Fail Fast and Forward - Joe Rare's Entrepreneurial Journey

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Jim Banks: So my guest on today's podcast episode is Joe Rare. 

Joe is coming to us from Montana, which, for those TV fans like me, probably knows I know all about Montana from Yellowstone. So I've got a, the first question I'm gonna ask you, Joe, other than saying hello to you, is, is Montana as lovely in real life as it is on the tv?

Joe Rare: It's better, but, there's no space for anybody anymore. We're full. You

Jim Banks: have you been inundated with tourists that kind of come in and,

Joe Rare: Oh, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's, it's actually less, not so much that there's so many tourists. There's so many people who have moved here, 

Jim Banks: Why is that, why people move

Joe Rare: the. The show honestly, there, there's, I can't count.

we have a lot of friends in real estate 'cause I'm an an investor and, you know, the, the conversation is, is that people come because they think. That they're gonna get what they see on, on TV and, they don't realize that the price point is as expensive, if not more than California. So it's a very [00:01:00] expensive housing cost.

Cost of living is less, but housing cost is more expensive here than it is in most of California. I. And so it's, yeah, it's definitely different, but people are coming here literally because they watch the show and they think they're gonna have a different, you know, life experience and they're gonna see, I mean, I, I can't get mad.

I mean, other than the fact that today it's what, say 17th of April, I think. And, we had a snowstorm and we have six inches of snow on the ground. So if people are okay with that. This is a pretty good place, but realize that it's gonna snow now and it's gonna snow into, may. And you know, it's, it snows a lot and so I love it 'cause I love the outdoors, but there you go.

Jim Banks: so, so obviously we, the, the plan wasn't to talk about Montana. We, we are here to really, well, you know, we're here, we're here to talk about, digital marketing. so, so you are, again, when I, when I kind of read your bio, you are, you are a serial entrepreneur investor. You, you own, [00:02:00] I think four, four digital businesses.

Five wedding venues and, and a whole bunch of property. 

So I, I'm, I'm probably, I, I, I'd love, love to kind of focus a little bit on, on kind of your journey to where you are now. How did you kind of get to where you are today?

Joe Rare: Oh, I mean, the journey's been long. It's been, different. It's, you know, I've been ent, I, I think I say that I believe I'm an entrepreneur through and through in the sense that taking a job would I. Have probably killed me. And so I've always been doing my own thing in some format, and it started young.

you know, I watched my parents, my mom, and my stepdad, who they are employees and, you know, finances were always a challenge. Then I look at, you know, my biological dad, he was a fAIled entrepreneur. But when he would do well, it was like he would do it really well. but really, I, I mean, if I were to go back to like kind of the origin, I, I love telling this story because I think that some people probably resonate with it.

I had a really good friend growing [00:03:00] up whose dad used to take us to baseball games in the middle of the work week, in the middle of the day, and he would take us to Oakland ACE games. I grew up in Northern California, and we would get to go to these games and I couldn't, I, I always wondered, I'm like, how is this guy able to just like.

My parents are working, how is he able to do this? And I realized later that he owns the biggest businesses in town. And I'm like, okay, that guy. And it didn't resonate that that was where I initially understood entrepreneurship, owning businesses. That's the path to freedom. And then, you know, when I think I was about 17 or 18, I read Rich Dad, poor Dad, which a lot of people did.

That really stuck with me as a beginning blueprint. And I went, okay, I, that's what I want to do. And so that became like my, my life's mission. I started my first business. I dropped outta college, started a business. I actually sold it when I was 22. And, I made some money and then I got into real estate investing, and then I made a bunch of money, and then I lost a bunch of money.

And then I made money and I lost money. [00:04:00] But I've always had this kind of entrepreneurial mind, and, and I've always wanted to own my opportunity rather than work for somebody else's opportunity. I didn't wanna be a catalyst to their wealth. I wanted to control my own. So that's kind of how I became an entrepreneur.

Jim Banks: Yes. I, again, I, I, I kind of like applaud anyone that kind of, that, that does that, that kind of has that kind of rollercoaster ride. I think everyone just expects it, it to be, you know, as a baseball analogy, you know, you're sort of swinging for home runs every time, and it never kind of really works that way.

But I think, you know, if, if you understand how businesses work, then you know. Kind of picking yourself up, dusting yourself up when you had, when you have things that don't work the way you kind of envisaged them working, it just, you know, just that thing didn't work, but then you just kind of go, why didn't it work?

Learn from it, move forward and kind of make sure the same thing doesn't happen again. That's the definition of insanity, but you know.

Joe Rare: Entrepreneurs are insane because nobody would go through you. You, there has to be a level of, of, [00:05:00] of insanity in entrepreneurs because you're willing to go through torture every day forever. We do it with a smile on our face and we do it again, and then we intentionally do it again. And it's just, it, it is crazy.

I, I mean, I know my wife thinks I'm nuts. I know my family, the rest of my family thinks I'm crazy too, for sure. but I don't, I'm not wired any other way. I don't, I don't know that I could do anything else other than. Build by, build by businesses like I, that's just who I am. And so that's, you know, why I do what I do.

Jim Banks: I think, I think, you know, when I started in, in digital marketing back in 99, I mean, my first sort of three jobs were working for other companies and I got laid off three times in a really quick succession because what, it was like a pretty volatile time in the early two thousands. I. Two, I was working with people who kind of could, could kind of hire and fire with impunity.

I remember sitting in the office one day and, somebody had come in and [00:06:00] they were intervening for one of the jobs that I had, but I got laid off. Right. Which, which technically was kind of not the right thing. I mean, you know, if they wanted to get rid of me, they should have just said, look, it comes, is good enough.

You need to go, and I'd probably have just walked out the door at that point. Right. But, you know, but, but obviously, you know, from 2000 to kind of now, I mean that's what, 25 years, you know, I've been sort of like the, the creator of my own destiny, right. I've kind of backed myself to kind of succeed and not everything that I've done has worked well.

Right. I mean, my wife and I have had more than, than one argument about some of the crazy business ideals ideas I've come up with, which just didn't work for various reasons. Right? I mean, sometimes it's. It's because of me. Sometimes it's been because of circumstances and the environment that you kind of operate in.

I mean, again, like when you look at things like the pandemic, you know, I, I had been working in travel for a long time, right? And then got out of travel and into kind of e-commerce, dropshipping, stuff like that. And, and the, the. Pandemic was like massively successful for me, right? Because I'd got out of [00:07:00] travel if it'd been, if I'd still been in travel.

Joe Rare: I have no idea what would, what I would've done, right? Because all the travel companies were just like dead on. Dead, dead on arrival, right? So, Yeah.

Jim Banks: So you'll, I, I guess like obviously behind you, you've got your level nine virtual. I, I'd love to kind of know a little bit more about that business in terms of, you know, how, how you've kind of set it up and, and what, what, what was it that kind of got you into how, using virtual assistants in the first place.

Joe Rare: the four hour Work Week, actually the book, I read that I had, let's see, I'd sold a business, ended up, getting into real estate. Oh eight. The market crashed and I lost, I. Literally every dollar that I had, even though, you know, the money was really like rolled equity between properties and just kept, you know, you know, compounding.

But at the end of the day. I couldn't get out of the deals that we were in. And so I ended up losing it all. And so I was sitting around kind of going, well, you know, pity, pity party on me, what am I gonna do next? And I read the four hour work week and I said, I can do [00:08:00] this. And so I built an e-commerce business, literally page by page outta the book.

I did every single thing out of the book. And built an e-commerce business. And part of that was using virtual assistants for fulfillment and, you know, and marketing reasons and admin and all that stuff. And so in November of 2008, I hired my first virtual assistant and I've had at least one, if not a team working with me every single day since, which has been very, you know, very helpful.

and then as I was running another business, I had another marketing agency a while back. One of the VAs in the team just said, Hey, you know, you keep telling everybody how to go hire their own VAs. Why don't we just run a VA company? And I said, well, I don't really want to. And they said, well, what if we run the business and you just help us get it going and you can be the owner and so forth, but we'll do the operations.

And so I was like, alright, if we could do that, I'll do it. And so we did and we kind of got going and we were working with just our own clients and it was great. And [00:09:00] you know, we had. Money coming in, and it was pretty successful. And then, I said, why, you know, I wonder, I wonder if I could scale this up.

And so then I took this, you know, kind of marketing, you know, outreach and, and sales model that I'd used elsewhere and rolled it here. And then it was just, it, it exploded. And, so then that became the biggest business that we had at the time. So that, that's kinda how we got there.

Jim Banks: And, and again, I mean, I, I, I was really impressed with your virtual assistant who was helping organize, this, this, this meeting taking. Right. Because obviously I reschedule it a few times and, and she's been phenomenal to kind of talk to, right? So, you know, but again, like yourself, I mean, I've been using sort of virtual assistants in one way, shape, or form since probably about 2006, right?

And, you know, but again, I, I think, a lot of people kind of just think, oh, I could just go and find one, dump everything on them, and they'll be phenomenal. And I think, you know, you still need to train people. You just still need to treat them well, you know, pay them well. You know, I, I know that, With sort of Filipino VAs. They all have that kind of 13 [00:10:00] month payday, you know, which, which again throws some people off and they, they kind of, you know, a lot of people will have probably a, a little bit of moonlighting, so they may be working for you and other people. and also things like, you know, natural, natural events like typhoons that can kind of wipe out the power and the phone and everything for a long period of time, you know, which is clearly not their fault.

So I think sometimes people don't. Appreciate and accept the challenges that come with it. I mean, there's definitely some benefits, but there's

Joe Rare: Yep. Agreed.

Jim Banks: Could you maybe talk to, talk to that in more detAIl? 

I mean, I've like, like I said, I've been doing it for a little while, clearly nowhere near at the sort of same scale as you, but I'd be interested to kind of hear a little bit more about what some of those challenges are, but people that maybe are thinking of hiring a V eight themselves.

Right. And, and kind of what the challenges are.

Joe Rare: Yeah. And I mean, you know, I, I think the challenges wrenching the natural disaster piece of it with typhoons and, and, Probably lack of, of the same level of infrastructure that you might have locally. You know, that's, that's one thing. [00:11:00] and, and you're gonna get that with pretty much any, you know, overseas country that you're probably gonna hire from, whether it be, you know, Asian, you know, Pacific, or it's gonna be, you know, maybe Asian mAInland.

You're still gonna run into some of those challenges and that's, and that's fine. in the Philippines specifically, I. I see that if you just create the right, expectations and somebody really understands what they should be doing, how they should be doing it, what is expected of you, or excuse me, of them very, very consistently, easily, for them to, to recognize.

If you can keep that, clear, your results skyrocket. The biggest challenge I think that most people are gonna run into isn't the fact that maybe they don't have the fastest internet, or they don't have the best phone lines or a typhoon hits and they're down for three days. That's not the biggest problem.

The biggest [00:12:00] problem usually is the entrepreneur who's unable to communicate what they need. That's the biggest challenge, and what I have said and what we've seen just over the past decade has been if you communicate clearly. Almost anything is, is successful. However, when we get a problem with somebody who's got a VA and they've, you know, they're finding a challenge, 99% of the time it's communication and we can just see it, you know, and we always, you know, we, we try to track everything so that we can always go back to this.

99% of the time it's, it's communication Now. Whether the, whether the business owner or the entrepreneur is going to admit fault that they're not communicating clearly is a different story. And most of the time there's a lot of ego wrapped up in, well, I said it and this is what I said, and they should just know it.

And the reality is, is you've got a couple things going on. You've got a little bit of a language barrier. Not much English is the second language in the Philippines, so it's not like it's, it's [00:13:00] hard, but it's how we say things. You know, like there's always something that, that lit. I think this, I'll notice this one phrase that gets said every single time it gets said, no matter how long I have, you know, staff over there, when I ask somebody to do something, they will say, oh.

In a, in a way that we would think like, oh, they already did it. What? I'll say, Hey, can you go, you know, make sure that this is taken care of. Then they'll come back a few minutes later and they'll say, this is already complete. And I think they did it yesterday. But what that means is that they just did it. And it's like that little nuance right there throws so can throw so many people off. And if you are humble enough to recognize that the same words mean a little bit of a different thing. Then have some patience to it, have some grace to it. Be willing [00:14:00] to recognize that you two just, you know, may not communicate exactly the same, but you're gonna be 90% there.

And if you can just be patient, if you can double check and make sure that people are understanding what you mean. The communication piece of it is the game changer. And unfortunately, most entrepreneurs are too busy. They're too busy to slow down and just recognize that if they communicate effectively in the beginning.

Then the longevity is no problem. But if they're unwilling to slow down, then they're gonna have communication issues, and then they're gonna have a bad experience, and then they're gonna blame anybody except themselves. And that's that.

Jim Banks: I always think if you've got a written down process that somebody can follow, I, I kind of like adopt a, a, it's called an EDIC model, ExplAIn, demonstrate, imitate, consolidate. So you, you kind of tell them what you want. To be done what the task is.

you then demonstrate how the task is done. They show you what they think you, you've [00:15:00] just done, you can imitate, they imitate you, And then at that point in time, you can then consolidate it. Have you got it all now yet? Fine. Great. So I've always said, I, I don't, I will happily repeat myself on more than one occasion to make sure that the task gets done properly.

I don't wanna rip people's heads off because they're, they've done something wrong if I haven't explAIned it properly to begin with. Right. So, you know, quite often, again, I, I've always found you, you kind of do that process, you go through it, And quite often they'll come up with better ways of doing it than you've done it yourself, 

So you can go, I. I want you to kind of rewrite the, the kind of the process to make it better based on your feedback, Because they go, what about if we did this, what about if we did this And I'm like, fantastic. Like it's all, I think that's the one thing most, most good entrepreneurs have is they have that, that ability to be able to say, I don't have all the answers.

And I'm more than happy to defer, Recognition to the people that come up with the answers. So that, that for me, I think is, is, is such a valuable lesson to learn, is that you don't have all the answers. And quite often there will be a better way of doing the tasks than you have done it yourself.

And I think [00:16:00] more so, but again, more so now with AI, right. I think a lot of people are using AI and thinking that they can do away with things like VAs and whatever else. And it's like, I, I honestly think that they're crazy if that's what they think. Right. Because you know, in some.

Joe Rare: gonna be, it's gonna be an interesting few years. What? What I see that's probably gonna happen and, I follow David Sachs, who's a, a vc. and now he's actually working in, you know, at the White House and I, I think in some sort of capacity, but he, he has a very interesting take on it. His thought process is that over the next five years, three years, we're gonna, we're watching the pendulum swing, where, you know, it was like outsourcing was great.

And then using staff, whether it be, you know, outsource or local, the, the, the process of having people do. Activities was, has been great. Then it moved and AI kind of came in. Lots of automation and business, lots of code. so you have technology stepping in the middle and that's been very, very helpful.

Then AI [00:17:00] really took over and now the pendulum's swinging completely the opposite direction where people are attempting. You can see this everywhere. If you're in the marketing space, you know this to be true. Everything is AI, only AI call center, AI chatbot, AI, this AI that build a website in 30 seconds with AI, AI, AI, AI.

And that's great. And I think that what, what what's gonna happen is we're gonna see the pendulum swing so far out there to where consumer sentiment is gonna shift. And it's gonna be, I don't trust it. Because like right now, you go onto social media and you see, oh, there's somebody famous saying something.

Then there's the, you know, then there's the, I didn't say that. That's, you know, oh, here's this, here's this famous person, promoting a product. That person isn't promoting the product. It's AI. Right? So we're gonna push the envelope so far that it's gonna, it's gonna shift back, and where we're gonna [00:18:00] land is gonna be.

AI enhanced humans, right? It's gonna be augmented staffing. So we're gonna have AI supporting humans to maximize output at a rate we've never seen before. I mean, this is already incredible, but I think that as we break the system by trying to go too much AI, and when it comes back, the people who recognize it will come back to people.

At the end of the day, the biggest deals that ever exist, your best clients, you have a relationship. It isn't a, it isn't, well, you know, it talks to my CRM and that's how I got my best client. It's, it's a relationship. The biggest companies on the planet still to this day with all the money in the world. A person flies to the other person, has builds a [00:19:00] relationship, and eventually they'll do business together.

Jim Banks: Yeah,

Joe Rare: That is still the

Jim Banks: all.

Joe Rare: the biggest relationships are done.

Jim Banks: And all my best deals have always happened at one or two in the morning. I've been drinking cocktAIls or beers with people. We're having a good time interacting in a social environment. Because then that way we could both say, it's not just me. We both can say, I know this person.

I like this person. I trust this person. It's gonna be good for us to do

Joe Rare: Yeah, let's do business.

Jim Banks: Right.

Joe Rare: That's right.

Jim Banks: Without that, it's, it's gonna be that much more challenging. They know, right? They know that I'm not going to be the person that will press the buttons on everything that goes on, but they also know that ultimately everything stopped at me in the same way that I'm sure you, with all your VAs right, the buck still stops with Joe.

Joe's responsible for the overall satisfaction of the clients that you work with to make sure that everything does what it should be doing and, and everything else.

Joe Rare: sure. Yeah. I just think that, we're, the trust factor is gonna be challenging when there's no human involved in it. [00:20:00] And I think that's gonna be where there's gonna be a breaking point. And I think that the, the sentiment will shift back to, well, I want a really, I wanna a, I wanna talk to a human.

I. Which is funny because if you look at a lot of the, a lot of chat bots, right? What are the, some of the options are talk to a human because people, they, we already know that people want to get, get to a person. And so, yeah, I mean I think AI is a powerful, powerful enhancement to anything you're doing.

If you're not using it, you're absolutely crazy. but I think that if you put all your eggs in the fact that humans are gonna be replaced completely. In a service industry. I mean, the reality is, is AI isn't gonna show up at somebody's house and mow their lawn, not for a very, very long time. Maybe into the future.

If robots get to that point, they're also not gonna be the person that's gonna show up and do a consultation to decide if you know how you're gonna remodel your kitchen. Right? There's still gonna be all, all of those human elements. I think we, we can't ignore the fact that those are [00:21:00] still gonna exist, but we should all be leveraging AI to improve our processes if we can.

Jim Banks: And I think, I think, you know, like on the ad platform side of things with like Facebook and Google, I mean, they've kind of done away with all the people that we used to talk to, When we had challenges or problems with clients that we work with, And everything d done, the ad approvals, the, validation.

Privacy. It's all done with, with their, you know, AI.

Joe Rare: they're

Jim Banks: And it, and and.

Joe Rare: And they get a lot of it wrong.

Jim Banks: Every, every person I know that runs an agency hates the fact that they can't talk to somebody and say, look, this is just wrong. they'll be, certain colors that appear in photos that you upload that they'll say, well, this is nudity.

And it's like, it's not nudity at all. Right. It's just, it's the, the color. The color of the palette that we've been using. Right. And, you know.

Joe Rare: You're selling a Yeah. You could be selling a, you know, a marketing service. And they're like, well you're, that's housing discrimination. You're like, wait, what? What are you talking about? You know, and I mean, and, and that's [00:22:00] it. And that's a prime example, right? The biggest company, you know, one of the top seven companies in the world can't get that.

Right?

Jim Banks: Yeah, I remember there was

Joe Rare: And ' cause you and I could both say we don't know a single agency owner that could say. Oh, I love their AI. I love how they, they do that. Every single person I know in the industry all hates it, and that's the biggest company on the planet. So it's like, well, wait a minute here. You know, if they can't get it right, do you think that every small business is gonna nAIl it?

No way.

Jim Banks: I mean, I, you know, I have sort of found myself like, try trying things, using AI and then reverting back to doing it the way I did it before. Right? Just 'cause a, again, I think, as an entrepreneur, you're always like testing, learning, testing, learning, fAIling, testing, learning, fAIling, succeeding, testing, learning.

It's all always kind of doing, doing this kind of backwards and forwards with the technology to see what works, how it works, what, what. What are the kind of nuances of it? again, [00:23:00] I, I kind of look at my bank statements. I'm like, how we are spending so much money on these, you know, $20 a month subscriptions for this and this and this and this.

And it's like, whoa, hang on. You know, look like it could really kind of get outta hand, you know? And,

Joe Rare: Oh, it can, and I mean, I, I, you know, a piece of advice that I would have for anybody out there is if you are, if you're doing that, if you're an entrepreneur and you are in the phase of testing stuff, at least once a quarter, sit down and evaluate your, your expenses in tech and, and you know, 'cause we, we have our software and technology, you know, itemized, Category. We go through that quarterly and go, oh my God. Like, yeah, we don't need these 40 things we don't need, right? Let's just ditch those. And you know, I mean that's next thing you know, you've got a couple mortgage payments saved,

Jim Banks: I remember, like when I worked for a travel company, we, I employed this, young lady who was like our social media, pAId social media manager, right? And, she kind of came to me and she said, Jim, I want to kind of like, use this service. And I'm like, okay, so tell me a little bit about it. So she told me what it was, told me what it [00:24:00] did, and I said, well, you know, based on how much we spend, like what is it gonna cost us?

And she told me and I've said, so let me just get this right. I'm gonna buy a piece of software it costs three times as much money. To the business as you cost me, Why don't I just get three more of you, And then that way we.

Joe Rare: that's. That's funny because that's so true. Most businesses go, oh, the technology, even though they don't look at it at scale and go, okay, well, you know, how much am I paying you guys to do the same thing? Because somebody might say, well, it's taking a ton of our time, all right, but, but how much am I paying you?

How much time is it taking? And then how much does the software cost? It's like, but. I'm net losing in the situation. And so I've actually, you know, and, and you know, my claim to fame is that all of my businesses are run by virtual assistants. So level nine virtual is operated by a team of VAs in the Philippines.

They run the company. My marketing agency is fully run by virtual [00:25:00] assistants to the Philippines. They, which I train them specifically that don't bring me some technological solution. To a problem that has a net negative ROI so evaluate the existing cost that it would take. Then make sure that whatever solution you bring me is a benefit plus an ROI positive return.

If it's not, don't bring it to me. And they've gotten really good at that. And so, you know, the, the number of, Hey Joe, we should do this. It goes down quite a bit when we have, they, they understand the rules of the game, you know?

Jim Banks: Yeah, it's interesting. I, when I sold my, my first agency back in 2006, I sold it to a publicly traded US company that was doing a rollup. They basically went out and bought 14 other businesses, including mine. Even though they had the biggest sort of SEO agency in the world, right? This business was ruthlessly inefficient.

And, so they asked me to kind of come over to the States and I spent sort of two [00:26:00] weeks there, two weeks back in the uk, two weeks there, two weeks back in the uk. And, I just spent a lot of time kind of going through this process of trying to rightsize the business. And what became really apparent to me was that, that, you know, there was, there was so many things that kind of happened that.

You, you kind of said, well, this is just ruthlessly inefficient. So they had a client, they would, do, do kind of conference calls with clients. This is obviously, before conference calls was there go Right. So the client would be, let's say they're based in California. So the, the client would have two people, sitting in a room with a, you know, screen up and, and at the agency there would be.

So there'd be two people on the client side and on the agency side. There'd be about 14 different people sitting in the room talking to the client, right? They'd have account directors, account managers, you know, creative people, blah, blah, blah. They had all these different people, like, and I sort of sat there and I'm like, I, I, I sat with a piece of paper and I wrote down kinda like based on payroll, how much per hour this particular client.

Meeting was costing. Right. And the, the meeting lasted [00:27:00] two hours. All 14 people were in the meeting for two hours. Right. And I'm like, you do realize that we've, we earned in, in terms of payroll expenses, it's probably double right. What the retAIner we're getting from this client for the whole month is right.

And this meeting was taking place every week. I'm like, this is just crazy that, you know, you have that many people involved on the court. Right. So again, we kind of tried to, tried to do it, tried to kind of make it. Sort of fit didn't work. So we kind of laid a bunch of people off that didn't work. And eventually we took it from 200 people down to eight.

Right. And it, and even the eight people, it was still kind of teaching on the edge of unprofitability. Right. So they would, they, they had sort of, they had about, I think they had 55 salespeople. Those 55 sales people were bringing in about 80 new contracts a month. So I said, well, how many contracts are you losing every month?

And he said, about 80. the net effect is you've got 55 staff on payroll for sales. [00:28:00] Right. And your net is is like breaking even in terms of the number of clients that you have. Right. And and they went, yeah. And they had like, they, they had no sort of geographical sort of split. So everyone kind of, whoever, whoever answered the phone when, when it rang.

With an inbound inquiry, they'd be the person that would be able to process that sale. So let, let's say it was Dell called up and said, look, we want some SEO for, for Dell. We're, we've got a budget of 10 90 pounds. If a salesperson has started the day before right. They'd be the person that answered the phone.

Right. And this office was in North Carolina and at like, pretty much at five o'clock, the, the office was deserted. 

Right? And I'm like, so in, in the states, you obviously have your different time zones. So everyone that was in. California was in Pacific time. Right. So they were like two o'clock in the afternoon, the office was closed.

So it would just, the, the phone would just ring and ring and ring and nobody would be there to answer it. They didn't even have an answering service for it. Right. I just thought myself, [00:29:00] there was so much inefficiency that went with it and then, and when we would do the rounds of layoffs. We would all go to the, to the pub afterwards to sort of like commiserate for the people that left right.

And everyone that was left kept saying, oh, they were really, really good people. We should never have got rid of them. I'm like, yeah, I know they were really good people, but you know, the company's bleeding red ink. It's kind of got got to be put. Right. Right. And they just never listened to kind of. The whole definition of insanity doing the same thing.

So nothing changed. Nobody had kind of realized that they potentially could be in the next round of layoffs That happened. And, and like I said, we did four as a layoffs to get rid of 190 people, before it kind of leveled itself out. And, and you know, and I, I kind of look at it and, and again, think to myself there, there are so many entrepreneurs that think about growth, but they never really think about sort of sorting things out when things are going a bit south.

Right. And, you know, and sometimes like having the, the ability to make a difficult but ruthless decision is quite important. The, [00:30:00] the, the final, final bit on that they, the first guy that they got rid of, right? In the office sort of clear out was the cleaner, right? So this guy cleaned the office for 200 people, right?

And I said, so what's, what's gonna happen to, you know, to the cleaning now? And they said, well, we'll have a rotor, right? So I sort of said to them, okay, so everyone that's on the executive team. You are also gonna be there kind of cleaning out shit in the toilet and, you know, polishing the sinks and everything else.

No, no, no. We're not gonna do that. Well then it's not a rotor. Right. Unless your name's on it. Right. And what they realized very, very quickly was this guy organized everything. So they had like a, they had a meeting that was taking place, clients coming in. He was the one that put the overhead projector in there to enable the sort of screen.

To be kind of shown. And and this guy just did everything right and they didn't realize that until after they'd let him go. Right. And if, if you think about it, I mean, he's getting pAId about 35 grand a year, which is nothing in the scheme of things, just peanuts. Right. [00:31:00] You know, if anything, he probably should be the last person that you gave rid of.

Not the first, but that's what they decided to do. Let's get rid of him. He's, he's too, he's too expensive. Let's get rid of him. Right. Which to me was just

Joe Rare: Oh man.

Jim Banks: so. 

In, in terms of like the, you mentioned there that you get your, all your, businesses are run from the Philippines. I mean, do you go to the Philippines regularly at all or.

Joe Rare: No. it's funny because, you know, during Covid, right when kind of covid happened, I thought we were gonna make a trip and go, and then that didn't work out because obviously travel got kind of crazy. And then, unfortunately I still haven't gone over there, since and. It's been years and, you know, I've got, you know, I've got two young kids and we are, I mean, it's sports and it's, you know, ev everything going on.

And one of the missions that I have in my business is that my, my family, my lifestyle, like what we want, the, the most important thing to me [00:32:00] is time with my family. So that's a non-negotiable. And so I don't involve myself in anything that would cause me to miss. Anything with my kids. And so this is just something, it's a commitment that I made to myself.

It's a commitment that I made to my kids and I, I would shut down a business if it was causing me to miss. And so that's been one of my challenges with, just really extended travel. Like I don't travel much for business, like I don't go many places. if we can't do it via, you know, for the most part, zoom and so forth, then.

You know, I just, I, I don't do much of it. And you know, I think I go to kind of two conferences or summits per year, and that's about it. I'm pretty, I, I, I stay home for the most part, but I've got, you know, and the other thing, the other thing about it too is that I don't run the staff. I. So, you know, a, a relationship with me would last the moment that we, that we met, that, you know, I [00:33:00] have people who are in charge of people because my skillset is not managing people.

I'm not good at it. even like my executive team, I still have somebody between me and them because like I can have one person to deal with, but if I had eight. Like I just, I would fAIl and I know that enough about myself, so I don't involve myself and try to be somebody that I'm not. And when we had a lot of turnover with staff and so forth was when I was in charge of holding relationships and mAIntAIning staff and checking on them and, and like kind of doing the HR stuff, if I'm involved in that.

Everybody's in trouble. And so we put the right people in place. They manage the relationships, they manage get togethers, they do all those things because it's not in my personality to do it. I like being more of a strategic advisor and an investor in my businesses, and so that's how it works for

Jim Banks: I always, [00:34:00] I always kind say like, I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of autonomy and empowerment, right? So when you, when you delegate something to, you know, to your VAs or what have you, you gotta delegate everything, right? You have to, again, you have to kind of go with, with the whole trust thing,

Joe Rare: We gotta trust them to execute and you gotta give them latitude to fAIl. You know, that's, that's something entrepreneurs are, are terrified of.

Jim Banks: I used to.

Joe Rare: And I don't understand why, you know, you know, you get a staff member, virtual assistant outsource somebody local, doesn't matter. then when they don't do something right.

Immediately the hammer drops and you go, but how many times have you fAIled in your business? Building your business? You try something, it doesn't work. Try something else that doesn't work. Maybe something kind of finally works and you get a little bit of a success. And I understand that you're sharing in the success, right?

That money could be going to me, but I'm gonna employ somebody else. But then you have to give them the same latitude that you gave yourself. You allowed yourself to fAIl. You went out and [00:35:00] didn't get it right. And so that's been one of our, probably the most. Powerful things I think that we, we do as a company is we give everybody latitude to go fAIl, go screw up, go try again.

now if you're making the same mistake over and over, you know, now you're an idiot. Like, learn the mess, learn the lesson, and if you're not learning the lesson, you don't belong. And so, you know, we've been very, very, you know, open about that being one of probably our, our most strategic moves that we have within our, our, our teams.

Jim Banks: Yeah, I, I always kind of think that, again, I see people that go there. I, I've gotta control everything. So if they need passwords, they need to do this. That I always say, like, have the whole lot. Right. So, so for me, I, I just make sure that they don't have to come to me and say, Jim, I need a password for this, or.

Whatever it might be right to, to make sure I could eliminate myself from as many of that, those kind of. You know, barriers that get thrown

Joe Rare: Conversation. Yeah,

Jim Banks: So again, I just want the, the output. I don't want to kind of necessarily [00:36:00] be bothered you a bit and much like yourself, right? I am, I'm probably one of the worst people managers ever, right?

but, you know, but again, very generous, caring, considerate, right? But I just hate it when people make mistakes, right? And, you know, so sometimes, I mean, I, I always remember I had people that worked for me and, And they would say, oh, Jim's sent another shit Agram. Right? So I would sit there at two in the morning, see the, the kind of waste of money that people spent money on ads that they shouldn't have done, just through, again, I, I've always said, I will give people the, the sort of the guardrAIls and the boundaries in terms of this is the track that you've got to run on, and as long as you.

Follow the process. We are good. If you've gone outside of the kind rAIls and got off the reservation to, to some extent, then you know, clearly we, we have an issue that that kind needs to be addressed at that point. But yeah.

Joe Rare: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Banks: again, like my business now is very boutique. It's boutique by design. I don't want to kind of run a big agency know, because at the point I'm at the point in life where I'm enjoying life and I'm [00:37:00] enjoying kind of spending the money, not necessarily wanting to try and make a lot more by putting myself in a position where I have a lot more stress.

Right. Much, much like

Joe Rare: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Banks: at, I'm at the point now, I think, pre pandemic. I used to travel for probably three or four months of the year to speak at conferences and go, go away and what have you. And sometimes my wife would travel with me and that was great, and sometimes she wouldn't, I'd be there on my own.

Right. So, you know, so for me, I think it, it became, I. My health was not good. I was kind of eating junk in hotels and drinking too much in bars and so on. So I just thought to myself, I, I would need to kind of reign this in, right? So in some respects, the pandemic was probably the best thing that could have happened to me 'cause it made me

Joe Rare: yeah.

Jim Banks: what mattered.

And, and I realized that kind of my health was probably one of the most important things that mattered to my business because if I don't have good health, then what? What else do you have? Right? So,

Joe Rare: Right.

Jim Banks: So, yeah, so I've, I've always tried to kind of make sure that, that, like you, you know, you're there for, for whatever needs your family have.

Right. For me, I don't [00:38:00] really, I'm a, I'm a fAIrly simple guy, right. I just wanna make sure that she's okay. If she's okay, I'm okay. And if the family's okay, I've got kids and grandkids. If they're all good, I'm good. Right. And that's all that matters to Bert. 

Um, so in, in terms of the future, I mean, what, what, what's, what's kind of on the horizon now for you in terms of like, do you have any kind of new projects that you're working on or.

Joe Rare: yeah, I mean, we've got, you know, it's, I, I think right now what we're gonna focus on is, is consistent growth with each of the four companies that we're operating. I'm exiting the wedding venues, so, you know, you had mentioned five, I'm actually down to four now.

Jim Banks: that 'cause people are not getting married anymore or.

Joe Rare: No, it's, I mean, you know, you'd be surprised.

It's, it's still a red hot business. It's great. my focus is, just changing. I think that it's a good time to, just, you know, take what I've earned out of the, out of each of the businesses, you know, 'cause I'm a, I'm not a, I'm not a full, full owner. I'm an, I'm an equity owner. And [00:39:00] so, I think it's fAIr.

All of the venues are in a good position to be able to do it. And so I think, you know, it won't. Deteriorate any, any, any opportunities for the company. So now is a good time for us to do that. And so, I'm one down already and so we'll see how that goes for the rest of the year. But that, you know, everything else though is just, you know, really looking at consistent growth.

being very smart and tight with, with spending. you know, e every economy right now is kind of volatile and I think that there's gonna be a lot of opportunity. In the near future, and I wanna make sure that we're in a position to take advantage of it and so that we're not strapped and we don't have any cash if there's an opportunity to go buy a competitor or something like that.

So that's kind of just where my head's at for the next year or two probably.

Jim Banks: Yeah. 

It's funny like when you, when you look at sort of all that's going on in in the world with. Wars and tariffs and whatever else. I mean, again, I think I, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people I would've expected to be making a lot more noise. Right. Particularly, you know, [00:40:00] people that do drop shipping from China and stuff like that.

It's like, why aren't they kind of like standing on the top of bridges thinking of jumping off, right? Because, you know, if I was a drop shipping now and all my sort of stuff came from China, I'd be like, God, ight, this is, this is not nowhere near a business that I'm gonna be able to sustAIn moving forward.

but you know.

Joe Rare: That's, that's gonna be an interesting one. I think. You know, I, the tariff thing's kind of funny because I think that there's just so much lack of understanding. And so a lot of the noise is, is unfettered. There's no reason for most of it. It's a lot of people just screaming because something's different than it was yesterday.

And they just have, that's what they do, right? They would, they would scream no matter what. and so I think that you just get a lot of information that just isn't, what do I wanna say? It's, it's not complete. And because most people aren't getting complete information and they don't. Personally understand it, then they just start talking and it kind of creates this snowball [00:41:00] of everybody saying things that are not complete or they're inaccurate and you know, there's just so much noise.

And so people are getting fearful. And the reality is, is that, you know, the tariffs like, I mean, one of the funniest things is I was looking at this, thing with Nike, you know, it's like. This, you know, you get these pAIr of shoes that are being made in China. The, the reality is tariffs aren't gonna bring manufacturing of shoes to the us.

That's not gonna happen. And the rea and the, the fact is, is we wouldn't want that anyway. So what Nike figured out is that they figured out that if I sell this pAIr of whatever Jordans, and we make them over here in China, and that costs us 20 bucks. To make that pAIr of shoes and we know that the market in the US is gonna be that we are gonna sell them for $150.

We know that if they're 1 65, that's too expensive and our volume drops. We know that if they're 120 bucks, the [00:42:00] volume goes up on our margins lower and our marketing costs, we eat up more of it. And so that's not the right. 150 bucks is right on the money. Right. And then it costs us 20. We sell it for one 50, that markup is enormous.

And so everybody out there that's concerned retAIl markup on clothing, shoes, and handbags and all that stuff is higher than you can possibly fathom. And so the difference being is that a tariff, you have a 100% tariff on the $20 manufacturing, now it costs you 40. And so now it's 40, but you're still making a hundred.

You know you're still charging one 50. one 50 won't change because they know at 1 75 or 1 62 it's too expensive and they, the volume drops. Like these businesses are very smart and I don't think that people are recognizing it. They think their cell phone now, your thousand dollars iPhone isn't gonna be 2000. [00:43:00] It's just not because they know where their threshold is. Apple is very intelligent and instead of making a thousand percent margin, they're gonna make 800%.

Jim Banks: Yeah.

Joe Rare: They're gonna be fine with it, and maybe they make a little bit less profit, or they, you know, they, they do something a little bit different. And I, I just think that the, the, the information is not complete and therefore you just get the same people who yell about everything out there, yelling about everything.

And for small businesses, for the most part, you maybe you'll see a, an influx. It's not gonna be so much that it's gonna completely derAIl your business.

Jim Banks: But it's, it's interesting when you, you mentioned iPhones. I mean, like, it used to be you had this box and it had all the stuff in it, and like now it just comes with the phone. There's not even a plug, right? Or a cable, but just assume you've got the cable. If you want a cable, they'll sell you one for like, you know, 50 bucks.

It's

Joe Rare: 40 bucks. It's insane. That thing costs 'em like $6 and that, [00:44:00] you know, and it's like they're charging a thousand percent markup. And, and so that, that's the point that I think, you know, people just don't recognize how the, like what these businesses really, that they're, they're very intelligent and

Jim Banks: they, they're so good at marketing that, you know, they, they announce a new phone and there will be a line of people around the block to get one. Even though somebody's got

Joe Rare: I

Jim Banks: 16, they're gonna go, I want a 70. Right? Because they.

Joe Rare: that's right.

Jim Banks: just the way they are. Right.

Joe Rare: it, it's, yeah, it, it's, yeah, it's a vanity

Jim Banks: And they're not gonna go, oh, I'm gonna buy that 'cause it's another 200 bucks and what it cost me last time.

If that's what it is, that's what it is. Right. So it's, it's, yeah. I.

Joe Rare: Yeah.

Jim Banks: I just think that that, you know, these kind of free, tariff free things, just again, they've, they've tariffs have probably existed across the board for everything that kind of we buy and sell. Right. It's kind of, you know, it's just the nature of the beast that everything kind of balances itself out over time.

Right. And, you know,

Joe Rare: time. Well, I always love the [00:45:00] idea, you know, when people say, well, tariffs won't work, and I'm like, really? Then why do 170 countries use them?

Jim Banks: Yeah. I mean, I.

Joe Rare: If they don't work, then why does everybody use them? Like of course it works. It just, it's not gonna be that there's an announcement and then everything levels out.

It's gonna take pAIn, it's gonna take time, it's going to, you know, and everybody's going to go through it and you're, the dust will settle. What I hope is that as an entrepreneur who believes that the market should dictate what we do, right? Like nobody, nobody who, who should, who should not be running the business is gonna succeed.

So you're gonna have to get better. Just like in every industry when the mar, you know, marketing agencies, right? Covid killed the the industry and made it trash because guess who became a marketer? Everybody with a laptop. And all of a sudden everybody's a marketer and the, now the, the reputation of being a [00:46:00] marketer was like, well, you're sleazy now, you're a used car salesman.

Right? Because everybody's a marketer. Everybody's promising the world and very few can deliver. I believe that when these market fluctuations happen, the bottom 10, 20% of these businesses are gonna die. That'll be great because it'll kind of reset and it's like, okay, people who are doing good service, they're gonna continue to succeed.

But everybody else came in to grab their little sliver of cash. That's all they were trying to do, but they were providing bad service. They weren't really that great. They didn't have the business in mind. you know, the best interest of their clients in mind, they're gonna, they're gonna fAIl. You know, you see it in the real estate market, that's the easiest one to see.

Everybody floods when it's a hot market. I'm a real estate agent now. I'm a real estate. Everybody grabs their little commissions until the market gets challenging. And then you see who's who. And then all of the, the, the little realtors who popped in just to grab a buck, they all leave. The market settles [00:47:00] and the people who do real estate as a career, they're the ones who succeed and that's fine, and that's how it should be.

Jim Banks: And again, I, I've always kind of mAIntAIned one of my very early sort of thoughts around digital marketing and advertising was that, you know, most advertisers have probably got 10% of their money going on things that are complete home runs and killers, and they've also got 10% of their money. That's a complete waste of money.

Right. And they should be focusing all their efforts on how can I spend the 10% that I'm wasting? Enable me to kind of spend it on the 10% that it's really good. Right. And then that'll put sort of, you know, like a turbo on, on the, the output at the end of it. Right. But most advertisers just kind of, yeah.

Case it's kind of, I expected a three x roas, I'm getting a three x roas. Fantastic. Right. And there's, if they eliminated the inefficiencies, then they could probably have a four or five. Right. They just don't realize it. And again, I think sometimes a lot of agencies are too lazy to kind of. Put that effort in.

They get asked to deliver a three x. So they deliver a three X, they're not asked to deliver a five. [00:48:00] Right. And, you know, again, I don't, I don't necessarily know that that's the right thing. I think some, some good agencies should probably be pushing back and just say, look, I've just gotta deliver the best I can.

With what you give me. Right. And, you know, if, if that means that I'm gonna get deliver you two x but achieving all your business objectives, then, then that's what we're gonna end up with, right? But, you know, it's like, it's a proper adult conversation rather than, they just give you a number that you hit, you know, some, some, again, sometimes it's so easy to hit it, right?

And I, I know on aca

Joe Rare: Oh

Jim Banks: on occasions, I sort of sit there and feel guilty, right? For the little work that I need to do to, in order to kind of send an invoice for. You

Joe Rare: yeah, I love that. I I love that though. When people feel that, I always revert back to that story, and I don't know if it's a fable or what it is, but there's a ship that they can't get the ship running, you know, and they, the, the old guy in town is the one who is like a master fixing, and they go, look, we just need to get this thing.

We just need to get this thing [00:49:00] running. And he comes out and he looks around and he pulls out a hammer and he just gives it a couple taps. And then he goes, Kay fired up and the thing fires up. No big deal. And they go, how'd you do that? He goes, I'll send you an invoice. And then he sends him like a $10,000 invoice and they go, well, what, what is this for?

Like, you didn't even do anything. He goes, all right, I'll send you an itemized one. And it's, you know, two taps cost this much. And the knowledge of knowing where to tap costs

Jim Banks: rest. Yeah.

Joe Rare: It's like, who cares? Who cares how long it takes? You know? I want my dentist to be so efficient that he can go and he can execute whatever he needs to do in the shortest period of time.

I. I don't wanna feel like I have to pay him for the long period of time. I want the expertise to be able to get it done quickly, efficiently, done right, rather than being like, well, yeah, that was like a three hour ordeal. So it was worth the money. And I think people have a skewed a, a skewed view on money [00:50:00] spent versus, you know, the expertise that they're receiving.

Jim Banks: I think a lot of the, the, like with the podcast, I mean I still do all my own editing, create all my own social media clips and all that sort of stuff. And I do it 'cause I enjoy it. Right. It's not, I couldn't, it's not that I can't afford to kind of outsource it and you know, get an editor. It's just, I really enjoy doing it.

I find it quite, quite. Kind of, I'm, I'm very enthusiastic about it. If I, if I lose that enthusiasm, I'm absolutely coming and talking to you to, to kind of

Joe Rare: sure.

Jim Banks: get it done. but, yeah. But for now, like I said, I, I've always kind of said that's, that's the, the, the beauty of choice, right?

I can, I can choose which clients I wanna work with and which ones I don't. Right. again, I know a lot of agencies, oh, are he struggling? And I always say, look, I've got way more people that wanna work with me than I wanna work with. Right? And, and it's been that way for a long

Joe Rare: that that's where you wanna be. That's right.

Jim Banks: But they're, they're sort of scratching around because they say, we'll work with anyone, we'll do anything.

'cause you know, there's nothing I hate more than when a client says, you know, I'm looking for this. And somebody goes, yeah, I can do that. And they've never done it before. [00:51:00] Right? Because you just know that they're going to take the money, do a bad job, and the client's gotta go and get a proper agency to do the job.

Right. That there'll be a lot more cynical with the next agency that comes

Joe Rare: Oh

Jim Banks: to kind of, you know, it's almost like you'll be accountable for what they did wrong rather than. Kind of prAIse for what you do, right? So, you know,

Joe Rare: a hundred

Jim Banks: so I always say to people, how many people, how many agencies have you worked with before approaching me?

And if they say like three, I'm like, I don't think the agencies have been the problem. I think you are the problem. You probably set unrealistic expectations of what they, what you expect 'em to do for what, what money you're prepared to pay them. And, you

Joe Rare: Right.

Jim Banks: again, I, I've always said like. Or as much as good as I'm at pay search, it's not a magic wand.

I can't create, you know, great results. If you've got a poor website, it's not priced properly. You know, poor customer service, like all that stuff is gonna just hurt me in trying to kind of deliver good results for you without a doubt. So. [00:52:00] 

So, Joe, this has been fantastic. I've loved having you on as a guest.

All your detAIls will be in the show notes at the end of the episode. is there anything that you kind of want to, to lead my audience with, with us in terms of a passing shot?

Joe Rare: Oh, sure. you know, the, the lesson that I love to share is to go fAIl fast. Right. Go make a lot of mistakes. Get back up. you'll find you'll find the successes faster if you're not afrAId to fAIl. So go fAIl fast, get back up, do it again, and eventually you'll find your success.

Jim Banks: And the worst that can happen is it just doesn't work. And you just kind of go, okay, that that didn't work. I'll kind of move on. Try it. Try it

Joe Rare: I mean, if you keep trying, something will work. So yeah, just keep trying. something will

Jim Banks: I've had a lot of success with complete accidents, things that I really didn't think were gonna blow up the way they did, and then I.

It blows up and then you just try and get the fuel and fuel the flames and keep it going for as long as you can. but everything is cyclical, even if you are an investor in real estate, it, there'll be [00:53:00] periods when it's really great to be a real estate investor and probably times, as you say, like the, the kind of crash of 2008 completely decimated the, the property market.

And for anyone that was an investor at that time, they probably got completely.

Joe Rare: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Jim Banks: Great. so thanks again Joe. Really appreciate your time and,

Joe Rare: appreciate you.

Jim Banks: talk to everyone on the next episode of Digital Marketing Stories.