Running the Bases with Small Businesses

The Random Show - Ken Fanger

November 01, 2021 Randy Rohde & Ken Fanger Season 2 Episode 4
Running the Bases with Small Businesses
The Random Show - Ken Fanger
Show Notes Transcript

A little bit of a different show today on Running the Bases - the great experiment!  I’m calling this “The Random Show”!

I’m sitting down with one of my favorite guests - Ken Fanger - and we chat about various topics that are important today to our businesses, management and entrepreneurship.

Ken Fanger is the President of On Technology Partners - Known for his 30+ years of experience, Ken takes great pride in helping clients implement the technology and security measures needed to support the strength and resilience of their businesses.

We talk about what it takes to expand your business, targeting your customer base, health and time for thinking about your business.  Discover "WhiteBoard Wednesday" and "Bad Friday

I hope you enjoy the show - we sure had fun making it happen!

Learn about the I-Forever project and how you can help support I-Forever - Your Legacy. Her Future.

Books we discussed:

Storybrand - By Donald Miller

Objections - The Ultimate Guide for Mastering The Art and Science of Getting Past No (Jeb Blount)

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. - Ron Chernow

T.R.: The Last Romantic - H.W. Brands

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex - Nathaniel Philbrick

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - Daniel James Brown


“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”


Maya Angelou


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I'm Randy Rohde and I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs and small business owners. Plus I love baseball. Every show I sit down with a small business owner and we discuss their running the basis of entrepreneurship. We throw the ball around on strategy management, execution and innovation, plus a little fun baseball, talk. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Settle in, grab your cracker jacks and you know what they say. Okay. It's a great day for a ball game. And you know, baseball season actually is kind of winding down sadly. So, but, , here we are, , today is going to be a little bit different on the show I'm doing, , the great experiment that I'm calling the random show, which is not necessarily featuring a specific entrepreneur. Well, the guy is an entrepreneur, but but not necessarily featuring his business and what he's doing but really kind of a conversation of various topics, I suppose, whatever comes to mind. so I invited, , Ken Fanger and Ken is a long time. Friend of the show. I think Ken actually was, I actually have it written down somewhere in show number seven, , of the podcast, I think we're up over 40 or something like that. But Ken w it was first on the show June of 2020. And I thought, you know, he was so cool. I thought I'd bring him back. I'll give a full intro. Ken finger is the. Actually, I was going to say, you're the CEO, but your wife is the CEO president founder. Right? Okay. I do. I still am fascinated that your wife is a CEO. I don't know that that would work in my situation was at home boss at work. Exactly. Well, yes. And that's what I'm trying to avoid. But, , Ken is, I don't know, three plus decades in technology runs a technology business, , called on technology partners, and amongst a handful of other kind of entrepreneurial things that he's doing. So, , I thought Ken would be great to pull onto the show and just talk about all kinds of things. Entrepreneurship running small businesses, the state of the world today. I don't know. We started talking about quantum computing even before we started rolling here. So who knows where in the world, this thing is going to go today. So I've got a fresh cup of coffee, my big jug of water. And I don't know. We'll just get rolling here and see what we come up with. Yeah, it's kind of funny when we were talking about the quantum, I actually started working on a novel that looks at the future and what happens when we start to have computers that can read our minds and be active all over the world. And it's just going to be an amazingly terrifying world in some way that yes. So you see already, I already started so much great stuff. It's like what? So one, I forget. You are a writer you love to write science fiction stuff. I've completely forgot all about that., and as soon as you said that, I'm like, oh, sure. I remember our last conversation., and then of course, like what the, what will the world be like?, as I was saying 10 years from now, you know, the world is going to be so much different than what it is today. I try to tell this to my kids and, , they look at me like I have three eyes. And, , but yeah, I mean, just try to imagine this stuff. And, you know, for the audience we were talking about quantum computing and some of the breakthrough that is happening in quantum computing. I have another friend who is really much smarter than any of us, what I would ever hope to be., and he's blown away by the advancements in quantum computing at, , at where we are today and some of the things that they've done in our country and China and others, and. You said it would be it's relative to what, how did you phrase it before regular computers would be like, if you're crawling along the ground versus flying in a jet plane for quantum computers, the power jump will be astronomical. Yeah. And then, so in thinking about that, , what that can do. So, you know, w we are already talking about like crypto as an example, and Ken was like, wow, did you say, I said in about five to 10 years, it's possible that the quantum computers will be able to break the crypto encryption that keeps it safe. And that was actually looking at joining a board to start looking at how we prepare for when all of our encryption is no longer a value. So that's going to be a terrifying time in some ways. I'm already scared about that. I'm scared about in today's world about how exposed stuff is out there and what other people know about you., it's kind of funny and I'm going to go down a whole nother rabbit hole, but I was talking to somebody, , just the other day. And it just even about geo-targeting with your technology that you carry around in your back pocket every day and the availability of information that is out there for marketing companies, for whoever and for whatever purpose, right? So how they can geotarget geo frame and track your IP address on your phone and then begin to monitor it for over a period of days and go like, you know, that phone has been pretty stable, pretty consistent in this location from 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM for the last week or 14 days, we're guessing that's probably their residents. So now, because. They can have the country mapped out per square meter. They're like, you know what, here are the other IPS that also have been pretty consistent at that location. That must be their home computers or laptops or whatever. So let's start targeting them with whatever we want them to see on the internet. And that is crazy. Well, it, it, it's funny and terrifying and also helpful. I'm sure you've all seen on your iPhone. That's the problem. All of this stuff. It is right. You know, you wrestle with it from a morality or from whatever and, and it does it's, it's not all bad. It's not all good. And some, and then some of it is terrifying because of what's out there. And, you know, quantum back to the quantum circle, it's like, man, think about what it could be like, you know, 10 years from now when quantum can just do this stuff in a matter of minutes or seconds. Yes. I mean, it's going to be tons of information. I know we all have that where our phone says, oh, you're going to the school now, or you're going to the grocery store now. Cause you go to the grocery store every other Wednesday at this time. And you know, it's going to be, they're going to be able to track very closely everything you do, but they can also help you. But as Facebook. They can hurt you. Yes. Yes. You know, it's funny too, my wife and I swear, and I can't prove this. I have no idea, but you know, we we'll sit and we'll be having a conversation about whatever, right. It could be about buying a air, popcorn popper. I don't even know if those exist anymore. And, and then the next day she'll like, I just got fed an advertisement for an air popcorn popper. I swear the devices are listening to us and pulling the stuff, you know, just you know, she's like, I got this song on my phone. It's there it is. We were just talking about it. You know, like, I, I don't know. It's scary. They are they're listening. Yeah. Anyway, so, and all of this great stuff to help us be better entrepreneurs and small business owners. Oh yeah, no, I, you know, I was thinking when we're talking about quantum and. I'm not going to pretend I'm a quantum expert, but I do know that it does allow for the potential of communications without delay. So what's called instant communication. And so, like I said, I had envisioned a world where we had these imprint input into everybody's brain so that we could all communicate. And then all the problems with everybody knowing every thought you have. Cause right now we only know your actions, but then we'd know all of your thoughts. And I don't know about the love that scaring about knowing the thought. I, I do believe I've always thought as well. Now this is so crazy. I don't anymore. Can we really have gone out to, or read here, but I truly believe, I think in my lifetime they'll definitely be instant communication devices. I think that you can have, because even in the technology, like, and it's not really, but just physiologically, you know, with the bone resonation out of, I forget what they actually call it. Exactly. But you know that you can hear. You know, the vibrations essentially, without it even having headphones on, right. That you could essentially have an implant that would receive and be able to transmit automatically without having, you know, a phone. Right. I could just like, Hey, Kathy and my wife could hear me driver, you know, like a voice in her head. And that's what we don't want. I just, I don't know. That's my feeling. I'm not sure I'm ready for voices in my head. I hear her voice in my head all the time. Exactly. Usually get somebody to something really stupid, but I mean, think about it. So back to, you know, it could be good. It could be like, oh, a nightmare. But yeah, the thoughts, I don't know. It is a very crazy world that we're living in. And so let's talk about a minute here. So, you know, you doing technology, I don't want to throw out and like, Hey, since the last time you've been on the show, like 18 months or whatever, you know, what have you been up to you? And I know you've been up to. And I kind of want to measure that stuff out a little bit rather than just kind of avalanche it. But I do have to tell you, you know, so our show, I, you know, we celebrated a year early, you know, of the podcast back in April. I think we are I just looked actually just the other day, we have had 130,000 downloads all of her episodes wonderful. Which absolutely amazes me. And I think all of those people, I think is probably just my son continuing to do whatever. A lot of clicks, a lot of clicks. But and over the course of, I think we're, I dunno, close 40 shows, something like that. One of the most frequent Quotes and or concepts that I give is actually I attribute, I don't say Ken Vanger said those. I, I do say one of our guests and in the past, and it's about the concept of pivot. And if you recall from the show, this seems like forever ago, but you threw out this concept that you expect to pivot about every 18 months or so. And, you know, through the course and people that listen to the show, know that we talk about, you know, how do you see entrepreneurs have success? You know, what are some key elements of it? How can they prepare for it? How do they prepare for what's around the corner, all of those kinds of things. How do they prepare for things that can happen today and how the world changes like COVID Hey And you kicked that thing out there. And that absolutely, obviously it had put a thumb print on my psyche because I bet you, every other show, I talk about pivot and you know, this guy said this and I guess I wanted to throw back that back to you and say, you know, one, do you still have that theory? And if you don't, it's going to rock my world. But two, I guess, knowing that you still do believe that but it's been about 18 months since you were on the show. Are you getting ready to pivot again, because this is kinda your timeframe, you know, you're expected pivot every 18 months or so. Absolutely hilarious. You asked that question because we're actually in the middle of a pivot. So we do cybersecurity. We've been doing cybersecurity for several years now, but while we're doing cybersecurity, we learn or we saw something and that was, everybody wants to drop this terrible. Around cybersecurity and cybersecurity training. So we've actually started develop these cybersecurity training things that are a minute long, that we call fun and fast to help people learn. I came from this. I'm going to ask you the same question. I've been asking everyone. When was the last time any of your people ran your red, your employee handbook? Let me go. It was never, never cause I don't have one. Well see, there you go. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to make policies one minute long, fun, enjoyable things that we then can track. So you do like one a week for 52 weeks. It's the same as an hour long training once a year, but it's fun. It's short, it's fast and it lets you feel more engaged instead of having to be like, okay, I'm going to sit down and, and trust me, I make very exciting presentations. And even I know after an hour, nobody wants to listen to me. Some of the cybersecurity. People are a lot less exciting to listen to, but those types of things we think, so we're actually starting, we've, we've deployed a training environment that we can now put these onto. We're starting with the department of defense has security standard, the CMMC right? So we have the first level of that in these training modules that people can go out and buy and then they can for the whole company. And then those are 17. So in 17 minutes, you can go through what you need to be doing to be secure by the level of the department of defense. Very quick, very easy. And so this is our next pivot. You're talking about pivot. So I'm always looking and we look to have the customers tell us what it is. You know, we keep hearing customers say, I hate learning cybersecurity. I hate having to figure all this out. So we wanted to make it. Don't make it this horrendous test. So we're really excited about that. Pivot since you've asked about pivots and cybersecurity is so fun to talk about, isn't it? Yes. How many times can I tell you a hundred billion dollars was lost last year? You know, it's, it's all doom and gloom and terror. I'm tired of the doom and gloom and terror. Yeah. It's an interesting approach. And it's an interesting approach. Well, one about cybersecurity, which is, it probably does fear cast fear into people. But the approach to do it in small chunks and get the most salient message at that time quickly to people where it can resonate and probably is the attention span of, you know, of what most of us have. You know, and you can actually probably start moving the needle on behavior and activity and things like that. Oh yeah. I mean, it's very similar. I'm sure to what you have with marketing. How do you get your message across in 60 seconds? You know, and I think we lose that for a lot of other areas. If we looked at what marketing does more often, I think we'd be amazed at how well they do what they do. Right. You guys can get a message out there and do it in a very short time. You get five seconds. If you're doing a U2 abs, right? How do you get a message in five seconds, but you do it because they're successful. Right? I think we have to start thinking that way for other learning environments, as opposed to trying to just, you know, I, I actually had a A partner of mine say, we want you to come in and do a eight hour session on CMMC. I told them, no, that's fun. I'm like, nobody's going to listen to it. It is going to be a big waste. How about, you know, I hate come in for a colonoscopy. Yeah, exactly. Root canals. Maybe. I don't know. So yeah, those are the things. I'm actually talking with the state, they're looking, they have an opportunity with a grant to help international companies get cybersecurity. And they're talking to me about doing trainings. That would be great. I've even wanted to do eight trainings at one hour as a shot, as opposed to one training at eight hours a shot. Because I think the smaller, the more likely you're going to walk away with, I don't even know one hour, even that I would sit through that, but I love the one minute concept. That is good, but that's such a great concept because you can really roll that out through a lot of different things that you guys do. Yeah. So there's our pivot. I still believe in the 18 month pivot, the pivot is, is still happening. All right. Well, that's good. I haven't lost faith because I really believe in that. And you know, and I talked to so many small business owners, people that are doing the entrepreneurial path and, you know, and it always comes back to that. You know, they're always talking about. What's the next thing., and we're talking about, it's important to understand what the next thing is to be trying to look over the horizon a little bit. And that's why I thought your moment of, you know, from on high walking down the mountain was so, , curl prophetic on, , eight, you have to, it's a change of a mindset expect to change because so often, you know, we get just rude and like, Hey, everything is going so great and I'm loving life and we're just doing wonderful stuff in our business. And then boom, you get punched in the mouth and COVID, and you've got to like retool everything that you've been doing. And, and, and to your point, you know, if you expect to be. Then it doesn't become such a shack probably to the system. And you're looking for at that point. And I think that's, and it's funny, cause we've just implemented what we call whiteboard Wednesdays, where I bring my entire team in and we have a, like this past one, it was how to promote our 15 hours of free cybersecurity through the cares act and the small business development centers. And so what I did was I sat the whole team down and said, be crazy. Don't be afraid of if we can do it, just come up with things. So we came up with skywriting. We came up with pulling around triangular marketing boards. We, we came up with all of these crazy ideas. And then we're going to let the marketing team review them and see what we can do, but it makes us think outside of that box, it makes us start to go, well, maybe we don't have to do it the way everybody's done it for a hundred years. And it's been a good exercise. We just started this recently. And the team, the best part is the team starts laughing. They start getting really into it and it's no longer Lucy. And I saying, okay, we're going to market here. We're going to do this. Right. It's them saying, oh, I would love to try this. And it lets them be more engaged in changing your company. Yeah. Wow. That is a, that I love as well. They were actually reminds me years ago. I know it seems like a whole nother lifetime. I ran a bunch of retail stores and I would go into stores or who around with our regionals or whatever. And. I always had this spiel or this speech that I would give, you know, if I gave it to you once and that was it, but I always encourage people to like carve some time out of your week and just intentionally think about your business, try to like remove yourself. You know, you walk into these stores, you see this stuff, you see it all the time. And so you get a little numb to it and you don't think about things sometimes, but force yourself to. Remove mentally, physically, if you have to, and then intentionally kind of dissect and think about your business and think about the, what ifs and what could you do. Because the more you can do that, then to your point on the whiteboard Wednesdays, I love that. You know, then all of a sudden you start thinking more creatively and, and things begin to flow, and you've got that next big idea or whatever to impact your business. And yeah, I love whiteboard Wednesday and it's fine. A big whiteboard. I need a bigger one. You need a whiteboard in there. I do the best thing in the world. And it's funny because right after I had done my first podcast with you, I decided I needed more thinking time. So I started to walk now every day I do a five mile walk to let me reset my mind. That's where my whiteboard Wednesday came from. That's where this training module came from. So, and, and that came because I was thinking about, after talking with you, I'm like, okay, I got to start thinking, how can I start thinking differently? And so many things kept layering on top and you can imagine in cybersecurity, it's always fear and concern. And so I had to just step back and say, how can I not be thinking about the next ransomware somewhere, the next last email? And so you got me going on a new way to actually by that time. Wow. The thought that I'm flattered, that I actually did something for you. Well, I love that, that concept. So folks, if you're listening to, Hey, carve out some whiteboard Wednesday go on a five mile walk, do all kinds of stuff. All that's good. And I think that's important too. You know, people run, I used to run a lot. Now my knees can't handle it, but I used to love that time. Now I'm doing something different. Throw plugin. I'd started rowing oh a month or so ago. And I love that because it kind of does the same thing that I used to do with running, with get in that last space and just allow, you know, thinking to happen. And so Rowan, I'm able to, to kind of incorporate that similar to kind of your, your walks and yeah, so th that really is important that intentional just kind of free yourself and just think beyond the boundaries that we often, you know, just get wrapped up in, on the day to day to day to day. And yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely one of those things you want to do. And something else that I ironically around the same time we had that first podcast, I was reading a book that talked about this is for all the entrepreneurs out there. They keep saying in a lot of the books, your business needs to make money. It's about making. And I finally found something that changed my whole mind. It said your business is not making money. Money makes your business. So what that means is your business for you usually has some other reason, some other value, whether it's social, whether it's family money, lets you do it. And it changed my whole concept because I don't want to feel like all I'm doing is trying to make the next dollar. But now I realize the next dollar is helping me make my team wealthier, helping me, make sure my family can go to college. It changed that whole dynamic for me. So that might help a lot of entrepreneurs do it because they love what they do. Right. And they don't want it to be about money. Well, that changed me because it's no longer about money. Money's about what I want to love. Right. How I want to help, how I want it, you know, like. Volunteering with jumpstart to be a mentor. So I'm helping a small business get started. I can financially afford that because Ontech makes enough money to keep me able to do that. So when you're an entrepreneur that might make your journey a little easier. Yeah. That is fabulous. And then actually, I will say even a previous guest on the show, I can't remember who, but kind of have a similar kind of a thread and a conversation that really was talking about, listen, you know, the, the purpose of your business is well beyond money it's because whatever, it may be freedom. And maybe because you love whatever it is, baking cakes or but that your business allows you to do that thing that you love. And now it makes money which really then allows you to do. But yeah, that's a good point. What's the name of it? That wasn't in a book. The book I was reading was I think it was the one minute marketing and they kept saying, and not this, this is bad, but he kept saying your reason for being in business is to make money. And I've heard that in other books and the one that marketing was a great book, but that one piece stuck with me. Cause I'm like, I don't, every time I wake up, I'm like, I don't want to be chasing a dollar because then I feel like I got to get more dollars out of you. Right. And that's not what I want to be doing. But with that kind of a change, I suddenly realized now every dollar you give me helps me to make a better team, a better product, a better world. So now I feel engaged to get more dollars, but not because the dollar has value by itself. Right. So. I, I you're absolutely right now. I do remember who said a Dave rule? So if you listen, go back and find the Dave rule actually is Ruelle he's French Canadian go back and listen to his show cause it hits exactly what you're talking about there. Good stuff, Ken. All right. Take a second and talk about what you did with, cause I love the story about your, when you did education. Cause I had tried to register. I got, Hey, it's cannot be a one-way journey. All right. What do you want to ask? So I always just because unfortunately I had an education company that started. Got our first client, right. When COVID came and they dropped and everybody else dropped. So tell about how you dealt with education when you started your company and exactly what you did with the education before you started being a market. Yeah, well, you know, education and w what I got involved with with a few other guys was a company that was working specifically with inner city kids in big school districts, inner city school districts across the country. And we were doing afterschool tutoring and reading and math, and really trying to help move the needle for those kids, give them some opportunity. And yeah, and I, you know, I still have a passion for that. And and to see that all kids have success because they all have the ability to and so that was a great kind of fun experience and Kind of did different iterations of that as we built the company and sold and then started doing another company and, and doing the same kind of thing. So, you know, education is an interesting world in so many facets because obviously you've got kids that you're working with and what you're trying to do with kids and see them succeed. And again, Grow. Right. But from a business standpoint, that is a murky muddy world because it's not like you just go to that building and go try to talk to one person and make it happen. And they're like walk out. Right. I mean, that deal is done. It doesn't work like that. It is a long sales cycle thinking about it in those terms, because there's so many different constituents that you are having to work and pitch and they all have different. Priority that you're trying to address. So education business is difficult. It really is difficult. And regardless, you know, I really felt great about the product. Of course I would, but you know, I, we were doing some great things. We had great outcomes, but to try to go what I thought was a no brainer, like sure. You would want afterschool tutoring with your kids. You know, trying to push that through just, you know, it was always tough. Let's take a second and actually in talk about, cause you talked about defining your customers. And so I'm working actually with a, a startup out of jumpstart called Gloria's way. And one of the things they're trying to help with dementia care, the caregivers getting care. And so when you were working on those customers and defining them, I know entrepreneurs have a hard time to finding their customers every. Not ever, lots of entrepreneurs who will start end me and say, this will be for everyone. And you're in marketing, you know, that is most terrifying phrase. How did you kind of define down what customers, like, how do you define down what customers are good for you now? You know, that really is interesting. And probably while I do know the way, you know, when I begin to think about it now, and as I meet with businesses now, and we start talking about their customers in NICU they're trained to reach, we do it differently now than I did it 20 years ago. I got it. Doesn't seem like it's that long. Because , a information is so much more readily available and data, and, , as we were talking and before, , five years from now, just be able to like, Hey, I wanna reach. And then boom, here's, you know, all of the characteristics of everybody. Then, and to a degree, the way we do it now, even, but you know, you really have to, again, kind of put yourself in the shoes and go, okay. Here is our product who really is going to benefit from this product or service. And then , who are they? And, and really, and that's kind of a open and kind of like, Doug kind of question, but literally though, , now we create kind of an avatar and we like, okay, when I ask who they are, meaning, , what is their ethnicity?, what's their income level? What's their education level? What do they like? What do they watch on TV? What social media avenues do they engage in? What do they read? W what music do they listen to? I mean, any of those kinds of things that we begin to ask, and we begin to build out this avatar and we can go and. Essentially now with data available. Now we can go get confirmation on that because there's so much data that's available on market research. And, , I can understand like, Hey, I think here, here are my parameters that I think is my customer. And I can go on to several different places and pull information that can either prove or discredit what my thoughts are. And then just continued to fine tune it and would think about great experiments. And we do this actually quite frequently with some of our clients, you know, it can go onto Facebook and begin to run ads on Facebook. Begin to define our market and what we think that it is, and then just run those ads, not necessarily at all about trying to get an activity, like go to sell something or anything like that, but it truly is just trying to build and fine tune the audience. So if I say, well, I think they're going to live in North Carolina. And I think, , they're going to be interested in the beach and I think they might like surfing. So., I'm beginning to define that. I go run some ad that I think that they might, and then I can begin to see actually who engages with that. And then I can begin to build like audiences with that and understand that data more. Even you can do that right on Facebook. It's amazing., it's free. I mean, whatever, it cost me to run the ad, but I can spend $50 and get like amazing answers and fine tune an audience based off of, you know, like, well, this is what we think they are now. Let's go try to prove it. So I don't know if I answered your question enough or gave some thought to it, but , 20 years ago when I was doing education, , wasn't available then now I know it's amazing. So, , then I try to think about, well, here are these kids, you know? Now some of those kids living in the inner city, that's how I grew up. So I could identify like, listen, I know what these kids are going through. I know it, like sometimes you go home and there's no food in the refrigerator sometimes like, yeah, I hope the lights are working. So some of that, I just know from my own personal experience, but, , it's you do just have to kind of sit and think through that a little bit. Think, , again, kind of the socio-demographics of what the customers are, our experience. I think that's great. And I think every entrepreneur needs to really think about the contraceptive focusing and using things like Facebook and it isn't that expensive, so it helps to get an expert. Yeah. Wow. So those are just, , there's so many tools that are like that, that you can just spend a little bit of money. You know, as I say, we will do it and just go spend, , three, four or five bucks a day and run it for a month just to get data. But you know, that little investment then when we really do want to go pitch and go target, , it pays off multiple times because we're just that much more smart on who it is we're trying to reach. See, that's what 38 digital marketing brings when you're an entrepreneur. Right. There we go. Thank you for that pitch. There we go. Yeah, so that's kind of fun. We talked about books. I do want to get back to that. So don't let me forget. I want to ask you about books that you've been reading, sharing. I'd love to talk to them. So where are we at here? Oh, we're about halfway through. I do have the seventh inning stretch so far folks don't run off, but before we hit to that, I do want to, let's see, I've got a few ticklers here in my notes. I want to hit, but I want to hit. That might be a long conversation. How about some things that I know that you're doing, you know, you're on a podcast and I think shortly after your honor's show you kind of threw at me like, Hey, I'm kind of interested in doing a podcast. And and I don't know, we helped you launch your project called women stars. Why don't you tell us about women's stars with, I mean, first of all, I need to thank you. And now we've actually been your customer in your, I think I might've been the alpha customer. Your, your alpha, yeah. Oh, it's nice to be first time. So women stars came from. My wife and our marketing person, and I were kind of talking, she had some issues which made it so she was not able to travel. And of course we accommodated that. And she was really thanking us for kind of being willing to be open bosses to that. And it made us start to think that a lot of women have struggled. So we have strength, struggles, triumphs, and reflections that stars. So what it is is it's a chance to sit and just let women Shante does the, a podcast. And it just lets women talk about the experiences they've had. Good and bad. And how they've been able to move forward. And it's been a phenomenal experience it's really helpful. And we might be actually getting nationally syndicated. Wow. I'm looking forward. I won't tell any details yet. I'm hoping that I will be able to release it soon, but a national syndicated podcast has asked us to join them. So we're really hopeful that we're gonna get. Well, that is fabulous. And so we do the production editing work for Ken and women's stars. And so we get to listen to the shows come across and I will as well apply and like, wow. Some of these ladies are amazing, both what they've achieved as well as their insights that they provide. And yeah, it's a great show. I think it's a great concept that you're doing and what a great thing to do to help and support courage, women of all different backgrounds to keep pushing, right. Keep pushing on. And I think especially now, now in today's world, the pandemic has been, I was just reading some article as well about how, you know, the impact of the pandemic has hit different segments of our society harder than others. And I think women especially is you know, that they've have I'm trying to say, bear have felt the burden, the burden, the burden. There you go. Thank you. More so than than a lot of others I think. And so I think it's great. It's a, it's a really great show. Go check it out. And I know, cause we distributed for him. It's everywhere. I heart Pandora, iTunes, wherever you go. Listen to podcasts called women stars. It's fabulous. Yeah, no, it is. And again, If you're an entrepreneur out there, podcasts are a great way to get your message out. Yeah. And I was so glad that you had suggested it. And I have to admit, I had no idea how to start it. When we first talked about it, I'm like, okay, what do I do to make a podcast? And that was wonderful to work with you. You know, w we do the actual taping of it, but then we pass it off to you and you just take care of, we do what we do, I think. And we just, I think put up your next show is coming out next Tuesday. I think it's either 20. I think it showed 29, I think so. And we've been doing it for a year, so yeah, we're, we're just over a year. Cause Lucy did hers in September, which was a year. Yeah. Yeah. So very fun. All right. So, that's one of the new things that you, one of many, do you think you got a big one that I want to talk with, but first, all right, Ken, you know what time it is? even though this is the random show, just talking, I thought it had to be appropriate that we still did some of the stuff that went to. And so, we put together a seventh inning stretch. Are you going to talk with you about. Sounds good. Hopefully I know enough. I know where the guardians now. I don't know if that's good or bad. We can take a step on that one. All the gardens. All right. So I'm going to ask you, because we're on the advent of the next world series. So I thought I would ask you a question about the world series. Go for it. All right. Do you know, by any chance, the first world series, I'm going to tell you the date. 19 3, 19 0 3. Oh my gosh. Who played in the first world series? Was it the Yankee. I don't know who they know. Sorry. I swear. I thought the Yankees that would've thought definitely. Cause it's probably like only three teams at the time. You know what, that's funny. You say the Yankees, cause this came out when we were doing some of the research, did you know that of the hundred and 14 world series, the Yankees have played in 35% of them? Yes. I know they are just unbelievable. Yeah, they're a machine. But it was not the Yankees in the very first one. So I, I don't cause the Indians did not the Indians. I was gonna say, yeah, they didn't exist until 1914 or something. That I don't know, off the top of my head of all my Indians fans. But yeah, that sounds about right. Sure. Can make up whatever number I want. Right. I'm going to give those to you to tell me now, one of the oldest, obviously teams and I learned because we had a guest on that was a big pirates fan that Pittsburgh pirates is like the longest team name of any sports association, but the Pittsburgh pirates were in the first world series with the Boston Americans. Oh my gosh. Now, and then they played a best of nine series. Yes. And the Americans Boston one that went in five games to three. Wow. There is some trivia I would've never remembered. So I gave the date 1903. Right. And so we're now having the coming up on the hundred and 15th. But but they've completed 114 world series. If you do the math, you'll realize like, wait 1903 to today, that's like 116 years. That's not. So, what happened? Right? There's a couple of years they didn't play the world series. Well one was, if you remembering we had a baseball strike and 94. Yes, I do remember it. So that didn't happen then. But the other one, I in 1904, oh, they didn't play. So remember the first one, it was 1903, the very next year they didn't play. And it was because let me get back to who the was the national league champion, the New York giants. Didn't like the managers of the American league team that won. And they said, well, we're not gonna. And they just said, no, we're not gonna play. And then the very next year baseball league passed a new rule that says, no, you have to play. You can't opt out just because you don't like somebody, that's gonna say, could you imagine now having a baseball team up for the world series, you're not going to play it because I don't like you. Yeah. So I thought, wow, very interesting. Alright. Well, nice job. Nice job. All right, here we go. Baseball after that was a new soundbite, a little more baseball, but I like it. There we go. We'll go back to that one. I haven't, I've got to say, you know, this board I got, it's got so many slick buttons. I know it's all colorful. I like this. All right. So we did the seventh inning stretch. I've asked you about the podcast which you're doing well. I want to ask you before I want to ask you about a project that you've got going, that you're trying to launch. All right. I'm going to put a little pre like teaser there. But before we get into that so you I don't know that I want to define myself as a serial entrepreneur. I just always believe, like I can, I want to try that. I think we can do that. But as an entrepreneur what are you finding as some of your biggest challenges in today's world as an entrepreneur? Well, I mean, ironically, with all of our connectivity, I think it's becoming harder to get any message to be heard. I think, you know, the, the, the reach numbs us to the messages that are out there and it's becoming harder to be one of many. And so that, that seems to be one of the biggest problems is, you know, email has, I get 350 to 400 emails a day. You know, 50, 60 notices in your Facebook or your Twitter, and we can't keep up with it. And so how do you make your one thing really stand above everything else? And everybody out there, every entrepreneur out there is trying to be the one thing that stands out from everybody else. Right. So I think that has been probably the hardest problem outside of COVID, which just did his own nightmare on everything. But that I think is, and of course we all know finding talent. You know, every company out there is desperate to find anything. I'm actually lucky. I went through the 10,000 small businesses and if you're an entrepreneur, you should go through this program. It's free. It's at Tracy and it's it's across the country. We have our Stu Tracy, but they're actually paying for interns for me to be able for 12 weeks. So they're helping me with my new, I forever project to get it going and get it off the ground. So I have these young college students that have a new insight in how kids and people look at stuff that I wouldn't have, and I don't have to pay for it. Right. How's that, that's a win-win right. That is interesting. So I, you know, back to the, kind of the noise that is amongst us in our society, in our world today, I think you're right about that. That is, . You know, you'd go out there, you define your voice, your message. And there were just so many channels, , even when you go back 15 years ago, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, there were just a handful of channels that you, you know, you had TV, you had broadcast media, right. And you had print internet was kind of there, but nowhere near, you know, now you've got, oh my gosh, just in, I mean, there's over a hundred social media platforms that you could be on. And how do you just resonate there at all? And, yeah it, it, that is a crazy world. I don't know the, you know, I've talked with so many guests on the show and talking about. You know, different ways that they get their message out. And you know, surprisingly I think just recently, one of our guests said like,, don't be afraid to go knock on doors. And she said, I, I do that. And it is amazing the amount of business that we're able to do that we've been able to expand our business because I just like go and knock on doors and go in and smile and introduce and say, this is what we do. This is how I think we can help. And so it's a, some of it is even the old stuff still works. Maybe I think the old stuff is starting to work better. And it's kind of funny because maybe three months ago I realized I get business when I do presentation. So I'm actively looking for associations and groups that want me to present on cybersecurity and items like that. And every time we do people realize what we can bring. So building that expertise, I think entrepreneurs are, and to realize in the beginning you are the product. I, I cannot help stress this more than know your story. Your reason for doing it is what's going to get people to join you. The more you can share that. The more likely you're going to be successful. Right. And if you're not willing to get out there, it is much harder to get. Nobody cares about your product. I hate to say it. Nobody cares about your product. Well, they certainly don't care about it nearly as much as you do. Yes. Yes. That I, that I agree with, I think, you know, they do care that it's kind of work, right. It's kind of knew what it claims to do. I will completely agree with you a hundred percent on the concept and, you know, Ken and I have been involved with a networking group and one of their mottos or tenants is people will do business that they know like and trust. And clearly all of this noise, social platforms or me are trying to build that, but nothing builds it as. Face to face in front of people, that personal interaction. And it's hard to scale that obviously, but you know, don't always think like I gotta go reach a million people today. You can, , through, , the world today, but that's not always the best way to essentially grow. You're not always going to grow that way. And so, you know, back to this person, she's like, listen, I go and I introduce myself and she tells her story and they like her. She's very personal and she's got a great product and. It's a win-win. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right. Presentations yeah. People, I truly do believe that people want to do business that they know like, and trust. Yeah. We're humans and yeah. Ultimately that's right. Yeah. Don't worry. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote my first book, seven sales of emotional selling. I talked about the idea of emotional selling comfort, selling fear, selling you have kind of a style in you and if you can bring that out, that's what they're going to remember. They're not gonna, you know, I, I, I can't remember who said the quote, but they don't remember what you say. They don't remember what you do, but they remember how you made them feel. And that is. I'm trying to think. I've heard that before. That is perfect. Yes. Somebody will say and write and they like, Hey, that was so I'll try to have my research team pull that one out. That's a great quote. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. All right. I'm reaching for my big jug of water. I was telling him when Ken walked in the office, like, Hey, what are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, you know, one of the things I'm trying to do is just drink a lot more water. And so I invested in a majored. It actually kind of tells me like, at what time of the day, even if I've had this much water, I'm doing good or I'm on target, but I'm trying to drink a gallon of water. Right. Yeah. And that is hard. Well, it is a lot of water and it's funny, you had asked me if I want any coffee and I think you're a little surprised, cause I told you I had given up coffee almost 25 years ago. That'd be, I'm willing to the only people on the planet that all right. It's had to be more than 25 years. You said it was when you were in college. Gosh, you stop telling you that. That's all right. That's more than 30. Yeah. I tried to say 25, 25. I know. Right. All right. All right. So we've talked about a bunch of some good stuff. Tell us about this latest project. You kind of gave already the name of it. But tell us about I for forever because I, this is so cool. I know we met him a month or two ago and you told me about this. I'm like what? And I was like, that is cool. So lay it on us. So our vision. We want to help take everybody into space. And we do have competitors out there that want to put us on the moon, put us into orbit. We're talking about being actually out in space. And what we want to do is we want to take your legacy. It can be anything from a picture to a video, to your sequence DNA. And the reason it's sequenced DNA is because everybody else has taken like a follicle of your hair and put on the right that decays within a hundred years. So you might be there, but your, your time cast is going to be lost. We're doing it. So it can last for literally billions of years, because once it's sequenced and put onto these crystals, these crystals will last effectively, forever. Right? So we're, we're really excited. And one of the things, so my wife, every good idea I have, my wife takes it makes better. So I start crazy and she makes amazing, she blows it up. That's what happens in my house. She tells me how I'm completely wrong. And yet still, somehow we makes it better and then makes it better. So what she has done. She's been in technology for the 29 years that we've been a non-technology partners. And she went through where people didn't think she should come to the conferences. People ignored, her people, made comments about women. Shouldn't be in technology. She's very positive, but that did have an effect I'm sure. And you know, there, there was always this time. And one of the things I actually stepped out of being on our board because people would look to me because I'm the guy in the technology company and they would ignore her as she was saying the right thing to do. And so I stepped off so that she could take over the board the way she should have, but she realized. Because of her own upbringing because of how culture builds women should not be in stem. She wanted to change that. So one of the things we're doing with I forever is in addition to your legacy in space, and that's what we have your legacy, her future, we're working on encouraging women in stem to help us do this process. So Lucy has said we're committed to 50% of the engineers being women. We want for every person that signs up, we're also going to be taking a disadvantaged girl's story to space at DNA. Be it picture, whatever you pick. We take another one so that they can look up and be part of this journey. When you know, and you were talking about inner city kid, There are a lot of times they can, they look up and they're like, I'm never going to be able to be that I'm never going to be able to be part of what's happening. We are so excited to be. And I want to take a minute to throw this out there. We're actually working with the international women's air and space museum in big brothers and big sisters to bring this event. I'm calling it. We saw her, we haven't made an official name. So I'm throwing that one out there and seeing if they buy it, see if it flies, it flies, but we're we're going to do an event where we're going to bring women from all over Northeastern, Ohio to the international women's or in space museum, and then have different events around stem so they can see what jobs are available, what opportunities, that way we can bring Akron, Lorraine, Cleveland, you know, all these different cities where these kids may never get a chance to see this type of stuff, bring them together and see one, what women have already done. It is so amazing to see the story. If you haven't gotten it's at Berkeley for an airport, if you haven't had a chance to go down there, you should. But just the stories of who's already gone past, and then what they can do. To now be part of the future. Yeah. So we're, we're really excited about how I forever can change that. We're actually on I fund women, I guess I got to make the plug. So, you know, you can actually buy your DNA segment on iFundWomen or any of the other levels. So if you want to fund us, we're all looking for funding to get going. That's always the challenge of a startup is where do you get money for tomorrow? Right? So those are, and I'm really passionate about the whole thing. When we started it, I wanted to make sure we had some social give back. That's that conversation we said about, you know, my company is about making money. No, my company is not about making money. I make money. So my company can be about something special. Right. And that's kind of like what you had said. You wanted to make a difference in these kids' lives. You don't have money, you can't make a difference. So that's what this is all about. I love that idea. The whole concept of it. When you first rolled this out to me, I'm like, that is amazing. And I love, love what you're doing with. The incorporation of the girls and the inner city girls and just expanding their world figuratively, literally. And that is man, that is just such a terrific. Terrific concept and I'm so go, people can go out to a I forever.net dash forever. Yes, i-forever.net. Yeah. Sorry. Be sure you get that in there. Is there another site to go for the funding campaign? I fund women.com or if you go to i-forever.net, there's a link right to the funding site. All right. We'll have those links in the show notes as well. You can go and click directly on those things. It'd be great. Oh, that's such a great project. So, I know last time we met, we had coffee that seemed turned into lunch and you know, and then, and then five o'clock cocktails. When is this thing gonna launch? When w when are you hoping that this first thing is like, here it is. And there goes my DNA. So it's, what were the. The site's up live. Now we're hoping to launch in 2024, we're actually talking with Kent state to help design the rocket. So NASA suggested since I've been talking to everybody about this idea they suggested that we work with some of the colleges to have the students actually design the modules. Because one of the things, when I was talking with the NASA engineer, he said, one of the problems with capstone projects for colleges is they're always theoretical, right? They're not getting a chance to build something that really is going to go into space. And so we thought, wow, this is a great concept. And Kent is very interested because they're looking at actually having multiple disciplines working on this project. So that would let more than just the engineering students, but having the engineering students work with the marketing students work with the English students. I couldn't even remember all the different things, but making a group that makes this project possible. So we're really excited. We actually have an ex air force aeronautical engineer on our board and he's helping. Figure out what we should do because I'm in technology, but I cannot make a ship. In fact, one of the things I didn't know was when you get into orbit, you have to go even faster to get out of it. I just figured you already spinning at the same speed. It's already, you do a little bit faster and you just know you have to go as fast as the orbit and then faster. I had no idea. Yeah. I didn't either. I was like what I thought, you know, just going to thrust, you know, I'm going in a circle just a little, no, it takes a lot of energy to escape earth orbit. Well, this is us. And so hopefully, you know, in a couple of years we'll be sending the first thing out there, you know, and one of the things, and I don't want this to get lost on people either is. You know, so you're doing a new startup, right? i-forever.net. And so as a startup, this is a great lesson for folks. Sometimes we get to my APIC, we just like, Hey, I've got this idea and I'm going to go do this. You had an idea and you like expanded it and involved Brad, I don't know how many different organizations you've just mentioned that I've talked to, I've asked, I've sought advice. I'm getting them involved and that. Assure the success because you've got all of these other people that are getting bought in and being part of the project and that they get excited and passionate about and want to see it happen. Become reality. And it's a great lesson, I think for startups, for entrepre. And one other thing that it does, and this is really important for startups, it gives you validity. It makes you, you know, when, when I talk to people and say that I've brought this to NASA, all of a sudden now people understand that this is serious, where if I just came up to you, read them and said, I'm going to put your DNA in space, which is where I started this journey. You get that crazy look like you're nuts, but now I've actually had that experience of talking with engineers and talking the people I talk to are advanced per propulsion engineers. And he was telling me, he's like, you know, it's kind of nice to talk to you because everything I'm doing. Well not exist in my lifetime. Right. And I'm like, I can't even imagine that he's building things for a hundred years from now. And I'm looking at it going, I just want to put this up into space right now. Can we just throw it out there? But that's the type of people that are out there doing this stuff. And if you're an entrepreneur and you have an idea that is really kind of out there, right. Finding those other groups makes you more believable. I know I'm trying to think of the right word, but it validates that what you're doing makes sense. Right. It gives you credibility. You know, if you can go connect, like, Hey, we've talked with this guy from NASA and this is what they say, and this is his comments and his thoughts on our website. And we've got this aeronautical engineer that's doing this. And yes, absolutely. Yeah. And so all of that involvement, just again, kind of buys. More people into the idea that you have, and that brings it to success. So, wow. That's great. Good stuff. You know, you are, did you come up with this thing, like on one of the five mile walks, your funny, cause I'm I told you I was writing that book. I call it new Manji Chronicles. And on it, I was looking at the world in 250 years and I was looking at China and India and looking at that's gonna be over 25 billion people just in those two countries. And I happened to be driving past a graveyard and I thought, how are we going to put 25 billion bodies somewhere on this planet? And I came up with the first idea, which is a really crazy. Undoable idea, which was to take a body and shoot it out into space and nice that, that, that was grandpa Randy had exactly five grams. That was $5 million, but that was the only to get it into orbit. When I didn't know, as it was going to be another 10 million to push it out of orbit to get it into space. And I'm like, so I can do this product for about 12 people on the planet. But then a friend of mine came and this is one of the other things, talk with your friends, get more people like you said involved. He said, well, what if we, instead of taking the whole body, just take a small part of it. And then we got to DNA. And then I found out that DNA has a half-life of 520 years, which means half your DNA is completely gone. So it's pretty much useless after about a hundred years, no matter what, if it's hermetically sealed, it'll still become useless. After about 120 years. I'm like, well, that's nice, but it's not long enough. And then we found these crystals that like. I think they're rated for 2.8 billion years. So there'll be there. So all this data that we can collect will be there for generations when they actually are traveling around to Mars and Jupiter and living on those moon. Your time capsule will be there for them to collect in 3000 years, 5,000 years, man. See how her world will change in 10 years. I don't know what to call this show. Here is a futuristic who knows? All right, so great stuff. Let's bring it back a little more on the personal side, I have this written down. I don't even know why, but I thought I would ask you this question. Are you solving any problems? On the personal side now, not that I want to know. So as an entrepreneur, we're always like, well, what problem are you solving? Right. So I'm couching it in that sense, not necessarily like, what is your health problem? Right. I gotta, watch HIPAA here. But like for me, , I'll just share, , . As I'm getting older, recognizing that, that, , strength training is really important to be sure both from as you get older, you begin to lose muscle, your muscle begins to degrade a bit. And that has an impact on your skeletal physique and, and operation. So I'm like, all right, so I've started back. I've always kind of been off and on, but I'm kind of back to a, kind of a committed process now of like lifting weights, doing some strength training. I've found a great exercise after kind of looking at it. Primarily about three months, even before I got a rower, but I started looking at rowing and I've been real happy with that over the last, I don't know, six, seven weeks, something like that. So, you know, I've been looking at for my personal oven, drinking water. I'm like, yeah, I'm always for me. I'm so I look at my business kind of the, the whiteboard Wednesday, but I kind of do that a little bit on my own personal, okay, how do I make me a little better as well ever do that? Yes I do. It's, it's kind of funny. I actually, Dustin Carness at rift, which is my trainer is phenomenal and we've been working with him. Well, we've been working with him for about 10 years. I'm trying to remember actually, eight years ago when my son was. 12, in fact, my son wanted to do weightlifting, but you're not supposed to do weightlifting at 12. So Dustin brought him in and started doing what he could with him. One-on-one and then kinda finagled all of us to actually start trying to be healthy. Yeah. So that's been a great experience and I came to a realization I can not give up my chocolate. Lucy will never give up her chocolate, but we actually have committed two bad Fridays. We call them. Okay. And so we, we stay healthy during the week. We eat our fibers, weed, our proteins, and then on Friday, which is today, we get to have candy. We're going to have brownies tonight with some ice cream. So it, it, it fixed a problem because, and Dustin keeps trying to get me to be healthier, but the problem was, he'd be like you a 24 day challenge on day 25. I'd be like, oh, and now what happens is I go, oh, I really want that. Like, I love dark chocolate mint. Right. I really want that document. Well, I don't have to wait for. So I can survive it where, when it was 24 days, I'm like, no, I, I G I give up, I quit. I give on. So that has been a really, for us, it's been a good way to keep it, you know, I D I do the walking. He also has me on her exercise, routine weights, all of that stuff. So I try to be healthy. I'm still a chubby guy. I'll probably always be a chubby guy. We are here. We are. Right. Exactly. I'm always going to be bald, so, but you'd pull it off. It looks good. So, but yeah, no, I, I think, you know, I think we need to remember. And we're just talking to Lucy. I was just talking because again, we're always trying to see how to be healthier, but if you're not happy, healthy is not good. And if you really want to have a chocolate bar and you don't give yourself it ever, you're not going to be happy. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. I don't know if anyone else wants to do it, but again, tell me what's the Friday, the one bad Friday, Friday. I like to have the days of the week you know, kind of label whiteboard Wednesday bad Friday. What do you do on Monday? When is that? When I have to come up with one, man I love that the concept is great and I, , I don't know this is not even about weight loss, but it just really about like trying to live a healthier life overall. And I think, , it's right. Yeah. It's hard to say I'm not ever going to do that. And especially when you love. Chocolate, dark chocolate, dark chocolate mat despise it. I love it. Yeah. You can have my chair today. You can have my share today. But yeah, I think it's a great way. It's like, Hey, just like measure it out bad Friday or whatever. Yeah. I try to do it. I love bourbon, right? Oh yeah. But yeah, I realized like I can't drink bourbon every day. Isn't that a good thing? Both from a weight standpoint, I just all the way around, but it, like, I love it. Like Friday I do a bourbon on Friday and I'm like, oh man, I'm going to do some bourbon with my friends, but whatever it is, I think that's a good principle. Good thing to go. All right. We talked a minute about books. I'm going to ask you this question. What book or books have you recommended the most? I would, and there's two books that I'd recommend, especially for an entrepreneur. One is called StoryBrand . It's a great book to help you really focus on your message. And one of the things that he says in that book, and I terrible at remembering names. So I can't remember the author, but he says, be the guide, not the hero. Every person wants to be the hero of their own story. So if you come in and say, I'm going to save you, you're going to be less accepted than if I'm going to help you. So we have like our tagline is we help protect your team from hackers. We don't protect your team, that's your responsibility, but we're there to make it. So you're successful. I love that the whole book talks about make the third, when you should have like three different ass to watch, see if they'll take some action. The third one is to buy, make sure you're always asking to buy, right? You know, this is marketing always asked to buy because it's all great. I'm glad we got all your email addresses, but nobody's ever bought from me. So it doesn't do me any good. The other one that absolutely you want to read is objections. It talks about why people, one of the things I never even thought of is. You go in and you say, Hey, I've got this great product and like, okay, I'm going to buy it. Then all of a sudden, a day later, they have these buyer's remorse conversations. If you preplan to address those, instead of attacking them, don't tell them that they're wrong. Everybody wants to be like, I know this is a great product. What's wrong with you. Don't start in there because the more you attack them, the more you are, the right product, the more the customer is like get away from me. I feel like, and one of the things they talked about that I think is great and we work really hard with our customers. And I'll give you an example of how is when somebody has a cost of product that's in there and you're trying to replace. They're going to defend that product because for some reason they picked it. So if you say we're better than it were cheaper than it, and you shouldn't basically, you're saying you should never have bought that product in the first place. Why didn't you make that dumb mistake? Exactly. And nobody wants to be thought of as a dumb mistake. Right? And so, and one of the things, because we do cyber security, we do bump into other it companies, right? And they're not a bad decision that you went with them. There might be something that has changed over time. It might be that. And in some cases we can work with those it companies, if they're willing to work with us, some are and some aren't. And so by having those, addressing the objections, as you go forward, you can reduce the resistance and make them happier when they actually choose you, because you're not stupid for choosing that. That's a good choice. You know, a lot of times I tell people the choices you made were good. Here's some things that might make your situation even better, but it's not. And we're actually talking with states to put in ransomware resistance. And there was a lot of resistance when we first started talking because. They think we're saying you did it wrong. You guys have put things in place. You can always put more, you're not doing a bad job from it. And having those conversations from that approach makes them feel much better about buying you it's that? No trust like thing. Yeah. Yeah. I love that phrase. You just threw out very quickly, but focusing on reducing the resistance., as you begin to do that, then the objections just naturally fall away. Exactly. Yeah. That's great concept. All right. Any books you've read recently? You want to mention I'm trying to think. The last book I read was the expanse, which I've enjoyed, greatly expands the expanse. It's actually, it's about the future of humans and it's an all science fiction book. They actually have a TV show about it on Amazon prime for those who want to watch it, I been listening to, and I do most of my book reading audio books when I walk, because nobody's calling me. But I was like, okay, I've just listened to eight books. I need a break from business books for just a few minutes. Like I said, there was a one minute or one page marketing, which was a great, how do you whittle down? Because one of the things that. I realize is, and, you know, I worked with lots of companies that help entrepreneurs. They're like make this business plan and it's like a 70 page business plan. Nobody reads it. It's like the employee handbook. Here's my 30 page business plan. Let me throw that in the garbage. I'll never look at that again. And so this idea of just one page, keep it simple, make things. I love that whole concept because I think entrepreneurs think that you have to be this complex. In fact, I was just talking with a good friend who he's helping another well, he, he was helping them for free and I had to talk with him because he's a, he's a brilliant engineer and he helps companies to virtualize and go into the cloud. And so he's talking with this company, that's trying to make a medical cloud product and they were talking about a one and a half year, $3.5 million beta. No, no, no, no, no. We can get you this done in two months for $12,000. And then you see if a customer wants it. Right. And so he, and he's like, well, you know, I can't bring anything to the table. I said, you just saved them $3 million. Give me like a half a percent of what I just saved you. Exactly. I'm like, you need to go back to them and help them because, and I think every entrepreneur does this, we think, and I am so guilty of this. I'm good at cybersecurity and network structure. I think it has no value because I'm good at it. It must not have value because if I can do it, anybody can do it. And that is a terrible mistake to make. I, it hurt my first 10 years in the company. Cause I undercharged for my services. I would give things away because oh, that's not worth anything. Don't think that if you're an entrepreneur, make sure you value yourself first, right. And your product second and do not compromise on, you know, we charge for cybersecurity $255. I am glad to say it out there because we're worth it. And I will tell you. This is something, again, some of your marketing buddies I've asked some of your, not your marketing budget, your marketing competitors. I'm going to put it that way. I need to phrase this as it's not are you're talking to, I don't know, but I'm like, so about what would this cost? And they're like, well, we can't tell you prices. You know what, if you can't tell me prices, I don't know if I can even begin to value. I'd rather, you know, I'm too expensive and you're, we end the conversation. Then we take, because I've had people run down and it's like, okay, we can do this, this and this and this. I'm like, okay, what's going to cost. Well, be $25,000. I'm like, I don't have$25,000 in my budget for this. I can't do it. You just wasted four hours of my day. Right. And then we still ended up. So I'd rather get the pricing out quickly. And if you're confident in your price, you don't have to worry because the customers that are right for you will also be confident in your price. You know, this, you have a great price and a great product. If you are afraid to tell price that tells everybody, there's a reason you're afraid to tell price. And I find if you get that over with quickly, You're going to be much happier. Well, it certainly removes a lot of wasted time because if you're so far off, then like, Hey, it's not bad, you know? That's just not a good fit for what we can do. Nobody loses their that's interesting. All right. I I was going to talk about a second. I, I haven't read well, let me take a step back. Even I always have a goal every year. I'm want to read 50 books a year and I'm I read, I don't I haven't listened to an audio, but I listen to podcasts. I love to read. So I, , 50 books is heavy because I've told my wife is like, you know, I think I have to change this because some books I read are like 1500 pages. And, , to like read through that thing is like reading, , three or four books of other parks. So I told my wife, I think I might change it to like pages number of pages that I want to read. But I do love reading historical books and I love reading kind of biography type books. Like I was fascinated. I read Titan the Rockefeller story that that was one of the books are knocked out this year. Great book Teddy Roosevelt in the midst of almost finished with us when the last romantic it's called T. The last romantic about Teddy Roosevelt. Great. book . I mean his approach and thinking about things as well. It was and I love reading other, you know, about that because it helps me kind of expand my own thinking as well. And anyway, so good parts. If you ever get a chance in the heart of the sea is a phenomenal book. It talks about the SX and it was sunk by the the whale. But it's the true story of the ESX. It's not the movie that everybody's out and it, it, it talks about what happens when you have starvation. It talks about, oh, I mean, th th there are bad things, but it's just an amazing study of human nature. What happens, how you get through it. Oh, good. I love books like that. That really like, wow. I just, so as I started rowing, I just, I read a book that somebody recommended to me called the boys and the boat about the 1936 eight man crew that rode in the Olympics. Oh. That had while they won the gold. So I had not, I yeah, they did well, but their story, which was a remarkable story, it gets overshadowed because of the 1936 Olympics and Hitler and Jesse Owens and all of that stuff. But that was an amazing book as well. So, there, there we go. All right, here we come. Bottom of the ninth. All right. We're going to wrap this up a little bit. Here's another crazy question. If you had the opportunity. To have one statement on a billboard. Hmm. One statement on a billboard, everyone to see what would it say? You're okay. You're okay. You're okay. I love that. Yeah. That's it's one thing. It took me a long time. Don't know if this is the appropriate place, but when I was younger, I did get in, I was beaten by a teacher. And so that had an major effect on my life for a long time. Sure. And you know, I, I have a friend whose family is facing a potential suicide and there was a time when I had the same type of dark thoughts and I really, for a long time, didn't think I deserved to be where I was. And I think if we could just tell everybody you're okay. That would make such a difference. You are okay with who you are. Don't have to be better. Don't have to, you know, we're all striving to be. The Bezos is, you know, he's doing so amazing. I can't do that. If you just see that you're okay. Where you are, it makes life moving forward so much easier. It's such a simple phrase, but so powerful. I'll have to tell you, I, you know, my background somewhat similar in a lot of ways and it's taken me a long time to kind of come to that same, like I'm okay. Yeah. It, it, it's, it's an amazing, powerful thing. And, you know, unfortunately it took me probably 50 years to get there and that nobody should have to take that long to get to that great message. All right. If anybody you'll walk away with anything you're okay. I love it. Well, listen, Ken, thanks man. For coming on being the first Guinea pig of the random show, I like the random show. It's fun. I don't know. You know, we had a D we were really circumnavigated the universe really, literally from quantum billboards all the way around. But it's been fun. Thanks for, for coming on and kinda throwing yourself at the experiment. I guess I'm always about trying stuff new and we'll we'll see what we can do, you know, on the next random show with you. I don't know. I'm always glad to come back. I love this stuff. All right. And listen folks, I hopefully you've enjoyed the show as well. I usually have my skirt that I say, Hey, like, share subscribed, that kind of thing, but truly do appreciate you listening and hope you will continue to listen as we do more fun shows. All right. Enjoy yourself. And again, we'll see around the ballpark. Running the basis with small businesses is brought to you by 38 digital market. A digital marketing agency committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions and increased sales connect with us today at 38digitalmarket.com.