Vince Warnock is a successful entrepreneur, who has launched and sold several start-ups, has served as the Chief Marketing Officer for Cigna Health insurance and is now an author of the hit book "Chasing the Insights" and the host of the podcast "Chasing the Insights". In this episode we discuss the things he has learned in his career and how it can apply to your business today!
For detailed show notes, Justin Varuzzo's after thoughts on each episode, and lists you can use to take immediate action in your business, check out the website at http://www.marketingandservice.com.
Vince Warnock is a successful entrepreneur, who has launched and sold several start-ups, has served as the Chief Marketing Officer for Cigna Health insurance and is now an author of the hit book "Chasing the Insights" and the host of the podcast "Chasing the Insights". In this episode we discuss the things he has learned in his career and how it can apply to your business today!
For detailed show notes, Justin Varuzzo's after thoughts on each episode, and lists you can use to take immediate action in your business, check out the website at http://www.marketingandservice.com.
In today's episode, we have a special guest who believes that instead of chasing your wins, you should chase your insights, that, and more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast .
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:I think a common problem and a trap that a lot of us tend to fall into is if we try something and we fail, sometimes we get scared and we give up, there has been a lot of famous examples of this in history. It said the Thomas Edison test over 6,000 filaments before finding the perfect one for the incandescent light bulb. And it makes me wonder how many pieces of metal would I stretch between a positive and a negative to see if it lights up catches fire or falls apart before I give up and say, this is impossible, I'm guessing it would probably be less than 6,000. What say you, another example is Colonel Sanders. He didn't succeed with his chicken recipe until he was in his late sixties. Legend says that he was turned down over a thousand times before he had a customer say yes to his chicken recipe. KFC is now a fortune 500 corporation. And speaking of food, let's take a look at Ray crock. Who's famous from McDonald's. Here's another person who was a struggling salesman most of his life, and never really saw a success, but he was persistent and eventually built the world's largest, fast food conglomerate. A beautiful part of marketing is that everything in marketing is usually made up of a bunch of variables. So if we do something and it doesn't quite work out, the solution is just to try different variables and keep tweaking things until there is success. I think a much more realistic, modern day story and version of this is the popular air freshener breeze . There's an incredible book called power of habit by Charles Duhigg. He tells the story about how the scientist who invented the chemical that is in Febreeze that reduces and eliminates odors was a smoker. He accidentally had mixed some things together and went home. And his wife noticed that he didn't smell like smoke and thought that maybe he had quit smoking. He was surprised by this and went back to the lab and realized that the concoction he made up does in fact get rid of sense in a lot of ways, it's quite miraculous and excited. He presented it to his company and that company is Proctor and gamble. One of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the world. So this was something they took very seriously and they were equally excited about the problem was, was that when they tested the formula, nobody really cared. It didn't sell and it didn't do well. And ultimately the project was shelled. There were people though, who were persistent, that this could really be something amazing and incredible and changing for the consumer. And they believe that maybe it just wasn't being marketed correctly to make a long story short, after a lot more testing, they decided to add a scent to the spray. The spray that we now know as for breeze, which is wildly popular for breeze now is about 35% of the entire air freshening market. This is an incredible feat for a product that failed horribly and was put on the back burner just because it wasn't marketed correctly. Now is the scent part of the marketing. Well, that's what we're going to get into today. And I am super stoked about the guests that we have because he's a very special person. And I hope you enjoy this interview. As much as I did participating in him . I am excited to introduce to the show. Someone who started as a computer engineer then went into the radio business, has been in and out of startup companies was a founding partner in a high growth startup that raised over a million dollars called common ledger later sold that business turned to chief marketing officer for Cigna healthcare became an author, started a podcast and is currently writing a few more books. And what a wild ride. I am so happy to introduce Vince Warnock to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey Justin, Hey , you may be exhausted just hearing my own .
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. You are rocking and rolling. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. I want you to tell us a little bit about how you got started.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, once upon a time now , um, uh, when you say how it got started, I mean , uh, electric I've said to you in the past , and you've seen the, by there I've kind of been in and out of like corporate life and entrepreneurship. All of my life, right ?
Speaker 1:Yeah . W what I'm curious about is, and I should , I should ask that question better, but what I was curious about is you started as a computer engineer, which intrigues me because I started in it, then you switched to radio, which was kind of like a whole different world. Right. And then somehow you end up in marketing and as an entrepreneur, which again is a whole nother world.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well it's okay. So now I'm going to admit something really embarrassing to all of you. Um, so I got into, cause I actually did electronics and computer engineering at the same time. And my rationale behind that was when I was young. I wanted to be the guy that made all the gadgets for James Bond or Batman. Nice. Um, until I discovered that neither of those are actually viable career options. So I discovered I was in an industry where I'm fascinated because I love technology, but I was incredibly bored and I was bored because I'm a people person. I need to be around people. I need to be engaging with people. And so I started to make some shifts in my career. And one of the things I've always tried to do is , is to keep , uh , open to opportunities and keep open to things that come my way. And , and, and a lot of cases try new things. Uh, radio was an interesting twist for me because , uh, I've wanted to work on radio since I was about seven years old. I built my first crystal radio sets without any schematics. I was so proud of myself when I was seven. I did this from scratch, just based on principles, build a crystal radio station, a radio, say I could only get one station. Um, but I used to listen to that all the time. And I remember thinking, wow, these guys get paid to play music. I mean, hello, but also to hang out with cool people and interact with an audience, I'm thinking this is the coolest job in the world. Like seriously, why, why would no one, why wouldn't everyone want to be a radio announcer? Absolutely. Um , yeah. So then then fast forward, a number of years, I ended up getting the opportunity to do so. I ended up becoming a radio announcer on our top radio station here in New Zealand and worked my way up to some of the best kind of time slots as well. But then I discovered that a, it is a dream job. I absolutely loved it. It was one of the most fun and fulfilling kind of things to do. Uh, however, there was a downside and this is the bit that I didn't realize that everyone else seemed to have worked out, except me radio announcing gets paid very, very poorly. It was one of the worst paid jobs in the world. So I had to make a decision at that point , um , to either continue with it or to , uh , start to scale the kind of side hustle I had at the time, which was doing web design. And he was going to be fascinated with computers and technology since I was little. So I was standing to build websites for people and discovered that I was very good at it. Uh, this is in the days prior to WordPress and all this . Um , so I had to build them all from scratch and then more and more people keep asking me for it. And then they kind of morphed into marketing. It turns out that when you combine a love of technology and a love of people and how they work , um , then digital marketing is the next step. So, so I kind of fell into it accidentally. Um, I remember sitting at a bar , um , talking to a bunch of people that I knew some of the men and I didn't know others. And they were talking about one of the challenges they had this , Oh , I we're so frustrated. You know, we've, we've built that we've made this amazing video, cost us all this money and we need to do this like really interactive web map and, you know, kind of marketed out there, but everyone we've gone through since it's going to be about half a million dollars to develop because the technology doesn't really exist yet. And that sounds simple. I could do that. And they went really. And then I realized I had accidentally put my foot in my mouth. Uh , so I could build that in a weekend. And I only charge you like $50,000. And then they turned around and went, okay. I went , Oh crap. Yeah . So that was the most stressful weekend of my life where I'm going, okay. I need to work out a how to do this thing that doesn't need exist . Um, and, and then also how to market it and how to deliver it to these people. But what I did discover was when you put yourself out there like that, when you go, okay, I'm just going to try and meet the needs of the customer, which is exactly what I was doing. There is , again, they've got this need. I'm just going to have to meet that. You get very, very creative. And I started going, instead of looking at this fancy overall solution, how can I scale this back to the key, key elements that they need to the core of what they're trying to do and let's build it from there. And it turned out it was actually a lot easier than anybody had thought about. Um, did deliver it at the end of the weekend. We had to make a few tweaks from it, from there , um , handed over to them, easiest 50,000 I've ever made. I was like, sweet. That's awesome. And then they came back to me not long later and said , um, just to let you know, we've entered it into an award. And it turns out we're a finalist. And I was like, okay. And it was an international w three awards. And I was like, Oh man, this is awesome. And they said, yeah, they've asked us because we were finalists to go to Vegas for the awards. Um, you know, do you want to come along? And I was looking at going, well, who are we up against? They said , Oh , how are we going? It's Heineken miracle airlines, Sony. And I went, nah, we've got no chance. Like seriously, there's no way a little old organization in New Zealand is going to beat all of those different companies. Right. So none of us went, we didn't go to Vegas. Then we got the notification going. It's a shame. You guys couldn't have been here. Will I am, was handing out the awards and I'm going, Oh man, the chance to meet will I am, would have been amazing. And they're like, yeah. And it turns out you won six golds and best in show. And I'm like, ah , worst decision ever. So I kind of regret that, but it was that point where I realized, I do know what I'm doing. Um , I actually add a lot of value to this. And then they turned around and said, we need to hire you. And here's how much we're going to offer you. And I'm going , no, no, no. I'm just building my business in the bank ground . Then I looked at that check and went, Hmm , okay. Welcome to the team to me.
Speaker 1:Right. So that , that was, that served officially as your switch from, you know , small business to large corporate environment.
Speaker 3:What,
Speaker 1:What was the, was there any key takeaways? Because I, you know, I, I worked at IBM for a few years , uh, and , and I was not a huge fan of the , the, the large corporate bureaucracy. Uh , and I'm wondering like, what are, what are some key takeaways, both positive or negative? Because I know there were a lot of positive things that I did enjoy about being with a fortune 500 corporation. But what , what are some of the things that, that might've stood out , uh, or , or maybe surprised you moving from that small business environment to now, now you're in the driver's seat at a fortune 500.
Speaker 3:Yes. Um, look similar to you. Uh, I, I'm never going back to that lifestyle at all. Um, I, I'm very grateful for the opportunities I've had. I'm very grateful to the teams I've got to work with , uh , and the work we've got to produce, which has been phenomenal, but the reality is it is, it is kind of, I don't want to say diametrically opposed to who I am. That's not true, but I'm a type, I'm the type of person where I need to be where the impact is. So I need to be actually where I know that I'm helping people, I'm adding value to them, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Right . But you want to see it and feel it. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah , exactly. But the problem is when you're a CMIO , uh, as should be aware, you're very much removed from that impact. Um, you are literally at a level where you're treating people as dollar signs and numbers, and that felt so out of sorts. For me, it felt so disingenuous. I was like , I'm not operating as myself. And there was the biggest takeaway for me was having to perform in a role where I didn't feel like I was being me. And that felt really, really challenging. And that was one of the things like when I felt this pulled towards what I'm doing now, a lot of that was around the impact and helping people. But there was also made a lot easier by the push, which the feeling of I'm not operating in my full , authentic self. And I know that's a term that's overused these days, but it really was that feeling of I'm not being authentic. I'm not being me. I'm trying to be somebody else and I needed to move away from that.
Speaker 1:Right. So, so now that you've, you're, you're at Cigna or you're in the CMO position before you moved away, this is when you decided to become an author. And how did, how did that come ?
Speaker 3:Okay. I, I'm almost embarrassed to admit this. Um , I had three very clear motivations for that. Uh , other than the fact that I I've always wanted to be an author , um, but never thought I was going to be able to be one. I never thought I'd be able to be a writer. I always thought I wasn't bright enough. Um, but I had three motivations. One of them, the biggest motivation was the fact that the work I was doing at Cigna was getting significant results. Um, I transformed their entire digital marketing. Um, we literally went from, I think it was about between two and 4%. I can't remember the exact figure when I started there, but their online sales made up about two to 4% of our overall revenue. By the time I finished, there was around 40%. And
Speaker 1:That's a huge shift. That's a dramatic shift
Speaker 3:Five years to give you that kind of background on there . Yeah . But , um, but it was because of the frameworks that I've created, it's because of what I brought to the table and my , the way I approached things and that got noticed around the world and most of the Cigna markets wanted to know how to do that. So they're all like, Hey Vince, we're going to grab an hour of your time every week to talk us through your systems, talk us through your processes, your approach, et cetera. And I'm going, Hmm , okay. When you've got every signal market wanting to do that, and that's an hour of your time per week , uh , this is more than a full-time job. So I thought maybe I could do this different. Maybe if I put it all into a book and talked about how experimentation was the key to win, then that all by the book and I'd make some money off it. Huh. So that was my main motivation, but the other two motivations were , um, one of them was an angry woman that I used to work with in a previous job. And she was this angry little Canadian who was an author. And she was really upset about the fact that most about industry kept asking for me to go out and teach. So we used to deal with universities , technical institutes, and there would be this ongoing demand for me to go and speak at them to teach them digital marketing. And I was like, this is great. And it's great for our organization as well, except she wanted in , on that action and was like, why they never asked for me, this is ridiculous. You know, he's not an author. He wouldn't make an author as a whole. And I'm like, I'm right now, I'm right next to you and be challenge accepted. So I would never admit to accidentally assembling a copy of the book to her assigned from the authors a-hole . But anyway, I can be quite childish sometimes I'm allowed to. Um , but then the other motivation was a social experiment that a friend of mine ran . Um, he used to run a pretty big marketing agency here in New Zealand. And he was heading off to New York to launch another agency and also to , to launch net , which has gone very, very , uh, so we caught up with before he left and had a few beers and he said to me off it submit to tell you I've published my first book. I was like, Oh my goodness, dude, this is huge. Like, seriously, I need to get a copy immediately. And he said , no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't worry. Don't, don't bother it's rubbish. And I was like, you can't say that about your own book. And he goes, no, no it's deliberately rubbish. And what he had done was he had decided he was going to be an author to prove a point. He had this theory that he would be taken so much more seriously if he was a published author and people would pay attention to what he's having to say. Um, despite the fact that the , the things that he was saying after being a published author with the same things he was saying before, by the way. But he had this theory that he was going to prove and I said, okay, well, how'd it go? And he goes, well, I just, his book was literally 365 pages. Every page was just a quote, which was something that he suggested you do to get free marketing. And this book sold really, really well. And he goes, it's a rubbish book and I'm going okay. And he goes, but it blew me away with how many doors that opened , uh , blew me away that people were, would take me far more seriously. And I went, you know what, I don't mind that I want in, on that action as well. I won't be what it's to be more seriously. So that was my thing .
Speaker 1:The strategy, yeah. That strategy was successful for him. [inaudible] Sandpoint . Yeah .
Speaker 3:But I also, by the way, when I went to write the book, I also thought I'm going to actually, I'm just not going to be a rubbish, but this is going to be my heart and soul in this. So I see it about writing the type of book that I would want to read. So it had to not just having my framework , I had my experimentation framework in there and I taught people why that was really important. But also,
Speaker 1:Can you tell , tell me a little bit, when you say experimentation, what , what exactly are you talking about in terms of ability ?
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. Well, one of the keys I learnt , um, when I had common ledger. So when you start a company like that, and you know, for the first six months of that business, we knew we were going to have no revenue at all. Right. We were just tuning through our savings, basically myself and my co-founder. Um, but we knew we had a plan and that plan was at six months, we wanted to raise a million dollars worth of seed funding. And then we wanted to grow the team and grow from there. But over those six months, we had to try and infiltrate multiple markets and New Zealand, Australia, the U S UK, how do we do that with very little budget? So one of the things I realized was we had to be very cautious about where we invested. So we needed to try things first, prove that they work and then scale them, which obviously is around experimentation. So it was around going, how do we do , um , a cinnamon minimum viable products and all this? How do we do the minimum viable experiment? Like how do we test elements of this so that we don't just prove if it works or doesn't work, but we actually get enough learning from that enough insights from that experiment to be able to shape the next thing that we do. And the next thing after that, and the next thing after that. So it really was approaching our business saying we are not going to get the silver bullet. There's no silver bullet. And in any business, by the way, there's no anyone that tells you this prime framework, this framework, this thing, they're all silver bullets as rubbish. It is just consistent and continual improvement. And that was what I based. This whole concept of experimentation around was going, how do we move the needle 1%, every single day or every single thing that we do, how we move the needle 1% till we suddenly find that we have grown . So substantially because of this compound interest approach is basically going right. If you continue to getting better and better and better, next thing, you know, you're way up here. I'm looking down, go look at how far we've come, rather than sitting back there going, what's the one thing that's going to get us the up there. So, no,
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great point because I know it seems like a lot of businesses will just throw darts over and over again, and then they will get lucky and land on something that works, but they won't really have the insights. They'll just say, Hey, this worked . And then they'll just try doing the same thing again, without actually knowing why it works . And then of course, that lightning doesn't strike twice and then they're left, struggling again. And they don't understand why
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. One of the things I put in the beginning of the book, just so people knew it was actually targeted right to them is if you're a digital marketer, every digital makin , the gnosis feeling where the CEO comes up to you or someone comes up to you and goes, Oh my goodness, that campaign was a huge success. Why is that? And then immediately you're like , um , well, and you just want to hide and go and fetal position because you don't know, and you don't want to make it fully yourself because it takes time for red button on my desk. Yeah , exactly. So you just start making things up and go, well, the flux capacitor was at high volume. Well, you just throw lots of acronyms at them, then watch them . Yeah . Okay. Sure . Um , but what I wanted to do was give people a way to understand why things worked and didn't work. So, and one of the kind of mantras that I have in the book was something that I realized I had to teach every team that I was with. Uh , and I had to teach my co-founders at common ledger. When I started at Cigna , I had to teach my team this as well, which was, we don't chase wins, like, forget about the wins. Like we don't chase them. We taste the insights, which means that when you approach things from an experimental framework, you're going right. I'm proving or disproving my hypothesis. And both of those are good outcomes, right ? Both of those are going to give me the knowledge. I need the insights. I need to be able to take us to the next level rather than go. I tried something, Oh, no, it failed. And then you feel miserable and you don't want to try anything. Give her again. So it really does. I worked so sort of one of my team where he , um, is a fantastic digital marketer and he was, he, he watched some of the campaigns that we've been doing around lead generation. And he's like, right, Vince , I've got this hypothesis. And I was like, great. Now you're talking about language, let's do this. And he goes, all right, I've got, I've noticed that with the last few campaigns that we've done a lot of the way that people interacted with that was very altruistic. Like they're very wanting to help other people and they're wanting to do things for other people. So I want to run a campaign where there's very little in it for them at all. It really is about them helping others. And I went, okay, this is a great concept. Let's try this. Um , it was the worst campaign we've ever done. Like it was a complete and outset from , from that kind of world's view of this would have been a complete amount of failure. Uh , we had, we almost, we had so many prizes to give away. We almost didn't have enough entries to give away the prizes . We were like, what are we doing? So we kind of adapted it a little bit well about halfway through, but I watched his face and he was so despondent going, Oh my goodness. I thought this was going to work and it didn't work. But we celebrated that hardcore. I got the team together and we're like, we now know exactly how far we can take the altruism kind of level. You know, like how far we can move that lever . And now we know we don't need to play around with them anymore. We can stay in this area here, which we know is going to be productive from a lead generation perspective. And in there we also learnt something else, which is that people don't necessarily like, and this is going to sound so harsh and such a criticism on humans, but they don't necessarily like doing good for other people. They like being seen to be doing good for other people. So from there, we went from that campaign, which from all intensive purposes would have looked like a failure to one of our most successful campaigns ever, because we took the learnings from that and applied it to the next campaign and then boom, it skyrocketed. So again as that 1% movement every single time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think the takeaway is just, don't be afraid to make some changes and stuff. Now, taking that approach to Cigna again at a fortune 500 corporation, I know that it's often even in small businesses sometimes can be really difficult to take the stance as a marketer that, Hey, I want to do something a little. I want to do. I want to try something a little experimental. I want to try something a little wild or something. That's not common because so many CMOs and marketing managers, they want to play it safe. They want to , they want to do the right thing. And the easy thing, I don't want to say the easy thing, but the traditional stance to try to just have their steady growth and be able to show their proven results. And you know, your 2%, 3%. So you're , you know, you're doing a good job, but you're never having any big breakthrough and you're not, you're not, you know, you're not thinking outside the box, you're just kind of staying on this straight line and , and hoping for the best. So how did that, that whole concept in that framework apply when now you're, you're in Cigna ?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, Oh my goodness. You have a challenge on your hands. And a lot of that challenge is that comfort zone that you just kinda mentioned really, you know, it's, it's the CEO, it's the other C-suite executives and everything all going, Hey, this is how we always do things. Why don't we keep doing what we're always doing? Cause it's nice to say exactly. So one of the things you have to do, you have to bring them on the journey with you. And part of that is making them feel like they're part of the experimentation as well. So getting their buy-in on it early going, Hey, you know, what are the areas that we can experiment in getting their kind of feedback and this? So when you're running an experiment , they actually have a vested interest in it as well. So that was one of the keys there to get them actually interested in what you're doing. But the other is I wanted to prove that we could do this without impacting our bottom line, essentially. So we set up [inaudible] principle where I say like 80% of we do is going to be that the usual 80% of what we do is going to be generating the same leads, converting the same people, just continually, you know, like trying to grow that as much as possible, but the other 20% is where we're going to experiment. And we actually see the side 20% of our budget , um, and said , this is where experimentation, which then becomes really tricky if you're not meeting your monthly targets because everyone looks at their budget and goes, Hey, you can cancel that. Well , no , no , no , let's keep pressing in . But then it was proving the value to the C-suite. And particularly the CEO was actually bringing them on the January saying, this is what we learnt from this. These were the insights we gained from this campaign. And in some cases, those insights then impacted other areas of the business. So for example, if we were trying to promote a particular product , um , and then we found that actually there was some challenges and some of the insights that we came out was that people didn't really understand certain aspects of their product. Then the CEO and the head of product can get together and we can go, right. This is what our learnings from this let's make this the best product possible. So it was , it was kind of trying to take them on the journey, leaving them know that it's a, ring-fenced kind of a portion of time of energy, of costs that you're using for experimentation, but then also making sure they feel like they're part of it as well. Uh , and , and it's not easy.
Speaker 1:Right? And in the end that that experimentation had a positive outcome.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And the positive outcome may be a positive result or it may be a positive insight that you can use in the organization. Yeah ,
Speaker 1:Sure. That's great. Uh, so what led you to the podcasting? So you have the chasing the insights book, and then you have the chasing the insights podcast, which you now got a little over 50 episodes. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes. We're faster . We were putting them out two per week now, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:Um , yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a rig original .
Speaker 3:Yes it is. But it all comes from , uh , one thing, which I know you'll appreciate Justin, which is, I'm a firm believer in not selling, but serving. And what I mean by that is, or like I just have this desire to impact as many people as possible. And one of the things I'm trying to teach people is the more you impact others, don't worry about the money aspect of that. The money flows that the money follows when you're making impact. So I looked at my business, I looked at what I wanted to achieve with writing my books and with accidentally becoming a marketing coach, all these kind of things I looked at, how can I scale the impact that I'm having? How can I reach more people? How can I make sure that we're actually adding value to the industry? And then the podcast was the , the kind of obvious choice from that anyway. Um, I sure, especially with those deals that I've, I like leaving radio was a difficult decision. It was easy in the sense that they paid so poorly, but it was difficult in the sense of, I really didn't enjoy my job and I loved being on radio. So I thought, well, what's the new version of radio really? Because radio is kind of dying these days and that's podcasting, podcasting is huge. And I'd been featured on a number of different people's podcasts, the world. And I I'd always kind of said, yep , I want to do one one day. But it was a one day. And a lot of that came down to me pretending to be a perfectionist, but actually, you know, just being scared to put myself out there. Um , and I was on somebody else's podcast. And at the end of the show, we may have finished after the clips , you know, stop on the record. Um, he just said to me, look, when are you going to get your head out of your butt and launch a podcast? He said, because I want to listen to it. And that was, that was when I went, okay. I realized that I'm , I'm procrastinating here. I'm pretending it's perfectionism, but it's not. So I did irreversible action. I said, okay, while we're talking, I'm going to put it out there. And I posted on social and just said , Hey guys, I'm launching a podcast in six weeks time, it's going to be called. And I went chasing the insights. There you go. And just kind of put it out there now you're committed . And then at that point, everyone went, Oh, we're interested. We're keen, we're keen. We want to be a part of this. Or, or we can't wait to listen to it. And at that point, it be really embarrassing not to deliver. So I had to very quickly work out how the hell to create a podcast. I was like, Oh my goodness, I have no idea what I'm doing. Um, and then get a lineup of guests and everything and launch on that date and has been one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable things I've ever done. Um, it is, I just get to interact with the coolest people around the world like yourself, Justin and other entrepreneurs and awesome people. I get to talk them through their journey, extract all the insights out of them and help entrepreneurs to get that kind of unfair advantage, which is amazing. And some of it is , it is mind-blowing .
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is wild. What a unique channel , uh , that we have available to us, that we can have these communications and that I can be sitting in New York. You're sitting in New Zealand and here we are having a , uh , essentially a radio show discussing business. And, and to have that opportunity to niche down to the specific thing that people really want to listen to is , is really a beautiful,
Speaker 3:Especially by the way, we didn't have a global pandemic on it's like, COVID, COVID be damned. We're in New Zealand, in New York and we're still interacting. This is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1:It is really wild. It really is wild. So two, two questions. I always ask every guest at the end. Uh , one is what is the biggest mistake that you've ever made in business that actually turned out to be a valuable learning lesson because I I'm a firm believer that it's so easy to talk about successes. It's always a lot harder to talk about failures, but I'm also, I believe that you learn from your mistakes and you grow as a person every time you make a mistake. So I think I always enjoy hearing what other people's mistakes were. So hopefully one, I don't make them. Uh, and , and to , uh , again, almost chasing the insights as to how that mistake became a learning experience.
Speaker 3:Yes. I ha how long do we have on the podcast? I've got so many, I've made so many mistakes. Um, well I think I might cheat here. That's an undo two because there's two very powerful lessons that I learned , um, through business and through making mistakes. And the first one is one that I didn't just learn from, but I continually learn from, cause I always seem to make the same mistake. And then as you can't do this alone , um , in business and as an entrepreneur, it often feels like you're alone. It feels like the , especially if you're a solopreneur or a coach or whatever else, you sometimes feel like you're doing this in a bubble. Like it's , it's, I'm having to come up with all of this myself. I'm going to have to keep putting myself out there, but actually growing a team is easier than you think in getting big, like being able to delegate to people, the areas that you're not as strong and being able to focus on your area of expertise in it's such a freeing, like a feeling like , honestly, it'll, it'll just transform your business completely. So that's one of the biggest lessons I've had to learn. Um, and I've made that mistake at every company that I've been there at every company I've created. There's a point there where you realize, wait a minute, I'm trying to do everything myself. I'm trying to make this up as I go along. And it's like, Oh , I need a team. And that team may be people that work for you, but it also is getting yourself a coach, getting yourself a mentor, getting yourself a peer group that you can talk to that you can go, Hey guys, I've got this problem and they can go, Oh, I had that problem a week ago. Here's what I did. Uh , honestly, all the information is out there. You just need to be connected and you need to be with a group of people that can help you. So that was probably the biggest learning I think I've ever had in the biggest mistake I've ever done constantly in business. Um, the C it's really ?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really an opportunity cost equation, right? So like, I know as a computer engineer, you're starting a new business and you're going to be inclined to be like, well, I'll wire the network and I'll, I'll set up the router and I'll, I'll do the website and you do it. And then you're like, wait a second, wait, what am I actually doing this business for? Do I, do I still want to be a computer engineer? Or do I want to start this other thing? So I totally understand how easy it is, especially when it's something that's in your wheelhouse to let go of it .
Speaker 3:[inaudible] yeah , obviously I'm a macula I've been selected as one of the top 50 magnetism in the world. So I think to myself, well obviously I should do all the marketing myself and one of my team I've just hired some new VAs and one of them turned around and challenged me how cool and went, okay, I know, you know what you're doing, but I also know you don't have time to do what you want to be able to do. And from a marketing perspective, I'm going to make your call and say, you want to do this, but you've never been able to do it. And I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I want to do. And she went, so how about you? Like , listen to the ego, let go, and let me do that for you. And I'm like, this is the exact person I should have hired long ago.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. And , and for anyone listening who doesn't know, VA's virtual assistant and obviously that's, that's become a big thing. Uh, you know, over the past few years, again, for the , for the same reason we're having this podcast, it's easy to , uh, to solicit the help that you need in your business.
Speaker 3:Well , I've got a team, I've got a person in Canada, a person in the Philippines and a person in Ghana , um, or working with me and just some of the most amazing , like honestly zoom calls with these people. The most enjoyable thing ever like is what I looked forward to every week is jumping on a zoom call with them go right team. Here's what we want to achieve this week. It's fantastic. So,
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really incredible. And then my , my last question of course, is what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given either personal or business? Uh , what, what's something, is there anything someone has said to you at some point that just resonated, you know , throughout your entire career?
Speaker 3:Um , Oh my goodness. Again, so many of these , uh, I think probably the one that's impacted me the most recently was someone who said to me, you're allowed to have a bad day. And I know that sounds really random, but I was, I was beating myself up a bit as I do. I'm quite like most entrepreneurs, we're quite harsh on ourselves, very forgiving of everybody else and quite unforgiving ourselves. And I had one of those days where you wake up , um , which every entrepreneur goes through, you wake up and you go, what the hell am I doing? Like, seriously, why am I doing, I should get a real job or I should be an adult? Or like, what am I doing here? Why would anybody pay for my services? Why would anyone want to hear my advice? Why would you know , it's just the usual petty Patty we have , uh, we we've got our hidden imposter syndrome scan cam cam come on the safe side of the cancer. Um, and I said to them, I said, it really gets me that that affected me because it made me very unproductive for half a day. And they went, you do realize you're allowed a bad day, that you're a human being, which means you, you ride a rollercoaster , not every day is going to be up. You have updates, you have down days. That's kind of what makes us unique and wonderful. So actually giving your per self permission to go, you know what, I'm just going to take a moment. I'm going to reset. I'm going to reap , I'm going to pause. I'm going to take some time for myself. I'm going to energize myself and then come back at the business has made me even more productive because those times where I stop and instead of trying to push through all the time, the times where I stop and go, I need to take some time for myself and Vista myself. Then when I come back, it's so much faster. I'm so much more productive. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. The thing that I didn't think I would get done in the timeframe ta-da , it's now done and I've got time to spare. Uh , so that's why I'm, but the other, the other bit of advice I had was , um, so my backgrounds , I don't get too much into it, but I grew up in poverty and I grew up in abuse. So I grew up in a environment where you wouldn't want any child to go through. And unfortunately it was quite common for the area where I lived at the time. Um , my wife as well has gone through so much in her childhood. Um, and I remember feeling because I grew up not realizing there was any hope of success whatsoever. It was like, this just wasn't thought of in our community. It wasn't thought of where I grew up. Wasn't thought of in my family, that's for sure. So the whole concept of succeeding or putting yourself out there was really, really foreign. And I remember talking to a friend of mine and I was having one of my petty parties going, Oh man, why do I have to go through everything? I went through? Why can't I be like XYZ person who grew up in a family where they know what success looks like? So they teach that to their children. Why can't I grow up in an environment where you're supported and where you have dreams and hopes and all those things that were not really available to us as kids. And I think he responded with the most profound thing I've ever heard, but I think he did it because he was getting really annoyed at my petty. Patty shut me up. But he turned around and he said, you do realize that everything you've gone through counts for something, don't you. I went what, and he goes, everything you've gone through. And he said, no , I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Right. Wouldn't wish the abuse wouldn't wish any of those kinds of things on any person, but everything you've gone through has shaped you into who you are today for good and for bad is it. But what it's done is it's made you one of the most empathetic people I've met. It's made you have a deep understanding and curiosity about other people. What makes them tick, why they do what they do and how to be there for them. He goes, you've actually turned into an awesome human being because of what you've been through. And that to me, made me realize that, you know, you can always, you can always look backwards. You can always look and go, I'll pull me. Why did I go through that, blah, blah, blah. Or you can go, you know what? There was a chapter of my life and it is taught me this and it's made me into who I am and I'm something pretty awesome. And I think everyone listening to this podcast would consider to be awesome human beings, right ? Regardless of what you've been through. So if you can use that and shift your mindset to go, okay, the stuff in the past has helped me to get to where I am now, but now I'm going to focus forward. Then that is so profound. And it really did change my perspective. It made me realize that actually I am quite pleased with who I am. I'm quite pleased with what I've turned into. Um, and that shaped how I approached my business and how I approach my life as well. So big lessons learned, trust me,
Speaker 1:That's incredible and credit . Yeah. That self confidence is so important, too. Awesome. Well, Vince, thank you so much for being with us and definitely check out chasing the insights, the book you can get that on Amazon I'm sure. And probably a lot of other places. And of course it makes sure you follow and subscribe to chasing the insights podcasts with Vince. It's a great podcast and I think anyone would gain some important insights from listening to it. And is there anything else I've missed?
Speaker 3:Look , I think I would make it really easy for people to get in touch with me. I think just go do chasing the insights.com and so the podcast, but everything's on there as well. But the other thing is if anyone, and this is open to any of your listeners as well, marketing can be a little bit overwhelming. Um, it can genuinely be something that people just look at and go, Oh my goodness, I'm putting all this expectation on myself. I've got to be on every social media platform. As I build my business, I'm going to be putting content out and you know, 20 times a week or something. Um, if you want to make sense of all of that, I'm always keen to jump on a free call with people. Um , there's no obligation whatsoever. Jump on a free strategy call and I will help you give a sense of clarity at the end of that. So if anyone's open to that, just reach out to me on social media, you can find all the links on chase and the insights.com, but reach out to me, connect with me. I'm always happy to help people. Like I said, I want to impact this world. I want to impact entrepreneurs. So I'd love to connect with all
Speaker 2:You .
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Vince was an absolute honor having you. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. It's been great talking.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much provision . Thank you. Have a great day.
Speaker 1:You for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to follow or subscribe, leave a five-star review. It keeps us going and I super appreciate it. Thanks so much.