Latest / The Jasmine Star Show / Building Boring Businesses, Embracing Questions, and Doing Hard Things with Codie Sanchez

Transcript

Building Boring Businesses, Embracing Questions, and Doing Hard Things with Codie Sanchez · The Jasmine Star Show

• 0:13
  Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show.
• 0:15
  I am very excited to bring in a guest who I waited. We've gone back and forth.
• 0:19
  I mean, like this girl, I feel like I could probably get Oprah on this show sooner, then I can get Cody Sanchez.
• 0:23
  But let me tell y'all, she is worth the stinking wait. She is founder of Contrarian Thinking.
• 0:29
  This is gonna be a newsletter, a media company, and it's read by hundreds of thousands of people, and she's all about critically thinking.
• 0:33
  She has over 25 boring businesses.
• 0:37
  We're gonna get to that in a second.
• 0:38
  But y'all know that on the podcast I bring on people who I have had a personal interaction with. So let's rewind a tiny bit. So a few months ago, I was invited to a mastermind and I'm sitting in this mastermind, it's in Los Angeles, and I actually have no idea who's speaking.
• 0:54
  And I'm sitting, because what I do is I'm actually a nerd, but I choose the second row so that my full fledged nerd is not out like waving my crazy flag.
• 1:02
  And so then this woman approaches the stage and I'm blown away by her presentation.
• 1:06
  I'm blown away by the fact that she is an ardent lover of boring businesses.
• 1:09
  She gets into tactical stuff, we're talking about creating content, and she wears these really cool boots.
• 1:11
  And I'm like, who is this person?
• 1:15
  She's basically a walking unicorn with long hair.
• 1:18
  And then as if that wasn't enough, she talks about creating millions and she has a fund and she helps other people do the same. And then if that is not enough, there is another woman who takes a stage by the name of Layla Hermo, and there's this q and a.
• 1:31
  And you would think that the thing I was most inspired and blown away by was Cody's presentation in her vast amount of knowledge and her press and all this fancy stuff. But the thing that I was like, oh my God, this person is next level is Layla Heri takes the stage and she is a very well-known c e o of a company that has over a hundred million and she's, I think barely 30.
• 1:51
  And the vast majority of the questions that were asked in probably the first 12 to 15 minutes we're all about, um, no lie in a room predominantly comprised of 90% men, was how she met and dated her husband and business partner and, um, what it was like to be a partner, like a wife to somebody who was so successful. And then I hear, because remember I'm second row, somebody in the far back who somebody says, yes, you're a question. She's like, can we talk to Layla about running a hundred million dollar company?
• 2:19
  And like what she does is for a CEO strategies. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Cody Sanchez, who spits it as she sees it.
• 2:26
  I am so happy.
• 2:27
  You're here, Cody. Oh, that's so funny.
• 2:30
  Remember exactly what you're talking about.
• 2:31
  Cause I was really just trying to hold my mouth or my tongue there for a moment, but I was dying cuz Layla's a friend of mine and I know yours too. And, uh, and I think it's a pet peeve of hers to get asked all the time about dating Alex when she runs the show. And so anyway, yeah, when I was listening to that, I was like, dear Lord in heaven, why are we asking her about something so unrepeatable?
• 2:51
  But I didn't know anybody else noticed.
• 2:51
  I thought it was just me being an.
• 2:54
  Asshole. No, I think what it No, no, not at all. It actually, what it did was it gave me an unknowing that I didn't need. I, I didn't know that I needed permission for me to step up and not just say like, let's change the scope of this conversation, but like, hey, let's carve out a new path for the way that we speak to female leaders in business organizations. But that was the first interaction I had with you.
• 3:14
  And then later as I'm exiting the event, you happen to be sitting in the lobby and I introduce myself and I invited you on the podcast and I really wanted to go and I started following all of your content. And one of the things that I'm really inspired by, and we're gonna get into what it is and who you are, but the thing that like kind of sets you apart in my mind from the stuff that I've been consuming lately is your whole mindset. Like what it means. Like, and you shared a post on your Instagram where you talked about three mindset shifts that changed everything for you.
• 3:37
  And I'm gonna summarize them and then we can kind of like dived into them.
• 3:40
  Your first mindset shift was saying yes to change your second mindset shift was saying yes to hard things.
• 3:47
  And your third mindset shift was admitting what you didn't know. Okay.
• 3:52
  So what was so powerful about shifting your mindset to embrace change, embrace hard things and admit what you didn't know?
• 3:59
  Well, I started in this game kind of young, similar to you.
• 4:02
  And so I thought I knew most things and thus I was unable to change.
• 4:07
  And that's why would I have to do hard things because I already know what I need to know.
• 4:11
  And it's much easier to pretend like you know everything than it is to pretend that you know nothing.
• 4:15
  It's real blow to the ego.
• 4:17
  And when I was in private equity for a long time, there's this perverse mentality that we have in private equity that asking questions and showing that you do not know something is a sign of weaker intellect. And I noticed this because, you know, I was sort of protecting my ego, like, oh yeah, of course.
• 4:35
  Like that's what the EBITDA numbers are and you know this because I was mimicking what I saw people on high due.
• 4:37
  And after a while I met with one of, um, my mentors who I had met back in the day in journalism, her name's Nelly Golan. And she was like, questions are your biggest answer.
• 4:49
  Why would you ever stop asking them? And you know, all you, you don't need the answers to questions, you just need to know the right question to ask and who to ask it to.
• 4:58
  And that's when I realized it does not serve me to have this stuck mindset.
• 5:03
  And I think I had that for many, many years.
• 5:05
  How do you know the right question? Like, there's people who are listening who're, like, I don't even know what the right question is.
• 5:10
  Well, the nice part is you don't have to have just one, but you have to start with one.
• 5:13
  And so when I ask questions, typically the first questions that I ask when I'm trying to invest or do a deal or take a job aren't the right one.
• 5:21
  It's like to get the juices flowing.
• 5:25
  You know, the first time you do a squat, your first squat is wobbly, it feels awful, you know, whatever.
• 5:29
  And then you get into a few of'em and you're like, oh, okay, I'm kinda getting this. It's the same with questions.
• 5:33
  So I typically feel like questions are a funnel, just like a sales funnel is, right? So at the top you wanna start really, really broad and because you don't really know where you're trying to go yet.
• 5:42
  So it's like, if I get a deal on across my desk and I'm looking at the deal, I start with really broad questions.
• 5:46
  What do you want for this business?
• 5:49
  Like how much money do you want for this business? Why are you selling, you know, why did you start this business?
• 5:52
  What is this business really almost?
• 5:56
  They're like, what is this business?
• 5:56
  It's a construction business, what do you mean?
• 5:59
  But I like to hear them start really wide until we narrow it all the way down, which is like, oh, wait a second, your churn is 10% over, you know, month over month. Or you lose this many customers each month.
• 6:09
  So by the end of the year all your customers churn out. That's the question, but I only know it by starting really, really wide. Mm-hmm.
• 6:16
  So giving your, what what I hear is giving yourself the permission to ask a very broad question without knowing, oh, this is the right question. Like, you only know the right question after you've asked a series of questions.
• 6:26
  Yeah, I think that's right. And we're programmed incorrectly in school.
• 6:29
  It's like, good question Sally.
• 6:29
  You know, it's like, no, no, no, just great for asking a question, Sally. Mm-hmm.
• 6:34
  And then you can get into more of the good questions later.
• 6:38
  Okay. So people look at you from the outside, uh, young and really well spoken. And it seems like you have lived, I don't know, 87 lifetimes in , the time that most people are same girl .
• 6:50
  So when people look at this, and we're gonna get into what it is you do, but before we do that, like what's the nutshell version?
• 6:57
  Like we're on an elevator, we got five floors, I'm like, Hey Cody, what do you do? And how did you get here?
• 7:02
  What is that response so that we can contextualize how a listener is gonna take action based on what you've done and then improve their life thereafter?
• 7:10
  I buy boring businesses and now I talk about it on the internet and that's usually exactly what I say. And then people go, what is a boring business?
• 7:17
  And they go, what do you mean?
• 7:17
  You talk about on the internet?
• 7:19
  We scroll down from there. Um, but that's really what I do for a living.
• 7:22
  And the way that I got there is the traditional path. You know, like, oh, I actually read this great quote and I've gotta go back and look at where it's from, but it talked about a study that was done in England where most people thought that you had linear career path. So I become an attorney by going to law school, by working at multiple law firms who eventually become a partner in a legal firm. Okay? That's what we think it looks like. In actuality, they did a study, oh, it's a book called Range. In actuality they did a study of top performers, cross-industry. It was a multi-year study done really well.
• 7:54
  And what they found is that most top performers are more like, uh, ping pong table back and forth and right and left and all over the place until they finally get to a destination they didn't even realize.
• 8:04
  And mine was the same.
• 8:05
  I started in finance very traditionally climbed a ladder for multiple, multiple years. But before that I was a human trafficking journalist, you know?
• 8:12
  And before that I was involved in political campaigns and before that I sold wallpaper for one of my first gems, you know?
• 8:19
  And now I'm on the internet making tos.
• 8:19
  So like, who the fuck knows? Basically?
• 8:22
  Okay, but what? Wait, you just like totally . Now I'm making tos.
• 8:26
  Actually you are not.
• 8:27
  I'm gonna get into the actual business model of what it is you do.
• 8:30
  But quite honestly, that is what Cody does. She takes boring businesses, think of like a laundromat. And I think at the time of this recording, you're going through the process of buying a property management company.
• 8:38
  Nobody wakes up and is like, you know what I need today? I need a coin up.
• 8:41
  You know, it's just like, but Cody's like this is where it is.
• 8:44
  And then you teach other people how to do this.
• 8:46
  So also in a recent Instagram post, you were obsessed with boring businesses.
• 8:50
  Now I wanna talk about when did you become obsessed with this idea of a boring business?
• 8:54
  Because there are are people who think of thoughts and they don't actually don't think that they can turn it into an empire. How have you done? So?
• 9:00
  What happened there?
• 9:01
  Yeah, well I think a good example is the property management company.
• 9:05
  So I get frustrated because for a living now, you know, I talk to people and I do deals and I get frustrated when people think that they can't do deals or they can't become an owner or they can't get equity in a company. And I try to trace the route all the way back to their no.
• 9:20
  Like why do they think that?
• 9:20
  And so I was like, all right, well I need to do a challenge myself to see if I remember what it takes for me to do every single stage of buying a business from the beginning.
• 9:30
  Now I have a team and to do it in an industry that I haven't done before with area that I don't have expertise, how could I do it? And so I basically said, all right, 60 days to buy a property management company that's can get to a million by the end of the year in revenue, not profit.
• 9:45
  And I wanna do it with zero to little money down, basically. And so, um, I started this challenge because I wanted to share with people my exact steps.
• 9:53
  So I'm documenting from day one to now. I think we're on day 21, all steps of this process. Okay.
• 9:59
  Gonna, I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna pause here because there's a lot going on and I wanna repeat back what it is. Cody says, Hey, people say x, Cody says, I'm gonna go back and show you how it's done with everything that you have, which is little to no money.
• 10:18
  I want to build a million dollar business and I'm gonna document my process.
• 10:22
  She's putting her name and her credibility, her belief system into approach on the line showing everybody what she's doing. Okay, next.
• 10:32
  . Yeah, that's right. And so, um, you know, the idea was I wanna try to explain step by step how to get there. I mean, I think it's a crazy goal to do this inside 60 days.
• 10:42
  I usually don't put limits on myself, but it's like people are gonna say, well, you have a platform, you have a bunch of money.
• 10:48
  So I have to try to remove the objections to show them that they can still do it. Yep. Um, and so that to me is a really good example of sort of how I think about life in general. I was working with a private equity firm.
• 11:01
  I was a partner at a firm.
• 11:02
  We did a bunch of big deals and I made one of the senior partners, you know, a middle-aged white guy, a ton of money, and I like white guys in general and I like money, so it's all good.
• 11:11
  But I was like, wait a second, I did all the work on this and now you know, you get to make a hundred million dollars off of this deal and I get to take home X, which was definitely not a hundred million.
• 11:19
  And then I realized why couldn't I do a slightly smaller deal, same structure, um, and cash flow off of it like this guy is, but I don't have to have a whole team.
• 11:28
  And that's what started me on this obsession with not smart enough or it's not my core competency to start the next Tesla or Facebook or whatever.
• 11:38
  But I do know that I could buy a laundromat or I could buy a construction company and uh, I could figure that out.
• 11:45
  And so that's where the obsession with boring businesses.
• 11:47
  Started. Okay, so I wanna pause here and there's two veins that I wanna tap on.
• 11:51
  Number one, what Cody is doing is, is what any business owner can, and I'm an avenger today should do.
• 11:57
  If you are a yoga instructor and you wanna get into a handstand, do the challenge with yourself and invite people.
• 12:02
  And then you document the process of going into a handstand.
• 12:05
  If you're a chef and you're working on a souffle, go through a 30 day process of perfecting the souffle, document the process, and show people. You build credibility and trust by way of that.
• 12:14
  And then you show what is possible in the exact same scenario.
• 12:18
  That's part one. So you're a business owner, content creation, literally documenting exactly what you're already doing and challenging yourself and others to join that.
• 12:26
  But the second part that I'm interested in here is as a business owner, what you're hearing her say and do is something that we as listeners, cause I'm telling you, I'm watching from a distance and I'm like, do I have it in me to buy a laundromat? Can I buy a car wash?
• 12:40
  Like what are other unsexy businesses?
• 12:40
  Now, here's one thing that I look back, I'm like, biggest regret is early in my career I had service-based businesses where I'd get a pretty flesh with cash.
• 12:49
  What I should have done in those times is think about diversifying investments in things that were entirely different than what I was known for.
• 12:56
  I don't regret it. I just look back and I'm like, if I could do it again, I probably would've diversified much earlier. So if you're a business owner, wherever you are in your career and you're listening to this, this is an opportunity to listen carefully to what Cody's doing and what has done. So we went from, I helped somebody make a hundred million dollars.
• 13:11
  And then you asked yourself, could I do something like that?
• 13:13
  Similar on a smaller scale to which the answer we now know is hell? Yes.
• 13:17
  And then after you got your first business, what was that?
• 13:21
  Well, my very first business was actually a website that was called Selling South.
• 13:26
  So I bought a little website, uh, and I did two other internet businesses, one called Threads Refined, and the other one, I can't recall the name before I eventually bought a laundromat.
• 13:36
  My la that laundromat is the one I talk about the most, cuz it's the most repeatable.
• 13:41
  Very cool. So we'll use that, we'll just use that as the anchor.
• 13:45
  You buy a laundromat and then at what point do you start realizing that this is gonna be an extension of your personal brand and you start creating content?
• 13:53
  Because this is what I'm saying on the outside and from research that I've done from the outside, it looks like not only are you buying these boring businesses, you actually have a lot of free content and information to teach people on how to do it on their own. And then you have a mastermind, a group of people who get closer access to you and coaches so that they're then empowered to go and find their own deals and get a little bit more navigation and process through that. And then, and this is a question mark for me.
• 14:18
  Do you also have a fund that people can invest in and that you invest their money into other boring businesses? So there's like, you do the dirty work and then I'll just take a smaller immersion.
• 14:26
  So we don't have that private equity fund that's public.
• 14:30
  We have a small group of partners that I've done a series of deals with.
• 14:34
  We have a public, but it's not open at the moment.
• 14:37
  Venture capital fund that invests in technology that builds the infrastructure of boring businesses.
• 14:43
  So think the software that powers car washes, you know, the software that powers lending to small businesses.
• 14:49
  We have those kind of holdings.
• 14:49
  So maybe one day I, I do a fund, but I've been doing funds Jasmine for like 15 years or something.
• 14:55
  And so at some point I was just like, Ugh, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do anymore.
• 14:59
  I wanna buy whatever I want whenever I want to.
• 15:02
  Okay. So like, let's get into the business of this.
• 15:04
  You're making your money and finding your passion with these boring businesses and you're a renegade, you're a contrarian, you're doing your own thing.
• 15:10
  And then the mastermind, you're finding a lot more purpose in helping other people do that.
• 15:14
  Is this where you wanna be for how long? Like is this it, but how does this then work?
• 15:18
  That's a good question.
• 15:18
  I, I don't know if, if I would ever say I'm very good at doing anything for like 20 years.
• 15:25
  I've always wished that I had that personality.
• 15:26
  That's why I'm a portfolio aggregator.
• 15:28
  I buy lots of businesses as opposed to one business that I'd run for 30 years.
• 15:32
  I think those are two different people, a starter and a maintainer.
• 15:35
  I'm a starter mm-hmm. .
• 15:37
  And so I anticipate that I'm really enjoying what I'm doing right now.
• 15:40
  I've been doing it for two years now. Um, we pulled back a lot on raising funds because I am having more fun doing this at the moment, but I can't anticipate doing anything forever. Um, what I would say is that I can't imagine I ever don't do deals.
• 15:54
  It's my favorite thing to do.
• 15:55
  So like just finding that business executing on it, it's also very lucrative.
• 15:59
  So I imagine I'll always do that, but I'll start playing bigger and bigger games and fewer and fewer of them because as you know, creativity takes a lot of space too.
• 16:08
  So for me to think about how do I wanna write this newsletter and I have a book coming out this year, so what do I want that to be in there, um, means that I can't spend 72 hours on Excel spreadsheets like I used to for sure.
• 16:19
  Mm-hmm. Okay.
• 16:21
  So now that we've seen like the big picture list of um, in recent Instagram post, you talked about the seven things you wish you knew before you started a business.
• 16:29
  And we're gonna link to all the posts that I'm mentioning in the show notes.
• 16:32
  But this is a quote, boring doesn't have to be ugly.
• 16:35
  You mentioned that boring things take it takes time to make them beautiful.
• 16:38
  Can you walk us through an example of a business that you did this? Like, you know, somebody's listening to this, like, I'm not Okay. Okay, good, good, good.
• 16:43
  Totally. I got one right away, by the way. You're really a great interviewer.
• 16:47
  I'm sure they're like, your audience can learn a lot from that, but just even sometimes they'll come on a podcast and they'll quote me and I'm like, oh God, please tell me what the hook is of that because we put out so much content every day, , I'm like, sh yes, that was important, but I don't remember the line. Ok. No, no.
• 17:03
  I got you girl. I got you. I got you.
• 17:05
  So good. It was great. Um, so, uh, we have this company we bought called approachment.com and I actually need to, I'll tweet out after this or Instagram story, a picture of what the Approachment old website used to look like. I mean, it's hysterical. It almost looks like a mix between like, um, like an Asian nail spa, and like maybe a call center. I don't know. It's super bad.
• 17:30
  Okay. And so, and anyway, what it is is it's um, it's a DM AI enabled service that allows small businesses to text back and forth. So like, basically you're like, I need a handyman and handymans are all closed and so after hours or you have to call the handyman, I'm like, no, no, no, I just want somebody to be able to text right away and get an answer about can I get a handyman to come to my house tomorrow at five?
• 17:53
  I don't wanna talk to anybody. Bye.
• 17:53
  So that's what the service does.
• 17:56
  So we started from this like horrific website to a really good looking website.
• 18:01
  It probably took, I mean Jasmine maybe like 10 hours and $2,000.
• 18:07
  The, they originally had a one 800 number as the only way to communicate.
• 18:12
  There was no email that you could email responses.
• 18:15
  They were a text service and they didn't offer their own service to the people who came to the website. Mm-hmm. Um, they didn't have Google reviews. Uh, we still don't have social media, so we need to remedy that. Um, the financials were all done in Excel spreadsheet.
• 18:30
  They didn't even use QuickBooks.
• 18:30
  So like it was just dirty. And um, and that was an really easy quick fix. And then, you know, there's been a lot of businesses, like our first laundromat, oh Mylanta, it was, uh, broken machines everywhere, those dingy light bulbs that kinda like flicker, like a horror movie, you know, and uh, and really old yellow paint.
• 18:52
  And so again, it's not a huge upgrade to the business.
• 18:54
  It's not like we're putting, you know, satin on the walls, but a little bit of better lighting, a deep clean new paint and better equipment.
• 19:03
  And you service a community in a way that gives some respect.
• 19:06
  So do you find now that your brand has been extended, that the deals are coming to you?
• 19:10
  Like when you were talking about that text-based company, did you go and search for them?
• 19:12
  How did that come to fruition?
• 19:15
  Uh, the best thing I've ever did was get online and uh, I fought it because I remember my fir I was working at State Street, a really large asset management group, and I started having a little tiny blog that nobody read. But, uh, my boss came across it and I was a pretty senior person at this time and he was like, you know, your predictions on there about what's happening in Latin American investments at the time could move the market.
• 19:39
  So you can't have that blog so you need to pick between the two. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm making a lot of money over here. It's a no-brainer.
• 19:44
  Of course I'm gonna stay here now in retrospect, maybe not.
• 19:47
  And I've had multiple instances in finance because we have all these licenses and regulations upon us where we are literally legally not allowed to talk about many things when we're licensed.
• 19:58
  So there's a couple things that are coming in at play and she talked about the tension between creating content and in her mind there was a thing she wanted to do and there was a thing that she was doing, and then she used content as gasoline on a fire that had already existed.
• 20:11
  So what we need to make sure that we're hearing as business owners is that the content became the linchpin so that people are showing up hand in hand to say, help me. And so it's like if you're looking at like, Hey, I have a great service. I love what I do and I want a greater flow.
• 20:24
  Content has become on that. Um, just yesterday I saw you post on Instagram stories, uh, a this or that between two YouTube thumbnails and it was about a cleaning business.
• 20:34
  How much are you getting insights from one platform and applying it to another?
• 20:40
  Thumbnails we've realized are just so important for YouTube, the title and the thumbnail.
• 20:44
  And I really don't like to operate from that place place. I'm like, I want to do this video and because of that I will do this video and the right way, the right way.
• 20:52
  I think the better way to do YouTube is to have your title first and probably a really good idea of what your thumb nails gonna look like. I know.
• 21:00
  Dang it. And then work it into that.
• 21:00
  Yeah. Ah, I know it's tough, but you know, and I think it's a balance too, because you have to decide also as a creator, what do you really wanna do?
• 21:09
  Is everything just for mass virality or do you also wanna have an authentic voice? I'm sure you know, Casey and I stat back in the day, didn't go as viral right away because he didn't have clickbait titles, he didn't have clickbait images.
• 21:19
  And so you kind of decide.
• 21:22
  But what I have found is that there's hardly ever a situation in which there isn't an overwhelming winner in a category on a different platform.
• 21:30
  And so for me, I'm like, I kinda like both. I can't really decide.
• 21:33
  And then you put it on Instagram, you're like, what, 75% like this one over this one?
• 21:35
  Wild. I guess we'll go with that.
• 21:39
  Hmm. And so as listeners are listening, you might not have a business that buys boring businesses or has a mastermind that facilitates people who does. But what I wanna peel back and say is like, here's a person who ping ponged her way through success to end up where she is.
• 21:53
  And so if you find yourself ping ponging, trust that it's part of the process.
• 21:56
  And then she's creating content not to sustain the business, she's creating content to grow the business.
• 22:03
  And so I wanna talk a little bit about content in your content creation and what that actually looks like.
• 22:06
  Because when I heard you speak, you were talking about the teams that you have and like the strategy behind it.
• 22:12
  Can you talk a little bit about what it looks like?
• 22:15
  And so I want y'all to check out her content. It is visually interesting, it keeps you engaged. It's very hard to peel away from. And then Cody, when you speak Spanish, I'm just like, let's go Latinas, let's go.
• 22:27
  I forgot you were a Latina too. I love.
• 22:30
  That. Yes, yes.
• 22:31
  I loved that video about your dad and like you were speaking on the stage about money and like the Latino, you know, sort of heritage and how hard it was.
• 22:39
  I totally, I was like, oh girl, I remember that. Yep. Okay.
• 22:42
  Good. Okay, so let's put the content hat on right now.
• 22:45
  Like when you say I wanna do a video, like what then does that talk to us about the inception process?
• 22:50
  Talk down how it distills down to the team and then let's go act to actual like practicality, like doing the dang work. Are you the one posting?
• 22:56
  No, I don't do any of the actual posting. I don't do any of the editing.
• 22:59
  I don't do any of the graphic design. Um, so.
• 23:02
  You say I wanna do a video.
• 23:04
  I say I wanna do a video. And usually I don't say it, I'm a writer.
• 23:07
  Like my mind goes first to written format. So I'll write down, oh, this is an interesting video idea. Like, uh, how to buy a property management in 60 days. Can we do it? So I'm like, this is an interesting idea. Then I'll send it to my team and say, this is about to be a lot of work from you. Is this an awful idea?
• 23:22
  Do you like this idea? And you know, sometimes I'll say, yeah, that's awful.
• 23:26
  Beat it. And you know, I'll, when.
• 23:28
  You say you send it to your team, because I'm trying to avoid all of the follow up questions.
• 23:31
  When you say you send it to your team, are you sending it to your entire creative team?
• 23:34
  Are you sending it to one person? Like what is, who are you sending it to?
• 23:37
  No, it would be, so it's all done on Slack, and that would be to our YouTube team.
• 23:39
  So just an individual channel on YouTube.
• 23:43
  Okay. And we specialize by channel. So there's a YouTube team, there's a short form content team, which is Instagram and TikTok.
• 23:51
  There's a Twitter team and there's a newsletter team.
• 23:53
  And then because we have two newsletters, there's actually two newsletter teams and then we're gonna launch a contrarian thinking channel as well.
• 23:58
  And so we try to be, what I found in the beginning is that I started with a ton of generalists, um, for number one generalist me, right?
• 24:06
  Like I took out the trash for a year and then I hired another generalist underneath me, and then I hired another generalist.
• 24:12
  And then at some point I was like, oh gosh, this is terrible because everybody's in each other's lanes and it's pretty much the same in every business, but you have to start hiring pros, um, that specialize. So I get that idea, I send it to my team, they say, yeah, that's an interesting idea. And then typically I'm a wobbler.
• 24:30
  I'm like a professional wobbler.
• 24:31
  So I'll like wobble around on the idea for a while, I'll procrastinate on it, I'll like write down some thoughts, all in notion where we keep all of these, uh, documents.
• 24:40
  And then I need like an hour or an hour and a half period where I can just really sit down. At some point nobody talked to me, shut the door candle on and I'll write the, uh, sort of the entire script.
• 24:52
  And then the part that we've started to get really good at, I think is we'll write the script.
• 24:56
  I'll get it to my team for them to think about thumbnail and title, or I might have a title and thumbnail idea and I'll send it to them and make sure they like it. So first we think, what do we wanna tell people?
• 25:06
  Then we think, how do we wanna tell them this?
• 25:09
  That means like visually what will it look like to tell them the story?
• 25:12
  And then we think about how do we want them to feel throughout it.
• 25:14
  And that's not necessarily 1, 2, 3, but those are three things we do in concert.
• 25:19
  And in the beginning we focus so much on what we didn't focus on how we were gonna visually show it. And we definitely didn't focus on how we wanted you, the viewer to feel about it. And the second we started doing that, the ones we do it for for the videos become a lot better.
• 25:34
  So going back to Brass Tack, you're writing into your YouTube team and say, I have a 60 day to launch idea. They respond, yes, you close the door light a candle, hour, hour and a half, you script it out, you turn the script over to them and they get into thumbnails, titles, B-roll shots. And then, then what happens?
• 25:55
  Then we, um, well we film one time a week, uh, because I do run these other businesses, so I, I don't have a ton of time for filming.
• 26:02
  So we have one day a week that sort of batch all of our content.
• 26:06
  And sometimes if we have a video we have to travel for, like the one we launched today, actually, um, that one might be off schedule, maybe we have to film a different day.
• 26:13
  But one day my videographer comes over, I have a studio set up here, we do a lot of talking head videos like this, so it'll at least start here and then we sort of tick through all of our videos.
• 26:26
  I try now increasingly to not just be in this one sphere, I'd like to break the third barrier. I'd like to like get out in the real world, right? And so, um, there's usually a mixture of in-studio and out of studio.
• 26:38
  Mm, this is incredible. And so then turning back, the the short form team, and then as far as the posting goes, somebody else will do it.
• 26:45
  Are you leading captions?
• 26:48
  Are they pulling from the script?
• 26:49
  You know, it's a good question. So for captions for Instagram in particular, a lot of them come from this little tiny blog I have that doesn't have many readers called tinkering.
• 26:58
  And it's a tiny little paragraph that I write once a week.
• 27:02
  And so I'd say our best written captions are usually the, this is, it's almost like a public journal for some reason.
• 27:07
  So cool.
• 27:08
  Yeah. And they're a little bit fluffier.
• 27:11
  They're like more poetic maybe on our better days. Uh, I think they're more interesting. And so those become a lot of the captions. Um, and then I ask our team to pull a lot of captions from the newsletters.
• 27:24
  What typically happens is I've had three people that manage Instagram for me over the last two years. Um, and two of them are still with me.
• 27:31
  They just moved up to new roles and one of 'em didn't work out, but they all start with not getting my tone.
• 27:36
  And they'll be like an L O L O mg high five in there and I'll die on the inside and then I'll edit it out . And then, but after about 30 days of some corrections, they'll get it and they put it inside a document that's called, uh, like Instagram best Practices Guide.
• 27:52
  We have one of those for all platforms.
• 27:55
  And so anytime I see something I don't like, I make it painful for them and I'm like, I don't like this.
• 28:01
  Go to the document and tell me why I don't. And then they're like, oh, right, cuz located here. Whereas if I just tell them I don't like this, they don't really learn.
• 28:07
  They just fix the thing good, but they don't have to search for why.
• 28:11
  Oh, that's like a golden nugget. Y'all like, rewind this like 30 seconds and listen to that very fact.
• 28:18
  You are gonna find the reason why it didn't work because it's already been documented. Okay, so this has been a flash fire, like everything across the board knowing about your approach, how you got started. But the biggest pullback is any business owner.
• 28:32
  Any business owner.
• 28:33
  The goal here would be to find a way to embrace that there is no such thing as the right question.
• 28:38
  And to give yourself permission to ask questions until the right one surfaces.
• 28:42
  And then to understand that there is not a linear line of success.
• 28:46
  And to embrace the processes getting you to where you wanna go.
• 28:49
  In addition to that, you're gonna be creating content that positions you as a thought leader so that your leads come to you and l instead of you going after them.
• 28:58
  And then we talked about the actual like nitty gritty content creation.
• 29:01
  Like if y'all are interested in why I believe Cody's content is popping is because it's a hundred percent authentically Cody.
• 29:08
  So she is lighting a candle and she's doing the work.
• 29:11
  And I think that at some point we look at other people and be like, oh, well everything must be done. And it's like that point of origin, what can she not sacrifice and then empower her team along with systems and structures to actually know what she wants to put out on the world. Okay, so I wanna end by one final Instagram post. Now you wrote on this post, now that we know it's probably from Tinker or you know, from one of your epic, uh, newsletters, the only time you truly lose is when you stop trying.
• 29:34
  Failure is inevitable in the game of entrepreneurship, but we either succeed or we learn a lesson.
• 29:38
  The only way we can lose the game is by not brushing it off and trying again.
• 29:43
  Can you speak to the person who's listening right now?
• 29:46
  well, Cody has a lot of experience and she is well spoken and she's smart and she's done a lot of ping ponging and I'm just not there.
• 29:53
  I don't have that option.
• 29:53
  I am afraid to start.
• 29:57
  What would you tell that person and where they are right now?
• 30:00
  Well, I'm, I think this time of year is pretty interesting. Um, lots of people setting goals. Um, one of the things that I like to do before I set goals, it's called the Moogi.
• 30:11
  Um, I haven't always called it that, but I found a fancy new word for it, so I'm sticking with it.
• 30:14
  Did you write this in one of your recent newsletters?
• 30:16
  I did.
• 30:17
  Girl, you know, I subscribe, I subscribe, I subscribe.
• 30:20
  I've done drank this to you. Well.
• 30:21
  You're gonna I have to do one now.
• 30:23
  I know, I know. Ok, go on. Sorry, I jumped ahead. Okay, go, go. Sorry.
• 30:26
  Oh, I love it. So basically the idea is that you do one thing, you do one thing for a day that is so hard that it makes the other 364 days easy by comparison, right?
• 30:37
  And what I found is we have all these things we can do that then we start to feel guilty if we don't do them.
• 30:42
  Ah, I didn't work out today.
• 30:44
  I didn't get my cold bath today. I ate badly today.
• 30:47
  And we compounded a whole avalanche of guilt on top of us.
• 30:51
  And instead what we remember at the end of our days, I'm pretty sure is never the 312 days that we missed doing workouts over our cumulative lifetimes. Right?
• 31:00
  We instead remember those moments of extreme difficulty where we prevailed of extreme joy where we earned it. And so the Mao is that idea.
• 31:11
  And um, my first Mao that I did was I hiked a mountain and when I heard of the term hike the mountain, I thought, well, I'm just gonna be, you know, my little flowers, I'm gonna have a coffee. It's gonna be able to kind of skedaddle up this thing.
• 31:23
  No, it was like a blizzard. I had crampon on. I had an ice ax.
• 31:27
  We were falling in crevices.
• 31:27
  It was a nightmare.
• 31:29
  We had to carry our actual fecal matter.
• 31:31
  It was literally the worst thing imaginable. I hated every moment of it.
• 31:34
  By the way. I'm, I hate the cold and I'm scared of heights.
• 31:37
  It's like I don't know what I was thinking. And so anyway, I did it.
• 31:40
  I was so pissed. I was miserable the whole time. And then I get down and when, you know, for like the next three or six months, everything's just a little easier because it's not that.
• 31:49
  And so I try to do that at least once a year. And that's what I would tell you.
• 31:52
  You don't have to go hike or climb a mountain, but do that awful workout until you almost feel like you're going to pass out or vomit and try to insert, you know, maybe it's just once a year, maybe it's once a month, that terribly hard thing because you'll realize you're a lot harder to kill than you think. And that probably stems a lot from my husband too.
• 32:12
  Cause he's a former, um, military man and you know, all the time I'll come with something like, ah, this idiot said lol omg on my captions. And he'll be like, is anybody gonna die? You know, and nobody's gonna die.
• 32:25
  And so like nine times outta 10 we're fine.
• 32:27
  But the problem is our monkey brain doesn't know the difference between lion attacking and person, you know, being late to your zoom call.
• 32:34
  And we can't differentiate. And so we have to make the differentiation real.
• 32:37
  Hmm.
• 32:38
  So I think Mark Twain said something similar. He said, if you start your day by eating the toad, everything else is easier. So yeah, cheers to climbing mountains and carrying fecal matter and to swallowing a toad and realizing that our reptilian brain can differentiate between being mauled by a lion and somebody being late to a zoom call.
• 32:56
  You embody all of these principles so, so, so much. Cody sanchez.com.
• 33:01
  I subscribe to your newsletter.
• 33:01
  And the crazy thing is, you know, I followed you for a while on social, it's kind of like, and then I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to go deeper. And you generously, I was talking to you before we started rolling and you had said that there was also a resource, even if people aren't necessarily all about newsletters, that you do have a resource for recession, recession planning.
• 33:18
  So I'm gonna drop a link. It will be in the show notes, but it's contrarian thinking.com/recession.
• 33:25
  Cody Sanchez and you can find her on all social platforms at Cody Sanchez.
• 33:29
  You're incredible.
• 33:30
  Thank you for your contrarian brain and thank you for sharing.
• 33:32
  So valiantly and generously with everybody who's watching you create your empire, it's so inspiring Right.
• 33:38
  Back at you. I appreciate your dance moves, honestly. That's one thing.
• 33:41
  I have. We're gonna end there. We're gonna end there, we're gonna end there.
• 33:43
  We're really gonna end there.
• 33:44
  Like I'm gonna have a heart attack watching you work, and you're gonna have a heart attack with my booty dropping. This is great.
• 33:49
  This is, this is just fantastic. I, I'm so on. This is where we're it?
• 33:53
  Cody Sanchez. You're freaking amazing. Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 33:56
  Thanks Jasmine.