On today’s special episode, Joe and Paula Pant (AffordAnything) dive behind the scenes to share key learnings from the Craft & Commerce conference in Boise, Idaho. Recording live from the Kit studios in downtown Boise, they share lessons learned about serving audiences, fighting fear, breaking through business insecurity, and much, much more. It’s a wide-ranging discussion where you’ll see behind-the-scenes of both brands, and hear about how two creators learn, build, and grow. You’ll learn lots of takeaways about your own career, life, and (if you’re an entrepreneur) brand that you can apply.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/live-craft-and-commerce-conference-1544
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Paula Pant
Big thanks to Paula Pant for joining us today. To learn more about Paula, visit Afford Anything.
To learn more about the Craft + Commerce Conference from ConvertKit, visit Craft + Commerce Conference.
Doug’s Trivia
- Which company currently holds the largest market share among chocolate companies?
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: This just in breaking news from Stacking Benjamins [00:00:07] Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s a special episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:23] Today we’re coming to you live from the Kit Studios in downtown Boise, Idaho. Where Joe and Ford, anything’s Paula Pants are attending the Craft and Commerce conference, they’ll dive into all of their takeaways on this special behind the scenes, no holds barred conversation. And don’t worry because halfway through this great discussion, I’ll jump in and share some mouthwatering trivia. [00:00:48] And now let’s send you out to Boise with Jo Sal Sea. Hi and Paula Band. [00:01:00] Joe: Hey Stackers. Welcome to a special episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. You know, some of you on my recent trip around the Midwest and to the East coast, we’re wondering about behind the scenes. So this is a behind the scenes Stacking Benjamin’s episode with my good friend Paula pay up from Afford Anything. [00:01:15] Yes. [00:01:16] Paula: Hello. Hello. Uh, we are both in Boise. We are in Boise, Idaho. I hadn’t eaten a single potato the entire time I’ve been here. One star. I know. Well, you know what? There, it’s not too late. It’s not too late. No, [00:01:26] Joe: you still have time, right? But she’s gonna do that after we talk a little bit about behind the scenes. [00:01:32] Uh, we we’re at a conference about entrepreneurship. So for people like entrepreneurship, people that wanna know about the making of our shows, this is gonna be for you. But first. [00:01:43] Paula: Cho, this is going to be a short episode, so let’s pack this with actionable information first, and I’m just gonna tell you what stood out to me from some of the things I’ve learned in the past couple of days. [00:01:53] One is the importance of internal processes. Mm-hmm. To have a notion document, have SOPs for everything. Something requires more than three steps, or it gets repeated more than three times. It needs an SOP. I’ve always been resistant to that idea because I want people to have on my team to have creative freedom. [00:02:09] But without brand guides, style guides, without work, without just processes and workflows, everything gets chaotic and it becomes really difficult to grow. So one of the major takeaways that I’ve learned in the past couple of days is that even for creative content, even for TikTok videos, Insta, the production of Instagram videos, even things that should have creative freedom can be better enjoyed. [00:02:33] Inside of a container, inside of some procedural boundaries. [00:02:37] Joe: Yeah. I remember I interviewed Don Hahn, who’s a Disney producer Mm-Hmm. Who did, uh, who did lots of their big movies, beauty and the Beast. He said that if you don’t have this fencing around creative time, nothing ever gets done. Mm-Hmm. And we, we certainly saw that, you know, over the last couple days, that if you wanna get something done, put some fencing around it, put what your end goal is, uh, on it, and build your story arc from there. [00:03:03] What I also took from that though is that. Uh, there’s two sides to any business. There is the creative side and there is the business side. And really, if you’re an entrepreneur, no matter what you do, if you’re making donuts or widgets or if you’re doing what we do, mm-Hmm. You’re really, Paul, you’re wearing two hats. [00:03:20] Yeah. And so I love what you bring up about the SOPs on the creative side because we think, oh, creative time is just go color outside the lines. Right, right, right. And it. Completely is not there. There should be this melding of the two because your ultimate goal for you and me, mm-hmm. Is, you know, the way we stay, we stayed it, uh, starting the summer on Stacking. [00:03:39] Benjamins is. We wanna give people confidence by building their competence. And it’s like a wheel, right? The more, the more competent you are, the more confident you are to do the next step. Mm-Hmm. Which gives you the confidence then to learn the next competency, to take the next step. Certainly that. That happened for me the last day and a half. [00:03:59] music: Yeah. [00:04:00] Joe: Is that I feel so much more competent over the last day and a half, and I’m a person who’s afraid of everything. I’m afraid to network. I’m afraid to go meet people. You and I talk about that every conference we go to. Mm-Hmm. Paul’s always like, let’s go meet people. I’m like, let’s go hide in the back. [00:04:12] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. Joe, Joe is the introvert and I’m the extrovert. So when we’re, when we’re here, it’s a good pairing. I think it, it totally is. I always look over and I, I see you having like. A one-on-one conversation with someone in a corner of the room. [00:04:24] Joe: Right. And Paula is the queen [00:04:26] Paula: waving in for people just [00:04:27] Joe: listening to audio. [00:04:28] She’s waving like the queen, right? In a group of people. [00:04:31] Paula: Oh, by the way, for those of you who are listening to this via audio, I highly recommend that you go to YouTube because we are physically in the same room together, which is rare. Joe, you and I never get to record like this Doesn’t happen. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:42] We un we unfortunately always. Um, right. The restraining order [00:04:46] Joe: and everything. Yeah, [00:04:46] Paula: exactly. Uh, and, uh, and, and it’s, it’s just a great visual. I mean, what a beautiful room. Um, so we both [00:04:55] Joe: use the same, we should give a shout out Yeah. To the people. I have the studio, uh, uh, we use kit for our emails for Mm-Hmm. [00:05:01] For the forward anything and the Stacky Benjamins emails and, uh, they just built this beautiful studio for us. [00:05:05] music: Yeah. [00:05:06] Joe: Which is also interesting because this is another thing no matter what business you’re in, Paula. Mm-Hmm. The thing I got from here, Cody Sanchez, on the main stage actually said specifically this, but I’ve been thinking it since the beginning of the conference, which is there are so many people in business who are all about me, me, me, me, me. [00:05:24] Right. And the whole core of this business. And, and this studio makes the people at Kit Nathan Barry, his entire team makes them $0. Right? It costs them a bunch of money. Mm-Hmm. So why the hell would you do something that costs you a bunch of money? Because if you’re going to do business better, it starts with relationships. [00:05:43] Yeah. And you know what? I’m 56 years old. This has been. This has been the key learning of my entire life, is that the more you have these relationships, the better your business works. [00:05:53] Paula: Right? You know, somebody, uh, left a comment on one of my social posts asking, you know, why, why do you even go to these, why you can learn this information online? [00:06:00] And it’s because. Uh, face to face is where relationships form. [00:06:04] Joe: It totally is. Yeah. And didn’t you feel that during the pandemic? [00:06:07] Paula: Oh my goodness. Yeah. It, you know, the pandemic was really a wake up call because the, the difference between my pre pandemic life versus my pandemic life was actually not that different. [00:06:17] There’s that meme going around at the beginning where it’s a face that’s like when you figure out that what other people call quarantine is what you call heaven, your normal life. Oh, right, yeah. Right, right. And so I was like, oh my goodness. It was such a wake up call for me because I’d been for years prior to the pandemic in this headspace of, well, we can do everything remotely. [00:06:38] So I would just have days and days of never leaving my apartment, you know, only sending emails or having, I was on Zoom before, zoom was cool. Uh, I assume Zoom is cool now. Maybe it’s not coolish. Yeah. But, uh, I was on Zoom before Zoom as part of the zeitgeist. Yeah. And um, and because that was possible. I and because everybody else, when I told them, oh, I work from home, people who didn’t have that experience really glorified it. [00:07:07] Oh, that must be incredible. What do you, I would love to do that. And so. All of the struggles that I had with it, the feelings of loneliness, I, I figured were unique to me because all of the people who had never experienced it talked about it as though it must be only upside. Mm. And so when the pandemic happened, I realized two things. [00:07:26] One was that I needed to be much more proactive about being face to face with people. And the second was that all of the, the loneliness and the struggles that I felt. By virtue of doing remote work, it’s, it’s so much harder to collaborate, especially creative collaboration with, uh, a fully remote team. [00:07:43] And I always thought that those were problems that were unique to me. Yeah. That I was somehow deficient at managing a remote team. And then when I saw that other people were experiencing those same challenges, that was a big wake up call. [00:07:54] Joe: One of the speakers on the main stage yesterday, John Mm-Hmm. I’m not gonna get his last name. [00:07:59] Paula: Yeah. [00:07:59] Joe: And John’s amazing. Mm-Hmm. Uh, John basically was singing off a playbook that I like, which is Austin Cleone’s, uh, steel, like an artist. He was talking about how great people steel like an artist, but he also talked about how there’s no mistaking that throughout history, great people were found in clusters. [00:08:14] Right. And so if you want to enter the zeitgeist, thought leadership in any industry, whatever industry you’re in, you have to go where the other thought leaders are. Mm-Hmm. Um, because people think that greatness is built on the back of one person created, they discovered it’s actually built on the back of some other idea. [00:08:34] Right? You and I being in a room together, you’re able to throw out an idea. Then I throw out an idea. Then you throw out an idea. We take this dumb thing. Mm-Hmm. And all of a sudden it becomes brilliant. Right. Right. But I, [00:08:45] Paula: creative collaboration. Yeah. And by the way, we, [00:08:46] Joe: and we can do that online and certainly you and I do with our teams. [00:08:49] Yeah. I mean, we have a creative meeting for Stacking Benjamins. We have a professional comedian, Lisa Curry, who helps us with the episodes. And it’s good, but it does not replace Right. Face to face. Yeah. It just, it’s so powerful being here and I was very afraid. Of like any conference I go to and, and I speak on main stages. [00:09:10] Mm-Hmm. And I’m still afraid, afraid of being here, afraid of networking. And now I’ve made so many new friends, I’ve made so many new contacts, I’ve got so many more people to collaborate with. Right. You have to go to industry conferences. [00:09:21] Paula: Yeah, absolutely. You can’t not go. Yeah. It’s, it’s an essential cost. [00:09:24] So the guy’s name John, uh, his last name is Y-O-U-S-H-A-E-I. Uh, and he did this talk. So for, for those of you, if you’re on YouTube, which I hope you are, ’cause this is really, watch this video on YouTube. Yeah. Uh, but so go on YouTube and look up, uh, Bob Fosse 1969 and compare that to Beyonce’s video of, um, the three of ’em. [00:09:49] Um, yeah, the, all the single ladies. All the [00:09:51] Joe: single ladies. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:09:53] Paula: Uh. [00:09:54] Joe: It’s the same. [00:09:55] Paula: Yeah. Yeah, it’s [00:09:56] Joe: the same. [00:09:57] Paula: Exactly. It [00:09:57] Joe: is a quote ripoff. [00:09:59] Paula: Yeah, but it’s not Right. Exactly. Because it’s, uh, well, well one, it was it done with permission, you know, done with, um, [00:10:07] Joe: she references and pays homage in interviews. [00:10:09] Right. To the fact that she did it. Yeah, exactly. She’s like, I saw this cool thing and I thought we could pay homage and do the same thing. Right, right. Which is super [00:10:17] Paula: Exactly. It’s the distinction between copy and paste versus, as John calls it. Yeah. Copy with. Taste. [00:10:22] Joe: Right. Right. Which is funny ’cause I’ve had, uh, I’m a big Austin Cleon fan. [00:10:26] I’ve had him on Stacking Benjamins twice. I love his analogy, which is similar, which is remixing paying homage versus, uh, plagiarism. Yeah. Just out now plagiarism. [00:10:37] Paula: Right, right. You know, so Nathan Berry today said something that I think is important for, for this audience to hear. When we talk about entrepreneurship, and part of the reason that we’re doing this behind the scenes conversation right now is because we really want to encourage those of you who are interested in starting businesses to start a business. [00:10:55] Um, but he, the premise behind starting a business, this is something that, uh, I have never directly articulated, and I thought he said it very, very well. The premise behind starting a business is that you can make money and making money is a skill. And so this is what Nathan Berry said. He, um, I’m paraphrasing, it’s not a direct quote, but he said, making money is a skill. [00:11:18] You can master it just like you can master playing an instrument or a sport, right? And that’s something I’ve never directly articulated that idea I. But that is the foundational premise really for why personal finance, uh, brands like afford anything in Stacking, Benjamins even exist. Because the, the fundamental underlying premise is that making money is a skill, and it is a skill that can be learned. [00:11:44] I. Taught and learned. [00:11:44] Joe: Yeah. You don’t have to be unique, right? You have to have the ability to learn. And I like our first speaker, in fact, who was in the studio just before we were, she just walked out. Mm-Hmm. Yes. Uh, today, Sherry, uh, do you have Sherry’s last name? Ooh, I’ll, I’ll find it. I don’t, but, uh, but, but Sherry runs a grilling company and she, she had a great message. [00:12:02] About how failure is the game, [00:12:05] music: right? [00:12:05] Joe: About how she was afraid of failing and failing was bad, and now she knows that if you’re an entrepreneur, failing is a part of it. You know what I thought through that, Paula, what’s that? And I think this is a great lesson for not just entrepreneurs, but for all of us. [00:12:18] I never learned anything when I was high fiveing myself on the top of a mountain. Like there was zero learning. Don’t get me wrong. I love those moments. Yeah, those are great moments to celebrate, but. All my key learnings in my entire life have been those times and they felt like crap at the time. They were horrible when I was failing. [00:12:36] Mm-Hmm. When things were going really bad, I came back stronger, my business came back stronger. Those are the key times, and failure is a thing that we should not just realize is a part of life. Mm-Hmm. Which is what she said on the main stage, but I think it’s actually something we should. Look forward to. [00:12:53] Paula: Right, right. And, and there’s also wisdom in learning from the failures of others. Right. Agreed. Because failing in real life is, uh, expensive tuition, you know? Yes. But if you make something of it, it’s tuition that you will make back over time. But it is, it is expensive to tuition so you can, you can reduce your tuition bill. [00:13:11] By virtue of learning from both the failures and the successes of others. And [00:13:14] Joe: that’s another key about coming to conferences, right? Is that every speaker started off with, I messed this up. Yeah. Like, like this is, this is the, this is the conference speech, [00:13:23] Paula: right. [00:13:23] Joe: I mess this up. Here’s how not to mess this up. [00:13:26] Paula: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, just as I was saying, one of the things I really messed up for years in running afford anything was. Was having a fully remote team in which we never met face to face. Hmm. You know, I think that was a huge mistake. I think it set us back years. [00:13:39] Joe: So, yeah. The thing that I messed up was Stacking. [00:13:42] Benjamins being a podcast. I remember, I remember five years ago, speaking with our mutual friend Brian Preston, who I think was on Afford Anything. Mm-Hmm. Also on Stacking regimens. Our good friend Brian. Brian said, I’m gonna work on my YouTube channel. I’m gonna broaden this because we’re a financial education company. [00:13:59] And I said, good for you. I’m gonna make a great podcast that I love, and you go do this video thing. And what’s interesting about that is I. People learn so many different ways. And if we truly are a company that is trying to give people confidence and more competence, [00:14:14] music: mm-hmm, [00:14:14] Joe: then we should be meeting our stackers wherever they are. [00:14:18] And I realized that much later when the algorithms had already slowed down. Brian now has, I think, half a million people following the money guys. He also has capability like this. They have a wonderful studio in Franklin, Tennessee. And we’re getting there. Mm. Um, but had I had the thought process more of working from what do people need from me? [00:14:38] music: Mm. [00:14:39] Joe: Versus Yeah. This one thing that I’m comfortable with, like, sometimes growth is uncomfortable. Yeah. But being uncomfortable the first time is something that we need to get used to. [00:14:49] Paula: Right? Yeah. It’s not about what you want. It’s about what, how to, how to best serve [00:14:54] Joe: and think about that. When is growth not uncomfortable? [00:14:56] Paula: Right, exactly. That’s something that I tell my team, our North Star is serving our audience and we, we can’t be unmoored from reality, you know, but we ha fundamentally, like my audience is more important. The supporters are more important than any sponsor. They’re more important than you, just than any other stakeholder in this. [00:15:21] And that sounds all well and good in theory. But when push comes to shove. And I’ve got a sponsor that’s pushing me to, to do something that I think is just not in the best interests of the avoiders, I’ll tell the sponsor to, you know, go F off. Sorry. We don’t need your money. Yeah. We talked [00:15:38] Joe: about this we Wednesday night and the idea of mentorship, no matter where you’re at in your career, like I’ve got, mentorship is younger than me. [00:15:46] Mm-Hmm. Um, I don’t know very well, uh, uh, I, I mean I talk to him every other week practically, but a guy named Jordan Harbinger. [00:15:52] music: Yeah. And [00:15:53] Joe: Jordan, I remember early in my, this quote, second career that I’m in, said, you owe nobody anything except your audience. Except your audience. Yeah. Period. [00:16:03] music: Yeah. [00:16:03] Joe: You know, and that has resonated ever since. [00:16:05] So I’m on board. I mean, the forwarders another, by the way, behind the scenes thing. Paula pant not only coined the word avoiders, she also coined the word stackers a long time ago, uh, day after, I think it was after a big birthday celebration Paula had, and we were at breakfast and you were like, you know, you should call ’em stackers. [00:16:25] Paula: Thank you. Thank you. That was, uh. Yeah. That I, that was years ago. But it was, it, it was, I remember the conversation because you, at the time, were listening to all of these voices in the digital marketing space who were Build a funnel. Yeah. Build a funnel. Build a funnel. And we had that breakfast. Yeah. And I was like, screw that. [00:16:44] music: Yeah. [00:16:45] Paula: Forget all of those. Get rich quick. Build a funnel conversion optimization, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like. Those guys are not going to be around in 10 years. Yeah. Right. Do you wanna build something where you’re maybe gonna make a couple of pennies today and you’ll have nothing? No. No mission. No legacy, no purpose, no community, or do you wanna build something sustainable? [00:17:07] Right. And like what you are building, Joe is a community and they are your community of stackers. [00:17:13] Joe: Well, what, what, what really impressed me during that conversation that morning was. Much more being true to your brand. And we don’t have a funnel brand, [00:17:22] music: right? Yeah. [00:17:23] Joe: Like that’s not, if, if, if my brand was a funnel brand, then I’d be fine with the funnel. [00:17:26] But, but, but we’re not that, that’s, that’s not who we are. [00:17:29] music: Yeah. [00:17:29] Joe: So we’re much more, you know, dad jokes and comedy and, and, and let’s lighten the temperature so you feel like you can. Screw it up and you’re gonna be fine. Yeah. As you know, most of the time, go, go open a Roth IRA, mess it up and you’ll learn from it. [00:17:44] Right. You know what, you’re not gonna die. [00:17:46] Paula: And so part of that also then goes back to being really careful about who you take advice from. Being very discerning about that. Uh, I just interviewed David Novak, who is the. Uh, he’s a former CEO of Yum Brands, which is the parent company of KFC, taco Bell Pizza Hut and Habit Burger Grill. [00:18:03] He’s a [00:18:03] Joe: grandfather of fourth meal. [00:18:04] Paula: Yeah, and he said something that I thought was very, really important during this interview was a long, almost two hour interview. One of the things that he talked about was being really discerning about who you take advice from. There are a lot of people with opinions. [00:18:21] It takes a lot of skill and wisdom to have. Cultivated opinions. There’s a distinction between Yoda and anybody who’s not Yoda. Mm-Hmm. And so going back to you’ve got a community of stackers who you don’t have some like digital marketing funnel, like I’ve been very careful about screening out. And eliminating all of those, the, the voices that are in that space. [00:18:47] ’cause that it’s an adjacent space and it’s there and I just don’t like it. Mm-Hmm. Um, and I don’t play that game. [00:18:54] Joe: Mm-Hmm. Well, and I think that’s knowing your north star. Yeah. You knowing what you are doing and it’s fine. It could be good for you, but it’s not good for everybody. I mean, that’s why I like timelining out your financial plan. [00:19:06] Mm-Hmm. Is because once you know what the goal is. Then Paula, this is good, but it’s not part of my plan. Right? This can be good, not part of my plan. Like it’s so difficult in a vacuum to decide which way I should go, but once I know what that North Star is, I think it’s, I think it’s much easier to screen out the voices. [00:19:24] But seriously, as you’re talking, I’m thinking about all the times I took bad advice. [00:19:28] music: Yeah. [00:19:28] Joe: And I went and I did it like earlier my career, my twenties and thirties. I took some, you know, some pretty bad advice. And had I not done that, had it been more discerning, [00:19:37] Paula: right. [00:19:38] Joe: Uh, I would’ve been much further along. [00:19:40] Right. Much more quickly. [00:19:41] Paula: Right. By the way, the barbecue, uh, person that you were talking about, oh, she’s wonderful. So her name is Suzy Bullock. Suzy Bullock. Suzy Bullock. [00:19:48] Joe: Look her up. [00:19:48] Paula: And her, uh, barbecue brand is Hey Grill. Hey. So good. Which is such a great name. It is. It [00:19:57] Joe: is so good. And her being honest about failure. [00:20:00] And being hilarious about why she goes on a television show and decides to dye her hairing. [00:20:04] Paula: Yeah. [00:20:05] Joe: The night before, [00:20:05] Paula: right. Bot dye her hair. It’s just, [00:20:07] Joe: just the nightmare. [00:20:07] Paula: But she said something that really, I, so she was talking about how when she started her company, she was a stay at home mom. So their family, uh, they’ve got three kids. [00:20:18] The family was completely reliant on her husband’s income. He was an accountant. He hated his job. To such an extent. I, I think I can repeat this ’cause she stated it publicly on, on the main stage. On the main stage. By the way, here’s a trigger warning. We’re about to discuss something triggering. This [00:20:36] Joe: is some emotional [00:20:37] Paula: trauma right here. [00:20:37] Yeah. So if you don’t wanna hear how I finished the sentence, then, uh, fast forward, fast forward. He hated his job to such an extent that one day he was on his way to work and he called her and he said, rather than drive to work, I just want to drive off of the freeway. He was at that point where he would, he was actually having suicidal ideations. [00:21:01] That’s how much his job was draining from him. And when she heard that she was crying on [00:21:06] Joe: the stages, retelling it. [00:21:08] Paula: Yeah. And when she heard that it really fueled her to, to develop another source of income so that the family could rely on this, this nascent, fledgling. Idea of a business. Right. You know, at that point it was kind of a, she called it a joby. [00:21:25] It was a more of a hobby than a job. Um, but that really lit the fire under her to be like, I’ve gotta grow this. I’ve gotta make this a viable thing so that I can retire my husband. [00:21:39] Joe: You know, the idea of if you serve others other than serve yourself. I think now we’ve talked about that indirectly about three times. [00:21:45] Mm-Hmm. It’s always more fulfilling to serve somebody else. Yeah. You could, you could feel how happy she was when he got to quit his job. Yeah. Because of her. Right. Like, how great is that for her to be able to serve his goal? But also, how many times in our community have we heard people that either came to your brand or mine because they wanted to quit their job. [00:22:03] Mm-Hmm. You know, and, and to be able to. Chart your own path and learn and find that fulfillment also is just a, I don’t know. It’s a powerful, it’s been a powerful day and a half. My head seriously hurts. Yeah. In the best way possible. I’ve heard this from stackers before. You’ve heard it from forwarders before. [00:22:21] They’re like, I’d love to go to an issue conference. I can’t afford it. If at all possible, you’d need to find a way if at all possible. And I know for some, I know FinCon that you and I go to, they have scholarships to encourage people to go to that conference. Uh, podcast movement has sponsorships for people You can apply for those. [00:22:38] Find a way to get yourself on a bus to Boise, Idaho, or wherever the heck the conference is and go. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. [00:22:50] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Doug. You know, on this date in the year 10 40, maybe because Boise wasn’t even founded yet, lady Vo rode her horse through the streets of Coventry England, nude, nude. Hmm. What? Sorry? Where was I? Oh yeah, she rode around totally naked AAU Claire or whatever they say. [00:23:17] music: Woo. [00:23:18] Doug: The air conditioning on in here, man. It’s getting hot. Okay. Anyway, she did it in protest of her husband’s oppressive taxation of his tenants. Unrelated, I gotta get some tenants. As the story goes, she pleaded with her husband to lower taxes and he replied that he’d do it if she’d ride a horse through town naked. [00:23:40] The rest, as they say is her story. Get it. Her story. Hello? Hello. Assisting on. The story of Lady gva has made such an impact on people over the years that in 1926, the Drops family of Brussels named their chocolate company in her honor. I mean, yeah, she was riding around naked. It’s awesome. I know what you’re thinking and I thought the same thing. [00:24:08] What the heck is Lady Chocolate Company? Well, it’s actually Godiva. That is named after the infamous Noble Woman. 40 years after its founding VO was named the official chocolatier of the Royal Court of Belgium. See, Joe, I told you we should have had a naked person as a mascot. Today’s trivia question is which company in the US currently holds the largest market share amongst chocolate companies? [00:24:37] I’ll be back right after I see what change I can inspire here by riding my lawnmower around naked. [00:24:56] Hey there, stackers. I’m chocolate lover and nude activist Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. During the break, I took a couple spins around my yard riding my lawn mower. Nearly nude, tons of people walking by and cheered. Pretty sure that’s what they were saying. I, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. You know, lawnmowers are loud, but man, they were fired up. [00:25:17] Today’s trivia question is, which company currently holds the largest market share among chocolate companies? Americans spend an estimated $22 billion on chocolate each year. So it’s no surprise that so many companies have gotten into the chocolate make and game with some of the most beloved brands under its umbrella company like. [00:25:38] Reese’s, that’s how you say it, OG Milk Duds. Kit Kat Twizzlers and even Pirates Booty. It’s Hershey’s that holds the biggest market share of all chocolatier in the us. That’s, I want people to call me a C chocolatier. And now back to Boise and the second half of Joe Sal and Paula Pants. Discussion. [00:26:02] bit: Hey, Nick Loper here from The Side Hustle Show. When I’m not helping people earn money outside of their day job, I’m Stacking Benjamins. [00:26:10] Paula: One thing that we’re going to prioritize and afford anything, it it probably not in 2024. This, so this is like, uh, 20, 25 plans. Is this something [00:26:17] Joe: you decided in the last couple days? [00:26:19] Paula: Oh, no, no. This is something we’ve been talking about for months already, [00:26:21] Joe: internally. ’cause I wanna ask you that too. Is there anything that you, that we can announce that’s going to change? [00:26:26] Paula: Actually, yes. Yeah. Let, but let’s go through this one first. Yeah. And then we’ll do that. We’ll call it a, call it a day one. [00:26:31] One of the things that we’re, uh, that we’re going to prioritize is, uh, more in-person events with the forwarder community. So, workshops, retreats, just face-to-face in-person events. Live in-person events. [00:26:47] Joe: Boston was a blast. [00:26:48] Paula: Yeah, absolutely. But, uh, you know, I think there is such a hunger and such a need for face-to-face connection, uh, that I think that’s a really important element of, uh, serving the community [00:27:03] Joe: well. [00:27:03] And I love that idea because, you know, through our Stacking Benjamins for meetups this summer. I love the fact that getting like-minded people in the same room Mm-Hmm. Like if I could just facilitate that and go off into, into my own corner as the introvert that I am, like I’ve succeeded. And we saw that in Boston together with our joint meetup, uh, seeing all these people that didn’t know each other and that’s great. [00:27:25] Paula: Right. [00:27:26] Joe: That is absolutely fine. Fantastic. [00:27:28] Paula: Yeah. So we were just in Boston like, what two is that Two weeks ago? [00:27:31] Joe: It feels like. Yesterday and six months ago. All wrapped anyway. Exactly, [00:27:35] Paula: exactly. [00:27:36] Joe: We’re on the East Coast and now we’re in Boise. Yeah, [00:27:39] Paula: yeah, yeah. And by [00:27:40] Joe: the way, how do we see each other twice in a month? [00:27:43] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen you in Boston and I’ve now you’re, we’re in Boise. We’re just hitting all the B. Next we’ll go to Billings and Bozeman. That’s right. We check all the boxes. Check all the B towns. Yeah. [00:27:53] Joe: A thing’s going to change for, for just based on the last. A couple days. Mm-Hmm. What’s something that your reporters can look forward to? [00:28:01] So [00:28:01] Paula: we have a newsletter. For a long time you’ve heard me say, oh, subscribe to our show notes. You’ll get a synopsis of every episode, but we’ve never really. Tried to create a best in class, like absolute top quality newsletter. And partially it’s because we’ve had fragmented attention, because we have the VIP list and they get specific, uh, updates about real estate. [00:28:25] And we have, uh, show notes. But that only goes to about one eighth of our total newsletter subscribers. Um, specifically the, the subset of people who want synopsis of episodes. Mm-Hmm. You know. So we’ve had all of this fragmented attention where we’re creating lots of, uh, copy for like specialized segments of our audience, and as a result, you know, so we’re scrapping all of that. [00:28:48] We’re done with that. We will still have podcast show notes, but they will be incorporated into a much, much more robust newsletter that goes to everybody that we really put. Blood, sweat, and tears into, you know, our two big areas of focus are, are YouTube and the newsletter. YouTube. We’re very, we’re be absolute beginners. [00:29:10] We’re learning what we’re doing. Um, the, the implementation gap between what I, what I know needs to improve and the actual improvement is, is there, it’s a mile, but the newsletter is the other ma major area of focus. And so we’ve, a while ago we rolled out this, we rolled out this newsletter that we called First Principles. [00:29:32] Right. All about thinking from first principles and we, we laid out these sections of it. Uh, at that time it was four elements, fire, financial, psychology, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship. We’re adding another I to that fire. So now it’s gonna be five pillars. Five IIR five, or, yeah. Yeah. So the other I is income, or if you really wanna add more, I, it’s increasing income. [00:29:56] Yeah. Right. So fi, financial psychology, income. Investing real estate and entrepreneurship. And, um, we’re going to speak to that in our newsletters. We’re going to, uh, you know, what should I, should I just go ahead and I haven’t announced this yet. All right. Bigger. So when it comes to increasing income, we’re building out another course. [00:30:23] Oh, we haven’t built a course. Uh, a new, you know, we’ve. Your first rental property has been our flagship course. We haven’t built a new one, uh, since we released your first rental property in 2019. So, um, first principle is the newsletter. Yeah, that’s. We’re putting a lot of that’s coming. That’s coming. [00:30:41] We’re putting a lot of attention there. Afford anything.com/newsletter to go sign up. It’s free. [00:30:45] Joe: And by the way, second best newsletter out there. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 is probably the best. And actually Uhhuh seriously that pain you’re going through now, you know this. Yeah. We went through that pain ourselves to create what? [00:30:56] The newsletter that I would wanna open. [00:30:58] Paula: Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. We’re, we’re revamping the first principal’s newsletter. It’s going to be. The newsletter that I would want to open. Yes. Yeah. Um, the other thing and speaking to that other, the second, the one of the two eyes in fire income, increasing your income. [00:31:15] We’re releasing a new course. We’re, we’re in production right now. Um, the course. I’m not gonna tell you the name yet. We haven’t. I wanna, I’m gonna file a trademark for the name before I say it publicly because it’s, it’s so good. It’s so good. Um, filing it. As soon as I file the trademark, I’ll tell you what the name is. [00:31:37] We talk about a lot of stuff. I don’t even know the name. Yeah. We talk about everything. I don’t know [00:31:41] Joe: the name. [00:31:41] Paula: Yeah, yeah. But, uh, but the course is about how to negotiate for. Anything, including how to negotiate your salary, how to negotiate for a car, how to negotiate when you buy a couch on Facebook marketplace, it’s increasing your income by virtue of asking for a raise. [00:32:02] Joe: I’d written from an incredibly mm-Hmm. Professional point of view. I have seen behind the scenes of the course. And you had some incredibly professional help? [00:32:10] Paula: Uh, yes I did. Yeah, absolutely. Professional help. Yeah, it was, uh, it was scripted by a. Uh, person who taught negotiations at Columbia. [00:32:19] Joe: Yeah. So little. [00:32:20] Never heard of it. Yeah. No idea what that is. [00:32:23] Paula: unk little school. [00:32:25] Joe: Yeah. YY you know, uh uh, our big reveal is that at Stacking Benjamins for the first, uh, 13 years of the podcast, we’ve always just done the podcast. And from time to time, we will have. Um, we’ll have a cohort. We might have a course that’s a live course from time to time. [00:32:44] We’ve never truly been a financial education company and we are turning the company upside down. We’re not going to be a company that is a podcast that’s, you know, known for that that happens to sometimes be financial education. We’ll be a financial education company that helps people through videos, podcasts, but also increasingly other tools. [00:33:07] So we’re going to have a suite of five. Uh, guides five off the shelf guides that people can purchase if you just have a set thing that you need. We also are going to have a signature course that we’re working on with a professor of education from Arizona State University. Uh, we’re building that signature course, so if you want to build your own financial plan, you can do that. [00:33:27] And then the thing that, the only piece of it that our stackers have already seen before, once a year, people can go through my book Stacked Mm-Hmm. Through 10 sessions that are 90 minutes each. With me in a very small group. And we had a great time doing that. So if on one end you just feel like, you know what? [00:33:46] I just need this problem solved. You get it. If you wanna do a course on your own, that’ll be our signature product. You get it? Mm-Hmm. But if you truly want the white glove hands-on, I will coach you. Uh, we’re gonna do that once a year. Wow. And that’s it. That’s gonna be the Stacking Benjamin suite of products. [00:34:02] Wow. So that’s my thing. That’s incredible. I love [00:34:05] Paula: the idea of people going through your book. Chapter by chapter with you. It [00:34:09] Joe: was so fun. Yeah, it was so fun. And the wows, the ahas people got that’s incredible. Was pretty, pretty powerful. [00:34:15] Paula: That’s [00:34:16] Joe: incredible. So, well, it sounds like we got nothing going on, [00:34:18] Paula: Paula. [00:34:18] You know, page 13 of your book, by the way, is the best page. Who’s on it? Who’s on that page? Just if you, if you own the book Stacked. Flip to page 13. [00:34:27] Joe: It’s so great. This has been so fun. Yeah. Big takeaway. And then we’ll say goodbye. [00:34:32] Paula: For anyone who wants to start a business or who is running a business. Know your mission. [00:34:38] Have a very, very clear mission. Who do you serve and what is the outcome that you want the people that you serve to obtain? Mm-Hmm, right? So have a very, very clear mission. Who do you serve? How do you help them and make that mission your North star? That North Star is the litmus test for every decision that you make. [00:35:01] Joe: Love that. Mine is. Almost Paula. The same takeaway I get every time. This has been a phenomenal conference. [00:35:08] music: Mm-Hmm. Um, [00:35:08] Joe: and I, you and I go to quite a few conferences. It has been amazing. [00:35:11] music: Yeah. [00:35:12] Joe: Mine is. I know that a lot of you out there are afraid of starting the next thing. You’re afraid of the next move. [00:35:19] You’re afraid like I am, of going to the conference where you don’t know anybody feel the fear and do it anyway. Mm-Hmm. It’s okay to feel the fear, but go do it. ’cause I’m now on the other side of that fear of just this weekend. And it just reminds me that had I not gotten on that plane and come here with all these people, the wonderful takeaways I’ve gotten that Paul and I have gone through, [00:35:39] music: yeah. [00:35:39] Joe: Here would’ve never happened. It’s okay to feel the fear, but push through and do the thing that you know you need to do, and you know what you need to do. You know it right? You already know it. You’re like, yeah, go do it. Yeah. All right. I’m Joe Saul-Sehy. I’m Paula Pant. We’ll see you next time on Afford Anything or Stacking s [00:35:58] Paula: I’ll meet you in the next episode. [00:36:01] Doug: So what’s on our to-Do list based on what we learned today? First, take some advice from Joe and Paula Industry conferences, attend them. Go be. Be there. Go to the industry conference things you’re gonna learn a ton. Second, get outta your own head. That thing you wanna do is just one action away. Go do it. [00:36:23] Stop thinking about it. But what’s the biggest to do if you’re gonna go full lady? Godiva on the lawnmower. Adjust the shocks first. Some body parts just aren’t as firm as they used to be. Anybody got any support? Stop. Thanks to Kit for allowing us to use their studios in beautiful downtown Boise. We’ll use Kit to build our 2 0 1 newsletters. [00:36:53] You can find more about them@convertkit.com. This show is the property of SB podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [00:37:18] Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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