot up at four this morning and I
went to bed at midnight, andso do you have any tips for helping
me get a better night's rest.I'm all about meditation. I highly recommend

(43:05):
it. So this is something elsethat also really helps. You have so
much going on all the time,your mind is always going, and some
people have problems meditating, so Irecommend it guided meditation because it focuses your
mind and it calms your mind.Typically, why you can't sleep, Are
you replaying? Are you overthinking?Do you need to journal something out and

(43:27):
let it go. It's practicing ofjust calming yourself. Could be related to
even eating. How later are youhaving caffeine? Last night, I went
to bed light because I was ata business function and I had coffee because
it was long drive home, soI didn't go to sleep right away.
But I've been getting up earlier inthe morning, not so much having trouble
falling asleep or staying asleep, butjust getting up early. And it's like,

(43:50):
okay, now what do I do. Well, I might as well
go hit the computer and I startdoing emails, and then about an hour
later I start to get exhausted becauseI woke up early, right and then
you know, I try to powerthrough that, and then eventually I kind
of get back into my normal swing. But it's irritating to not be able
to get a full night's rest.It is most people. They wake up
or their phone is attached to them. Anyway, I'm guilty of that.

(44:13):
I use it as my alarm.But we wake up and we right away
go to checking our emails, andyour mind gets right into that to do
list and you don't give yourself achance to just wake up, you know,
have a little morning ritual of maybehaving coffee, reading, not jumping
right into the to do. That'sa good point. My rule for myself
is that I don't talk to anybody, including my husband, until I least

(44:37):
have like two or three minutes tomy own solitude to like pray and talk
to God quickly, because I feellike I used to try to run to
the train and commute and then I'dcome in interaction with five people before I
sat down to take that time,and like, you don't know where they
are right and they're passing off whateverthey have going on. So if they're
all chaotic and you sit down andyou're just like, it just puts me

(44:58):
in a better frame of mind ifI just have that moment and then deal
with people. Okay, Geane,what time do you get up? I
get up at five am every day, so it's a busy day. But
you know what I do if mybody tells me I'm tired in the middle
of the day, I mean Isometimes I'll take up twenty minute cat nap,
you know, thank you very much, me too, taking a little
short nap during the day really worksfor me. A brutal when the alarm

(45:21):
goes off and you have to letyou're in a deep sleep and you're like,
oh my god. But then afew minutes later, I really do
feel a lot better and energized.So but you know what, it depends
on the person, right, differentthings for different people. That works for
me, and that is an advantageof remote working, right. It's easier
to pull that off than you know, snoring at your desk in the middle
of an office building, right right. I wonder if with Jamie's techniques,

(45:43):
though, if you practiced her techniquesevery day, if you could get to
the point where you could sleep.Do you find that with people, Jamie?
Yeah, I mean everybody is different, but typically it's related to just
having a lot going on. Inthe times of my life when I couldn't
sleep, I was overwhelmed and Icouldn't relax myself, you know, doing
the things that keep you in alignmentwith what you need to do. I

(46:04):
think also, people don't take thetime, like you just said, to
have fun. You should be connectingwith your partner, having fun, going
out laughing, because you're not yourbest self when you're not doing those things.
It's almost like you have to rememberto do it when you're an adult,
because if you're focused on getting somany things done, you forget.
Yeah, have some fun, goout to dinner or go for a nice

(46:28):
walk or something. Right, Ihave no problem with that, reminding myself
to have fun. You would havefun, some fun. Well, this
has been great. Jamie's Azzara withJay z Heels and Wind Therapy Retreats two
websites. J z h e als dot com. Jay z Heels,

(46:52):
She's got a lot of stuff goingon with that, really great stuff.
And then wind Therapy Retreats dot com. That's really great. We are now
going to move right in to talkingto Peter Man with Orency, and boy,
Peter has just got the most fantasticstory. And Orency is a water
filtration company, but I want tohear the whole thing, so welcome Peter

(47:13):
Sure. Roncy is an electric motortechnology company. I started the business in
two thousand and nine with a focuson improving indoor air quality and my kind
of what led me to that wasmy infant son who struggled with asthma.
It was pretty, i don't know, horrific trying to help him through his
days and was looking to provide asolution for him and others like him.

(47:36):
Prior to that, I co foundedan e commerce business and we grew that
from zero to fourteen million, andI sold that and then used the funds
to start Ronsey. And what wedo is a design, manufacturer, market
and style direct to the consumer.HAP to air purifiers and COVID really changed
things, you know. Obviously themarket exploded for improving indoor or air The

(48:00):
awareness really grew, and that,you know, was kind of unexpected.
But we were just lucky to bein the right place at the right time.
And then in twenty twenty one,we merged with an electric motor company
in Radford, Virginia and your VirginiaTech. That's how I ended up moving
to Virginia. And so I havea business partner who has three decades of
experience in electric motors, and wehave a proprietary technology that we're in the

(48:23):
process of patenting, you know,mid mid to late this year when the
process of reshoring and manufacturing to beginto make everything in Virginia nice. So
if people go to your website,which is o r A, NSI dot
com ORANS dot com, can theybuy one of these filter machines. Yeah,

(48:45):
we primarily sell direct to the consumerin COVID. This whole B to
B market emerged because schools were buyingfor the most part, as well as
businesses looking to protect their workers.In fact, one of our first B
to B customer and COVID was thejabb At Center. When they set up
their field hospital, they used ourequipment. Yeah, and so that was

(49:05):
pretty cool. And then PBS hada documentary on doctor Fauci that came out
a week or two ago and theyshow him at NIH giving a TV interview
with our product in the background inproduct placement. Yeah, that was just
luck. So if I want tobuy one, how much are they cost?
Our prices are around two fifty tothree seventy nine. You know,

(49:29):
whether our new products that we're reshoring, we're actually this is going to sound
weird, but we're actually taking costsout. We're making it at a lower
cost, and our prices are goingto be lower for product that's you know,
made in Virginia. I've heard thatother places too, that when manufacturers
bring things back to the States fromoverseas, the price goes down. Why
if you buy raw materials or components. The prices are pretty similar whether you

(49:53):
buying in the US or China.And for US, you know, the
variable is labor, and so there'stwo ways to do it. You can
either use automation or you can justdesign the products to take labor out.
And for us, that's what we'vedone. If you can design it with
half the parts or the assembly processis simpler, it's a lot more work,

(50:17):
but it's the only way that wecould really you know, manufacture the
products here and do so, youknow, cost effectively. But you still
have to hire workers, right,local workers. Absolutely. Yeah, they
don't they don't assemble themselves. Yeah, I mean, but what's interesting is
if you take a part of productfrom China, typically it has a ton

(50:37):
of parts and screws, and andthat's because it's lower upfront costs for them,
you know, from the tooling andthe development, the part creation,
and they're okay having fifty people onan assembly line, whereas you know,
it just doesn't scale in the US, and so we have to be really
smart about how we designed the productto you have as few parts as possible,

(51:00):
to make the assembly as simple aspossible and not incur extra costs.
So, Peter, I sometimes havewondered about air filters. Do they really
work? I'm curious to know howit works too, Like what's the difference.
The concept is pretty simple. It'syou know, to properly clean the
air, you just have to moveenough air through high quality filters for the

(51:21):
size of your room. And typicallyyou can think of what's in the air
and two different categories. One isparticles that could be like dust, pollen,
bacteria, viruses, things like that, and a true hape of filter
will capture those if the filters ofsufficient quality. And then where it gets
really tricky as gases and odors andso that could be like cooking odors,

(51:42):
formaldehyde or emissions from a gas stoveand those unique activated carbon in and you
know, in some cases some othermaterials. That's a lot trickier to do.
But most people buy your pure firesfor analergies, for viruses, for
you know, wildfires, particles andthings like that. There is an industry

(52:02):
standard. But the you know,crazy thing is, you know a lot
of brands don't share their results,and so as a consumer, it's it's
really hard to know. And soI've been pushing for this and you know,
it's good to see later this yearthere are going to be some regulations
put in place so consumers can geta better sense for what their performance is
for products and be able to compareacross products and know that what your buying

(52:25):
is going to work for your sizespace. Yeah, and I think that's
a great step forward. If wehad a standard size ten by twelve room,
we had a filter in there andwe were trying to clean just the
particulate and not the gases. Whatparticulate would a good filter capture? Would
it reduce the number of particles byhalf? Say? Or yeah, I

(52:47):
would do it should do a lotbetter than that. What happens is the
large particles will just you know,settled to the floor and that's kind of
vacuum those. But it's the smallerones that's stay suspended in the air that
you really want to filter out.And a HEPI filter is rated at ninety
nine point ninety seven percent of particlesremoved with each air pass down to point

(53:10):
three microns, which is pretty smallyou know they can remove. Viruses are
pretty close to that rate, andso you know, having a happifilter,
then you just need to have enoughair flow through the filter to clean your
air, and you can get theparticle countdown pretty fairly close to zero towards
zero. Well, considering we havethree cats, I think it would be
well, we need one on eachcorner of the sofa. But we need

(53:35):
to give Gene a chance to chimein. Here, Gene, where are
you? I'm here? No,I'm actually borised to be doing your business
as well. Like just you know, how have you been finding this year
economically? And you know, areyou finding employees okay? Or are you
struggling like everybody else? Yeah,we're not having any problems finding employees.
What's interesting in this part of Virginiait's I don't think it's well known,

(53:55):
but it's an electric motor hub.There's several companies that have engineers that create
electric motor technologies, and so there'sthis whole it's kind of like a small
Silicon valley for electric motors in thisarea. Most of the other companies do
government type work and they don't getany attention. We're doing a consumer product
to you know, people actually usingtheir homes, and we have a number

(54:20):
of people looking to work here justto work for more of a consumer type
brand, and so you know,we've got a long list of people wanting
to work here and our plan isto hire about one hundred folks over the
next two years just for the assemblyand manufacturing operations. That's great, And
what about material But do you sourcefrom the US or coming from overseas?

(54:42):
You know, we make the motorsourselves, um, and we're trying to
do as much local sourcing as possible. And so the you know, the
plastic housing we get from North Carolina, the circuit boards around you know,
Charlotte area, closer to ninety percentis local US based. The problem is,
you can't get one hund of electricalcomponents in the US, so we
are having to source, you know, some components from from other countries.

(55:07):
It's just the supply chain isn't thereto get to one hundred percent. But
yeah, we're pretty close to it. Have you film the supply chain issues
getting better over the past few months. I know, I'm sure it was
really a problem before I've gotten thatquestion alive. I've never really experienced supply
chain issues for US. The issuehas been more of like the shipping rates
just going you know, for acontainer what used to cost three or four

(55:30):
thousand was north of twenty two thousandduring COVID, and so that was a
bit painful. But getting access toparts and components, you know, chips
has been a problem, I wouldsay, and that's a global issue.
But outside of chips, sourcing componentshasn't really been a problem. I find
this wonderful, like this is reallygood news. Peterman with R and C

(55:52):
again, you can find this atRamsey dot com listeners. We will be
right back after this message with moreof Passage to Profit state if you missed
any of this, the podcast comesout tomorrow. It's Passage to Profit,
but we will be back right afterthis. There's never been a better time
to start your own business. Theopportunities are infinite and only limited by your
imagination and enthusiasm. At Gearhart Law, we believe the most successful companies all

(56:16):
have one thing in common. Theystart with a solid foundation. First.
Gearheart Law has years of experience protectingentrepreneurs, ideas and brands using patent,
trademark and copyright protection. So ifyou have a new consumer product, a
new software application that you're planning tobuild or sell, or a brand or
company name that you want to protect, contact the experts at www dot Gearheartlaw

(56:39):
dot com. Our professionals will createa custom strategy designed to fit your needs
and your budget. All of ourattorneys are passionate about protection, licensed and
qualified to represent you before the UnitedStates Patent and Trademark Office. Don't start
your project without calling us first.Visit Gearheartlaw dot com. Together we can
change the world. Visit g EA R H A R T law dot

(57:02):
com. This that has been readby a non attorney spokesperson hitch passage to
Alicia Morrissey is our programming director atPassage to Profit and she's also a fantastic
jazz vocalist. You can scroll tothe bottom of the Passage profitshow dot com
website and check out her album.Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt here, Kenny Gibson,

(57:23):
our media Maven and also our specialguest today, Jane Marks. And
it's time for the question. Soour question for the week is what helps
you recharge? And I'm going tostart with Jamie. For me, it's
exercise. I feel best when I'mexercising dancing. Love to dance. I
dance as a child, so Igo to zoomba classes. I also take

(57:45):
hit classes and that just keeps myselfbalanced and me being my best self.
I also like to go to watchthe sunrise. It always resets me.
I live close to the Seaside Heights, so I wake up watch the sunrise.
Guys, find my zen and mycenter, and it keeps me grounded
and balanced. Peter Man with aRamsey. What helps you recharge? Just

(58:08):
getting out in nature and walking andlistening to music, just getting the exercise
and any kind of stress or anythingthat's built up inside. To me,
it's just a healthy way to releaseit. Empty center. Gene Mars Mars
group dot net. What helps yourecharge? I would say for me,
it's just drinking heavily and accessively answerlike all you guys as well. Exercise

(58:32):
huge for me, it really is. But I played squash like three or
four times a week in Philly,and I do that sometimes first thing in
the morning, or in the middleof the day or at the end of
the day. And it is unbelievablehow whatever bs is on my mind at
any moment because of work or whatever, when I go and I play,
and when I'm done an hour later, it's like history, you know.
So that's what I do. KenyaGibson Medium Maven. What helps you recharge?

(58:59):
I'm similar to everyone. I thinkmovement for sure and music are like
perfect combinations for me. They alwaysdo the trick. So do you make
up your own routines to the music? I do? I do. I
actually have a whole fitness format thatI created around movement in music that works
pretty well. The answer is yes, So, Richard Gearhart, owner of

(59:19):
Gearhart Law, what helps you rechargewell? Spending time with Elizabeth is certainly
one of them. I gets youfired up to start talking about work.
I thought you were going to say, a good old fashioned patent filing.
There's nothing like a good trademark search, you know. I like watching a

(59:42):
good movie, exercise and being outin nature. And we have some trees
in the backyard, and it's nicejust to go out there and sit,
maybe with a glass of wine andrelax. So I find those things to
be really relaxing. I get upin the morning and I'm usually pretty sore
and still tired and stuff, andso I drink tea and walk. I
walk. I take a drink oftea, I walk, so I walk

(01:00:04):
around the house. I need toget outside more, because that definitely is
very recharging. I agree with everybodyon that, but I think the movement
is what really recharges a person.And I had bought the Quest headsets to
go into the metaverse and do workouts, and we haven't done them, but
that is so much fun. Youdidn't mention your cat. I thought you
were going to see your cats too. Well, Yes, the cats help

(01:00:24):
me recharge too. Lately, Max, a little kitten, has been doing
this thing where he chases me aroundthe house trying to grab my heels with
this. If you find pain recharging. I'll be sitting on the sofa at
night and Lily will come up andshe'll look at me, and she won't

(01:00:45):
me out. She just opens hermouth a little bit like come hither,
and I have to get up andtake care of her. So I guess
that's a little recharging because it getsmy butt off the sofa, right,
And so we do need to gothrough everybody's websites one more time, right,
Absolutely, if you missed any ofthis wonderful show, it's definitely worth
listening to. You can find itanywhere you find your podcast. It'll be

(01:01:06):
out tomorrow. And our guest wasGene Marks. He's a CRM and Small
Business Expert, and he had somereally super great advice for twenty twenty three
and small businesses. And then wehad Jamie's Azzara with Jay z Heels and
Wind Therapy Retreats two websites, jz h e a ls dot com.

(01:01:27):
Jay z Heels, She's got alot of stuff going on with that,
really great stuff. And then windTherapy Retreats dot com. If you want
to go do yoga on a boat, a sailboat at sunset, it just
sounds so cool to me, Sothat's really great. And then Petermann with
Ramsey dot com O r A NSIdot com and they are making really high

(01:01:50):
quality air filtering machines making them inthe United States in Southwest Virginia, and
their machines are really good if youhave allergies or you just want cleaner air,
if you have a lot of petsor whatever. Yeah. I was
just gonna say, who can objectto cleaner air? Right? I mean,
that's somebody's unhappy about that someplace Iget it, all right, So

(01:02:13):
anyway, that's it for us.Before we go, I'd like to thank
the Passage to Profit team. NoahFleischman, our producer Alicia Morrissey, our
program director, and Mark Wilson,our syndication manager. Our podcasts can be
found tomorrow anywhere you find your podcast, just look for the passage to profit
show and don't forget to like uson Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And

(01:02:34):
remember, while the information on thisprogram is believed to be correct, never
take a legal step without checking withyour legal professional first. Gearhart Law is
here for your patent, trademark andcopyright needs. You can find us acureheartlaw
dot com and contact us for freeconsultation. Take care of everybody. Thanks
for listening, and we'll be backnext week