Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Holding the Checks: Anna Covert on the Day She Took Her Agency Back

Transcript

Holding the Checks: Anna Covert on the Day She Took Her Agency Back · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Foreign.
• 0:07
  Welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 0:09
  Aloha, Dave.
• 0:11
  Aloha.
• 0:12
  Yes, Anna, you're in beautiful Hawaii right now.
• 0:18
  Super excited to have you here because you actually have the largest, the largest digital marketing agency in Hawaii.
• 0:25
  You've been an entrepreneur for quite a few years.
• 0:28
  You're a podcaster, you're a multiple time author.
• 0:34
  Crazy, crazy story that you have too.
• 0:36
  It's a very, I think our listeners will get a lot of value.
• 0:39
  So just to set the stage, can you talk about how you became an entrepreneur and then how you ended up here?
• 0:45
  Sure, I'd love to.
• 0:47
  Well, I think really when I think back, I started my first entrepreneurship at a very young age.
• 0:52
  I was selling my parents pictures that I drew when I was just five years old.
• 0:57
  I'm like, oh, they had to buy the pictures from me.
• 1:00
  And I had business shortly after a dog walking company at 8 with a girlfriend.
• 1:05
  And so I think I've always had a, it's always been in me.
• 1:08
  You know, we had lemonade stands and I was always thinking about how to make money and business and, you know, fulfilling needs for people.
• 1:16
  And so I went to business school in Boston and I did a degree in marketing.
• 1:20
  And back then there really wasn't digital advertising.
• 1:22
  You know, I graduated in 2005 and well, yes, we had websites and there was some online things going on, but it was more like a virtual brochure.
• 1:33
  Not, not, not what we have today.
• 1:35
  Obviously there's no social media.
• 1:37
  And that kind of came later, right.
• 1:39
  And exploded.
• 1:40
  I actually moved out to Hawaii in the end of 2004 and I was not planning on staying here.
• 1:48
  I was actually at Bentley University in Boston and I was in a five year master's accelerated program, but I had graduated in three and a half years.
• 1:56
  So they're like, oh, you can't start the accelerated program in the middle or you have to come back and start it with your peers because it's a one year program, right?
• 2:04
  So I came out to Hawaii, my parents were out here, my dad had retired early and they were snowbirding, it's called.
• 2:10
  A lot of people from Aspen, where I'm from, do that.
• 2:13
  They come out, you know, they basically, you know, come, they come for the winters in Hawaii and then they go back to Aspen in the summer.
• 2:20
  So I came out with a boyfriend I was with at the time and I got bored immediately.
• 2:24
  Like what was I going to do?
• 2:25
  And long story short, I, a friend of mine needed help with the nonprofit he was doing for the symphony.
• 2:31
  He, there was a big fashion show called Chic Fashion forward that he had agreed to put on.
• 2:36
  But he was so overwhelmed.
• 2:37
  He really hadn't done much.
• 2:38
  And so I stepped in and after it was concluded, I got three job offers.
• 2:43
  And one was with the Symphony, another was with a golf course, being their marketing person.
• 2:48
  And the last one was marketing director for Paul Brown Salon and Spas, which was a really big opportunity.
• 2:53
  He had the largest salon and spa chain here in Hawaii, seven locations.
• 2:57
  Eventually it became in an international product line.
• 2:59
  So I obviously didn't go back to Boston and I stayed.
• 3:03
  And then flash forward we had the recession, 2008 and, you know, marketing budgets kind of started shrinking up at this salon.
• 3:10
  I moved over to my first advertising agency and started doing traditional advertising there with lots of big clients.
• 3:17
  Long story short, there I met who would become my business partner in my first agency.
• 3:23
  So I was with Doug Harris for two years, then did a small stint with a lady who had this genius idea for a hat company called ET Cease, which stood for Escaping the Sun in Style.
• 3:35
  And it was a protection brand for people who have, you know, if you have skin cancer and you have to get something off your face, really, when you're walking your dog around the block, you know, the sun reflects
• 3:46
  off of the surface of the ground and hits your face and that's, you know, damaging rays to your skin.
• 3:51
  There really wasn't anything beautiful out there for ladies to be able to protect themselves in the car and other places.
• 3:58
  So she had this really great idea and I helped her then launch a product.
• 4:02
  And then I was 28 and this gentleman who was a creative genius at the agency I had been working at temporarily, he was there just kind of as a fill in for someone else.
• 4:15
  He approached me and said that someone had called him and wanted full agency services for a company called Go Airlines.
• 4:22
  And it was like a commuter airline here in Hawaii.
• 4:26
  And I was like, well, let's start our own agency.
• 4:29
  And he was reluctant because he was 20 years older than me and he was very successful already, just doing creative writing and creative production as an independent.
• 4:39
  But I convinced him and we started Wind on Water Communications together.
• 4:43
  And we were doing that for, I want to say, six, six years probably before I decided that it was time for me to start my own agency.
• 4:54
  And I fired him.
• 4:56
  Took all the clients and all the team and rebranded as Covert communication.
• 5:00
  Okay, all right.
• 5:01
  Wow.
• 5:02
  So quite an interesting career journey.
• 5:04
  Appreciate that high level overview.
• 5:07
  You know, like you mentioned, you always had that entrepreneurial spirit in you from a very young age.
• 5:11
  You're always looking at ways to make money and creative things to do.
• 5:15
  So you go to business school, you have some corporate jobs there in the marketing space, you experience some things.
• 5:21
  So when you started the first agency with your partner there, like you said, you know, he, there was this opportunity.
• 5:29
  You just said, let's start an agency.
• 5:31
  Like was that working in these corporate jobs at first?
• 5:35
  Was that always the plan that you were going to go off on your own?
• 5:38
  I did.
• 5:38
  I always wanted to have an advertising agency.
• 5:40
  And back then, you know, Mad Men was a popular show and you know, he, George was my partner's name.
• 5:46
  He had worked at big agencies being creative directors and so he had a lot of experience in agency.
• 5:52
  And I had had those two years experience in accounts at agencies.
• 5:55
  So I had the knowledge to do it.
• 5:57
  And yes, I want, I like the pulse of an agency when I work there.
• 6:01
  You know, the fast pace of there's always a new client, there's always something new to do versus working it directly in a company, you know, it's much slower and you know, you're kind of, it's not as creative.
• 6:13
  At least I felt that like I wanted to be able to use my skills for multiple different industries and verticals.
• 6:20
  So I've always been attracted to that model.
• 6:23
  Okay, all right.
• 6:24
  And you were young, hungry, right, Ready to do it.
• 6:28
  So you said, let's just start an agency.
• 6:30
  And when he eventually agreed, when you started it, even though you had the innate entrepreneurial hunger inside of you and all that, right?
• 6:38
  Like what were, were there any surprises that came up once you started that company?
• 6:43
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• 6:46
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• 7:26
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:27
  You know, and it was lucky for me that George, you know, he had this long standing reputation.
• 7:33
  So a lot of, we didn't really, a lot of clients came, you know, like he knew a lot of people, they wanted creative and then when he said that we had, could provide full services.
• 7:41
  So we got a lot of big clients quickly.
• 7:44
  But what I was, you know, I guess not prepared for was how fast the cycle can come and go, right?
• 7:51
  You know, you can get a big project, you can get a client for even it seems like it's going great.
• 7:56
  You know, their numbers are up, everything's winning, and then all of a sudden, a new president comes in.
• 8:01
  And we call it the kiss of death.
• 8:03
  In my.
• 8:03
  In agency worlds, when there's either a new president or a new marketing director, that's the kiss of death for the current agency.
• 8:11
  Because a president, you know, the first thing that they're looking at is to make themselves look good in front of the board, right?
• 8:16
  This advertising line is one that's easy to cut.
• 8:19
  We know, right, that that's not the smartest thing to do necessarily, but it's easy because it's no over.
• 8:25
  It's not like you're, you know, you don't.
• 8:26
  You don't really, really, really need it right away, right?
• 8:30
  So it's an easy one for people to chop right at the beginning.
• 8:33
  And most often, that's not the reason they do it.
• 8:36
  It's because they have their own team.
• 8:37
  You know, if they're president, they've been in the industry wherever you are.
• 8:41
  Like, I worked in airline industries, baking, all kinds of health care.
• 8:46
  They already have a team that they've been used to at their old job, and they bring them in because they're.
• 8:51
  They considered like a power team, right?
• 8:53
  So it's also worked on the other side for me where that's happened to me.
• 8:57
  Like, I've had clients who have switched jobs, and then I became their new agency because I was their power team.
• 9:02
  So it goes both ways.
• 9:03
  But, you know, it can happen very quickly.
• 9:06
  And actually, one of the.
• 9:08
  But I think it's a blessing, right?
• 9:09
  Well, I'll tell you a short story that we had two big clients, George and I.
• 9:14
  One was Hawaii Pacific Health.
• 9:15
  They are big health network here, and they have all the hospitals.
• 9:20
  And we had another airline.
• 9:21
  This was after Go and in the same week, and I think would be one other client in the same week.
• 9:28
  Three of our largest clients, all we had the kiss of death.
• 9:32
  And it was.
• 9:32
  So I started really panicking, right?
• 9:34
  I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to go back and get a regular job.
• 9:36
  And I was really scared, right?
• 9:38
  And George was like, don't worry.
• 9:40
  He was doing independent copywriting for an agency called Yellowbus in California.
• 9:45
  And he's like, you know, the owner there, he really could use some help in digital advertising.
• 9:50
  He doesn't really know it very well.
• 9:52
  You know, would you Want to do?
• 9:54
  Just like I'm getting paid independently to do copywriting and creative.
• 9:57
  Would you want to come on and help them with some accounts for digital advertising?
• 10:02
  So I thought, sure, that sounds great.
• 10:04
  And I did.
• 10:05
  And through that process, I met my first solar client, which was Solar Technologies, which was a very large SunPower Master Dealership in San Ramon and Santa Cruz, California.
• 10:16
  And it didn't take long, maybe six months, before the owner there reached out and said, hey, you know, I'm unhappy at this agency, and don't you have your own agency in Hawaii and can I just come and work
• 10:28
  with you directly?
• 10:29
  And I was like, well, I don't know.
• 10:30
  You know, let me ask.
• 10:31
  Let me ask George.
• 10:32
  And George said, hey, look, if he's gonna leave and he's gonna.
• 10:36
  He can pick us.
• 10:36
  That's totally fine.
• 10:38
  Of course he did.
• 10:39
  And then that was the end of my relationship with that agency.
• 10:42
  Like, he didn't want to.
• 10:43
  There was a couple other clients who also voiced interest in wanting my opinion.
• 10:47
  And, you know, and it seemed like the Santa Cruz Boardwalk was kind of flirting with the idea of wanting more time with me.
• 10:55
  And so he separated our agreement.
• 10:58
  But during that realization of getting this really powerful SunPower client, that actually was a bridge for my business and took me to whole new levels.
• 11:09
  Because that's when a couple, maybe a year or two later, I get a call from SunPower, who is the largest manufacturer of solar in the world at the time.
• 11:17
  And I thought it was a joke, Dave.
• 11:18
  I'm like.
• 11:19
  I thought it was a prank.
• 11:19
  I'm like, sunpower?
• 11:20
  Yeah, right.
• 11:21
  Who's calling me?
• 11:22
  And it was.
• 11:23
  It was Paul Sullivan from SunPower, and he was in charge of expanding the dealer network which they were building.
• 11:29
  And they had 800, 900 dealers, and they were just putting together this approved vendor, very exclusive approved vendor list.
• 11:38
  And there was only at the time, like, 10 people on the list where you could use your credits.
• 11:43
  So when you were selling solar, you got what's called manufacturer credits, and then you could use those on swag materials, like, you know, T shirts and stuff, or.
• 11:52
  Or certain different types of software or on approved vendors.
• 11:57
  So he approached me, and how he.
• 12:00
  It was kind of a funny story, because how he found out about me was he had heard that Solar Technologies was doing better than a lot of the other California dealers.
• 12:08
  More so than expected, right.
• 12:10
  So he's like, oh, I wonder what they're doing.
• 12:11
  So he went to their website, and then he left.
• 12:14
  And then before you know it, right away, he's being Cyber stalked by the client's ads, right?
• 12:19
  Very, very aggressively in ways he had never seen before at the time.
• 12:23
  So he went back to the site, scrolled to the bottom of the website, saw my.
• 12:26
  My domain, right.
• 12:27
  You know, that I was powering the website, went to my site, and same thing happened.
• 12:32
  He started seeing my ads.
• 12:33
  So now he was very interested and called to see if I would be interested in being one of their marketing providers.
• 12:39
  So it was from my remarketing, so I'm kind of known for, I like to call it cyber stalking, but it's remarketing or retargeting.
• 12:47
  That was my bridge to SunPower.
• 12:50
  And then I got another solar client and then I started.
• 12:54
  I took.
• 12:54
  I separated from my partner and that turned that into over Covid actually was really good for my business and I turned it into 30 solar clients quickly.
• 13:04
  Wow.
• 13:04
  Okay.
• 13:05
  All right.
• 13:06
  So you have experience, you get into the industry, you find a veteran, you guys start an agency, it starts going really well.
• 13:15
  You learn a lot from him now eventually too, right?
• 13:17
  It came to the point where it was time to separate and you, I guess, in your word, like he was, I guess, taking advantage of the situation.
• 13:26
  I felt like, you know, it was twofold because, you know, what happened is that as time went on, less and less real traditional creative was being used.
• 13:35
  People were moving toward online.
• 13:37
  The TV budgets were shrinking, People weren't doing a lot of print ads.
• 13:41
  It was all kind of moving online, right?
• 13:43
  And so I was doing everything right.
• 13:45
  I was doing all the billing, all the social media, I was building websites, all the digital buys, PR email blasts, and I'm, you know, PR the traditional media.
• 13:55
  So I'm really grateful because it made me aware of every facet of this business.
• 13:59
  And that's, I think, key for any entrepreneur out there.
• 14:02
  You cannot, you have to know how everything works.
• 14:05
  You don't have to do everything, but you have to know how it does work so that you're not taken advantage of.
• 14:10
  But eventually, you know, he.
• 14:12
  I was just being drowned in work and there wasn't that much creative for him to do.
• 14:16
  And so he was supposed to, you know, he had told me that he was going to support me, he was going to learn some new skills like SEO and.
• 14:23
  But he didn't.
• 14:25
  And then the kind of icing on the cake or the kiss, our ending for me was when he called me and told me that he was going to go and shoot a television commercial in the mainland with this
• 14:35
  other agency, but he still wanted to get his full salary with our company.
• 14:41
  And no, he wasn't going to share any of the revenue from this other external project.
• 14:46
  And I was like, all right, I was devastated.
• 14:50
  Right.
• 14:50
  I felt really, really, really hurt, you know, that I've been.
• 14:53
  We've been really close and that I, you know, he said he was going to help me, and instead he goes and does this other project.
• 15:01
  So I went and talked to an advisor of mine, my good, dear friend of mine, and my.
• 15:05
  He's like a lawyer and an accountant, so he's the double threat, Alan Schlutzel.
• 15:09
  And I'm like, what do I do?
• 15:10
  And he's like, this is what we're going to do.
• 15:12
  He's like, hold the checks.
• 15:14
  Tomorrow I will file you an articles of incorporation for covert communication.
• 15:19
  And then when he gets back, you sit down and talk to him, and the clients can choose who they want to work with.
• 15:25
  Wow.
• 15:26
  Okay.
• 15:27
  I did.
• 15:28
  And they all chose me.
• 15:30
  Wow.
• 15:31
  So, very, very important lesson there, too, in terms of, like, how partnerships can potentially change and obviously, you know, break over time.
• 15:42
  But really the.
• 15:44
  The biggest thing, too, is, like, if you're not adding value, right.
• 15:48
  Like, then what, you know, you.
• 15:50
  You basically become expendable.
• 15:52
  Right.
• 15:52
  I guess that.
• 15:53
  That would be the lesson there.
• 15:54
  And then, like you said, you were devastated where he was going to take his skill and go make money outside of the partnership and not share any of that.
• 16:02
  So.
• 16:03
  Yeah.
• 16:03
  Yeah.
• 16:04
  Okay, so when this.
• 16:07
  Ha.
• 16:08
  When this happens, right?
• 16:09
  So you're already used to doing everything, right?
• 16:12
  So was there.
• 16:12
  Was there any concern or apprehension about being out on your own, or you were just ready at that point?
• 16:19
  No.
• 16:19
  You know, I think the only thing that I will say that did.
• 16:22
  He said that did stick with me just being a female in business is, you know, when I.
• 16:25
  Because I did exactly what Alan said and I held the checks and we had lunch and I told him what I was doing, and he's like, oh, well, you know, you don't.
• 16:32
  You may not need me now, but you will eventually, like, you'll realize that you need basically a man to.
• 16:37
  To be there.
• 16:38
  Right.
• 16:39
  And so that kind of stung, you know, and.
• 16:41
  But I think a little bit in the back of my mind, I was a little worried, right?
• 16:45
  Did I need.
• 16:46
  Did I need a man?
• 16:47
  Right?
• 16:47
  And I.
• 16:48
  Now I say it.
• 16:49
  And of course the answer is I didn't.
• 16:51
  But I think that that's something that maybe a lot of women go through, right?
• 16:54
  Or especially the.
• 16:55
  In an older, you know, before digital really became what it is today, you know, it was much more, especially here in Hawaii.
• 17:02
  Tourism based, you know, hierarchical.
• 17:05
  There's a lot of.
• 17:06
  Most of the positions in executives were held by men.
• 17:10
  I think this is probably maybe still the case even today.
• 17:12
  We're seeing more women in power now.
• 17:14
  But, you know, and just that fear of, did I need, did I need someone like him, right, to, you know, talk to the men and negotiate and things like that.
• 17:24
  And.
• 17:25
  But I realized very quickly, especially after talking to the clients and approaching them all, that every single one of them was like, we pick you.
• 17:31
  No matter, hands down, we pick you.
• 17:34
  And so I was.
• 17:35
  And then I continue that momentum and that building and the.
• 17:39
  Got the whole team too.
• 17:40
  I took all the contractors with me and I got all the clients.
• 17:42
  It was kind of like a real coup, if you call it.
• 17:47
  Yeah.
• 17:48
  Wow.
• 17:49
  Okay.
• 17:49
  All right.
• 17:50
  So, and then like you said, solar, you really, once you got the first solar client, you really targeted that industry and before long you had 30.
• 17:59
  I mean, that sounds like phenomenally quick to get that many clients within a given industry.
• 18:06
  Well, I had the support of SunPower, so it was like, you know, that was an easy win because here you are, you're a solar company and, you know, you're getting, you get credits.
• 18:14
  Let's say you have $8,000 of credits for the manufacturer and they're going to expire at the end of the year.
• 18:19
  Well, where are you going to use them?
• 18:20
  You know, you could use them.
• 18:21
  You could pick me as your agency and I can, you can get 100% of that money and pay for my services, or you can pick a local agency and you can pay them direct.
• 18:31
  So it's a very, it's an easy sell, right?
• 18:33
  Especially when you're.
• 18:34
  You're supported by the manufacturer.
• 18:36
  So I was very grateful.
• 18:37
  I mean, it was incredible.
• 18:38
  And it kind of all, I'll tell you, David, was interesting because I had those two clients and there were two other agencies at the time in this network, and one was Live, one was Scorpion, and the other was
• 18:52
  Livecraft, I think it was called.
• 18:53
  But they were very big.
• 18:54
  They had.
• 18:55
  One had 90, the other had 60.
• 18:57
  There might have been one more with really large numbers of solar clients.
• 19:00
  And I went to the first conference and it was just like, you know, scrappy and just me.
• 19:05
  And I was really excited about it.
• 19:08
  Right.
• 19:08
  And I got three more.
• 19:10
  So I had five going into the COVID year.
• 19:13
  And then I was getting ready, packing to go to Paradise Point in San Diego.
• 19:19
  That's where the SunPower conference was for the dealers.
• 19:22
  And they shut everything down.
• 19:23
  Right.
• 19:24
  So Hawaii, we totally closed down over here, there was no traffic in or out of the island.
• 19:29
  And so I was, you know, at the time, wow, so upset because I was really looking forward to this event and to.
• 19:35
  To meet new dealers.
• 19:36
  But where the blessing in disguise came is that they moved all of the conference online and then they invited people like myself to do these training Tuesdays.
• 19:45
  So I was exposed to all these dealers one on one, and I was sharing different online strategies and tips with them.
• 19:55
  And that was the momentum because now here we were in a time where people weren't meeting in person.
• 20:00
  They didn't think that they needed a local agency anymore.
• 20:03
  Right.
• 20:03
  So that idea changed of where I was didn't matter.
• 20:06
  It was just that I knew more about this industry and I was a better fit.
• 20:10
  So it was almost sexier that I was in Hawaii, right?
• 20:12
  And they're like, oh, wow.
• 20:13
  You know, it was.
• 20:14
  I was able to leverage that personal branding, and then it really sped up.
• 20:19
  And.
• 20:20
  And also during that time, the other thing that was really, really important for me and my evolution was that I started selling solar.
• 20:28
  So I had almost started a solar company with another dealer in Vegas who had convinced me that we could have a franchise out here in Hawaii.
• 20:39
  And it sounded great, but I won't get into all the details.
• 20:43
  But it didn't work out.
• 20:44
  But during that process, I had started to realize that I need to.
• 20:48
  I need to know how to sell solar if I'm going to be a business owner in a solar solar company.
• 20:53
  And I did.
• 20:55
  And after we parted ways very quickly, I went and started working with a SunPower dealer here in Hawaii.
• 21:02
  I was already doing some of their advertising, and then I started.
• 21:04
  They invited me to do personal selling because they wanted to expand their residential solar sales division.
• 21:10
  And I, you know, do you want to.
• 21:12
  Seems like you're already on the way.
• 21:14
  I already sold a couple systems on my own without really much knowledge of it.
• 21:18
  And so I started selling solar with their head engineer, Gabriel, who is a genius, and I learned so much from him.
• 21:27
  And it was from that experience I sold probably 20 systems in eight months, which is a lot for a huge amount.
• 21:35
  And that experience of sitting with the homeowner and understanding how to build a proposal and talking technology was the next momentum that I needed to then build the largest WordPress plugin in the world.
• 21:48
  Still today, it's called Solar wizard And it's a WordPress solar calculator plugin that I created and developed with my team.
• 21:55
  Covert communication.
• 21:57
  The free version's been downloaded in over 28 countries, and the Paid version.
• 22:03
  It's doing incredible.
• 22:04
  Even still today.
• 22:06
  That momentum got me to the next level.
• 22:09
  Then I attracted other manufacturers.
• 22:10
  Panasonic approached me to build their solar calculator for them.
• 22:15
  Now I'm working with rec.
• 22:16
  Other manufacturers and started getting global interest in.
• 22:21
  In me as a solar leader, I guess we'll call it.
• 22:25
  Wow.
• 22:26
  Wow.
• 22:26
  So, I mean, just hearing that, right, because you know, you've always had this innate drive, right?
• 22:33
  But being in an industry doing.
• 22:35
  And not even right before you even came into solar, right, you had no knowledge of the industry, but you saw an opportunity.
• 22:43
  You land this big manufacturer and then you start.
• 22:46
  So it's one thing to just do the marketing and that's your area of expertise.
• 22:49
  But then you start selling solar, right?
• 22:52
  And you have this phenomenal run in 8 months, 20 some systems.
• 22:57
  So I'm sure a ton of commission.
• 22:58
  And then through that, you use that to.
• 23:01
  To parlay into this other entrepreneurial, this other business, basically building this calculator that's been downloaded and a paid version.
• 23:12
  It attracts, like you said, Panasonic and all these others.
• 23:15
  Like I, you know, just.
• 23:19
  Just hats off to you hearing that.
• 23:21
  But like, where does that come from in terms of just seeing that opportunity and, and like moving so quickly at a high level?
• 23:30
  You know, I think a lot of it, you know, I'm a big believer in the universe and you know, source, God, whatever you want to call it.
• 23:37
  And just the when, how I always am guided is that, you know, what is the thing I'm most passionate about at that time, right.
• 23:43
  So if any.
• 23:45
  I'm not sure if you've heard of, there's a someone else who Bashar.
• 23:50
  He's like a kind of mystical, but, you know, and it's called the formula.
• 23:55
  And it's like, what are you most passionate about?
• 23:56
  And if you can follow that every.
• 23:58
  Even during the day, right?
• 24:00
  Okay.
• 24:00
  I could go for a walk or I could read a book or I could exercise.
• 24:03
  What is the thing that you're a little, slightly bit more passionate about?
• 24:07
  And if you always do that, you will be guided.
• 24:09
  Right?
• 24:09
  And for me, that's the way that it's been.
• 24:11
  Like, I didn't realize until recently, Dave, that that's what I was doing.
• 24:15
  But I've always been someone who's been very excited and passionate about things.
• 24:18
  And now when I look back, I can see that, okay, it was a little bit of need and like I kind of had to, but I was also excited about it and learning something new.
• 24:27
  And then it was that excitement that's Always just kind of been for me, the glue of what I continue to do to get to each next step and write the books and all the things that have come after
• 24:39
  that.
• 24:40
  Okay.
• 24:41
  Okay, appreciate that.
• 24:42
  All right, and let's talk about the books.
• 24:44
  So you've written.
• 24:45
  How many books have you written?
• 24:46
  Well, I've written two.
• 24:47
  I've got them over here.
• 24:48
  So the first book was my Forbes book, which is the COVID Code Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing that Forbes published, and it's an Amazon bestseller.
• 24:57
  This came out June of 2024.
• 25:01
  And then last year, I self published the Solar Coaster, which is the solar industry's ultimate playbook.
• 25:08
  And I launched this book at RE plus, which is Renewal Energy Plus.
• 25:14
  It's the largest renewable conference in the world.
• 25:17
  It was in Vegas.
• 25:17
  There's like 35,000 people that attend.
• 25:20
  Maybe, maybe more.
• 25:22
  And so I had a booth and I released this book with the intention.
• 25:26
  And I always write my books.
• 25:28
  I never thought I'd write a book.
• 25:30
  I didn't think I'd write a business book.
• 25:31
  I always wanted to write a book, but I was gonna write fiction, and I started some fiction books.
• 25:35
  And I've still been kind of fiddling with them.
• 25:38
  But both of these books came out of what I considered urgent need in our industries.
• 25:43
  The first for digital marketing was at the time, this is 2023.
• 25:52
  I started seeing a huge movement of all of our performance across multiple Google Ads.
• 25:58
  Campaigns and meta campaigns were declining.
• 26:00
  And this wasn't just in one industry.
• 26:02
  It was all industry.
• 26:03
  And I'm like, well, this can't.
• 26:04
  How can this be?
• 26:05
  Why would that doesn't make any sense.
• 26:07
  There's more online people.
• 26:09
  People are online more.
• 26:10
  And how could there be this 20, 20, 30% decline that I'm seeing universally?
• 26:17
  And right then I get served an ad from a company called ClickSeas, which is my favorite bot protection company.
• 26:24
  They said, oh, you know, did you know that 2029% of all online ads are fraudulent?
• 26:29
  And I'm like, that aligns with my numbers, right?
• 26:32
  So I sign up for a free trial.
• 26:34
  I hook up all my accounts.
• 26:35
  Immediately I see the numbers start to return to what I expected them to be in terms of conversion rate.
• 26:40
  I was floored, right?
• 26:41
  I was.
• 26:42
  Couldn't believe it.
• 26:43
  And then, you know, I kept getting more and more calls.
• 26:47
  You know, I speak to a lot of people.
• 26:48
  I'm very blessed with how many referrals I get.
• 26:50
  And every single call was the same story that people had been through three or more agencies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more, before speaking to me.
• 26:59
  And they were just, you know, I had grown men crying to me on the phone, Dave, about that.
• 27:04
  Where had I been?
• 27:04
  And, you know, because they were desperate.
• 27:06
  And I realized that someone had to do something, right?
• 27:10
  And we needed to get this word out faster.
• 27:12
  So for my 40th birthday, I was in Sweden, and my mom's Swedish and I'm a Swedish citizen as well.
• 27:18
  So I go back to Sweden during the summers, which is beautiful and wonderful.
• 27:21
  So I sat down and I just really committed and I wrote the first draft of the COVID code in very short time, two weeks, and came back to America.
• 27:31
  My assistant had set up a meeting with Forbes for me, and I pitched them.
• 27:35
  And I didn't think I was done with my book, but I had already written 57,000 words.
• 27:39
  And they're like, you're done.
• 27:40
  Stop writing.
• 27:40
  Because a business book, I don't know if you know this.
• 27:43
  I didn't.
• 27:44
  A typical business book is between 45 and 55,000 words, and it really shouldn't be longer than that because that's the attention span.
• 27:52
  Right?
• 27:52
  You should be able to get the information in, you know, business reader wants to get the information and then move on to the next thing.
• 27:58
  They don't want like a big, you know.
• 27:59
  Oh, like a textbook.
• 28:00
  Right.
• 28:01
  Daunting.
• 28:01
  And that's too much information.
• 28:02
  You should be able to get it down.
• 28:04
  Right.
• 28:04
  And narrow it down.
• 28:06
  So we agreed.
• 28:07
  They agreed with my mission.
• 28:08
  They agreed to help me get it into production.
• 28:11
  And, you know, I passed all the tests.
• 28:13
  I was invited to be a very exclusive Forbes author.
• 28:16
  There's only.
• 28:17
  There's less than 2,000 of us worldwide.
• 28:18
  So it's a big honor for me to be aligned with them.
• 28:22
  And that book came out and did.
• 28:24
  Has been doing very, very well.
• 28:26
  And then the second book, you know, I don't know if you know anything about the solar industry, but the federal tax credit was through the Biden administration, extended through 2030.
• 28:38
  Actually, it was 2031, actually.
• 28:40
  But when Trump took office for the second time, he, last year put a kibosh on it and he canceled the tax credit.
• 28:48
  So it expired Christmas of.
• 28:51
  Or the, you know, expired last year, at the end of last year.
• 28:55
  So the industry I knew was going to be.
• 28:57
  And it was interesting because we didn't know that when I started writing the book, SunPower, the one we had talked about earlier, had filed bankruptcy.
• 29:05
  And that created a huge ripple of all of these different solar financing companies, solar manufacturers.
• 29:13
  I mean, it was just.
• 29:14
  Everyone was going through a really hard time.
• 29:17
  Right.
• 29:17
  So I started writing the book when they had filed for bankruptcy.
• 29:20
  And by the time I ended the book, they had been repurchased and had relaunched.
• 29:25
  Right.
• 29:26
  But Trump had announced the big beautiful bill on July 4th of that year that he was going to end the tax credit.
• 29:33
  So it was kind of like a very critical time for the industry.
• 29:38
  So this book is all about sales and marketing strategies.
• 29:41
  I've got case studies with a lot of different clients of mine, manufacturers, how to build and create call centers and lead programs and technology.
• 29:50
  Of course, because I'm a big active, I do a lot of workflows and go high level and automations.
• 29:56
  But that book came out, you know, during the conference.
• 29:59
  I gave them away for free.
• 30:00
  And I'm still giving the book away on my website for free.
• 30:03
  People just Pay for shipping $10 because the industry is in such a hard time right now and people are closing up.
• 30:10
  You know, I mean, I actually lost a lot of clients myself because they just couldn't make it.
• 30:15
  After SunPower's bankruptcy.
• 30:17
  They owed a lot of people money.
• 30:19
  A huge wave of solar sales companies couldn't make it.
• 30:24
  They all closed.
• 30:25
  And now we're still seeing, you know, now There are over 4 million what's called solar orphans.
• 30:34
  Okay.
• 30:34
  And what that means is that you, the sole, you know, you have solar on your roof, either the manufacturer, the solar company or the installer, or in some cases all three are no longer in business.
• 30:46
  So now you have a system on your roof, but you, the manufacturer is no longer in business.
• 30:49
  So there's no manufacturer warranty.
• 30:51
  Right.
• 30:52
  The installer who did it is out of business, so there's no one to service your account.
• 30:56
  And maybe, you know, so it's creating this ripple effect of a lot of systems that need to be serviced and monitored.
• 31:03
  And a lot of, a lot of companies won't, won't agree to help people like that because there's a saying, the last man on the roof is responsible.
• 31:12
  So if you get up there and you break some tiles or now there's leaking on the roof, you could be liable for that.
• 31:19
  So it's, you know, it's a very intense time for the industry.
• 31:22
  And that's why I call the book the Solar coaster, which is a industry term for the, for the radical ups and highs and lows that we've gone through since over the last 40 years.
• 31:31
  And we're right in the middle of one right now.
• 31:34
  Ah, okay.
• 31:36
  All right.
• 31:37
  And also you host the, a podcast which is called the what's the podcast.
• 31:44
  Called the the COVID Code.
• 31:46
  I actually have two podcasts.
• 31:48
  The COVID code, which you were on, that's releasing today, which is June 12th for everyone.
• 31:54
  I'm not sure when this is going to release, but June 12, 2026, we.
• 31:57
  I got to speak with, with you, which was wonderful.
• 32:00
  Thanks for being a guest and that.
• 32:02
  I'm very grateful.
• 32:03
  We're just shy of 200, 000 subscribers and it's just a little over two years old.
• 32:08
  So it's really, really been very wonderful experience.
• 32:12
  And the second podcast is the Solar Coaster and I actually now have changed it to a fully AI generated podcast with a co host who's a client of mine, Alex Herrera.
• 32:24
  And people are loving it.
• 32:25
  We're using before I had the same format as, you know, interviewing a guest.
• 32:29
  And I thought it'd be easy, Dave, because I had so many people I knew in the solar industry.
• 32:34
  But what's happened actually was people don't want to talk about it.
• 32:37
  It's kind of a depressing time for the industry.
• 32:39
  And so I was having a hard time getting as many guests as I needed for a weekly show, so.
• 32:45
  And now AI is so incredible.
• 32:46
  We've been doing a lot of that at the agency and personal branding.
• 32:49
  So we decided to give it a shot and to use Solar News and then to just put into AI and then create like a dialogue between me and my AI co host.
• 32:58
  And now so they're shorter, they're between 7 and 14 minutes typically and people are really responding.
• 33:03
  We're about to get to 60, 60,000 subscribers and getting.
• 33:07
  People are really interested in it.
• 33:08
  So I'm, I'm honored with that too.
• 33:11
  So now talk about this.
• 33:13
  You're.
• 33:13
  You're using AI as like a co host for the ha.
• 33:16
  For the podcast.
• 33:17
  Me, I'm also in AI, so I have an AI or actually it's Anna AI because.
• 33:22
  And I have blue hair and I wanted it.
• 33:24
  So I really struggled with the should I do something with AI, Right, Because I'm a public figure.
• 33:29
  But I realized that yes, it's the future.
• 33:31
  And as long as people know, my fans know that it's not the real me.
• 33:36
  So I gave it my avatar has blue hair, she's got short hair, her voice is a little bit different.
• 33:41
  And she goes by Anna and I'm Anna, so she's my AI counterpart.
• 33:46
  And then I.
• 33:47
  So it's a video generated AI version of myself.
• 33:51
  And then I got Alex Herrera, who's a client of mine, just with a regular picture.
• 33:56
  You can turn it into video AI.
• 33:59
  And it's very, very good.
• 34:00
  And now we just go to like, you know, solar industry news, PV Watts, some of these other kind of leaders in what's going on that publish articles.
• 34:09
  And we just take the articles that we like, we want to be very positive, and then we throw them into AI.
• 34:15
  We're like, write a script with this content on what's happening and then our AIs just, you know, go back and forth.
• 34:23
  And a lot of people are listening in the cars, they're not watching.
• 34:26
  But even the YouTube channel is pretty popular.
• 34:29
  So it's been very interesting and cool that people can actually achieve that.
• 34:36
  And I'm going to use it again, actually, because I have a partner, John Petrie.
• 34:39
  He's a famous artist and we're now working together.
• 34:44
  And I relaunched his website, johnpetry.com and he's an older gentleman, 84.
• 34:49
  And we decided instead of shooting the podcast live, because there's a lot of work and stress and need a stress and whatnot, that we were going to just make an AI version.
• 35:00
  So I've been writing his story and we've been, you know, having the opportunity to really narrow down exactly what he wants to say and the way he wants to say it, and then using AI to generate it.
• 35:10
  That's what coming out.
• 35:12
  Okay, so after having a real podcast for two years and growing it like you have, and understanding how much work it is and then getting the AI podcast, is there any part of you that says, why?
• 35:23
  Why am I doing so much work?
• 35:24
  I should just do it with AI, like, and just focus on the AI podcast?
• 35:28
  Well, you know, I, I think no, like, I really love, I love getting to meet the people that I'm meeting on the COVID code.
• 35:35
  And I spell, you know, like, how's how we met, right?
• 35:38
  If we hadn't been doing the podcast.
• 35:40
  And so I think I've gotten the opportunity to speak to now I want to say 120 people gotta check what episode we're on.
• 35:48
  But those are, were really valuable.
• 35:51
  It's been a, also a generator of business for me, just meeting with other, other authors or other different business leaders.
• 35:59
  And I've learned a lot.
• 36:01
  And so I wouldn't, wouldn't change it because that's just a.
• 36:06
  It's for me, it's for my soul that I do it.
• 36:08
  Okay, all right, good answer, good answer.
• 36:10
  All right.
• 36:11
  And so, I mean, just looking back at your whole journey, right, where you know, you've always had this entrepreneurial instinct.
• 36:16
  You went to business school, had some corporate jobs, Went out on your own, survived a bad partnership, turned that around, really thrived as a solo agency owner, parlayed that into books and other businesses, and just really have done
• 36:30
  some amazing things.
• 36:31
  When you look back at your entire journey, what's been the best part of it for you?
• 36:36
  Best part, Gosh, I would probably say one of the highlights was when I was invited to New York.
• 36:43
  I went on a book tour, and Quangcast, which is a big partner of mine and a company I really look up to, they invited me to do this Breakfast bites at the Beekman Hotel in New York when I
• 36:55
  launched my book.
• 36:56
  And just arriving at this hotel, it's beautiful.
• 36:59
  It's an old hotel right there in Manhattan.
• 37:02
  And they had this whole event set up for me, and they invited all these important people, and I just.
• 37:08
  It was probably a big highlight that here I was and that I had, you know, been able to create this change and the momentum behind that and that, you know, little agency owner in Hawaii now is getting this
• 37:20
  global reach.
• 37:21
  And my books were in the airport as well at that time, so seeing them in the airport.
• 37:25
  And I visited Bentley.
• 37:26
  Bentley invited me back.
• 37:27
  I spoke at NYU and Bentley and the Beekman Hotel with Quancast, and just that experience really probably was one of the top that I've had so far.
• 37:36
  Okay, wow.
• 37:37
  And what.
• 37:38
  What is that like, seeing your book at the airport?
• 37:41
  That sounds just, like,.
• 37:44
  Real.
• 37:45
  I know what I've always wanted, and I'm manifesting.
• 37:48
  It hasn't happened yet, but maybe one day I want to see someone reading my book, you know, and then be like, walk up and be like, oh, it's me.
• 37:54
  You know, let me sign it for you.
• 37:56
  I haven't had that happen yet.
• 37:57
  But it's, you know, it's.
• 37:59
  It's.
• 38:00
  It never gets old, Dave.
• 38:02
  Giving people your book, you know, it's like the best business card.
• 38:05
  It's part of one of the best ways you can build authority.
• 38:08
  And Forbes taught me that.
• 38:09
  Right.
• 38:09
  And we actually just.
• 38:10
  They're sponsoring my podcast, and we just released a special series, if anyone's interested in what it's like, how you can do authority building.
• 38:18
  It's called Authority as a growth strategy.
• 38:19
  And I did four special editions with people from Forbes Books, and we talked about, you know, how to.
• 38:25
  How publishing works, you know, why the personal brand is so important.
• 38:29
  Like, which.
• 38:29
  What we talked about.
• 38:30
  So people should definitely tune into our episode, but.
• 38:33
  And other different ways that you can leverage authorship to, you know, instead of a business card.
• 38:39
  Right.
• 38:40
  You give someone a book and there's just a whole nother experience and weight that that offers you.
• 38:45
  Because in our, in our community, we're taught to revere books, right?
• 38:48
  That's how we're raised.
• 38:49
  You don't throw a book in the trash.
• 38:51
  You might give a book away.
• 38:53
  You know, you might drop it off at the.
• 38:54
  But you, you really rarely see people throwing books away.
• 38:57
  Right.
• 38:57
  Because of the way that we're raised and, and the respect that we give to books, which we, we should.
• 39:02
  Right.
• 39:03
  So having that, that ability to give someone your book and sign it for them and, and it's just a really wonderful feeling and definitely has helped me stand out and from in large rooms and get me all public
• 39:17
  speaking and stuff like that, you know, But I've been working on.
• 39:20
  Love that.
• 39:21
  Okay.
• 39:22
  All right.
• 39:22
  And Anna, if people are seeing this and they want to learn more, they want to potentially use your digital marketing services or connect with you for any other reason, what's the best way people can find you online?
• 39:33
  You know, I would love for people to just ask AI who is on a covert.
• 39:37
  Because that also helps me with my search attention optimization.
• 39:40
  But I am the first four pages of Google.
• 39:42
  Every single listing is me and my companies.
• 39:45
  But I'm on LinkedIn, very active there.
• 39:47
  You can go to onacovert.com, you could go to covert communication, the COVID code.
• 39:52
  But if you go to my LinkedIn profile, I have all my businesses there very active on LinkedIn and that's the best place to, to reach out and find more out about me.
• 40:02
  Okay.
• 40:03
  All right.
• 40:03
  And we will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 40:06
  All right, well, Anna, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 40:12
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 40:13
  Thank you so much for having me, Dave.
• 40:15
  Aloha to everyone.