Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, a global marketing agency. Robert is also the co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle, an affiliate marketing and content monetization platform.
Acceleration’s accolades under Robert’s direction include Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards, Entrepreneur’s Top Company Culture, Inc. Magazine’s Best Place to Work, and Fortune’s Best Small & Medium Workplaces. Robert is also the international bestselling author of four books: Elevate, Friday Forward, Performance Partnerships, and How To Thrive In The Virtual Workplace.
With a passion for helping entrepreneurs and organizations achieve success, Robert shares his insights in Friday Forward, an inspirational weekly newsletter reaching over 200,000 individuals and business leaders across 60+ countries. He is also a regular columnist for Forbes, Inc. and Entrepreneur on the subjects of performance marketing and entrepreneurship, company culture, hiring, and leadership.
Robert enjoys speaking on business growth, culture, mindful transitions, building capacity and performance, and spends his spare time skiing, cycling, reading, traveling, renovating his home, and spending time with his family.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The most important component for maximizing your content’s reach
- The necessity of giving your audience direct access to you
- Why the culture of your organization or brand is so important
Links & Resources
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization
- “This Is the Only Newsletter I Always Read. Here’s Why”
- Rad Reads
- Friday Four
- James Clear
- “How a CEO’s Inspirational Emails Got a Worldwide Following”
- Benjamin Hardy
- Tim Ferriss
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Danielle Steel
Robert Glazer’s Links
- Robert Glazer’s website
- Friday Forward
- Elevate Podcast
- Acceleration Partners
- Books by Robert Glazer
- Robert’s Twitter
Episode Transcript
Robert: [00:00:00]
Here’s how you should think about what is a mistake that you have permission to make: one of the things that was really helpful is we shared with the team a picture of a boat with a waterline, and said, “Look, the below-the-waterline stuff is going to sink the boat, the stuff that’s above the waterline, that’s not going to stink the ship. Let’s make mistakes, learn from them, and not make them again. What we really need you to do is watch the waterline.”
Nathan: [00:00:31]
In this episode, I talk to Robert Glazer, who built a newsletter called Friday Forward to a couple hundred thousand subscribers, which is really impressive.
But then he also did it while running a full-time business while running a team of over 200 people. They’re growing really quickly. The company is called the Acceleration Partners, and they are an agency that works with all the biggest affiliate programs out there. So it’s fascinating the way that he took the content, the way that he republished on LinkedIn and wrote for Forbes, and, Inc., and others.
We also get into other things like company culture. He runs a virtual team. We get into why he writes books and produces courses even as he’s running a multi-million dollar company. A lot of interesting things. There are questions that I’m asking kind of really for myself, because he has this interesting split of content creator and CEO, that I try to find that balance and walk that line as well.
It’s a phone conversation. We’ve been friends for a long time and, haven’t caught up in quite a while. So, it’s just fun to chat.
I hope you enjoy the episode.
Bob. Welcome to the show.
Robert: [00:01:34]
Good to be here.
Nathan: [00:01:36]
So I actually haven’t talked to you in a long time. I was just thinking back to,
Robert: [00:01:41]
Pre-COVID probably. And then we really
Nathan: [00:01:43]
Yeah, exactly. But we’ve had so many good conversations, like a few interesting things that we have in common is both running good sized firms, like as CEOs, and then also loving content creation and loving this side of it. So, I want to talk about all kinds of stuff related to that. But first, your newsletter Friday Forward, like, will you just tell high-level where that came from?
Because as I understand it, you didn’t set out to start a newsletter. You set out to create content for your team.
Robert: [00:02:12]
Yeah, and even set out to work on my morning routine. So, I actually had come from a leadership event, pretty intensive event that Entrepreneur’s Organization had put on. I think it’s until I started a long time. And then you realize you’ve got to change your dates like five, seven years ago now.
The real focus is on the morning routine, not the real focus, a big focus was on a morning routine, starting off the days. Because, you know, time for thoughtful reflection, reading something positive writing, which is a great routine for a creator anyway. And, we were given some stuff to read.
It was a little too like rainbow and unicorny like, “You can do it!” quotes. Like it wasn’t my cup of tea. And so I, when I got back and I continued through the routine, I was like, you know what, maybe, maybe I’ll combine these activities. I have some stories that I like and some quotes and some things in this folder.
Like, so I thought like our team was like 40 at the time, I think maybe 45 and we’re all distributed. We’ve always been virtual. And so I was like, I’ll just start writing this note to the team on Fridays. And it won’t be about our business or anything. It’ll be about a story or something kind of inspirational and motivational getting better.
Started sending these things, I changed the name a few times. For a couple of months I didn’t think anyone was reading them. Then I did get some notes back saying, you know what, I did this thing, you talked about three or four weeks ago, or, “Thanks, that was really helpful.” And the other curious thing was I got notes like, “Hey, I shared this with my wife’s company,” or, you know, “My brother shared this with his family. He loves it. I’ve been sending it to him.”
So, I was actually at another EO conference a couple months later talking with some other CEOs about like, this is, this has been really good. It’s been good for me. It makes me think about something, right.
It’s been a great way to connect to the team. You know, you, you should all try this. And they said, Oh yeah, well, send us yours.” So, I sent it to four or five of them and like good entrepreneurs, like one started his own and did it this year. And the other said, “This is great. We’ll just send this stuff to our teams! This is super helpful!”
So, at that point I was like, huh, I wonder if this people would be interested outside. I did not know about a ConvertKit at the time. So I, I found sort of a, a newsletter service that would just look as much like a plain email as possible. Cause I was doing this all via BCC.
I threw like a couple hundred friends on it and family and other people. I expected like, “What the hell is this?” (unsubscribe). And, I just kept getting nice notes, and people were sharing it. Someone posted something on Inc. “This is the only newsletter I read.” And 2000 people signed up that day and now it’s like a couple hundred thousand people in 60 countries and it’s totally crazy.
Nathan: [00:04:43]
That’s yeah, that’s wild. I’m realizing that a lot of these newsletters. Are really high quality and people love start with something random like that. Like I think of, my friend Kay, who runs Rad Reads,like he started that, it was just like, here’s some links for some friends, you know? And it, it starts in that really simple.
I love the idea of the CEO being like, “Yeah, I should have… wait, how about, instead of me writing it, you just write it?”
Robert: [00:05:11]
Well, th th there’s a phrase in EO or it called R and D, which is rip off and duplicate, which is, so yeah, they were like, this is good. This is my team will love this. Just send it to me on Fridays. and it made me that way in the slack channel and all that stuff.
So, yeah,
Nathan: [00:05:26]
What are some of the things like as we fast forward, what are some of the opportunities and things like or favorite moments that have come from having the newsletter and then we can back it up
Robert: [00:05:34]
It’s, it is nothing about my business. And I actually got pressure from our team to be like, Hey, shouldn’t this be like under our brand or otherwise? And I think there’s people that I, I w my agency, you know, we run affiliate marketing agency. A lot of times people ask for advice.
What kind of blog or things should I write to make money? I’m like, it kind of doesn’t work like that. Like these people, like this guy loves grills, this woman loves whatever. Like they, they get a following because they love the content they want to write about everyday. Then they think about monetization.
I think, you know, something like Friday four to probably other ones that work. Like I just tried to create value for the reader every week. If I had had an ulterior motive, then I think the content wouldn’t have been good and it wouldn’t have spread. So it’s led to all kinds of discussions speaking all around the world, you know, my, my two books, for sure.
And just, you know, a lot of times. Again, probably forward, like you would never know in a million years what I did or what my business did, but I will get an introduction to our business from a Friday Forward because it’s, I’m just in that person’s inbox every Friday. Like that’s the mental trigger, not, not the marketing content that we put out, like all over the place.
So that’s kind of been an interesting learning for me. because again, it, well, it’s totally separate. There’s clearly been a, a nice halo effect,
Nathan: [00:06:54]
Yeah. Are there, does that happen a lot of business coming from Friday Forward or is it more just the, kind of the rising tide.
Robert: [00:07:05]
It happens a fair amount. And I will say a lot of times I’m reaching out to a client or prospect or partner in our industry and they will say. Something about love that Friday Forward or otherwise. I was actually an industry conference, PC pre COVID. And cause at the time some of this, we put out a ton of content or industry, like the best content or industry.
We have an industry book or otherwise, and I’m walking around the big event party, like the night with all the people in our industry and people coming up and saying, Hannah, like, I love that Friday for four weeks ago. I loved that one too much. Like, no one’s talking about the five reasons to start an affiliate pro like I just thought it was like an interesting thing where, you know, no one for all the content we have those industry wise that wasn’t what anyone was talking to me about.
Nathan: [00:07:48]
Yeah, I was, I was thinking about, James clear is someone who I’ve been friends with for a long time and, and got to watch him build his newsletter. And he got to this point. Yeah. It was probably around maybe 50, a hundred thousand subscribers where he realized the level of person that was following and reading his stuff was like, he would reach out of, Hey, could I, could we do this?
He’s got this long shot. Like, can I get an introduction
Robert: [00:08:13]
Yeah. And they thought he was like this, this amazing.
Nathan: [00:08:17]
Yeah, exactly. And they were like, oh, I’m already subscribed. You know? Like, and so I imagine you had the same kind of thing,
Robert: [00:08:23]
I actually, I, I do a hundred day check-ins with our clients and there’s a really big global client we saw, like in the news all the day and she’s like, oh, I’ve been a reader of your Friday, Ford for years. and so the sales team didn’t know that no one knew that, but, but you know, I, I have to think that that factored into the decision making process, even though again, has nothing to do with what it is that we do.
She’s like, I used to listen to it on the tube to work, read it on the tube to work every Friday.
Nathan: [00:08:49]
Hmm. Do you do anything specific? Like to try to understand who’s subscribed to it. Like I know James at one point with his newsletter, like specifically, I don’t know how he did it, but he went and looked through it to find like what, which NFL teams were like had coaches that were subscribed or any of those.
Robert: [00:09:07]
All right. I’ll give you some product, you know, a feature or things that would help with this if you want them. But yeah, a lot of times I’d store by, I sort by, one of the tools that really helped me with sorting by most opened by person. And then when I opened that in the thing, it would show me, I could clearly see it was being spread around a company because that person’s copy of it was being opened in 200 cities around world.
So, that would actually tip me off that it was like a company. And then I might go look at that company’s URL in the, in the sort of subscriber list and see if there are a bunch of people from that company. But that’s also be an awesome feature to try to join together, like a company statistic and show people or some sort of heat map about like, who’s opening it.
But I, I, I, that is the one thing I do. I look every week at the total number of opens by it subscriber because it gives me a sense of if it’s being forwarded beyond the initial open. And then like, if someone has a 2000 next to them, like they’ve sent this to a lot of people. And so it’s just sort of a mental note in my head.
Nathan: [00:10:12]
That’s interesting. I like that. okay. So let’s talk about how the newsletter group, cause obviously going from, you know, a couple hundred people to a couple hundred thousand people is a lot of work. We don’t want to be hand-wavy about it. There’s, there’s a lot in that maybe like from that 300 people to say the first five or 10,000, did that part of the journey look like?
Robert: [00:10:35]
Yeah. So, look at, once it started getting momentum, there were a couple articles, there was a Boston globe article. There was an ink article kind of, again, this is the newsletter. I read saw some big bumps on that. anyone who emailed me, you know, it would be added to the list, you know, so I was good about anyone that I interacted with would make the cut.
I actually had a tool that would scrape my inbox and do that, which is pretty cool. you know, because, and, and, and, and thinking through LinkedIn. So I was good about making sure that people I were connected to were on it. And then I started to just think more about touch points, you know, in terms of, if someone was doing a we’d sign them up for bee.
I think that’s, you know, that’s something I focused on as the list has gotten bigger, but I really, I also, because it was being forwarded a lot, I tried, and I, you know, stole some, I ripped off a duplicate, like just, I tried to be clever with the lions around. Hey, you’re stealing this copy from someone else and it’s free, like sign up to get inside to get your run.
So I tried to make sure that the people that were reading it or got forwarded one knew it was like a newsletter that they could get every week and try to get them to sign up. And, the other thing I was really good about is I would syndicate them on LinkedIn or I post on LinkedIn and I’d always say at the bottom, Hey, this is part of my Friday Ford series.
You can sign up here and that actually generated a fair enough look, LinkedIn is one of the few media syndication things that lets you, you know, they’re not paying you to do, it’s not ink, it’s your channel. So I think the thing that people forget is they they’re, you can, you know, you can really actively drive signups to, to a newsletter list from LinkedIn.
Nathan: [00:12:15]
Yeah. And I remember when we were talking. In a long Uber ride from in park city. I think that something like that doesn’t surprise by it is that LinkedIn was driving a good number of subscribers for you. Was there a particular strategy there or are you just recently getting the content?
Robert: [00:12:34]
Look, luck is as good as strategy. So I got timing. I was one of the first ones to have the newsletter series and the subscribe button. Plus at the time I was part of a small group where LinkedIn was boosting the content. So I would publish an article. People would see the subscribe button and it would go out to hundreds of thousands of people.
And I made sure to let them know that again, I think with a newsletter, when someone forwards a newsletter, the person receiving it could assume like this is a one-time thing, but if they really love the writing, like someone did all of his articles yesterday, brilliant thing, the person wrote. Yeah. At the end of the day, it said some, not this isn’t the language, but like I write things like this all the time, you know, get them directly here.
I probably, I probably would have done that, but I don’t, I don’t think people think to think to do that as much. So, you know, if you, if you publish on or you publish on forums, is there any of these things? They really don’t let you drive to your newsletter list, but things like medium and Quora and LinkedIn, you know, you can, you can very easily drive to your own list.
Nathan: [00:13:34]
Do you think that, like that opportunity, obviously you timed timed it well through you don’t lock in that timing.
Robert: [00:13:41]
Yeah. I don’t know if it would work the same today, but that’s true for any of the channels as they’re taking off, right?
Nathan: [00:13:46]
Right. But the, the republishing idea is interesting because a lot of people will say like, no, I want that content on my own site. And I’m using James as an example. Again, that’s something that he did in his first business. He did a lot of like, he would write guest posts for everything. And then in, for James clear.com, he took the approach of saying, I’m going to only like the original content goes on my site, but I’ll resyndicate it, you know, Quora, medium LinkedIn, anywhere else.
Robert: [00:14:12]
Yeah, syndication thing. And again, I mean, I’ve done, I have columns on Inc and Forbes and you just, you can’t link to yourself. Right? So, I, if I put something on there, I have take it all out. what, if you put on LinkedIn core, medium, you can link to your own books, your own material, your own newsletters.
So, I think there’s some positive value of that from an SEO standpoint, in terms of also putting it on your own site and getting people to link into that, that article. But, you know, I, I consider LinkedIn a great way to build like your own audience on LinkedIn. I mean, I think, I actually think the distribution of five forward is probably bigger on LinkedIn than it is the email just based on my subscriber count there.
Nathan: [00:14:54]
Interesting. Okay. I also realized I finally accepted your LinkedIn request from three years
Robert: [00:15:00]
I’ve been sitting there every day. for two years. Sounds like, what did I, how did I offend them? Like, I don’t.
Nathan: [00:15:09]
So, the, the Forbes and Inc like those columns, are you getting a good amount of like a good amount of additional attention from them? Like how do you think about that in your content strategy?
Robert: [00:15:20]
Yeah. I, I, I think to me, those, I try to focus on things there that where the authority is helpful. Right. I, I think where you’re writing a definitive piece. So like, for example, my, you know, you can syndicate anything on thereafter two weeks too, but, but when I’m coming out with the remote book, like the three things to, you know, ask your employer about remote work.
I think if you’re sharing that with people or otherwise, there is an authority aspect of, of, of, of an anchor forms. One thing I’ve noticed though, and I, I don’t know how this impacting the stats though, the sites have really pushing towards log-in and paywall. like, this is a lot of stuff going on and I have a feeling like it’s probably reducing.
Readership because even mean, even I now want to go read my article, you know, it’s like, you can, you got to get a subscription. So I assume that’s more limiting these days.
Nathan: [00:16:17]
We ran into that. When, earlier this year we acquired a company called fan bread, which is, email marketing for musicians and billboard covered the. Did, you know, broke the story, but it was behind a paywall and we were like, come on. You know? And so we emailed them in like an hour or two later.
They’re like, okay, we’ll take it out from behind the paywall. But you run into that where you want the name brand, or you’re like, oh look, Inc. You know, or, you know, for like like a piece of content, but, but you’re right. It gets really hard when it’s bound to pay. Well,
Robert: [00:16:47]
Look, and I, I feel that like everyone needs a business model. No, you know what it is, but I, I, there’s a, there’s a, or like large, global newspaper I write for. And they asked me to work on a series of something I sent to them and they sent me the article I wrote back. And he, the guy was really receptive to the feedback.
And I was like, honestly, I was like, I wouldn’t read this article. I feel like I’m being attacked by your banner ads. There is a full-size one, there’s a blinking one. There’s a video playing, this is terrible user experience. Like I can’t even find the content. And like, I know you have to make money, but like, you guys are a prestigious, like big, like this is horrible.
I it’s just. I was like, and look, we know a lot of this from the affiliate space, Stu I’m like, look at what CNN and Buzzfeed and these folks are doing. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re trying to tie, you know, write really good content. Then, then, you know, linked to the things are linked to the relevant things or put it in the text so that if you’re talking about this thing, buy it and make some money that way.
But because a lot of these are just Google display ads, but it was really like, I actually felt like I was under attack, like on, on the page. And I was like, this is not the future. And he was, he was very receptive. He’s like, I know it’s bad. I’m like, I’m just not sure that putting a hundred display ads on a page is actually going to make you more money than putting the one or two right.
Things that are contextual what’s being
Nathan: [00:18:06]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So when you’re writing, like what’s the relationship between say Friday Forward and, like what you write for Forbes or Inc. Is it Reese indicated? Is it a version of the story that you then write differently?
Robert: [00:18:23]
Yeah. I have taken Friday Fords and adapted them to like ink or Forbes. not that often, like those need a kind of like 1, 2, 3 format and they really don’t want you to talk about yourself. And actually Friday before it usually has personal anecdotes, but like on occasion, like if there’s a concept that’s really good.
I will rework that into that structure. But, but you know, the thing that I’ve come to understand from, from James and from other people, and I, I used to be from Ben Hardy. Like I used to be a little more, but like the title really matters. Like, I, I, it, you know, it, it feels like you’re being a little mark, but if you write a so-so title, the way the algorithm work, no, one’s going to read the thing.
So I, I think as a writer, you have to flip your brain on this and say, like, not that you should have a bait and switch title or sensational, but increase to send me the top 10 titles every month. And it’s really clear the number one thing that the top two that, because either you see it and you read it now and it gets positive algorithm velocity, or if you think that I don’t need to read that now.
And it doesn’t get momentum quickly, it drops to the bottom of the pile. So. You know, I have an editor and a title. I I’ll push them. And I’m like warm cup of tea. That’s one of my edits. Someone said that to me, once about my writing, like I was like, this feels like a warm cup of tea that you don’t need to re like.
And, and I think as a writer, I actually think everyone needs to embrace that a little bit. Your, your titles, they shouldn’t be beat and switchy. They shouldn’t be national Enquirer, but they, they kind of need to make people want to read it now.
Nathan: [00:19:54]
So, yeah, I’m definitely guilty of that. Of all. I’ll write a 3000 word article that I’m really proud of. This is one of the things that I’m always going to refer back to, and then I’m like, oh, and the title, there we go. Yep. That’ll work for the deadline. You just kind of move on and then you realize like, wait, why didn’t people read it?
Robert: [00:20:11]
Right. And what we, we operate in this world, what goes up, it goes into feeds and like the stuff that’s quickly looked at and clicked on and acted upon rises to the stop. And so you’re talking about four to five times, probably the number of people that would read your article with the right title and by, and by the way, ink, ink forces AB titling.
And I would tell you that I am, I am wrong more than ha like so wrong at, which is the, which would be the more effective title, which shows why it’s in the testing is, is interesting. But every time I get the top lists again, it sounds as if they are all, you know, you won’t believe why Delta airlines is firing all of its pilots, or this is the number one thing that all successful things haven’t caught.
Like those are the ones that are constantly the most read articles.
Nathan: [00:20:57]
Yeah. Okay. So I want to ask about writing process because showing up, like when you’re running a company and you’ve got a substantial team now and all that.
Robert: [00:21:06]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:21:07]
And showing up every week and like writing good, original content that people want to forward and share with, you know, with their teams and everything else.
That’s hard to do. So tell me about your process for producing that quality content on The Nathan Barry Show – 044 – Nathan Barry_PROCESSED: [00:21:19] a
Nathan: [00:21:19]
Consistent basis.
Robert: [00:21:21]
Yeah. So Friday Forward, I have a very good editor on my team, worked on them for two years. He could probably write an article and I couldn’t have told you, you know, if my, I mean, he knows my voice at this point, but, I once had someone write me on Friday at four and say, whatever you pay people to write these for you, like it’s worth it.
And I was like, thanks, dude. Like I write them out. so, yeah, I will draft it. Like I can draft a thousand words pretty fast. It’ll just be a mess. Like it takes me four times as long to edit versus a good editor is like, can he edit and half an hour? What would take, take him four hours to write it? And it would take me, you know, four hours to edit it.
So, I try to just get out that kind of concept draft quickly on Friday Forward. I usually get one, get one big edit back and then we’ll do one or two reds on tweaking. It’s kind of like, it just meant, like I write it on Sunday or Monday, Tuesdays edit day Wednesday, we set it up. It needs to go out by, 1:00 PM on Thursday.
Cause that’s 7:00 AM. New Zealand on Friday, I which is the first, the first 7:00 AM. so, that’s the process on Friday Forward on other things I I’ve actually with the editor sort of embrace the scribe process. So, so like I did that this morning, which is, I said, look, here’s an article.
I think we should write. Here’s the title kind of intro concept, main three points and I’ll, I’ll bullet it all out and I’ll say, we need, we need a data point on this or that. And I may even like audio record. A minute on it and then they’ll draft it up for me and actually works really well. and in terms of, cause sometimes it’s like, I think this is the point we want to make, but let’s see if we can find a stat that backs this up.
So they’re always, my idea is it’s always my, you know, you know, framework, but I I’ve always leaned heavily on editors because I can spit out a lot quickly. And then to say, can you please take this mess and help me clean it up a little bit?
Nathan: [00:23:21]
Yeah. how do you go about finding an editor for that? Like you obviously have an editor that you’ve had a long long-term
Robert: [00:23:28]
Yeah. I’ve worked with different people. I, it takes about six months, I think to really get one of the things I would suggest is if you start working with the editor is really used track team. And this is like the same thing at delegation. Like when I would change something, I would explain why I was changing it.
Right. Like I never used say always and never in my writing. I don’t want to say anything that can be disproven. Right. So I would always like go the ex like I make comments about why would like never use, like, if you can use such as right. so try to develop those rules so that as they’re editing, they really like understand my tone and my language. and that sounds awful.
Nathan: [00:24:08]
Does that end up going into a, you know, a standard operating procedure for how to write light bulb?
Robert: [00:24:15]
I think so. I haven’t seen it, but I actually think they have it, but that’s, I, I should check that, that we have that, but yeah, it probably has sort of like a, whatever those guides are, those standardized guides, right. Of like re what is the Bob ism? And it’s not proper English or grammar. It’s just, it’s funny.
I always feel like, you know, something, this is a delegation, you know, something by God, but when someone forces you to explain it, what it is, it’s actually really helpful from a training standpoint. Like, I don’t like the sentence. Well, why? Because it says something that can be disproven. Right. So then, then you realize, oh, that’s really the, that’s really the core thing that the editor could, could learn from.
Nathan: [00:24:53]
Okay. So I have to ask you about saying something that can be disproven. Like there’s other writers that would be really trying to have like concrete statements, you know, and all that. So why, why are you on the other side of, of trying to specifically avoid that?
Robert: [00:25:08]
Well there’s opinion, in fact, right? So your opinion can be argued, but I don’t like to say, like, I think, for example, let’s say, I said like, you know, all email marketing, CRM companies, like make this mistake right. Or make this same mistake. Well then, you know, Nathan comes along and publishes an article and says, we absolutely don’t that.
Right. I could write an opinion that says, you know, I think the vast majority, like, or something like, but, but, but actually I think it actually hurts your credibility. If you state something as an absolute, that someone can disprove that you can have a theory, you can have an opinion, you’ve got whatever they have can be disproven.
Like for example, I have a, an opinion that you should never make counteroffers like in, in a business now. but if I said that counter offers never worked. That would be, someone would be like no work and I’d be like, no, but actually you’re proving my point. They work one out of 10 times. and so my point is that, why would you do anything that works one out of 10 times?
What you’re all going to do is you’re going to tell me about those one out of 10, and you’re never going to talk about the nine out of 10. So we just do it as a rule because we know it has a 10% acceptance rate. So that’s the difference between stating that as like a fact that that is a proof point versus an opinion.
Nathan: [00:26:23]
That makes sense. I’m tracking with that. Cause people always latch on to like, oh, let me find the one exception to prove you wrong.
Robert: [00:26:29]
Correct. They’ll attack back and then there’ll be right, because they’ll post they’ll find the thing. Like here’s an example of what’s, like I even said, I knew it was going to happen and it was actually kind of funny, but in one of my Friday Forwards, I was talking about progress and like innovation. I was like, look, if you’re the best run horse and buggy shop in America, you know, you probably don’t have a great business.
And so of course, someone sends me this horse and buggy shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in Amish country. I’m like, yeah. And do it. I know there’s like two of them, but like that wasn’t the, that wasn’t the point of the article.
Nathan: [00:27:00]
Yeah. that, makes sense. I want to ask about is the PR side, like how, cause you talked about in the early days. Getting some, like the, the newsletter mentioned in different press publications, stuff like that. What is your PR strategy? How does that fit into the growth of it? Or is it all just kind of organic and, and whatever comes.
Robert: [00:27:21]
Yeah, we we’ve tried PR over the time. What’s interesting is that we have found that a lot of the PR in our industry has not been very valuable. Like it’s just people know it’s our industry. If they want to talk about our industry, they’ll find us. They’ll include us in something like, it’s not, it’s still not a widely discuss thing, but, but actually these other stories tend to get picked up more like Acceleration Partners does a pay $500 to, for people to go on vacation and not check their email.
Right. Or, you know, founder wrote this email and now 200,000 people read it. So, so it’s actually some of these other things that have gotten us kind of more, I’m still not convinced you can, it’s really hard to measure any of this stuff. So I’d rather get it organically, you know, do an hour. No. What wastes my time that to pay someone five or $10,000 a month to, to not actually be able to.
Measure what, what we’re getting from that, I I’ve continually been disappointed with our corporate PR efforts, unless they are super targeted on an award and industry thing or something like that. You just, you know, if someone writes about how our industry is changing and we are changing, our industry is the wall street journal cover story.
Like that’s going to help our business. But every article where Robert Glazer weighs in with one line, like we operate in partner performance, outcome marketing. So I’m always thinking about how is someone going to go from that article to researching my business, the buyer they’re never going to like it.
So it might make us feel good that my name was in there, but I had to bet any amount of money that this would lead to business. The answer is no.
Nathan: [00:29:02]
Okay, that makes sense. And that’s kind of the way that I’ve thought about it as well. And I’ve seen these like ancillary things we picked up so much more
Robert: [00:29:09]
Yeah, and those, those are free, right? You almost just get those from doing this stuff and people hearing about the policy at your company or, or, you know, people writing about this really cool thing that, you know, convert kids doing. And then someone says, oh, I need a new email company. So I like what they’re doing.
And I respect that. Right. Versus like, again, if you tried to pitch the wall street journal on email marketing stories, I think you’d be, you know, wildly underwhelmed with the results that you’d probably get.
Nathan: [00:29:38]
Yeah.
Robert: [00:29:38]
I also think people had a really hard time in the last 24 months getting any PR any mass market TV PR outside of things related to the election, social justice.
And COVID right. It’s anyone I’ve known as launched a book has had no success with mass market PR in the last 24 months. They just can’t get them to talk about this stuff.
Nathan: [00:30:02]
Yeah. So speaking of books and courses, you’ve got a few of each, and I’m curious, like when you set out to write a book or produce a course, what’s the, what’s the thing that you’re optimizing for in that? Like, is it
Robert: [00:30:17]
Probably probably a good question to ask for before I, started on that process. yeah, so I I’m optimizing really for my sort of why and purpose, which is to like share ideas that help people in organizations grow. That’s, that’s sort of my core purpose. That’s why when I figure out something I kind of wanna like crowdsource it.
So, I’m thinking about what makes, you know, the, the, the impact, I think, as you know, like, and I’ve read a bunch of your stuff, like a book is sort of. The top of the tent, but really like if you’re not, Lane’s not like Tim Ferriss or Malcolm Gladwell or Danielle Steele, like you’re just not going to make a living off of, off of, writing books.
And so if you do want there to be something that is more revenue generating, generating under that, then you’ve got to have sort of a logical thing that, that comes next then, you know, in talking to a lot of people and back to that sort of teaching thing, realizing that also the thing about books is particularly a global books, which might like I get the data six months later.
Like I work in affiliate where we get everything real time around the world, and then the book data that you get six months later. so it’s been really interesting about courses is that, Look, if a book changed someone’s life, they might still not pay $30 more for me to, if I told you there was an app that was $9, you’d be like, oh God, a $9 app, but you’d go buy a $14 IPA, you know, this afternoon.
No problem. So something about book has a limiting price structure and, and, and if you work with a publisher, you’re going to make like a buck or two a copy. so, but, but, but a a hundred dollars course sounds reasonable or a $500 course sounds reasonable. The margins are great and you get all of the data, you know, in real time.
So, and I think the most important thing, and look, I learned this from the pandemic a little bit, and, and, and DTC. So think about the restaurants during the pandemic. So there were restaurants that had loyalty programs, knew their customers, all this stuff could reach out to them, could let them know that they were doing delivery.
They were doing wholesale drops your kids. There are other restaurants that were packed every day of the week, who had no idea. They know you need the, Hey, Nathan, but I don’t know how to, how to get in touch with Nathan. Right? So, so I think it’s critical these days, whether it’s a course, a download or something, like if someone loves your book and your content, like you want a direct connection to that person, as best as you can.
Nathan: [00:32:45]
Yeah. And I mean, we saw that all across the board, in the pandemic of like, it kind of flipped, which businesses
Robert: [00:32:51]
Right?
Nathan: [00:32:51]
Well, and there were a lot that we’re doing.
Robert: [00:32:53]
The businesses that knew their customers were like 10 X better off than the businesses
Nathan: [00:32:58]
Yeah, for sure. So when we think about putting out a course, the question that I have on, on the revenue side is right. You run a substantial business already. And so how do you think about it? W, the revenue from courses, is that, is that meaningful? Is that just like, you’re trying to get the ideas out there and it’s nice to get paid for it so that it pays back the production costs or is that like actually, a revenue stream that you track and are interested in growing?
Robert: [00:33:25]
I think it’s a little bit B plus C like in terms of like one of the things people don’t realize, I think people will get used to Friday for being free. You know, other stuff like I, you know, I offered when people bought the book, I think this is the creator conundrum of, of sometimes like, you know, I offered either you bought the nine, nine, said he booked during launch week, or you bought the full price, audio book or whatever book.
And I gave you the $8 course for free. So of course I had three people, you know, say if I buy the 99 cent ebook, will you give me the $80 course for free? I’ve been delivering value to you for like three years. Like it’s too much to ask for like $5. Like it’s just sort of, you know, it’s insulting at the end of the day.
So, I think it’s, I think it’s important to establish, Pete Vargas has sort of influenced me on this a little bit in terms of the, you know, w w w what is the sort of one to many versus done with you versus one-to-one? I think there’s an assumption that you are just out there doing this, you know, and available for anything I’m in and people asking me, can you come talk about this to my forum?
Can you come do this? And then it’s like, you don’t kind of ask a lawyer for free legal advice. So, so I do think it is important to sort of establish like, Hey, the book might be X, but, you know, speaking has a price. This has a price. The content has sort of price. Yeah, I’m not, I’m not looking to retire on it, but I would like to cover the costs of a lot of, you know, and there’s a lot of costs and a content produce content produce a podcasts.
But, over time, that would be a good income stream to have, like, to me, it’s the win-win, is there something I can deliver to people of real value that they can get, like the core value, of course, when they come out of that and they see that was life changing and you know, that can also be profitable.
Like that would be great. because I think sometimes we have our profit and one place and our passion and the other, and I always say don’t people are really jealous of the world or golfers because. The guy made $3 million and won the masters on Sunday. He just wants to go do the same thing on Monday.
Right. So if you can, if you can add value, connect with people and they’re happy to exchange like a fee for that, like then that’s, that’s sustainable. But I do think people sort of also get into that example. Don’t underestimate like what it costs and just, you know, you have a couple of hundred thousand person email list and a podcast and this service, and then that’s 10 bucks a month.
Like the free newsletter could be a fair amount of money.
Nathan: [00:35:54]
Yeah. I mean, as the way I, that I know since the free newsletter is what drives my business,
Robert: [00:36:00]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:36:00]
I know it can be quite a bit of money.
Robert: [00:36:02]
So if you own a newsletter company, so, you know,
Nathan: [00:36:05]
Yep, exactly.
Robert: [00:36:07]
Well, I thought I actually was reading some strategies last week on also people want to dialogue, they want to write, you know, me, it’s like, it’s a lot of people. Like I, I’m starting to envision what more of a premium community looks like. And again, to sort of bifurcate and say, I don’t think I want to charge for the newsletter, but if you want to talk about this, if you want advice or otherwise, like, I can’t, I, you know, for what I charge an hour for, like, I can’t, like, I can’t just be on the hook for everyone in the world to do that with them.
So I I’ve, I’ve been open. Look, I’d be curious to your thoughts. I’ve been thinking about what is, what does that look like? I’m not sure I want to charge for the newsletter. but, but how do I have sort of a, a premium group of people who would like access or more dialogue and that, but, but that has to have some cost to it.
Nathan: [00:36:52]
Yeah, well, there’s a lot of people doing this, with their newsletters. And so I think it’s a good, a good model actually. there’s a startup called circle, that I invested in another set of like basically making this it’s effectively like community forums type software, but like a modern, modern version of it, and that works really well. Like here’s the newsletter. And then if you want to pay a hundred dollars a year, $25 a month, like any, anything, any version of that, a couple of things you don’t want to make a new treadmill for yourself, right? You have a treadmill that’s working very well. I tried to not has a negative connotation.
Friday Forward is
Robert: [00:37:33]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:37:33]
For you. It’s just a very effective treadmill. And so be careful to make another thing that you have to show up for and you have that obligation. Cause you don’t want to end up hating that. And so I would really make it about the connection to other people. And when you show up, that’s a bonus. because then people are like, who else reads Friday for who else is the biggest fan of Friday for
Robert: [00:37:57]
We tested it. Yeah. And we tested that. That’s what we played around with, with a free Facebook group. So I think we were going down that route. So that was good. Good advice.
Nathan: [00:38:05]
And then, then you can show up and it’s fun because it’s not an obligation. And then, you know, you show up every week or every month or whatever, and
Robert: [00:38:12]
That’s icing. Not, not cake.
Nathan: [00:38:14]
Yeah, exactly. So that’s the biggest thing. and then I would charge enough, especially cause you’re in the business market. Like whenever I see people putting these things out and it’s like $5 a month, you know, or
Robert: [00:38:26]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:38:27]
Even $10 a month, just like, that’s not, that’s not enough. Like I would probably be.
Robert: [00:38:32]
I would say by you need, buy-in like, I, I very rarely give away things for free, even if I would want to, because I think that person’s not going to follow through. They’re not going show up. I, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t do speaking for free events for the most part, because I think the, you know, those people will tell you that there’s 2000 people coming and they’ll get 200 because
Nathan: [00:38:52]
Right.
Robert: [00:38:53]
There’s no, skin in the game.
Nathan: [00:38:54]
Yeah. So I would do something like $500 a year as the price point, because then people are saying like, okay, I’m committing for a year. it’s like a substantial amount of money. You know, it’s not quite an impulse buy. It sets the barrier, like the bottom end of who’s going to, to sign up right. Someone who isn’t going to pay $500 a year to like troll your community, you know? And so it also sends a signal to everyone, like, okay, people who do this are going to be going to be invested and also turn on, on like membership style. Content is super high compared to software and specific. You know, in that sense.
And so going in annual plan is going to cut down on significant churn and you have time to deliver value. Whereas if you like, or the pay newsletter that’s monthly or something like that,
Robert: [00:39:43]
Right. People don’t get value for two months. They’re on vacation and then they’ll turn it off. Yeah.
I mean, do you say if you got to pay this interest, I mean, I went through all these, I read all the articles and you probably have some good ones. If you go to paid, you probably got to cut your audience 90%.
So, you could argue those are the people that, that, that, that, that really matter. but, again, I think it’s more of like, what could you give the 10% that is above and beyond that rather than cutting
Nathan: [00:40:07]
Yep.
Robert: [00:40:08]
The 90%? Yeah.
Nathan: [00:40:09]
Yeah. And I think that’s the way to go of adding something for, for the premiums side. I actually, yesterday launched a hobby paid newsletter. I made it just a hundred bucks one time, like a one-time payment. And really, I wanted to write about like, what creators should do after that. Made the bar set was $200,000 a year.
Like I’ve done
Robert: [00:40:30]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:40:30]
Writing about how to get to that point and that everyone
Robert: [00:40:34]
Yeah,
Nathan: [00:40:34]
Gets there, which is amazing, then they’re like, what do I do now?
Robert: [00:40:38]
Or you should do like an NFT blockchain thing on it. So you sell a hundred, a hundred dollars subscriptions and that’s all you’re going to sell. Right. So then maybe they have like, they actually have to, you have to buy into it, right. If you want to get into, like, they could actually increase in value.
Nathan: [00:40:52]
That’s right.
Robert: [00:40:53]
It’s not this guy I’ve seen dumber ideas.
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:40:55]
Oh man. I’ve seen so many dumb ideas and in crypto and blockchain, it’s amazing, but, but it imaginally works. Okay. one thing that I want to talk about is more the intersection between your content and, and the company. and, and specifically as you spend your time, how do you think about, like, do you think about them as separate things and I’m, I’m asking
Robert: [00:41:20]
Never did before, you know, we’re a little different now we bought on it, brought on an investment partner last year. And so like, I have to think about that a little differently versus like, Hey, it’s all my world. And I do do what I want to. so, yeah, I, I do think about that.
Like, for example, look, I just came out with this book. It’s a bestseller. It’s not about our business on how to thrive in a virtual workplace. you know, we’re in a talent war right now. We’ve been doing virtual workforce as I’m sure you are in every other business in digital. We’ve been doing digital work for 10 years and now that remote work for 10 years, I think everyone’s remote, like a big part of our positioning.
We know how to do this. We’ve been doing this, you know, forever. and so, you know, I just drafted an article this morning, you know, the four questions to ask, you know, a potential employer about remote work. And, and so the premise is like, it’s not all the same. Right? So that, so that’s a helpful. Piece for the book.
It’s a helpful piece for our company and a value proposition. I always said to people, we, we do this a lot internally for our company writing. If you’re asked something four or five times, write an article about it, right. Even better publish that on Forbes so that when a candidate comes to us and says, how are you different, you know, from a remote, then you say, well, here’s the Inc article about the four questions you should ask, all companies.
And I’ve given this tip to a lot of companies, my financial advisor, I’m like, look, you get asked it four times, you, right. Article, you have it published somewhere. And people are like, oh, like this person. Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about. Like, it doesn’t sound like you’re making it up on the, on the spot.
And then all those things are our thoughts. So I do, I keep different lists where I’m like, this is kind of a Friday Forward article. So this is a industry head on, you know, why partner the marketing is going to be the next wave of digital marketing. And then there’s this stuff that’s in between around like it has some company value, it has some value outside.
And I think that’s sort of like, you know, in PR we’re not paying for it. So that’s sort of like the PR that we don’t know what the value is, but we’re also not paying for it. So we’ll try to measure it as best we can.
Nathan: [00:43:30]
Yeah. I love that approach of having like for getting clients or in this case. The thing that we’re all trying to do is, is get cus or not customers get team members, right. recruiting is the biggest thing that we’re doing and you’re right.
Like we used to have this huge advantage of being. You know, I don’t know what the stats were, but certainly not even one in 10 companies being remote, remote friendly, and now it’s like, oh, it’s a hundred percent, so, right.
So you’re not that
Robert: [00:43:56]
But, but you and I both know that they’re all just selling people. Oh, you can come work remote, but like, it’s very different for a whole company that’s built around that versus this whole teams in LA you’re in rural Pennsylvania. You’re gonna be zooming, you know, when they, when they pitch on this, I think this is like the difference in college and like difference between rushing a fraternity or sorority, and then pledging what, you know, it’s like, they’re selling you on a vision.
I’m not sure that visions get turned out to be true in a lot of companies, but it’s going to take awhile for people to figure that out. So yeah, we want, it’s good for us that people to read that, ask those questions, know how we would answer them. I think you should always be publishing that sort of content around your, that, that strengthens your employee value proposition. Aall that stuff,
Nathan: [00:44:38]
Yeah. I love that of specifically putting it, like placing the content somewhere else. Like we have that content on our site. it’s so
Robert: [00:44:46]
Right.
Nathan: [00:44:46]
To link out to it and be like, well, I mean, you didn’t have to say like, here’s the article that I wrote for ANC. You know, you can say like,
Robert: [00:44:52]
Right. called me and I said, here’s some really good content for your weekly Inc column. Like, do you want to write an article about this? And I’d be like, yeah, that’s a perfect day. Right? I mean, this is, this is how the world works. And then you point to the coverage. I mean, this is, this is, this is how the world works.
Nathan: [00:45:06]
Yes. All the, all the strings behind the scenes.
Robert: [00:45:09]
Yeah. So I’ll expect to request from you next
Nathan: [00:45:11]
Yeah. I’ll have to think about what that is specifically, but, but yeah. We’ll make it happen. let’s see, what else did I want to ask you about? Oh, let’s talk about company culture. That’s something I’m trying to think of. If and I had met before we did a panel
Robert: [00:45:25]
I think we met like, literally on that panel, like
Nathan: [00:45:28]
Yeah.
Robert: [00:45:29]
That’s how we met.
Yeah,
Nathan: [00:45:31]
Yeah, it’s a topic that we’re both super passionate about you at one point, I don’t know if this is still true, like things are in flux. You were the number one rated CEO on Glassdoor for a
Robert: [00:45:43]
I think I was, I was, Number two, for one year.
Nathan: [00:45:47]
To number one. That’s disappointing
Robert: [00:45:48]
No, no. We got to number one and it’s very hard to stay up there. my experience, and I think I was given this experience to share to, someone who’s in one of my farms last night, whose company is about a hundred people winning all these cultural awards.
And I said, just be ready. Like, you’re about to hit. I can tell you, like, when you went all these things and whatever, you, you hit this point where then the people who are upset in any way, like, you know, make it their mission to to be heard. what,
Nathan: [00:46:17]
Oh,
Robert: [00:46:17]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:46:17]
The, now you’re at like, you have this,
Robert: [00:46:19]
You’re you, now that you have all these things, you are going to be a target and it’s going to frustrate you.
And you’re going to now start getting the negative reviews on Glassdoor and stuff, because you’ve put yourself on a really high pedestal and somehow someone’s going to be unhappy or whatever, and they are going to want to make sure that the world knows that you are not perfect. which no one really is, but I was giving him the speech last night because he’s, the company is great and they have an amazing culture and the winning, all these words, I’m like it’s coming.
I, I, you know, we look a similar approach. Like I don’t, I don’t think. That we are the best place to work in the world for everyone. I think that a great culture is when, what you do, what you say and what you think say and do are in alignment. And, and every company has a unique value proposition. I say, it’s like universities, right?
The university of, I don’t say Michigan, like 50,000 person campus, very different than a small liberal arts school in may and a 500 person in the class. They could both be great schools, but they are appealing to totally different demographics. They’re clear about their value propositions and they go with that.
And I think the best thing a company can do is, you know, say what it does, but I don’t think any company’s great for, for anyone. You know, our, our job is to figure out the, we found it’s about less than 2% of the people that are really good match for, you know, our culture and how we work and our industry, our, our environment.
Nathan: [00:47:42]
How do you, like, what are some of the things that you use specifically Acceleration Partners to, to, filter for that or did to put out there? Like these are the types of people that should apply and that would find it a good fit.
Robert: [00:47:52]
I know there’s a lot of controversy around kind of this cultural fit thing, particularly around a lot of DNI initiatives. To me, this is like a vernacular thing. W no companies should be looking for carbon copies like of everyone. And I understand if that’s like the fit, but I, I believe, and as I think you do a cultural fit, I think this is true with your spouse, with your community, with your company, which is like on these big principles, like we’re pretty aligned.
It doesn’t mean we’re the same. We have the same hobbies. We have the same way of thinking. But like, you have, like, as I, as I said, like, if you start a church group on Sunday mornings, you don’t want a rabid atheist in that group. That’s not why you’re there to do that. Like arguing with you about everything.
Like there can be a group for that person and that’s fine. But for that purpose, like that’s not, that’s not the point of it. Yeah. And I think like if your company has some core things that believes in, like, it’s not looking for a homogeneous group of people, but like you have to be aligned around those things.
And each company is, should really be different and it should be. Value proposition. Like we, we look we’re, we’re a virtual company. We’re, we’re a marketing agency. We deal with really fast client services. Like that’s not for everyone. if you like consensus, decision-making where you have a lot of time to do that.
Like we’re not the right environment for you. Clients want action. They want fast. So we, we, we interview for cultural fit. And again, I’ll use the word, even though I know it’s a trigger point for some people, cultural alignment, I will say not, not, not. And, and then aptitude to do the job. So the cultural part, we have a whole bank of behavioral based interview questions around our core values, and then examples of what a good answer sounds like or a bad answer.
So I’ll give you one, I always say, look, if people are interviewing and they do the research to find all these questions, and that’s the kind of person we want to hire, but Excel and improve is one of our core values. We are, we, we, we, we move quickly voracious learners. Like we need people that like that.
So if I said, Nathan, what’s a, what’s a book you read, or of course you’ve taken or something you’ve done to get better in the last couple of years. And you come up with crickets, like you’re you can’t come up with anything that you tried to do to get better in the last couple of years. Like probably not a, not a, great fit for our environment.
Nathan: [00:50:11]
Yeah. And I think in that. I mean, you talk about culture, fit people, say culture, contribution, any of those things it’s important to talk about or or make it clear that we’re talking about values. We’re not talking
Robert: [00:50:24]
Yes,
Nathan: [00:50:25]
Like backgrounds, like, let me go find someone who went to the
Robert: [00:50:29]
No.
Nathan: [00:50:30]
I did or anything like that.
We’re talking about someone who says, like it’s trying to achieve the same
Robert: [00:50:33]
Right.
Nathan: [00:50:34]
And,
Robert: [00:50:35]
You agree on the same again, if you’re a partner with someone and you don’t have this share overlapping the same values, there’s no way that relationship will work out because it means when you get to the big things, you’re, you’re not you’re in discord, over those things. So, so get our value of own it.
There are just some people. Again, I can see it early on and they’re like, look, this thing got screwed up. Here’s what I could have done better. Here’s I’m going to share the learnings of that. Right. And then other people who want to duck and hide, and, and if, if you’re at this company and you’re someone who doesn’t have that mentality of just owning it, like it, it it’s really going to clash with the thing, but right.
That is not a personality trait. It is not a, it is not an, it is not a gender. It is not a race. It is sort of, a belief set, about the type of organization that you want to be in.
Nathan: [00:51:30]
Are there anything that you’re specifically looking to be challenged on or as you hire people? Right. We talked about culture contribution,
Robert: [00:51:38]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:51:38]
In that side.
Maybe you’re seeing things in the, in the values that aren’t being represented as well as you’d like in the current team where you’re actually seeking out people to, to, either challenge value, maybe not challenge the value, but challenge the team and the execution or the value.
Robert: [00:51:55]
Yeah, so, so right now we’ve been open with a company about this. We’re super open about feedback. We have these discussions openly. I think for some people that haven’t been in environment anymore, it’s like a little getting used to, but so we have this value of Excel and improve, which is like excellence is doing things really well, but you always have to be improving them.
We’ve been over indexing on excellence and not improvement. I think people have been a little too process oriented and they had just not had, we’re not taking the smart and the calculated risks. So, we talked this through with a company and we’re like, Like co like making a mistake, not following a compliance process, making a mistake for getting to do it.
That’s not good trying something new that doesn’t work, but knowing that it wasn’t going to put you out of business or whatever, that is good. That’s what we need. That’s enough. Like failing to perform a compliance check is, is just a failure to follow a process. But we did have an open discussion that like, it feels like process is winning out over innovation, and we need to really get on the improvement side.
And I think what you’ll find is that when you’re implicitly or explicitly rewarding as an organization is what’s getting attention. And I think we were celebrating two minutes too much that people that were doing things well and not the people that were taking smart risks.
Nathan: [00:53:10]
Yeah, that makes sense. I’m reading, which I probably should have read a long time ago, but the book Turn the Ship Around, and he’s talking about, you know, so it’s a submarine captain, who went through a lot of this and, and they had it, you know, obviously every single process, like down you, but it was all about not making mistakes, like under no circumstances, will you make a mistake?
Robert: [00:53:33]
On a nuclear sub that maybe is really important,
Nathan: [00:53:36]
Yeah. but he got of like, there, they got so focused on that, that they like kind of lost critical thinking
Robert: [00:53:43]
Yeah.
Nathan: [00:53:43]
That they weren’t like the differentiation that you’re trying to make of the type of mistake. Right. Like messing up the nuclear reactor. That’s a, like the compliance
Robert: [00:53:54]
Well, there’s a commission and a mission, like the whole VW diesel scandal happened because the CEO was so intolerant of mistakes. When then they found out that the engine didn’t deliver the promise emissions and EPG that he had promised for two years, they were like, we got to cover this up because he’s going to fire us all.
So, they used all of their German engineering, like with battery to figure out how to cheat the whole system rather than solve the problem. so it was a classic example. Yeah. You want, yeah. A mistake, like trying something new, understanding the consequences if it doesn’t work. And that is not a mistake, that’s a
Nathan: [00:54:36]
right?
Robert: [00:54:36]
Right If every night at 12 o’clock, you’re supposed to check the boiler temperature and you fall asleep and forget it. Like that’s a mistake. Like that’s a mistake you need to fix.
Nathan: [00:54:46]
Yeah. Yeah. Are there some, as you adopt that, like, can you model that for the team? Are there areas that you’re pushing yourself or, like challenging to make those kinds healthy mistakes or take the risks that, you know, show the learning and growth?
Robert: [00:55:05]
Yeah, I think it’s less of, I think it’s coaching it and modeling it. We’ve actually like again, tried to coach our team. Like, here’s how you can think about this. Here’s how you should think about like, what’s a mistake that you have permission to make. One of the things that was really helpful shared with the team when someone shared this picture of a boat.
So, with a water line and like, look the below the water line stuff is going to sink the boat. Right. We kind of really don’t want to make those mistakes. And in client services, I think it’s hard because mistakes are publicly facing. So I think it’s actually even harder to like put someone on their first call and have them say the wrong thing, because then you got some cleanup to do, but to, to get photos, like, look this stuff, that’s above the water. That’s not going to stink the ship. Like let’s make them learn from them, not make them again. What we really need you to do is like watch the water line basically.
Nathan: [00:55:54]
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Last thing that I’m curious about is your shift going from here, right? You brought on a partner like investment the business. It sounds like you’re freeing up even more of your time to do content and, and like be an individual creator in that way. Like where do you go from here? What are the next things that you’re, you’re putting time into?
Robert: [00:56:15]
Yeah. So, you know, I have a, a long time, number two, who’s really assumed most of the operational control over the business. Last couple of years, we’ve always operated that way. I actually think, you know, that we operate on the traction kind of U S model that like, a well-run fast growing business needs someone who, you know, it comes up with 10 crazy idea. These needs the visionary role, and it needs the integrator role, the person who keeps the train on the track and then the person who figures out where, where they’re going to go lay new track. and that’s our always been our role. And as it gets bigger, you know, mean I was like, look, what I don’t want to do.
My greatest value is not in. Managing people like I I’m good at training teaching, leading, that sort of stuff, but I don’t, I don’t want to be in checking calls all day and, and, and sort of going through, there are people that are much better at that than me and they actually, they like that. So I, I think we continue to sort of formalize that split, where I’m working on our, like M and a strategy right now, and our new growth initiatives.
I’m continuing to do all of our leadership, training, our culture, rolling out our new vision. just being honest about what do I like to do? What do I have to do? And then what are the parts of the job that Matt’s just better at, more qualified for? And that is always third lens. I think entrepreneurs screw up, and this is different in each part of the business, but what does the business deep?
Right? What does it need it from him and from me at 5 million or 10 million or 30 million, because if I’m $40 million business and I don’t want to do any of the jobs that a CEO of a $40 million business needs to do, then I really shouldn’t let my ego put me as the CEO. I should. Create the role that I actually am.
Nathan: [00:57:53]
Yeah, that, that, makes a lot of sense. And you see people make the shift to, you know, chairman of the board or something else where they’re still heavily involved or, or, and can still have a title or, or whatever else, but they’re actually optimizing for the business needs rather than their own ego.
Robert: [00:58:07]
Yeah. The business needs and what they like to do. I think, again, they’re stepping their ego out of the way earlier stage. You see a lot of people who really started in sales and they’re the CEO, but really they’re the chief sales officer kind of wrapped in a CEO package. I, I. I always felt strong. I didn’t take the CEO title too.
We were like 200 people and, no, sorry, like a hundred people, other countries. I just had GM. because I, I look, I think you can be a president. You see a lot of people have a $1 million business or a founder, CEO and president, like that is just a bad ego trip. But, but, but the president is sort of the person who runs everything that the CEO or the chief executive officer that would imply that you have an executive team.
Right. So if you’re a CEO of a business where you are the head of sales, the head of marketing, whatever, like, I don’t mean like you’re the CEO of your own then, at some point. So I, I, I just don’t think that’s the right title. I think that you can be president, but I think a chief executive officer is actually has an executive team that they’re leading and managing. That’s just my definition of it.
Nathan: [00:59:10]
Yeah. That makes sense. Well, I’m excited to see you, the rest of the content that you continue to produce and, and like what this next chapter looks. for everyone who wants to subscribe and follow along, where where should they go?
Robert: [00:59:21]
Yeah, book, podcasts, newsletter signup is all now one place: RobertGlazer.com.
I got that all integrated over the last couple years.
Nathan: [00:59:34]
Nice. Sounds good. Well, thanks for coming on the show.
Robert: [00:59:36]
Thanks, Nathan.
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