Passage To Profit Tell Better Stories, Win More Sales with John Livesay

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. We are wired for stories.
It's literally in our DNA. Iwant to have an impact and I
want to make this about independent music. Where the first device to use twelve
different jets to plost many areas ofyour mouth simultaneously. I'm Richard Gerhart,

(00:23):
I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You've just heardsome great tidbits from our show. Stay
tuned for the rest want of patentyour invention. The chance is near.
You've given it part, now getit in gear. It's Passage to Profit
with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'mRichard Gerhart, founder of Grhart Law,

(00:44):
a firm specializing in patents, trademarksand copyrights. I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not
an attorney that I have a coupleof startups that I do the marketing for
your Heart Law. Welcome to Passageto Profit everyone, the show that's all
about entrepreneurship, small businesses and theintellectual property that helps them flourish. We
have an amazing guest, John Levisa, who really focuses on the sales process

(01:07):
and the importance of telling stories.So we're looking forward to a lot of
good information from him, and maybehe'll even tell us a few stories.
And then we have Gerard Longo withthe Underground Music Collective. I'm not going
to say too much about it,but it is very cool. And after
him, Ellie Pakow's with Instaflos.Oh my gosh, if you ever have
trouble floss in your teeth, youwant to hear about this. Well I

(01:29):
can hardly wait. But before weget to our distinguished guests, it's time
for IP in the News, Andthis week on IP in the News,
we have a special patent from theFerrari company. Right, so, Ferrari
is like this company that makes theseincredible sports cars. I have to confess
I've always wanted one. I wantedone in the color red. I've always

(01:51):
been a big sports car kind ofguy. Well, they filed a patent
that helps landlubbers like me drive effectivelyon a race course. So what they
have is a software program that integrateswith the car and with the driver,
and it allows you to drive ona real race course and adjust the car's

(02:13):
settings so that you sort of getthe maximum thrill out of the ride.
So I think this is just anamazing development for car drivers everywhere. I'm
sure there's been similar technologies for selfdriving cars, but this first time that
you get to give it to grownup kids like me and actually go out
and drive around a racetrack at onehundred eighty miles an hour. To me,

(02:35):
that just sounds like the best thingin the world. Well, I'm
pretty relieved that they are doing this, and it's pretty cool that they have
a patent on it too, becauseif they can help control the car,
you're much less likely to kill yourself, right, So I mean you want
to go fast, but also ifyou're an inexperienced driver, you are taking
your life into your own hands,right, and so maybe this is a
little bit of extra safety. Butone of the funny things that I saw

(03:00):
in the article that discussed this patentwas that the idea is to make the
experience of driving a Ferrari around arace car track just like a video game.
So instead of video games mimicking life, now we are at the point
where we have real life trying tomimic video games. That's scary. But

(03:23):
what got me too when I waslooking at this Ferrari actually has a lot
of patents and it's all on reallyreally cool stuff, So yeah, it's
all on high tech stuff. They'rean older company, but they're definitely a
technology company. So it's not justthe cars, it's not just the beautiful
design. It's also the software andthe tech that goes into creating this Ferrari

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experience. So hopefully one of thesedays I'll get a chance to do that.
Father's Day is coming up, bythe way, I think we have
to go to Italy. That's theperfect excuse. So anyway, I'd like
to hear what our guests have tosay about this innovation, and I'm going
to go to John, John,what are your thoughts about this Ferrari a
software technology thing? Well, Richard, I think that anytime a brand or
a company creates an immersive experience forsomebody, that creates the opportunity for them

(04:10):
to create a story that they sharewith other people and they become your brand
ambassadors. Oh wow, that isso, that is so true. That
is so. I mean, themarket for Ferrari's is actually pretty small,
right, and the people who canafford to buy a Ferrari, I would
think can afford to go and taketheir Ferrari to a racetrack and zep around

(04:30):
with the software. Right, andif they can go faster and be better,
you know, who knows, maybethey'll invent fake racing cars next to
you or something like that that yousee in the heads up display. So
right, But immersive experience is whatit's all about these days to do so
absolutely. Ellie, what are yourthoughts about this? Well, I mean,
I think it's fantastic. I meanthe point of technology is to make

(04:50):
things more accessible, and for theVastima driver, we would probably die.
So I do think that this patenthas utility. Letting people have experienced is
that they couldn't otherwise have while remainingsafe. So I think it's exciting and
probably worthy of a patent. Gerard, what are your comments, Well,
I'm interested to see, first ofall, how this has ripple effects through

(05:11):
the rest of the automotive industry transportationindustry over the next couple decades, because
when one company innovates, you knowthe rest are soon to follow and trying
to improve on that design. I'malso curious to know some of those other
patents, because you had mentioned thatthere are some other patents that they have
coming down the pike. I'm interestedto hear more about those. Right.
So they had one that measures thedriver's psychophysical state in order to improve the

(05:32):
driving experience. They're looking at likeyour level of anxiety while you're driving,
maybe if you're in training mode orsomething like that. Right. Yeah,
I also wonder if it has asetting where it's like, you know what,
maybe you shouldn't, maybe you shouldjust come front sometime, come back
to this later. Great. Yeah, they do have design patents too,

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so if you look at their designpatents, you can see there what their
concept is for a newer design.So yeah, they're really active in the
space, and I guess you know, they probably enforce them pretty rigidly too,
because they are so branded. AbsolutelyKenya. Well, I think it's
great. I mean, it's alwaysgreat to be a disruptor, as they
say in the space, right,stay ahead of the curve, be innovative.

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I'm also curious to see what theother companies do in terms of like
following suit to you know, stayup with the competition. So it's always
interesting when car guys start to youknow, kind of not reinvent the wheel,
but like take that whole driving experienceto another level. So it's cool,
It's cool absolutely. I mean,can you imagine what kind of software
they might write for like a Priusdriver, which would like probably be the

(06:36):
opposite of driving fast, but justsort of this simulation where you're driving slow
and you're maximizing gas mileage and allof those other things. I mean,
it's possible, and there's probably somesort of market for that, right Yeah.
And you make up good point interms of like what are the personality
profiles of a Ferrari driver, right, Like does that go into the implementation

(06:58):
of the software, the invention,like just curious things. Yeah, so
many questions left unanswered. So Iguess the takeaway from all of this is
be ahead of the curve, bean innovator, and speak to your consumers,
to your market, and be pushingthe edge of technology. I think
just the fact that they filed thispatent puts Ferrari in a class where they

(07:19):
have our showing their innovation, right, which is clearly part of their brand.
But now it's time for our guest, John Levisa. He is the
pitch whisperer and as I mentioned earlier, he's a sales and storytelling keynote speaker,
and he's going to be telling usabout how stories can help you effectively

(07:40):
promote your products and your brand.So welcome to the show. John tell
us a little bit about storytelling andhow you first sort of came to this
as as a way to help promotepeople and their brands and their products.
Well, we are wired for stories. It's literally in our DNA. You
know, when we all lived incaves, we sat around and told stories
by campfires, and now in bigpresentations, we sit around the global power

(08:03):
points and listen to stories, andit actually accesses as a different part of
our brain. If you tell people, let me give you a presentation with
a lot of data and facts andfigures, your brain goes into this analytical
mode and it can create a lotof analysis paralysis where people can't make a
decision. But if you say,let me tell you a story, your
brain kicks into a whole new mindsetof oh, maybe this will be entertaining

(08:24):
and I can relax a little bitand go on a journey. And that's
the mindset and the attitude you wantwhen you're trying to give in somebody to
give you funding to get a newcustomer to get someone to hire you.
We're all selling ourselves all the time. And my whole experience has been that
whoever tells the best story is infact the one that gets the sale.

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Now, that's really interesting. Sowhat kinds of stories are we talking about
in the business world that can resonatewith customers? Your own story of origin?
How did you decide to get intothis particular area of law made you
become a lawyer? You know,all those personal things about you that makes
you stand out from every other lawyerthat maybe does similar things. That story

(09:07):
of origin is a great way toconnect and build rapport as opposed to the
old way of doing it, whichis let's talk about the weather or sports.
Because once you share your own storyof origin, you can ask the
other person you're talking to their storyof origin. So it's a great bonding
tool. And then the second storyis your company story. How did you
come up with the name one ofthe values your company has? Do you
have a story of your company's valuesand action? And then finally turning a

(09:31):
boring case study that's been around fordecades into a case story. And the
goal here is to make people seethemselves in that story so that they want
to go on the journey with you, and you're no longer being pushy because
stories pull people in. They literallymake you magnetic and most importantly memorable.
Well this is really exciting for mebecause I think, you know, this

(09:54):
is a great way to communicate withpeople, and sharing stories is a great
way to build relationships, and soI think this is just amazing. How
personal do we get with our personalstories? Well, I don't know that
you need to go into any trauma, but avoid trauma number one. Okay,
yes, but you know, I'veworked with some architects, for example,

(10:15):
on their personal story of origins whenthey have a team slide, and
everybody typically has a team slide whenyou're presenting why you should hire us versus
our competitors. Entrepreneurs have team slideswhen they're trying to get funding. And
so instead of just saying, youknow, I went to school here,
I've been doing this for this manyyears. One architect said, you know,
when I was eleven years old,I played with Legos. Now I
have a son that's eleven, Istill play with Legos with him. I'm

(10:37):
still passionate about this. Someone elsesaid, you know, when I was
a young girl. Most of myfriends were begging their parents to take them
to Disneyland to see him. Anymouse. I used to beg my parents
to take me downtown to see skyscrapers, and that's how she got interested in
architecture. Those aren't great because they'repersonal and they're authentic, and it really
does provide a basis for somebody tohire you. Well, I'm looking at

(10:58):
the notes that we have about you. You've done a lot. But what
I find interesting is you have abook. The sale is in the tale,
and you call it a business fable. I've never heard that term before.
Tale is spelled tall by the way, as in fairy tale. So
a fable is a story, andthis is a book story about storytelling.
Instead of just giving you a businessbook with the facts and figures and things,

(11:22):
I tell you a story of oneparticular salesperson struggling to make their quota,
worried about getting fired, not gettingpromoted, and coming in second place
against the competition, and how someoneintroduces the concept of storytelling to them and
how it changes their career and theirpersonal life. So you're on the journey
with the characters while you're learning aboutstorytelling at the same time. That's fascinating.
So are you selling that on Amazon? Now? Yes, We're going

(11:45):
to go to Kenya for a question. Kenya sure. So I love the
whole case story terminology that you usedearly on, and I'm just curious,
are there any necessary elements that aremust have where are crafting a story?
First of all, the goal isto make your stories three things, concise
and compelling. If it's not clearand confuse people, they're going to say
no. If it's confusing, theyjust don't buy. If it's not concise,

(12:09):
if you'd go on and on andon, there's no point to your
story, everyone checks out. Andfinally, is it compelling? Do we
feel something? Is there any tuggingof our heartstrings in that story? And
so, when you tell a casestory, the first part is the exposition,
the who, what, where?When you are literally painting a picture,
give us the specifics to get usinto the story. Then you need

(12:31):
a problem and the stakes have tobe high in the story or we don't
care. And the better you describea problem, the more people think you
have their solution. And then thethird part is the solution. And then
the secret sauce is the resolution,what is life like for someone after they
bought your product hired? You thinkabout The Wizard of Oz. If that
movie ended with Dorothy getting in theballoon to go back to Kansas the end,

(12:52):
that would be not a classic story. But because there's that resolution scene
when she's in bed going, ohmy god, there's no place like home
and you were there and you werethat's the resolution where she realizes the value
of all these things that she tookfor granted. And so those four steps
allow you to have a checklist ofmaking sure you have all four steps in
it, and then you can goback to your friends and say, wasn't

(13:13):
that clear? Could it be anymore concise? Did it make you feel
anything? You are so right.I remember a year or two ago,
our kids were telling us to watchthese movies, and Richard and I watch
a couple of these movies and theyjust like ended in the middle. Right,
don't watch them. Yeah, there'snothing more unsatisfying than something that just
sort of stops. So do peoplehave different stories for different types of clients

(13:37):
or different products. Yes, Let'ssay you have three different kinds of ideal
clients. If you're selling real estate, for example, you've got the newly
married couple it's your first home.You've got the divorces, and you've got
the retired couple that are downsizing.You don't say the same story to all
three of those types of people.You need a specific story that they see
themselves in. So, however,many different types of avatars clients you have,

(14:01):
you need the right story to theright person at the right time,
because remember, the goal is thatthose people see themselves in the story and
want to go on the journey withyou as their Sherpa or as Yoda.
That's good to know. So Andthis takes a little practice too, right,
I mean you have to do alittle rehearsing maybe in order to get
the stories just right. Yes,it's like anything. If you think of

(14:24):
an athlete or somebody on Broadway,they don't just show up. There's lots
of practice, there's lots of rehearsal. The same thing is true of your
storytelling. It's an art form thatyou don't have to have this god given
talent to be good at. Butlike anything you get good at to go
to great to become a black belt, And it does require practice and fine
tuning. And I'm doing that allthe time with my own stories that I
give in front of sales audiences onyou know, did that story land right

(14:48):
or is it memorable? Or isthere something else I could do that make
it even better? How long shouldthe story be? Like if you're doing
a thirty second pitch, I don'tthink you can really get a whole story
in there? Can you? Ifthe stories interest and intriguing enough, you
can get it done in two minutesor less. I can give you an
example. You tell me if youfelt if it was clear, concise,
and compelling. So one of myclients has a device that makes surgeries go

(15:09):
thirty percent faster, and they're tellingthat fact to doctors and hospitals and saying,
we're not selling as many as wethought. It's so logical. Why
aren't they buying? And I said, because people buy emotionally and then back
it up with logic, even atthis sophisticated level. So I asked some
questions and we crafted this little casestory that sounds like this. Imagine how
happy doctor Higgins was down at LongBeach Memorial six months ago using our equipment

(15:33):
when you could go out to thepatient's family in the waiting room and hour
earlier than expected. And if you'veever waited for someone you love to come
out of surgery, you know,every minute feels like an hour. The
doctor comes out and says, goodnews, the scope shows they don't have
cancer. They're going to be fine, and then turned to the rep and
said, you know what, that'swhy I became a doctor for moments like
this. Now that doctor tells thatstory to another doctor at another hospital who

(15:56):
sees them stuff in the story andsays, you know what, this is
why I became a doctor. Iwant your equipment too. Clients, it
up. It gives us chills.Not only were not telling a story,
never occurred to us to make apatient's family a character in the story.
So the actual story itself is relativelyshort. John, you are a great
storyteller. That was a well toldstory. Congratulations. Yeah, And you
bring us to a really great pointin terms of like the rate of response

(16:18):
or the response in general, likewhat are some signs that the storytelling process
is not going in the right direction? Like are there any cues from the
recipient that you should be on thelookout for? Sure? Well, the
first one is confusion, and youcan see people you know if they haven't
had too much botox, you know, then you know their eyebrows mover,
they get that wringled between their eyebrowslike I'm confused. Or if you just

(16:42):
see them checking their phone while you'retelling the story, you've lost them,
right, Yeah, So there's somea lot of nonverbal cues that you can
tell when people are no longer intriguedor compelled to want to know what's next.
And so if you go back tothat story and why that works,
it has the X position. Youknow the doctor's name, you know how
long ago it was, you knowwhere it was. We painted the picture

(17:03):
the problem when they said to me, you know, we're solving a problem
thirty percent faster, and I'm like, what does that even mean? So
we did a lot of digging.Well, normally the surgeries three hours,
thirty percent faster in this case makesit two hours, So there's an hour
of savings. And think, allright, who cares about that? Well,
I guess the doctor's on his feetless, the hospital maybe makes more
money. But then I went tothe patient's families. Really who feels the

(17:25):
most. And you see how Ipulled you into the story by saying,
if you've ever had to wait,and even if you haven't, you could
probably imagine how painful that would be. And then the solution is the doctor
coming out. And here's a realtip to storytelling. When you're telling dialogue,
make it in present tense, sowe feel like we're in the story
and we're eavesdropping in on the doctorsaying this is why I became a doctor
for moments like this, and that'swhat makes somebody else see themselves in the

(17:48):
story so much. Wow. Well, John, you really have my head
spinning now because I'm going through andthinking about all the pitches I should be
doing it. Well, you cango through your testimonials and your case studies
that might be on your website andsay, how can I turn these in
the case stories? Good idea?So how do you go about constructing a
story? Then, if you're anovice at story creation, you know this

(18:10):
is a good idea, but you'renot a natural storyteller, So how do
you go about kind of just startingfrom scratch and pulling a story together.
So let's say Richard, I wasgoing to help you craft a story from
scratch. I would ask you,Richard, who's your ideal client? Who
hires you to come up with apatent. Are they an entrepreneur, are
they already successful? Where are theyin their journey of raising money? And

(18:32):
you know that they have the moneyto afford you, and you have an
example of that person in mind,Yes, and you want more of those
people? Yes? Okay, Solet's create a story of how they found
you, what their struggles were,what their fears were about not having a
patent, somebody stealing their idea.You know, we'd craft the story of
six months ago, a year ago, XYZ person came to me. They're
in this field, and if youwant more people in that field, describe

(18:55):
their problems. What's keeping them upat night, what's the cost of not
having a patent? All of thosethings? And then what is your unique
solution? What makes you different thaneverybody else who might be able? What
made them pick you? Is ityour responsiveness? Is it your experience?
Is that your efficiency? Whatever theiryou know, three reasons are we had
a resolution and say, now thisentrepreneur not only has a thriving business,

(19:18):
but that patent has deterred competitors,etc. Etc. John Levis say,
the pitch whisper passage to profit.The road to entrepreneurship with Richard and Elizabeth
Gerhart and we'll be back right afterthis commercial break. What are entrepreneurs most
valuable assets? Their passion and ideas. We can't protect your passion, but
we can protect your ideas. TrustGearhart Law to protect your ideas with premiere

(19:41):
patent, trademark and copyright services.There's never been a better time to start
your own business. Contact us atGearheart Law dot com. At Gearhart Law
we have years of experience protecting entrepreneurs, ideas and brands using patent, trademark
and copyright protection. So if youhave a new consumer product, a new
software application that you're planning to buildor sell, or a brand or company

(20:03):
name that you want to protect,contact the experts at Gearheart Law www dot
Gearheartlaw dot com. Don't let thewrong protection strategy ruin your business. All
of our attorneys are passionate about protectionand are licensed and qualified to represent you
before the United States Patent and TrademarkOffice. Don't start your project without calling
us first. Contact Gearheart Law onthe web at g E A R h

(20:27):
A r T Law dot com.Together we can change the world. This
that has been read by an attorneyspokesperson. Now back to gassage to profit
once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhartand our special guest, John Livisay the
pitch whisperer. Oh my gosh,and I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm here with

(20:47):
Richard Gearhart and our media maven KenyaGibson, and we are going to continue
with John. He is just awealth of knowledge and creativity. So Kenya,
do you want to start with thefirst question for John? Sure?
John, We have a lot ofbusiness people that listen to the show,
entrepreneurs, startups, and say,you know, someone's starting off in marketing
or branding their business for the firsttime and they're struggling to kind of find

(21:10):
them meat to their story. Whatadvice would you give to them to integrating
their story into their marketing and strategy. Well, I think the number one
thing is you have to first realizethat the riches are in the niches.
We've heard that before, and thatdon't try to be everything to everybody.
And once you come up with ahook, in my case, the pitch
whisperer that intrigues people to go,wait, I know what a dog whisper

(21:30):
is. I've even heard of ahorse whisper. What the heck is a
pitch whisper? How'd you get thatname? It intrigues them to want to
know more. And that's really whatgood marketing does is it takes us from
just being seen as a commodity tooh, someone's got an interesting hook here.
And also the ability to boil downwhat you do into six words is
a great exercise. In my case, if you go to my website,

(21:52):
which is just my name, JohnLevisay dot com, you'll see it says,
tell better stories, win more sales. That's my brand promis What about
people that just can't do it?Some people, no matter how much you
tell them, Okay, you've gotthirty seconds for this, they just can't
do it. Why are you lookingat me? Well, I do have
a that's a basic elevator pitch.And let's agree right here and now on

(22:15):
passage to profit that we're going tokill the elevator pitch. It's officially dead
and we're going to turn it intothe elevator story. Because an elevator pitch
is traditionally robotic, it's boring,and nobody remembers it. So we're going
to fix all those things with theelevator story. And so I have a
five step process. It's really easy, Elizabeth. You and I can do
this together, Okay, and westart. The first step is you say

(22:37):
something conversational, the phrase such as, you know how this summer is predicted
to be hotter than last summer?Anything at all? You know how?
Is the first step when you starta sentence with that. We're all taking
notes in the studio, by theway, so please can tell you this
is a conversation. Oh so youknow how, there's a lot of people
out there with great ideas, butthey're worried about their competition stealing it,

(22:57):
right, you know whatever it is, So you describe who you help is
the second step. The third stepis what problem do they have? So
I just gave you an example ofall three steps in one sentence. You
know how. There are so manyentrepreneurs out there who are struggling to make
sure that their idea doesn't get stolen, and they know they need a pattern,
but they don't know where to start. Most elevator pitches is I'm a
lawyer, I'm a doctor, I'mat this, I'm a tech person.

(23:21):
You're talking about yourself. First,The first three steps are not about you
at all, and then the fourthstep is how you enter and solve that
problem, and then the fifth stepis like, what is life like for
them afterwards? So my elevator storyis, you know how there's so many
sales and tech teams out there inplace and they don't know what to do
to win more new business. Well, I'm known as the pitch whisper.
People bring me in as their keynotespeaker. I teach them how to become

(23:41):
revenue rock stars by telling the beststory. That's great. It's so funny
how you talk about how to learnhow to do pitches, John, Because
I'm going to a small business expoin New York and they're really pretty good
because they send you emails telling youall sorts of things you need to know,
like and one of the emails ishow to craft a pitch. And
so I went through and did allthe steps they said and read my pitch

(24:03):
and it was one of the mostboring things I've ever read in my life.
Remember, the whole goal is itdoesn't matter what they ask you.
It's that you planted little seeds tointrigue people enough to want to ask you
something. So you have a conversationand not a monologue. So John,
just to switch gears a little bit. I notice here that you have a
TEDx talk and it's called be theLifeguard of your Own Life, and it

(24:25):
has over a million views. Didyou talk about stories or was that something
else? Well? I talked abouthow unlike in a hurricane, if you
don't evacuate, no one's going tocome and rescue you in your career when
things go down. This was beforethe pandemic, and I think we've all
experienced the need to be our ownlifeguard during the pandemic or anything else that
causes disruption in our life, whetherit's a job loss in my particular case,
getting laid off, a divorce,or one hundred and one of the

(24:48):
things that happened to us in ourpersonal own business career, that we have
to figure out how to be ourown lifeguard. And so I talk about
the need to be resilient and getout of your comfort zone and to get
off the self esteem roller coaster,no matter what's happening to you your self
esteem. Oh I just made abig sale, I feel good. Oh
I just got laid off. Ifeel bad. Oh I just lost a

(25:11):
sale, I feel bad, upand down, up and down. That
when you get to be your ownlifeguard, you realize who I am is
bigger than any one thing happening tome at any one time. That identity
stays the same. I have toadmit I am sometimes a victim of the
roller coaster. Something went well today, tomorrow something doesn't go so well.
And you know, I would loveto understand some of the skills that you

(25:33):
develop. One of the easiest waysto get off the self esteem roller coaster
is to think of yourself Richard,as the movie director of your own life,
and you can zoom out and lookat what's happening. As a movie
director, you can yell cut,you can change the location, you can
change the cast. And there's atool I've created called the five five five
method. Let's say somebody cuts youoff in traffic. Now, some people
lose their mind over that. Isay, well, will this matter in

(25:55):
five minutes? Literally, ask yourselfthat question. How about five hours from
now? How about five days fromnow? If you're still upset because somebody
cut you off in traffic, fivedays from now, you got a problem.
So when you zoom out like that, you realize that it's up to
me to decide whether I judge thisisn't horrible thing that I'm going to obsess
about for five hours. You're incharge of how long you want to obsess
about it. And so I bringthis into a lot of companies cultures and

(26:17):
they start cheering each other on andlike, okay, we're going to five
five five this. We all workedreally hard on this, we didn't get
it. We're only going to complainabout it for five hours and then we're
not going to bring it up everagain. I wish I had this tool
created for myself when my dad diedabout ten years ago, because five days
from now I was still pretty devastated. But you can five five five again.
So how about five weeks, fivemonths, five years from now we're
I could go back in time tomy younger self, I would say,

(26:41):
five years from now, you're stillgoing to miss him, but I promise
you you won't be this sad.So the five five five works not only
in being more resilient getting off thatself esteem rollercoaster in your career, but
also in your personal life. Justask yourself, will this matter in five
minutes, five hours, or fivedays. Usually by five days. In
the majority of things that happened tous, they're in our rearview mirror by
then, because we've got something outto be upset about. What if it
does last longer than five minutes,Like I mean, especially when you're a

(27:03):
business owner, right like you goto sleep stories at night, and some
things are a little longer than fiveminutes. So what do you do if
that's the case. Do it againlike I did with my dad's death five
months five years from now, thiscompany's either going to be bought or sold
or have an IPO or whatever's botheringme now will not bother me this much
at five years from now. Justkeep zooming out until you get some perspective

(27:25):
and start to think about gosh.I remember when I was so upset that
I put an offer down on ahouse that I didn't get it, and
then two months later I found somethingI liked even better. So just remember
that whatever you think is horrific atthe moment doesn't have perspective on it.
So zoom out and use the fivefive five John, what is your favorite
story? What story do you liketo tell about yourself, about your life,
about your career, what's your favoritestory. One of my favorite stories

(27:48):
is when I was being interviewed byAnthem Insurance and they were asking me a
lot of questions and they were consideringme versus two other speakers, and then
I asked them a question which Iwould want to have everybody have in their
toolbox future paced people, what elseis going to happen if I'm selected as
your speaker at the opening of thisWhat else is going on in the rest
of those two days? They go, Oh, We're going to have an
improvisation session and audience is going toshout out objections and people on stage you're

(28:11):
going to role play. And Isaid, what if I stayed after my
keynote and would whisper in people's earssomething that they don't get stuck in the
objection. And they said, ohmy god, that'd be amazing. We
never even considered having the speaker dothat, and that's what made them hire
me. And then I told thisstory to INC Magazine and they go,
well, gosh, You're like thepitch whisper, aren't you. Because people

(28:32):
kept saying I wish you could bein my ear all the time when I'm
out in the field. So that'show I became known as the pitch Whisper
and it's one of my favorite storiesof how that all came about. By
going above and beyond just giving theminimum. When you think about how else
can I be of service in thiscase staying and doing this improvisation session with
the audience, then you become remembableand who knows it might even create your
own brand tag from it. That'sreally great. I had one client say,

(28:53):
we are so tired of coming insecond place. You know, we
put all this time and money intoour presentation against a competitor, and time
after time we're just coming in secondplace. And unlike the Olympics, there's
no metal in business for second place. So once we crafted the storytelling of
the case stories and their own personalstories, they wrote me and they said,
we have won three new business pitchesin a row and the only thing

(29:14):
we're doing differently now is telling thesestories. So it is a real game
changer. Passage to Profit, Roadto Entrepreneurship with Richard Elizabeth Gerhardt, our
media Maven Ken, You Gibson,and our incredible guest John Lives say the
Pitch Whisperer. It'll be on ourpodcast tomorrow and we will be right that.
Hi. I'm Lisa, asked LeasiInventress, founder, CEO and president

(29:37):
of Inventing a to Z. I'vebeen inventing products for over thirty eight years,
hundreds of products later and dozens ofpatents. I help people develop products
and put them on the market fromconcept to fruition. I bring them to
some of the top shopping networks inthe world QBC, hsn E, vine
Line and retail stores. Have youever set to yourself and should invent that

(30:00):
thing? Well, I say,why not make it you. If you
want to know how to develop aproduct from concept to fruition the right way,
contact me Lisa Ascales we Inventress.Go to Inventing atoz dot com Inventing
a too z dot Com Email meLisa at Inventing a tow z dot Com.
Treat yourself to a day shop fullof networking, education, music,

(30:23):
shopping and fun. Go to mywebsite Inventing atoz dot Com. Passage to
Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. It's time for power Move, Hi,
Kenya. What's going on with Powermove? Oh? Lots of things.
So our power mover today is actuallygoing to be opera singer Eric Green.
He's a singer, he's an actor, an easy performer. He graduated from

(30:47):
Julliard and he always dreamed of performingat the Metropolitan Opera. So I had
an opportunity to interview him for thefirst episode of Power Move last week.
And he's actually going to be playingthe story of Benny kid Perey, who
was a boxer who actually experienced thefirst televised death right, so super tragic.
The story does turn around, however, because Benny's son offers redemption to

(31:10):
Ameil Griffith, who was the boxerthat injured him in the fight. And
it's just it's a tragic story,but it's a story that offers redemption.
So I had the opportunity to sitdown with Eric and learn all about his
full circle story of like what ittakes to be a champion, overcome and
really achieve what you want to achievein life. So he's our power Mover
today. Well that sounds really great. Where can people find your podcast?

(31:32):
So right now it's going to beon Apple Podcasts onto Elizabeth and her projects.
Get us up to date. Well, I am going to try to
craft my pitch for Blue Streak usingJohn's methods here. So you know how
small businesses are always trying to riseabove the noise in the media, digital

(31:52):
media especially, it's hard and alwayslooking for new products. It seems like
there's new products coming all the time. Well, my startup, Blue Streak
Directory shows short videos of business ownersshowcasing their authenticity and really connecting with people
who are looking for a service provideronline. And it's in a very organized

(32:13):
format. It's a directory, soit's easy to search. So I feel
like this is the next generation ofbusiness search for small business owners. I
think that was really really good thanksto what does John think you know for
your first attempt you are a verygood listener and a quick learner. That's
my first feedback. I love howyou describe who it's for their problem.

(32:35):
Always when you describe a problem,if you insert the words struggle that it
always makes it even more feeling.And you're very clear about you know your
company is Blue Streak Directory and you'recreating videos that connect with people. The
one thing we can improve it onto take it from good to great is
that resolution. It's not about ballbusiness owners no longer drowning and to see
a famous because their ideal clients canfind them and connect with them thanks to

(32:55):
the Blue Streak directory. So partof the magic of storytelling is really finding
the right words too right, Imean finding words that are expressive and make
you feel something. So I haveto touch briefly on my next project because
this is really a from the heartproject. So I have a podcast with
Danielle Woolley, the Jersey Podcats,and it's about cats. We started the

(33:19):
podcast to bring people together to helptheir animals, and we've had different people
on the podcast. It's really alot of fun and I think we're building
a community and people are helping eachother with animal advice. That's great.
Now we have Gerard Longo with UndergroundMusic Collective and it started from your podcast,
The Quinn Spin Right and grew fromthere. So tell us all about

(33:43):
it. Welcome to the show,and tell us all about it. Well,
first, thanks for having me on. And I'm gonna take a page
from John's book, So you knowhow most independent musicians you know will label
themselves as a singer songwriter from anywhereUSA. Underground Music all I to exist
to empower them past that and toempower them to tell their stories, share
their truth, give them the resourcesthey need. And yeah, it did
all start with The Quinnspin. Iactually used to work in New York City

(34:06):
doing marketing communications internally for a bigfortune five under company, and I just
needed an outlet, right and Idid college radio one night. I had
a weekend to myself and I wasjust listening to my old college radio show,
and I just got this like superchargeof purpose. I want to do
this. I want to have animpact, and I want to make this
about independent music because there are somany artists out there of all genres,

(34:28):
of anywhere in the country, notjust in the major markets, who are
talented, who have all the toolsthey need, you know, in terms
of talent and ability, but maybedon't have the resources available to them.
And so we started by interviewing them. We started by featuring them on the
show, featuring their music. Youknow, we had a run at the
beginning of where it was just TheQuinnspin, where it ran for about two

(34:49):
years from twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen. So we're coming up on ten years
of the podcast. There's a lotof lineage at a lot of equity built
into that. And then around beginningof twenty sixteen, I had actually relocated
to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Ithought, why don't I start a blog
and have the Quinn'spin be a partof it. And so Bethlehem is in
this area called the Lehigh Valley,about an hour north of Philly, beautiful

(35:09):
area. I considered her at home, and so I started a blog called
the Lehigh Valley Underground, where wereviewed local releases, went to local shows.
We started partnering with local festivals,putting on our own events, you
know, partnering with organizations in thearea to just build awareness of mostly the
original music that was being created inthe scene. And we'd start to dive

(35:30):
into some other forms of media asthey became adjacent. Right, So that's
twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, twentyeighteen. We're putting on events, winning
local awards, that kind of thing. But then I started to kind of
just feel this poll to level upin my own life and level up for
the platform, because I felt likethere was industry knowledge that was still out
there for me so I could buildthe best platform possible. And so I

(35:52):
was actually thinking about returning to NewYork, but I had some friends sell
me on Nashville, and so endto twenty eighteen, it was your classic
moving to Nashville story, Me andwhatever would fit in my car, my
little Nissan Versa, just trucking ondown about eight hundred or so miles from
Bethlehem to Nashville. We rebranded UndergroundMusic Collective, and the idea was,
I didn't want to put Nashville inthe name. I didn't want to localize

(36:12):
at this time because I wanted itto be accessible to the larger independent music
and creative community. I wanted toprovide opportunities for people from Nashville and build
those pipelines out to markets of courselike New York and LA, but also
like a Bethlehem, or like aSpokane, Washington, a little Rock Arkansas,
because there are talented people everywhere doingamazing work who don't necessarily have the

(36:35):
resources have the industry knowledge. Soof course we're still doing reviews, features.
Quinspin comes out every Thursday, westill do new episodes, put out
a UMC twenty Spotify playlist every week, but also ramping up our educational content
over the years. We have aWednesday Wisdom series where we have industry experts
come through and just share their insightsin a weekly column. It's a different
one every week. They rotate,you know. We have a team of

(36:57):
four or five experts and they eachtake a week per We've been doing a
lot of virtual panels where we touchon a specific topic or genre segment of
the industry and we discuss with peoplewho are in that segment, their challenges,
their success is the lessons they've learned. We just launch a creative agency
as well, where we have ateam of verified creators who can help you
with all of your creative projects photography, videography, graphic design, web design,

(37:22):
social media. We even have somemusic instructors on our team so you
can book them through us Projects completed. You get great work that helps you
achieve your artistic vision, and thenfrom there we get to a feature it
through the platform and give you thata little extra boost. This is fantastic
and it's I think a unique approachbecause so much of music is also the
stories of behind the music and ofthe musicians, and fans just eat that

(37:46):
up. So what kind of genresdo you work with? Is that very
specific or is it general? We'reopen. My mindset is that the rising
time raises all boats, and everything'sin our form in its own way,
you know, and I my personaltaste, like I'm across the board,
so it's easy for me to builda platform that supports varying genres. You

(38:07):
know. I think the common threadis, you know, as independent musicians,
as independent creatives, as entrepreneurs,we're all building from zero, right,
We're all starting from nothing. Thepodcast itself, which was the point
of singularity, literally started in mychildhood bedroom with the laptop and a USB
mic, and then we went tothe practice rooms of our community college,
you know, once my buddies camein to co host with me, where

(38:30):
we did community theater and we recordedthere. That was our point of zero,
that was our point of origin.And now there's this entire ecosystem.
And I want to help empower othermusicians, other creatives, regardless of their
genre, to do the same thingbecause it's possible if we can do it,
like anybody can. And that's reallywhat I want people to know.
Well, I think it's really importantwhat you're doing, because there needs to

(38:51):
be a place where people can gofind out what they need to know without
having to maybe pay a ton ofmoney for it, or this set or
the other thing, and you've gotthat perfect thing there. And also you're
building a community. I think peopleneed that absolutely community. I'm so glad
to use that word community because it'sthe heart of what we do. It's
the central point. Like I said, the rising tide raises all boats.
And there's a certain point you canget to by yourself, like starting the

(39:15):
thing, but like you need thosepeople around you. You need that support
system. You need a team aroundyou. And who better to have than
people who have been in that sameboat. And you know that includes people
who are more experienced than you,better versed in the exact things that you're
going through, as well as folksthat you can help lead the way for
and help light the way who aren'tas experienced. Gerard, What can people

(39:36):
expect when they go to your website, which is the Underground Music Collective dot
com? Right, So when theylog onto your site, what will they
see? What will they experience?Yes, so if you go to Underground
Music Collective dot com, you willsee a landing page with two tiles.
The left one goes to the blog, which is what brought us to the
dance. All the review content,interview content features that kind of thing on

(39:57):
the right. As a creative agency. You click that and you can see
all of our verified creators. Youcan dive into their portfolios, you can
reach out to book a consultation withthem as well. I'm on there as
well. I'm an artist coach.That is a role that I've adopted.
Here you can find the resources youneed no matter what you're looking for.
If you're looking to have your musicfeatured and your story told through our platform,
you can do that click to theleft. If you're looking to enlist

(40:20):
our services, click to the right, and of course at the top there's
a nav bar where it can takean even deeper dive if you want.
We actually also just launched an affiliatemarketing program, which is another way to
get involved with us too. Sothere are so many ways to get involved.
It's just a matter of what you'relooking for and what's right for you
at the time. That's really good. I was going to ask you,
is your content subscription base? No, our content's not subscription base. It's

(40:42):
open source on the internet, soyou can go you can read the articles,
you can listen to the podcast.We're on all the streaming platforms Spotify,
Apple, all of those and youcan go and engage with us.
You know, we're very open.You know, we're building our team,
and our team, you know,is very much like minded in the sense
of we want to build community,we want to help, we want to
do good work for people for theright reasons. And so we're not closed

(41:07):
off, we're not exclusive in termsof a subscription. Right now, it's
open and ready to serve the independentartist community. I'm interested in the services
that you offer and the universe ofcreator services that you offer to artists absolutely.
So this was something I take onclient services myself. I'm a photographer,
I handled social media for folks.I'm an artist coach, like I
said, And I got to thepoint over the winter where like, I

(41:29):
found my own bandwidth running low,you know, because like you're taking on,
you know, all these individual projects, plus you're also trying to build
this thing. Plus you know,you've got other irons in the fire,
right, And so I started thinking, well, I also get asked to
do things that I don't necessarily do, like videography. I'm not a videographer,
but I'm like, what if wehad people on the team who were
skilled and disciplined in those specific areasright. And so this was a moment

(41:52):
where I got out of bed atmidnight, ripped the covers off, and
I'm brainstorming, jotting things down tothree am. And what came out of
it was the creative agency at UMCwith our team of verified creators. Over
the next few months. From there, what I did was I just refined
it, ran by some people thatI trust, again the importance of having
that team, those people who canhelp guide you, and then started recruiting

(42:14):
folks, you know, meeting withthem individually, one on one, like,
hey, you know, not onlywhat do you do and how good
are you what you do? Butwhat makes you tick? What gets you
out of bed to do it inthe morning, you know, because we
want people that are going to providevalue, but we also want people who
are going to do it while helpingthe artists achieve their vision. And so
we launched that on May first ofthis year, and we're really excited about

(42:34):
it. You know. We've ofcourse gone a lot of great feedback so
far, you know, not onlyin the process of leading up to launch,
but since and just really excited toserve in any way that we can
excellent so John, well, you'recreating this wonderful place for people to share
their stories, and that's an outlet, and so the resolution could be,
so now, don't let the musicthat's inside if you die. You know,

(42:57):
it's interesting you say that, John, because of it, And as
I was listening to your segment,I was thinking, what is our resolution?
And I was thinking the same thing, like, oh, I gotta
go back, I gotta fine tunethat. So thank you for that.
I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure thatgets jotted down and that we implement that,
because that's fantastic. I appreciate it. So, who are some of
the favorite artists that you've talked withover the years. I got a couple.
There was an artist by the nameof Katie Cole who's an Australian born

(43:22):
American artist. She's here in theStates now. She actually is the touring
keyboardist, I believe now with theSmashing Pumpkins. And I had the chance
to catch her at a little venuecalled The Basement when I first moved to
Nashville, and she was my firstlong form interview in Nashville, and such
an amazing story. I mean,being from Australia, playing the local scene

(43:42):
there, you know, growing upand then just finding her way into the
United States using the Internet, usingthe powers of technology to find the people
that she wanted to work with,and getting to work with every single one
of them. Hers is an inspiringstory. Katie Cole is one. There's
another one I want to give ashout out just off the top of my
head. Who's I just think isreally compelling and fantastic. There's this artist
by the name of A Reus who'sout of Chicago but she is now based

(44:05):
in Nashville. You spell it aR R eis And she's got like the
dark glam pop thing going on.But not only is she just a fantastic
artist conceptually in terms of what sheputs forth. She has a new album
called Vices, which pretty much takesyou through the Nine Circles of Hell,
which is a really interesting like wow, is that something I even want to

(44:25):
watch? You know? It soundsvery intense. It is intense, but
it's presented in a way that's meantto empower, you know, and meant
to empower you pass your vices.And not only that, but like speaking
with her, she was a recentguest on The Quinn's Spin, and she
lives that way. She lives toempower, she lives to serve through her
art and make it about something biggerthan herself. And she's definitely one to
watch. Super talented, just supergood person, amazing community builder, and

(44:50):
I'm really excited to see where shegoes. Who's somebody who you'd like to
have on the platform who you haven'thad the opportunity to bring on yet.
Ooh, okay, So my favoriteband on Earth is a Canadian band called
Our Lady Piece. I've loved themfor years since high school. Their music's
definitely gotten me through a lot inmy life. And rain Maida, who's
the front man. I just he'smy favorite songwriter ever. And we had

(45:10):
a chance to meet him, actuallyhad a show years ago in Niagara Falls.
But I would love to actually sitdown and talk to him on the
show, because not only do Ienjoy his music, but I just really
enjoy the perspective behind it and theway that he has been able to just
like capture these very specific things fromhis own life and make them so accessible
to the listeners to where like evenif he's talking about something completely different in

(45:35):
his songs, like you can listento that and assign your own meaning to
it. He's not telling you whatto think, but I'm interested to dive
into some of that process as welland just really get his perspective on the
journey. I mean, they've beena band for more than thirty years at
this point, so to get thatperspective on the journey, how the industry
has changed. He's also big intoWeb three and NFTs and that kind of
thing, and it's where he seesthe industry headed, I think is really

(45:57):
compelling and I'd be a great conversation. That's great. Well, that's raises
an interesting question. So being inthe industry yourself, where do you see
the industry going? What kinds oftrends are you noticing that might be interesting
for our listeners. Well, Webthree is all about building community, right,
and it's about giving ownership back tothe consumer, back to the listener,
back to the artist. More andmore and more emphasis on that,

(46:20):
you know, and so you're seeingmore artists, You're seeing more entities have
discord servers, You're seeing more getinto the world of NFTs, You're seeing
more people find waste. You directlybuild community without like a middleman or a
middle organization, and I see thatonly increasing. I think AI of course,
is going to be something that playsa large role in the future,

(46:40):
you know, just in terms ofhow we're able to automate certain things so
artists can get back to focusing onart, you know, so creatives can
get focused on being creative, youknow. And the administrative work, you
know, all the things that takeup so much for our days, you
know, don't have to take upso much of our days anymore, you
know, which is only going toopen the door for us to create and

(47:00):
collaborate more. I will say,Howellujah too bad? How do people find
you? If you go to UndergroundMusic Collective dot com that's our central hub.
Instagram's our main social channel as wellat UMC Nashville. You can also
follow The Quinn Spin on Instagram atQuinn Spin Official, twoins and quin two
ns and Spin. So that's whereyou'll find our daily review content. Sometimes

(47:22):
it will be a review of asingle at EP and album. Sometimes it'll
be an episode of the Quinspin,whether that's an interview, whether it's a
solo mission, whether I invite ourog family back on Zoom to just shoot
the breeze, you know, takeus back to the roots. Wednesday Wisdom
appears there as well. So thoseweekly columns where we have our industry experts
chiming in on a particular topic appearsthere. And anything else any other feature

(47:45):
content, announcements, live event announcements. It's another thing that we do in
Nashville under our nash Live brand,which we're going to start expanding out later
this year. You know, maybein other markets. Is we do put
on live shows with independent artis giventhem the opportunity to perform some money while
they perform and build their audiences.Well, congratulations to you. This is
one of the most unique projects thatwe've had on the program, and it's

(48:07):
very creative and I really like whereyou're going with this, so we certainly
wish you all the success. Iappreciate that the labor a lot of a
lot of work and it's only justgetting started. Okay, we have something
that I think almost all of usneed. I certainly need this. It
is called insta Floss by Ellie Packhouse, and it is the new way to
flash your teeth and when they're available, which is going to be I guess

(48:30):
next month I want one, SoEllie, tell us all about it.
I'm going to run right out inorder one right after this. So well
you know that, that's exactly whywhy we spent the last five years creating
insta floss, which is the firstdevice that can properly and painlessly floss all
of your teeth in just ten seconds. You can floss in zero seconds if
you don't care about the results byjust not flossing. So what Insta flossies

(48:54):
is where the first device to usetwelve different jets to floss many areas of
your mouth simultaneously, which is whywe're able to floss each two four times
in just ten seconds, so wecould do it not just quicker, but
also more properly. For most people. This is the vast majority of Americans.
They stumble into one of these threeor perhaps all of these three problems

(49:15):
when they need to floss. Sothe first thing is they don't even want
to floss because it takes your nighttimeroutine and it makes it take twice as
long, and so you're there,you're tired, you don't want to do
it. They're like, okay,fine, let's say you that's thirty percent
of Americans, they just never doit. They don't get over that home.
The next percent of Americans they're like, Okay, I'm gonna do it.
However, it's a terrible experience.It's painful, it hurts, they

(49:37):
bleed, etc. And then evenif you take the time, and even
if you put up with the pain, by the time you go to your
dentist and you're all proud, Ohyes, I floss my teeth, they
look at your teeth and they're like, you're not doing such a great job.
Because the sad fact is that evenof those and this is only about
thirty percent of Americans who regularly floss, almost all them are doing it incorrectly.

(50:00):
And when you look at studies whendentist floss you versus you floss yourself,
it's night and day difference. Andflossing is so integral for all of
our health, not just our oralhealth, but also how cardio vascular health.
Anything that could be made worse frominflammation is made worse via the inflammation
in your mouth. So we reallyhad to solve this and that's what always

(50:20):
spent five years creating a device thatdoes it for you. You put in
your mouth and in ten seconds.It flosses each tooth four times, with
adjustable water jets that are far lesspainful. I went online and looked at
this, and what I really likedabout it. You put a little train
over your teeth so it encompasses allthe teeth at once, and you just
slide it across. I have triedliterally everything, and I think that what

(50:45):
you have is going to be theanswer. How is it different from a
water pick. Imagine a water pickis a manual single jet that you have
to trace all of your gun lineand you have to do it at a
ninety degree angle to get it correctly. This takes longer than string. You
almost certainly are not getting it ata ninety degree angle to the gun line,
especially on the inside of your teeth. That's very difficult to do and

(51:07):
it will make a mess. Soimagine twelve water picks that are aimed for
you that we assure you get onehundred percent correct coverage, and we floss
each tooth four times for you.So we take the guesswork, we take
the error out of flossing, andwe can do that in ten seconds.
That sounds really great. So there'smany advantages to using water jets instead of
string. Number One, you canget into tighter places. Water molecules are

(51:30):
smaller than string molecules, so youcan get in between tighter teeth. You
can get underneath the gum line deeperall the way around the tooth, which
you can't do with string. Andthe other big advantage of this is that
the jets are adjustable, so youwant to floss to the ability of your
gums, and with string there's onlysort of one setting, and therefore you're

(51:50):
going to bleed and you're going toneed to develop the callacy though essentially to
be able to handle that. Herewe say this is a floss that should
never be painful, effective, butnever painful. So is this good for
people who are not like great flossers, or people who have a hard time
like incorporating flossing into their daily routine. It's probably good for a number of

(52:12):
different people for different reasons. NumberOne, if you think flossing takes too
long, this is definitely for you, because we cut it down from two
to seven minutes all the way downto ten seconds. I flossing hurts,
This is for you because the pressureis adjustable. If you're not getting good
results, with your flossing. Thisis for you because we manage to do
it for you, so we aimcorrectly. And if you have motor function
disabilities, say you have trouble handlingstraight implements as children do, the elderly

(52:37):
do, anybody with motor function disabilitiesdoes, then this can also be a
very useful tool for you. Thanexcellent, John, Do you have any
other comments or questions? I thinkthe big takeaway for me is that all
of us are struggling, at onepoint or another with not feeling good enough
in all kinds of areas of ourlives. I'm not a good enough speaker,
I'm not a good enough friend,I'm not a good enough whatever.

(52:57):
And wouldn't it be great to startyour day every day that you gave yourself
an A plus in this that everythingyou're doing is that I know I'm not
flossing well enough or long enough,and I hate it. And then well
but boom, Now I can't waitto go to the dentist and get that
A plus report card because I knowthis is making me feel good enough and
starting my day with that mindset.Ooh, I like that. What a
very positive spin on things. AndI do want to point out too,

(53:20):
that Ellie has amazing teeth, sofor our amazing white teeth, So you
should definitely check out his website andlook for him because he has got the
whitest teeth I've ever seen. Well, that was one thing I wanted to
ask Ellie. Could you put alittle bit of peroxide in there to kind
of help whiten your teeth and helpyour gums or do not suggest that.
We don't suggest that it is possiblethat there is a whitening fluid we could

(53:43):
put into it. However, thatis the next stage of our developments.
I would encourage anybody listening to thisto go watch the video because you're not
really going to understand what this isunless you watch a video and then you're
going to go, oh my gosh, I want one. So it's instaflos
dot com. Where are you sellingthem now? Currently it's exclusively on our
website because we are going to belaunching in June of twenty twenty three.

(54:05):
So if you are listening to thisbefore, then wait for them. If
you're listening to this in the future, you could go to instoflas dot com.
Great passage to profit, the roadto entrepreneurship. We're going to go
take a break, but this hasbeen the most amazing show. If you
missed it, listen to the podcast. I strongly urge you two and we
will be right back. There's neverbeen a better time to start your own

(54:25):
business. The opportunities are infinite andonly limited by your imagination and enthusiasm.
At Gearhart Law, we believe themost successful companies all have one thing in
common. They start with a solidfoundation. First, Gearheart Law has years
of experience protecting entrepreneurs, ideas andbrands using patent, trademark and copyright protection.

(54:46):
So if you have a new consumerproduct, a new software application that
you're planning to build or sell,or a brand or company name that you
want to protect, contact the expertsat www dot gearheartlaw dot com. Our
professionals will create a custom strategy designedto fit your needs and your budget.
All of our attorneys are passionate aboutprotection, licensed and qualified to represent you

(55:08):
before the United States Patent and TrademarkOffice. Don't start your project without calling
us first. Visit Gearheartlaw dot com. Together we can change the world.
Visit G E A R h Ar T Law dot com. This that
has been read by a non attorneyspokesperson. H Passage to Alicia Morrissey is
our program coordinator here on Passage toProfit and she's also a fantastic jazz vocalist.

(55:34):
You can scroll to the bottom ofthe Passage to profitshow dot com website
and check out our album and justto put the pstar resistance on the whatever
you put the pstar resistance on.We're going to have Elizabeth now with Elizabeth's
question, and she's going to beasking a question of all of our guests,
right, and this is in honorof our guest today, John Livisay.

(55:57):
So I'm going to start with him. What's the power full story that
you've heard that's convinced you you mightwant to buy a product or hire somebody
for a service. Well, whenI was starting my own podcast, I
was interviewing a lot of other peoplewho produced it for me, and podcast
Cola said, we take all thestress out of it. Just put your
interviews in dropbox and we'll promote it, get it out there. And so
that concept of making my life easierand saving me time, those two things

(56:22):
combined, or the compelling story thatmade me say, oh, this is
the company for me Gerard long AgoUnderground Music Collective. What's a story that
you heard that made you want tobuy something or get a service from somebody.
I'm going to echo a lot ofwhat was just said here because when
hiring and putting together my team,I'm looking for people that can help keep
this whole vision of Underground Musical.I do focused on the big picture,

(56:44):
right, because going from Solopreneura companyowner has its challenges, not the lease
of which is you're still in theday to day while you're also trying to
build a company that is much furtherreaching than you, right, And so
hiring the folks that I've hired youto this point, my colleague Brandy Sims
and her whole team, you know, they've kept me so focused and accountable
to the bigger picture, and notjust in the sense of media relations that

(57:07):
kind of thing, but also like, hey, what's coming down the pike
as far as these projects. Here'swhat we need from you to push things
forward. And it has made sucha huge difference in the growth of the
company. So going back to thatidea of community team, if somebody can
come in and hit the areas thatyou're missing and do the things that you
can or that you're too tied upin other things to get to, Like

(57:28):
it's going to make such a hugedifference for you. Excellent. I agree.
So Ellie Packows with insta Flos,who convinced you to buy something with
their story. When we were buildingthe team for insta Flos, I remember,
even with the marketing team, youknow, I was asking all sorts
of questions the potential candidates, andeverybody was giving like, oh, this
would be better, we need todo this, we need to do that,
and you know, sort of pufferingup their skills. And then I

(57:52):
was interviewing one candidate and he says, you know, honestly have no idea
the answer to any of these questions, but here's how I would find out.
That's what excellent. That's a goodpoint, Kenya Gibson. Masterclass have
you heard of masterclass before? It'sa storytelling platform, but it's also like
education around like a specific skill setthat you want to learn. So if

(58:15):
you want to be a better communicator, it'll give you like a conversation or
tutorial from like Robin Roberts. Sothose things to me are like very valuable
and I feel like they have avery compelling storytelling piece that they use to
suck people in great This has beenso much fun. I love this.
We had as our guest John Levis, the pitch Whisper, and you can
find him at John Levisa dot com. That's j O H N L I

(58:38):
V E say dot com. Hehas a book too, doesn't he?
Oh? Yes, he has abook, John. Where can we find
your book on Amazon? Either youcan read it or if you prefer to
listen to me narrate it. Ihave different voices because there's different characters.
The sale is in the tale tallon Amazon Audible or in the book.
Well, that sounds like fun.And then we had Gerard Longo with Underground

(59:00):
Music Collective and you can find outmore at Underground Music Collective dot com.
If you're a creator, he's buildinga community and he's bringing everybody together to
rise all boats. And then wehad Ellie Packows with Insta Floss I nsta
floss dot com. If you hateflossing your teeth, this is going to

(59:20):
make your life so much better.And then if you do have intellectual property
needs Patton's trademarks copyrights. Richard Gearhartof Gearhart Law g e. A r
H. A r T. Lawhas been practicing intellectual property law for many
more years than we care to disclose, and he can help you with all
your intellectual property needs. And alsoI want to do a shout out to

(59:43):
Kenya who's just starting her new podcast, Power Move and it can be heard
on Apple Podcasts, so we're lookingforward to that. Before we go,
I'd like to thank the Passage toProfit team, Noah Fleischman, our producer,
Alicia Morrissey, our program director.Our podcasts can be found tomorrow anywhere
you find your podcast, just lookfor the Passage to Profit Show and don't

(01:00:04):
forget to like us on Facebook,Instagram and Twitter. And remember, while
the information on this program is believedto be correct, never take a legal
step without checking with your legal professionalfirst. Gearhart Law is here for your
patent, trademark and copyright needs.You can find us at Gureheartlaw dot com
and contact us for free consultation.Take care, everybody, thanks for listening,

(01:00:25):
and we'll be back next week.The proceeding was a paid podcast.
iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neitheran endorsement of the products offered or the
ideas expressed,