Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / The Power of Communication in Business with David Perez
Transcript
- Marci: Hello, Welcome to Marci talks Money (and Life). I am MoneyMarci, and I am continually in awe of the people I get to talk to. My guest today is David Perez. David is an educator, a business English coach, a podcast production and content strategy expert, among other things, and as a business English coach, he specializes in helping non native English speakers communicate effectively in business settings. As a podcast production and content strategist, he helps brands, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders create, edit, and launch high quality podcasts that resonate with their audience. He's also the host of Fluent English Pro, a show dedicated to helping international professionals master English communication and leverage the power of podcasts. Welcome David, David: Thank you very much for having me, Marci. Oh my god, that bio makes me look so much bigger than I actually am. But I'm glad. I'm glad you brought it up well. Marci: I mean, you know, in this age of worldwide communication and business, you're in this unique position to help people be able to connect on so many different levels and as well to help them understand the quality of what they are connecting to. What is your path? How did you get here? David: Oh my god, there are multiple answers to that. You mean professionally, right? Marci: well, yes. But I mean we are the sum of all of our experience. So your personal brought you to your professional experiences that you had. David: Yeah, okay, it is good because this connects to the money talk we're going to have. I have a degree in foreign language education. I have worked as an English teacher for quite some time. But there is a thing with education, and see it is that sometimes this is not very well paid, and sometimes contracts are quite short, even if you work at university level, which is what I used to do. I used to be a university teacher. And these contracts are way too short. Like I am getting four month contracts. I got a family, I got responsibilities, I got children, and those are like those around for twelve months a year, not for four months a year. So I decided to start a side gig. I learned to edit audio for podcasts. I specialized in it, and my side gig ended up becoming my main business and my main income. So I ended up quitting the university. I mean I still teach there occasionally, but it was a decision of making sure I had multiple streams of income and that I will not put my family's well being and my own well being at risk. Because when you have a single stream of income, things can happen, and like you can have something and then have nothing the next day. So it was a life lesson and it has brought me a lot of inner peace and also a lot of well, wealth. Not in the sense that I'm a millionaire, because I'm not yet, but, in the sense that I don't no longer have to worry about making ends meet, and that is such a piece of mind, amazing, huge piece of mind. Marci: That definitely is. You know, so many people live paycheck to paycheck. They are one health issue, one car issue, one whatever from being stuck into debt, and once you're in that mud pit, it just keeps sucking you down. So getting above that and getting the multiple streams of income is huge. You are in Colombia? David: Correct, Yes, I'm based in Colombia, that's right. Marci: So you know a lot of the financial things are different than in the US, and a lot of them are the same. But what you're able to do to help people become better able as English learners to communicate. I believe English is one of the significant languages for business around the world, and you have to be able to communicate. David: That's right, Marci. I am very mindful about the meaning of work and making sure your work is something that actually brings transformation to other people's lives for the best. So in the case of being an English tutor and an English teacher, I have seen with my own eyes how people's careers have evolved because they have been able to improve their level of English. So now they just don't have the local company looking for them, but now they have opportunities to work abroad, who take classes, to do a master's degree abroad, you know, to have access to scholarships. So it's been a very rewarding experience. So to see my students advance in life because of this, it is really amazing to see how they operate. All a world of opportunities opens up for them. Marci: Yeah, I mean we are and I don't think this is just English speakers, but if someone doesn't speak our language, well we don't necessarily realize all the things that they're capable of because they can't communicate, whether it's them understanding us or us understanding them, if you can't bridge that communication gap, it's going to get in the way of your opportunities. David: Yeah, it reminds me of Sofia Vergara in Modern Family. You know, she's Colombian but the series is English, of course, and like she goes and she says like, hey, do you know how smart I'm Spanish? Yes? Marci: Right, Yeah. We had we had a family friend growing up and she was from Hungary and she was multi lingual, but her English, you know, some of her grammar, some of her pronunciation, and she was very frustrated. Here is this brilliant woman. She speaks more languages than I do. Her English is definitely better than my Hungarian. And yet people were treating her as if she wasn't all there because her English wasn't native fluency. And we miss opportunities when we don't recognize people beyond the language. But I have you here to talk about more than just language, because as a content creator and as the strategist and all that, you're in this position to help people understand how to find quality content. How to understand when when what they're getting is good and when what they're getting might not be the quality information they hope. David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it totally happens. When you are behind the scenes of content production, you get to see. What is real and what is not. And there is a lot of fake information in fake content online that people just believe because I mean, it looks like it's going to help them solve their problems, so they jump in, they buy that course, they do go to that event, But in the end, it's not it's not real. Marci: And how would people be able to tell what's real and what s not because you can, you can make up your content, pull it out of the air, and yet you polish it so nicely and you do the presentation and you do whatever, and it looks good. Yes, well, I think the first thing as a consumer, when you're looking for content, let's say, for example, we're looking for content that refers to improving my personal finances or getting out of debt. Yeah, the first sign of alert is content that is way too generic and that promises results. You say, Okay, I have a debt, but what kind of debt do you have? How much do you owe? What is duration of this debt? What is your current income in comparison to the debt you have? But if a person wants to come and give you a one size fits all solution be wary. Be wary of that, because there is not such thing. And I think you have covered or you will cover this in the other episodes, Marci. If you have a student loan, there s one way to tackle it. But if you have a spending habit, because maybe you have an addiction to gambling, that's a different thing. There is no one solution to everything. That's the first thing. The other aspect is they get quick solutions with little effort or with no effort. That effortless thing. And then out of the blue, you're going to switch from having minus one hundred thousand in your balances to plus a million, plus two million dollars just because you did this hack or just because you took this course. So just because that, that's a lie. That's a lie. Building up financial wealth. Sorry, financial health, that's the term. Financial health. Does not happen overnight. It doesn't happen because you follow that influencer. Doesn't happen because you bought a course. And I know because I've been there, I have been through that process. It is a step by step thing, and it is healing both your habits, your emotions, and your actions so that your finances get better. It is not an overnight thing. So if you're promised overnight results amazing things ferrari or like trip to the Bahamas and that kind of thing, it's not real. It isn't real. And the third element there, Marci, is what is that creator's background when it comes to the type of content here is referring to. Let me give you an example. This is extremely common. There are a lot of... Okay, there are some creators that sell courses and create content about how to get rich by selling real estate. So they speak a lot of that blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. When you find out where their money comes from, they have never sold real estate. Maybe they have money. Because they inherited it or because they used a marketing campaigner like, but they didn't actually make their money from selling real estate. Yet they are teaching you how to get rich via real rstate, you know so. Or the other thing is they tell you, Okay, this course or this book is going to fix your problems in terms of how to get rich. But the way they got rich was by selling the book, not by doing the things that are in the book. This is extremely common, so you have to pay attention that the person that you're listening to actually walked the walk. A lot of them is just marketing and they just doing the talk. They're making money from selling you the course and selling you the book and selling you the thing. But they didn't actually fix their issues or they didn't actually make their money from what they're teaching. Marci: Well, maybe they did, because if I sell a million copies of my book for ten dollars a copy because it's going to teach you how to get rich, the fact that the whole book is print a book and get people to buy copies of it, then they told you exactly how they did it. But I can't imagine what they spend on the marketing and on the other aspects of it so that they can, you know, sell ten million copies of their book. I'm, you know, follow me and take my course and you're going to have one hundred thousand dollars a year income. I would I would love to see their tax returns. I'm a CPA, that's my background. Show me your tax return. Let's let's see what you're saying. But when we see people and we see what appears to be their wealth because it's their spending. We have no idea what they paid for it. We have no idea what's in debt. We have no idea what is just faked images. David: Yeah. Marci: But you know, it's it's scary because you never know when you when you follow, when you when you look at buying a course, you know, oh, look there are all these positive reviews. Well who put those reviews up there. It's it's a scary world out there to go and buy a class or buy even a book. David: Yeah, you don't know what the profit margins are, Yeah, because they can show you I made two hundred thousand dollars in revenue last month. Yeah, but how much of that they have to use to pay their marketing spend or the ferrari and the luxury mansion they rented for the ad. So yeah, a lot of that is actually going back to the business, or used to pay taxes, or used to pay like operational expenses. And the profit margin usually is very small. They show you what... this also happens in photography, like you take a photo and you can retouch it and you can like clean up the acne and make people look nicer and I make this smile brighter. The same thing applies to marketing. They show you the pretty side of things, but they won't show you what's behind the scenes. Marci: David, how do you help people recognize that? And what would you do if you had a client that came to you for their production and whatever else and you know they are a snake oil salesman. You know that they're going to pay you, and your job is to do the production. Is that a problem for you when you know? David: It is, It is going back to one of the initial ideas in the conversation, Marci. I am very mindful about the value of work and how that positively impacts people's lives, and that's something I apply both as a teacher and as a podcast producer. And there are people I do not work with. There are two reasons I don't work with people. One is because I don't understand their business and I don't understand their industry, so like I cannot help them because my job goes beyond yes, editing audio. My job goes to the point of making sure the audience gets the message. And the other aspect is because it is industries that do not or creators that do not actually provide value and well being to their audience. And I don't have a problem with saying no to these people. I'm sure somebody else will accept them and take them as clients, because that's how the market works. But in my case, I would rather focus on people that I know bring a lot of value. I don't have a problem in making less money because I am onboarding the right client. Like work is not about not just about money. Of course, of course money plays an important role there, but not something that you do no matter what, don't matter, because yes, you have to be mindful about who you're serving and why you're doing what you're doing. So it's okay for me to say no, I'm not going to work with you. I will not give the reasons, of course, but I will just take a step aside. Marci: Okay, well, I mean that's much easier to do David, now that you've reached this point where you've got the multiple streams and you've got that financial stability. That may have been harder to do beginning when you were starting, but it is good to be in a position where you can financially comfortably say no to those people. It's it's got to be hard when you are just starting out or when you're coming from a place of a massive financial shortfall. You know that's hard. David: Yeah, Yeah, that's a good point.That's a good point. I am luckily at a point where I am able to make that choice. But for someone who is new in business and they need to get a portfolio, and they need to get more reputation and they get to need more income. So in that case, I understand they might need to make those decisions even though they are not happy with them, and eventually they could just let the client go or keep the client as they prefer. Marci: So how do you suggest to people that they would spot the red flags that you know it's more than just hey, overnight, you're going to get this money. And how do you check to see whether someone you know really walk the walk? Are there certain, I don't know if it's words, or how they hide their affiliate, or what is available to the common person out there looking for podcasts or instagrams or whatever to follow. What can they do, David, to prevent falling into a trap? David: Yeah, okay, I already pinpointed a few items such as checking the creator's background, expecting overnight results with very little effort or just overnight results, even if it's a lot of effort. But I will say not necessarily the red flags, but the green flags that you can focus on. Marci: Ooh I like that even better. David: I think the green flags. And I'm saying this because I recently started a contract with people who helped English teachers have more clients. And I like that because they were real, like, they didn't show me I was gonna have overnight results. They showed me a process we're gonna sell you is we're gonna walk with you throughout this process. It's gonna be a three month, a six month, a nine month process, and yes, we're gonna have results. Also we're going to have situations that we don't like. Yeah, so we're going to have ups and downs. But this is a process that we have tested and we have been improving with other teachers, so you can get results. They were honest about it. They were clear that this is a mid-term, long-term process. It s not an overnight thing. It takes work, it takes evolution to achieve the results. And also you're going to have the positives that are going to happen gradually, and you're going to have the negatives because sometimes and I'm sure you have work with a lot of business and you have seen this, Marci, even though you do the right thing, the results might not be what you expect. You can do everything by the book, do the thing correctly, but the formula, even though perfect as it might look, the market or the circumstances or whatever else that is outside of your control is going to affect the outcome. So they were very real about it. They were very real about the expectations, the time it takes to achieve the results, the pros and the cons, the ups and the downs. That's a real thing. That is a very thing. So if you have a content creator who is showing you process, who show you a step by step for resulting in six months, in one year, in two years, and they tell you like not only the pretty things but also the ugly things, they always come hand in hand. If they show you both sides of the coin, that's a person you can trust. Of course, you have to do the observation anyway, check the background, check everything else. But I think that it's a huge green flag in that case. Marci: I like that. When it's possible, I like to look for the positives so I like the idea of looking for the green flags rather than the red flags. Before you decided to step from education because the four month contracts and whatever else, was this on your radar or was this just part of an evolution that because of the things you knew from teaching English and teaching at the university and whatever else that with technology the way it went and all of that. Because you were into podcasting and that kind of stuff before COVID, before the world turned to the internet, you were already doing this international, and this English, and this podcasting and stuff. So many people pivoted because of COVID because it changed what their options were, and you were ahead of that curve on everything. How early did this start looking like you wanted to pivot in this direction? David: Okay, okay, that's a great question. And your money choices and your financial code choices have to do have a lot to do with your beliefs, and a lot of that with their unconscious beliefs. I never planned to be a business owner. I kind of fell into being a business owner because the way I was raised. Like both my parents are teachers, they are scholars, and I was raised to be a teacher. So like the type of model that works for them in their time was you graduate from university and then you go work at a university or school for fifty years or for forty years until you retire, because at that time you had that opportunity. It s like a stable contrast and all that. Not a true thing anymore, sadly in many cases. So I grew up with that mindset, you know, like being an employee for an institution. For many, many years, I never thought of having a business, running a business, but then I realized the circumstances in the present are not the same. And there there came a moment where there was so much uncertainty that I started exploring other possibilities for income, and that opened a whole new world for me. It was very organic. I never planned to be at this point. Now I do it. Mindfully, of course, now I do plan, but for the like the beginning stage, it just happened, and like I got a client, and then I got another client, and then okay, I'm cool with this. And then at one point, I was not able to get more work or more clients because I was so busy. So then I hired my first employee, and then I hired a second one and a third one and then I realized, Okay, this is something that is going to continue growing and I need some structure and I need some information and education about it. So since then I have been trying to learn more stuff related to business, and that has also impacted my profession as a teacher. But just I don't see myself as a teacher for a university anymore. I see myself as a teacher who can provide value online. Like I'm not just going to provide that value to a person in the classroom based on the conditions provided by a particular institution. I can do it on my terms and to a wider audience. Oh and to answer your question, how I had was that. I think I started back in two thousand and seventeen, so it was not a COVID related thing. Luckily, it was more of a situation derived from the lack of stability at my job at that time. Marci: You bring that up, and I think that's awesome because we talk about how circumstances are different. Parents are like, well, at your age, I had built a house or I was already married, and that's fine. There are a lot of people I know that are getting married, you know, at younger ages, that are buying houses and whatever else. But the financial circumstances, at least here in the US, are different. The ratio of average income to cost of university, or to cost of house, or to all of these other things. Time has changed. The people who are twenty now face a different world than the people who are twenty twenty years ago, and the people who are twenty forty years ago. Their opportunities, their reality of expenses and life and income and whatever, is totally different. There are some opportunities that there are much more of, and some opportunities that there are much less of. And as an older person like myself, I have to remember that, and when I am talking to people who are younger, be open to the fact that what my experiences were and what their experiences are financially are different. And that means that they have to look at things differently and make decisions differently as they plan for their financial future. David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's a tricky thing because sometimes the way we view money is so ingrained, ingrained in how we were raised. Like there is an emotional component to it. Like you have that loyalty to your parents because this is what they taught you, so usually parents are right, quote unquote right, and you have to do as they did, and if you don't, then you're failing your parents in a way. It happens not just with money but with everything. But it's a different world. It's a very different world. It's not the eighties anymore. In my case, like even though my parents exists, or for him, the world is still like that. It is not like that. But I think becoming aware of that, bringing that from the unconscious to the conscious mind is very important. Marci: Right, we are a part, as I said earlier, of the experiences we have. We learned what our parents taught us by saying it. We learned by what we witnessed our parents doing. Whether we understood their motivation or their perspective when they made those decisions is a whole different issue. But we saw and whether we realize it or not, we're basing decisions we make now on the, on the things we learned. Some of them we say, because they did this, I am not going to do this, and others we say, because they did that, that's what I'm going to do. And it's hard. There is, there is the loyalty and the respect, and there is the but this is a different world I've got than what they had. David: Yeah, I agree with that. Marci: Wow, I have really enjoyed talking to you as I did last time as well. I was on your podcast a couple of years ago. David: Talking money as well. Marci: Well, that's all I talk about. You talk about everything. I'm MoneyMarci, So that's that's my knowledge area. Have you got anything you'd like to share before we wrap up? David: Just I appreciate what you're doing, Marci. I was at some point I was in a time in my life where I was dealing with scarcity and lack of money and making bad decisions and making stupid decisions, money decisions that brought me a lot of problems and thanks to creators as yourself who are giving real advice, who are giving amazing recommendations and amazing strategies for people to improve their lives, I was able to change my financial situation for the better and improve the quality of my life and my family s life. So I really appreciate what you're doing. Marci: Well, well, thank you. I hope I can keep spreading this word and sharing it and getting people like you to talk to me and share their stories. It's phenomenal because we learn by stories. So everyone, thank you so much for stopping and visiting with me. David Perez, I will be posting your links in the show notes. This is MoneyMarci, and thank you for stopping by Marci Talks Money (and Life). You got this, see ya, David: Thank you.