the entrepreneurs radio show episode 107

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show of 20




Episode 107: Chris Taylor

In this episode, Travis interviews successful entrepreneur and Chris Taylor. Chris started

Actionable Books by accident when his idea that was meant to gather knowledge from books

also helped fellow entrepreneurs in their business. This eventually grew and evolved into

coaching and seminars and has reached out to more people who found his concepts valuable.

Chris and Travis shares their wisdom and input on various concepts about business and

entrepreneurship. They talk about the importance of developing soft skills which is equally vital

as hard skills. Chris also shares about choosing the right client who‟s vision and ideas are

aligned with yours and not just grabbing every opportunity that comes your way. He also

encourages business owners to approach every situation with curiosity and enthusiasm in order

to get the most of the opportunity. These and so much more are what we can expect from this

episode of the Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show.

Actionable Books + Growing Your Biz

TRAVIS: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode 107 of the Entrepreneur's Radio

Show, a production of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com where each and every week I connect

you with rock star entrepreneurs that explain their journey to success and what's been the key

principles to finding a high level of success as an entrepreneur so that you can see that

successful entrepreneurs are really just everyday people that stayed committed to taking

constant focused action each and every day. Now today I'm going to connect you or introduce

you to Chris Taylor. Now before we get started I want to say thank you to LarryC82 from

Canada for the 5 star rating and review on iTunes. Larry wrote as a headline, your handbook for

business strategy. Larry went on to write a very detailed review. Larry I want to tell you I

personally really appreciate you taking the time and writing the review, and I love the feedback.

So thank you very much. Now, just in case you don't know, writing a review helps us reach more

entrepreneurs just like yourself, and the reason for that is iTunes and Stitcher believes that if

you're leaving comments then the show must be valuable, and therefore they'll serve it to more

of their audience. So if you have time and you do find value in the show I'd really appreciate it if

you'd go in and leave us a quick review, and let me know how we're doing. And then of course

I'll recognize you on air and say thank you. One last thing, before we get started I want to

remind you also that there are 3 ways you could take these interviews with you on the go,

through iTunes, Android, or Stitcher. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and click right

there on the menu bar. You can either click on iTunes, Android, or Stitcher on the menu bar and

it will take you directly to the podcast. That way you don't have to try and go through a search

http://rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com/





function for it. And then you can also subscribe to the show there if that's what you want to do.

So without further ado let's go ahead and get down to business. Chris, welcome to the show.

CHRIS: Thanks for having me Travis I'm excited to be here.

TRAVIS: You bet. Hey, do you mind sharing the back story. You've got kind of an interesting

back story of how you got started and what brought you to where you're at today. Can you

share that with us?

CHRIS: Absolutely. As my dad has a habit of saying it's a 3 beer story Travis if I tell the whole

thing but I'll give you the highlights. I started my career in sales when I was in the university I

worked for a direct sales company and involved in business to consumer, B to C sales, and I

loved it. I did well at it, and as a result of that I was promoted successively and ultimately given

an opportunity to run my own franchise for the company, which I did. And really, we just hit the

ground running and kick butt for the first 12-14 months I'd say. One of the top producing on an

individual level, one of our top-producing branches in the country or in North America rather out

of above a thousand branches. And that success went straight to my head. I was 22 years old

and ego took over, and all of the things that I've been doing right I stopped doing because I

figured I deserved it now. Because at 23 I was entitled to all of this success, right? And

consequently of course the whole thing fell apart. So I started reading originally self-help books,

person development books to try to figure out what had happened. And I moved on to business

books shortly after that because I found that I had an interest in sort of business strategy and

particularly around leadership and relationship building in the workplace. I've taken a job in

corporate marketing and went from working with 19 year olds to working with 39 year olds, and

49 year olds, and 59 year olds. And I started seeing that a lot of the challenges that I had seen

from collaboration, and leadership, and communication, and even self-management pieces that

had existed for the 19 year olds that I had sort of assumed were because they were kids were

actually in some cases even worse as people have got later into their careers because they had

that many more things to deal with on their plate. And so I became fascinated with this idea of

what it means to develop those soft skills that were going from a nice to have to being really

essential for professional success in the 21st century. So I started Actionable Books as sort of a

passion project. It was a hobby where I was consuming ideas from top business books and then

spitting them out into 2-page summaries where the idea was really around not just learning

those ideas but how to best apply them in a busy work world. And it was entirely a project for

myself, it wasn't meant to be a business, but it started growing, a fairly decent clip and fairly

steadily. And so, I ended up quitting my full-time job in 2009 and working on Actionable ever

since. And really what we've worked to become now is an online resource center for busy

professionals who believe in the importance of top business books and leading edge business




thinking, and how to apply that in a way that advances both the individual and the team. So,

how's that?

TRAVIS: Very cool. That was kind of a half a beer explanation.

CHRIS: That's right. If you're keeping track at home, that's right, exactly.

TRAVIS: Assuming I'm drinking a beer right now.

CHRIS: Of course, we have to make that assumption.

TRAVIS: Right. There's a couple of things here. So B to C, you started out in B to C, business

to consumer. And so, I love that element. I come from that place also. And I think it's a really

fast way to develop a set of skills because you can instantly see what's working and what isn't

and dial that in right on the spot, move on. It could be door to door sales. And you dial it in until

you really refine it into a process. So that's hyper learning. And then, one of the things you

talked about is developing soft skills. Explain for everybody what soft skills are.

CHRIS: Sure. So if you are a carpenter and say the hard skills are the trades of your craft. So

whatever business you're in, probably there are technical skills that need to be learned in order

to do your job properly. The soft skills are the skills that aren't defined on paper as being

necessary for the job, but when you learn them and develop them you become a lot more

effective in the role that you're in.

TRAVIS: Right.

CHRIS: And what I found Travis was, in the field in 2009 I started interviewing the authors of

some of these books. So I got a chance to sit down with Seth Godin, and Dan Pink, and Patrick

Lencioni, and Simon Sinek, and a bunch of other people. And it was really interesting the

conversations that we were having because many of these people are all sort of thought leaders

in their space but that space is very broad. Some are marketing, some are leadership, some are

sales, and then on and on. But what was really fascinating to me and what sort of driven the last

5 years of my business and my life is they were all talking about the same thing, whether you

were focused on marketing, leadership, sales whatever, they were talking about these soft skills

that had gone from a nice to have in sort of the 20th century if you want sort of broad strokes.

And they were always good but they were sort of unnecessary to really they'd become essential

for both individuals and businesses to succeed in the 21st century. And specifically they really

circle around collaboration and communication skills. The ability to speak in a language that

resonates with your intended audience whether that intended audience is your child, or your

client, or your client, or your boss.




TRAVIS: Right. I've always viewed soft skills as communication and sales. And so, for some

people it comes natural. Now I made this mistake for several years and I'm really curious if you

made the same mistake also. So for me, communication and sales came very naturally to me

and I really didn't give it much thought. And so I would go out and sell things. And in my first

business I would sell things that I believed in. I wouldn't sell anything obviously that I didn't

believe in. And I was just annihilating them. Industry standards, I would sell triple that. And to

me my first reasoning was I thought most people are just lazy, they're not out there driving as

hard as I am. And then, and this is very naive, this is a young me. And I went through a lot of the

same things that you did at 22, 23, 25, 26 where I thought, “Are you stupid? Come on, this is

simple stuff.” I'm not creating any special magic here. And later on I come to realize that I

possessed naturally a skill set of those soft skills of sales and communication, and it wasn't easy

for everybody else. Did you have that same path or did were you always aware that you had a

skill that wasn't natural?

CHRIS: No, I would say Travis, young you and young me would have been reading from the

same playbook. We probably would have been competing on everything too but we were the

same mindset there. Yeah, it took me awhile. I think the real turning point for me was we

launched a licensing program with Actionable about 5 years ago, 4 years ago. We're high

functioning coaches, and consultants, and facilitators could license our program and use it in

their own practice. And it was really interesting to me because we have filtering criteria, and so

we were truly getting some of the brightest, most intellectually stimulating, engaging people that

I ever worked with being a part of this group. And it was amazing to me because I had that

assumption even 4 years ago that-- well, they're talented, they're smart people so they must be

able to sell. There was just that correlation in my head where if there was someone that I

wanted to hangout with then they would be able to sell. And as I've learned, I think to your point

there's an interesting, nurturing nature conversation there, because I do believe that certain

aspects of it can be taught, and I also do believe that there's some people who are just

inherently better sales people than the average person.

TRAVIS: Right. I was just a natural stage 3 of competence. I knew how to do something, I just

didn't know how to teach it. And until I grew as an individual and a businessman and move to

stage 4 of competence, which means I knew how to do it and I knew how to teach it. I suddenly

become aware that what was easy to me isn't necessarily easy to everybody else. And so that

was kind of a turning point for me. Now, I'm curious, with your actionable books, how do you

monetize that?

CHRIS: That's a great question. So, as I said, originally there was monetization strategy

because it was strictly a hobby. So what was interesting was it happened somewhere

organically early back probably early 2010 I had a number of friends of mine who were still




leading sales teams within the company that I had come from previously. And they knew that I

had done something to retain and develop my people, because that was the one thing that

we're really good at. We hung on to our people longer than most other branches did. And so

they were asking for inside tips tools. And the one thing that I could sort of trace it back to more

than anything else was these hour long learning sessions where I would gather my top 10, 12

sales reps on a weekly basis and we would get together sort of off-hours if you will and we

would talk not about product, or promotion, or contest, or anything, we would talk about them

and personal and professional development. And so, I took the format that I developed for that

program and started to layer in some of these ideas from the books that I was reading. So we

have 7 habits where it would be sort of 4 levels of listening. I would teach them the 4 levels of

listening and then I would create exercises around how they can practice it with their teams.

And that became a subscription model where we call the program Actionable Workshops. And

it's these hour-long learning modules that team leaders can access to run with their staff. And

that was the very beginning of it, originally, it was just a pile of PDF's behind a pay wall. But

after and during those interview conversations where I started to get some clarity around what

these soft skills were that were most essential, we built a model around it that we called The

Salaried Entrepreneur. And we started to really promote in structure. I say, well it was just me

back then. But promoting structure of the workshops as an offering that we would scale up. And

so now, Actionable Workshops generates probably about 70% of our revenue on an annual

basis. The licensing program for consultants that are leveraging those modules to use with their

clients. They have a slightly different stream and may become a revenue stream as well as a

marketing engine. And then little stuff here or there. We just launched a business builder boot

camp for consultants specifically who are looking to improve sales and marketing. And so we'll

do projects like that. But our main bread and butter is workshops.

TRAVIS: Well, there's just a whole of different opportunities for monetization with this business,

right?

CHRIS: Yeah, definitely.

TRAVIS: One of the interesting things with your story trajectory is something very similar to

what I've done. And I like to pay attention to how people are naturally-- you said nurture versus

nature. We all come out of the womb leaning one way or the other. I think you're just naturally

strong one way. And then you, through a series of events in your life you decide to develop the

weakest side. And I have found that traditionally you become more financially successful when

you develop both sides. Now, that's a dangerous statement because you could get lost

spending 20 years developing all your weaknesses, which is not necessarily a wise move. So I

don't want that back statement to be taken the wrong way. But I'm really interested in how

people come out and how they deal with things naturally. You and I are very similar because




I've had a history of having people work for me 15-20 years. And it is because I took an interest

in them, and we taught them-- at the time I didn't realize it but I implemented an element of

gamefication into the process. And so, we would play around with it. And while I taught them

these classes, we'd have fun. It benefited the company, we measured performance, and then

we reported performance on the board. And then of course due to everybody's ranking listed on

the board nobody wanted to be last, right?

CHRIS: Exactly, yeah.

TRAVIS: Which can have a negative connotation, but everybody stayed invested and they had

a good time. And so I really love that element of what you did there. Now with the actionable

books. The value of that is brilliant also because I'm book junky and I can consume large

amounts of books. And sometimes to just slowdown and implement what's in the book or spend

more time thinking about it, applying those strategies, going deeper. Because a lot of these

strategies can go a mile deep. And that sounds to me that's kind of what you're doing with the

actionable books.

CHRIS: Yeah, whether it's through the actual summaries on the site which I've long since

stopped the weekly summary but there's about 115 volunteers now that actually produce those

summaries. So we have 20 new summaries a month going live on the site and then a new

workshop typically once a month. My biggest cautionary not to people when they're going in is

actually exactly to that point where we're covering 20 books a month on the site. Don't try to

read all the summaries. Or if you are reading all the summaries, don't try to implement

everything from all those summaries and becomes a flavor of the month sort of thing, right?

What I believe, and Chris Brogan wrote a post about this, and I think it was just January of this

year or maybe last year, around really going on a reading diet of choosing a couple of books. 2

or 3 books even just for the year, which for people that read a lot, "What, I couldn't possibly slow

down." But it's really about taking everything you can from that book to actually do something

with it and put something into practice. Because we've got more information coming at us that

we can possibly consume. And so, it really becomes a matter of what are you doing with all that

information. And in my mind it's better to read 1 book slowly and apply something from it, than it

is to read 5 books in the same amount of time just for the sake of collecting more information.

TRAVIS: Right. I used to go through 4 books a month and I had to dial that back to 1 book a

month. Are you on a diet of 1-2 books a year?

CHRIS: No, but now I'm down to probably 1 a month. I still do the author interviews about once

a month and so I'm usually reading their book for the session. But I'm trying to scale back,

because I used to do 4 a month as well and had to scale back for sure.




TRAVIS: Right. So what do you feel like are the key elements that most business owners,

entrepreneur's are missing and growing a business. Looking back in your journey so far, what

was those turning points and what are the most important things that you've gleaned from your

journey so far?

CHRIS: That's a great question Travis, I appreciate it. I think one of the biggest things,

particularly in the last year and a half or so with the business was a quote that I read a couple of

years ago from Eric Riese in The Lean Startup, but it was this idea that just because something

can be built doesn't mean it should be built. And particularly playing in the web spaces I do, it's

so easy to have an idea, send an email to my lead developer and say, "Hey, let's do this." And

spend lot of time, money, and energy developing things based on a whim rather than actually

being intelligent about where's the economic viable model on this, and how do I test the theory.

And what's the minimum number of people I need to involve in it to do that test rather than

constantly taking my team after the new shiny object that's entered my head. So I think that's

been on of the big learning‟s for me in the last of the while. And the other one that I'm still

continuing to learn is really-- your clients will tell you what they want to spend money on. And if

you just listen to them, and this is, I'm telling myself this. Not preaching to anyone other than

me. If you just listen to the people that are in your community, the people that love what you do,

and ask them what they're looking for. It may be a variation on that, or it may give you insight

into what they're not asking for. But I don't think that particularly myself and the other business

owners that I hangout with. I don't think we ask enough from our audience as to what exactly

they're looking for. I don't think we listen as well as we could.

TRAVIS: I completely agree with you. So, how do you do that? Take me down a path where

what are you uncovering that helps you do a better job with that?

CHRIS: Sure. So, some of the basic stuff right off the top is I'm personally monitoring again all

of our social media activity and comments on different sections of the website. And we've got a

great team that manages that I'm watching it now to see what people are saying. I've also

gotten the habit of reaching out to a small number, usually 2 or 3 people a week that have

signed up for our regular newsletter list just to connect and just to ask who they are where they

come from, and what they're about. And I'm not trying to sell them anything yet, I might down

the road. But for now it's really about just getting to know them and who they are, and what

they're about. And it could be a PR stunt but it's something that's really important I think to hear

it from people before they're in that buying cycle to actually understand who they are and what

they do. The other thing that I try to do as much as I can is see what, not what the competition's

doing necessarily because I actually don't pay a ton of a time with that. But to see who's

attracted to the competition or what attracted them there. And that can be a really interesting

conversation as well. Again, it's not even a matter of trying to win that business, it's just

http://amzn.to/1bq2JW1




someone spend money on something that's in the space of what we do. How do we learn from

that?

TRAVIS: Right.

CHRIS: I think 2 of the big personality traits Travis that have been constantly in the back of my

head for the last probably year and a half is this idea of curiosity. If you're in a place of curiosity

and working to just learn about whatever it is from whomever you're talking to genuinely, there's

no real room for judgement is what I'm experiencing. Because judgement I mean, this is going

to close doors, this is going to shut it off, and they're wrong and I'm right. But instead if you can

go in from a place of curiosity into those conversations, it can have a really interesting impact.

And the other one is this idea of, awesome, thank you, of humility right? Basically taking the

approach that I don't know what I don't know and there's more information out there that there's

someone smarter in every area no matter what it is or how close it is to my core work. That if I

can go with that humility with the end sort of balancing that curiosity or working with it to learn

from-- everybody out there has got someone to teach you if you're listening carefully enough.

TRAVIS: Right. I completely agree with you. By the way, Chris is over in Spain so there's a little

bit of a delay to our conversations back and forth with each other, so we're not intentionally

stepping on each other. Hey Chris, do you have any tools that you use to do some of this

intelligence, or research. Do you launch surveys or anything that helps you get a kind of a non-

biased perspective of what's going on and what they want?

CHRIS: We do, yeah, in a couple of places with our consulting that works with our licenses we

do a monthly survey. It's typically 1 or 2 questions. Just getting a finger on the pulse as regards

to how things are going for them. They're also in touch with as many clients if not more so than

we are corporately. And so they have great insight. So we'll do that, and it's looking to your

channel partners for what they're hearing from the end-consumer if it's been how companies are

set-up. So we do that from a really sort of granular standpoint I use a tool called Signals which

is created by HubSpot. And it's a great little plug-in for both 10 bucks a month I think where I

can actually see who's opening and clicking on the emails that I send out from my personal

inbox. And so, I use that for data collection on what's been interesting to people. If I do reach

out, same as I'm sure you do and lots of people do, you send a hundred emails a day or more.

Being able to see what's attractive to people. Even playing with my signature, my email, and

changing that up to see what sort of tag-line I could put on there that draws attention from

people. It's really passive data collection, and it's really interesting to me to see what resonates

with whom.




TRAVIS: So, how are you able to measure, say your signature. How are you able to get data so

that you can tell whether one signature is more effective than the other? Maybe by the clicks on-

-

CHRIS: Yeah, it's the signals clicks, and so I just track it by that.

TRAVIS: Oh okay, wow. I interviewed one of the top guys over there. So I should know some of

this. Okay, interesting, you've really peaked my interest. I'm not familiar with Signals so I'm

going to check that out. So you said ask your channel providers. Can you go a little deeper and

tell me what you're talking about there?

CHRIS: Sure, yeah, absolutely. In our case, and everyone's different. But in our case our

consultants, the consultants in our licensing program are really the ones who interact with most

clients purely face-to-face on a day-to-day basis. We may have the volume of eyeballs by

comparison but they're the ones who are really talking to clients and getting insight. And so I

found it's interesting that there's 2 components to it. Asking those questions at the monthly

survey collects immediate feedback, which is good, but it can also prompt them to start asking

some of those questions from their clients. If they look at that question and go, "Gosh, I have no

idea what people's number 1 feature is or whatever. So maybe I should start asking that from

the people that I'm talking to." So we get a linear flow of information from corporate, to

consultants, to clients, and back up again. So that's what I was referring to.

TRAVIS: Okay. So, one of the things, you talked about being-- I've taken a lot of notes here and

I'm scanning back over some of the notes that I took. And you said be curious without making a

judgement. What was the word that you used?

CHRIS: Yeah, it was basically along those lines. What I've experienced is that when you are

putting yourself in the state of curiosity, which I can elaborate on a second, it doesn't leave a lot

of room for you to be in a position of judgement.

TRAVIS: Judgement, yeah.

CHRIS: Judgement, yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay. By the way, I completely agree with you on that. And that happens more than I

think most people realize, or most people ever talk about. So I'd love for you to go deeper on

that. And to be completely honest Chris, sometimes I catch myself starting to drift into

judgement. And for the simple fact that I realize that it's a problem, holding myself accountable

and say now wait a minute, wait a minute, what are you doing? Why are you judging here?




Listen to the whole thing and pay attention, and try to draw. So it really struck a chord with me.

So I'd love for you to go deeper with me on that.

CHRIS: Absolutely. And Travis, I don't think you'd be human if you didn't slip into that judgement

phase. I think we all do, and I'm certainly guilty of it. I think particularly if we're involved in

repetitive tasks, or what appears to be a repetitive task. So for example, we have probably

about 25 or 30 people a week sign-up for free access to Actionable Workshops and it's a trial.

And so I reach out to those people, all of them, and I get replies from some of them, and then

we connect for a phone call. So as you can imagine there's a number of calls happening each

week, and they all start pretty much the same way. And so it's very easy on the 14th call that

week, or 7th call that day to be-- okay, here's another one. When they start on a certain path,

and the last 3 that started that way didn't buy or whatever. I think particularly where we're in that

sort of sales mode it's almost a defence mechanism, right? To slip in to judgement and just

think, "Well, they don't get it. They just don't get it." And so if we can get out of that head space

or from myself getting out of that head space to say, there's a living, breathing person on the

other end of this phone, or Skype, who has taken some time, even if it's only 10 minutes-- taken

some time out of their for sure busy day because we're all busy, right? If you have a pulse and a

job you're busy. And then they've taken time to connect me and so I'm just going to take a

minute here to really try to understand what it is that brought them here. And get out of the

position of trying to talk them into buying it or turning them down the path of seeing the benefits

of the program, any of that. Just getting into the position of what are you doing here? How can I

help? What drew you in? What keeps you up at night. Just really getting that understanding.

And I think we talked about sales at the beginning, all of this for anybody who's seasoned in

sales are just going, "Yeah, that's how you sell stuff." And it's true, right, this is where successful

sales come from is when we come at this place of curiosity. But I've really tried to put those

deliberate breaks in place because it sounds like you have where as soon as I start thinking I

know how their sentence is going to end, or how the conversation's going to end, or really

started slipping into the future as oppose to in the moment, try to stop that and come back to the

real words that they're saying. And it makes a big difference. I know for me, and maybe this is

helpful. I've got 3 monitors up right now, right? And I literally have to put blinders on. I put my

hand to the side of my head to make sure that I'm not saying the new things popping up on

screen, and Twitter feeds, and all that. I think we have to many things in front of us at any given

time particularly when we're in conversations like that where we want to stay curious. When we

have distractions it's easy to judge and move on. When we're focused on that isolated incident I

think it allows us to stay curious.

TRAVIS: Yeah, well said. So the mistake I made early on that I thinks‟ worth pointing out. And

you're basically describing it here. When I was 22, 25, 26 I wanted to sell everybody all of my

stuff all the time no matter what, right? And with age, and wisdom, and failure, and all the other




things. I come to realize that it's not always a good fit for them. And so, being curious. So for me

I'm naturally, I was born curious which has caused me a lot of problems but also made me

successful. And that's what has helped me become very good at helping other businesses is

because I focus on asking questions, which is that curiosity that you‟re talking about. And even

as we talk, studying and learning is never over. And I'm pretty qualified in a lot of these things

but I love to see how people think in digging deeper and adding some of your learning‟s to my

skill set is fascinating. And the only way you can do that is by exactly what you said, staying

completely present with what's going on, asking questions. And I've always viewed

communication as kind of throwing a ball, right? And so, I throw you a ball, you throw it back.

And I can't catch that ball if I'm not paying attention. And I've done interviews and I spoke with

people that aren't paying attention. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell when that's going on.

So I think that's a brilliantly authentic way to build a relationship with someone. And also, when

you're in sales those questions should allow you to decide whether you should offer what you

have to that person or you shouldn't, because everybody's not an exact fit. And you'll cause

yourself more problems by bringing people that are not a good fit into your business and still

trying to provide them a service, right?

CHRIS: And that's on all levels, right Travis? That's the other big learning that I've had in the

last little bit is that whether it's an employee, a channel partner, or any other type of partner, or a

client, it's just not worth it. The cash may seem great particularly if you're in a tight spot, but it

ends up costing you 10 times what you make off of it when you don't align with those people

that really get what you do and are speaking the same language. I think that's the great joy of

being an entrepreneur is that we struggle through a lot at various times and we get to enjoy

those highs as well. Biggest thing for me is you get to choose who you work with on all levels,

right? And that's awesome. I can't think of anything better than getting to decide who you

hangout with all day.

TRAVIS: I completely agree. So let me ask you, what do you think those alignment should be.

Now this is a really broad question. But when you're doing business with someone, what do you

think that alignment should be so that there's a good, healthy relationship?

CHRIS: Great question. I think there's these 2 parts to it on a sort of softer rule level. I think

there's a values alignment, so we're going to play this game together, how are we going to play

and what do we allow as fair rules and what's not fair rules. And I think that piece of it needs to

feel good on both sides, so this is the soft part, right? It's got to feel good that the way in which

we're going to go about achieving whatever it is that we're going to achieve, we all need to feel

that that's the right way to do it. But the other piece to it that I think so many, particularly when

we're trying to sell our client particularly on a newer product is that end goal alignment. Do we

both have the same crystal clear definition of what we're working to achieve? And coming back




and realize we're focusing a lot on sales here but that's part of the nature of being an

entrepreneur, right? You spend a lot of time in sales.

TRAVIS: Right.

CHRIS: The focus I think when it's short term, when the focus is on make the sale, that's not the

same goal as the client, ever, right? Because their goal is not to buy from you, their goal is to

achieve some end with that whatever they bought from you. And so, before the need the

contract signed, before checks are cashed, we need to have a clear alignment around what it is

that we're working towards, what's the intended outcome. Not the features and benefits of what

the tool's going to do where so many of us can get caught up in the own shininess of our

offering. But really, what are they expecting to get out of it. And I don't think you can have too

clear, or too many conversations around that during the sales process. And the end result of

course is that they start to picture where it's going to look like. And they get really excited about

that. If there is alignment then you've led to a much easier sale. So I think it's a double win on

that.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I completely agree. There's a famous quote, and I'm sure I'm probably going to

murder it, but it says, the most common misunderstanding in a communication is that it has just

occurred. And so many people--

CHRIS: You have to explain that one for me.

TRAVIS: Yeah. So many people think, and I first discovered this when I had 50 people in the

meeting. And I spoke as clearly as I thought I could possibly speak. And now this is somebody

that is-- I feel like I'm a good communicator. I'm good at sales, all these other things. And I had

5 different versions of what people thought I said in that meeting, and it was that awakening that

I realize, depending on your perspective, who you are and how you listen, you pick up the

certain parts of that message. And so, it's very common for people to feel like communication

has just happened when it really has not. And so when you said do we have the same vision of

the outcome, that's exactly it.

CHRIS: That makes the more sense.

TRAVIS: When we're successful this is what success is going to look like, right? And so many

people miss that because they go along delivering this product or service thinking that they're

delivering an absolute incredible experience. And from the client's perspective it's not what they

expected so therefore they're not as enamoured with the result as the person delivering it feels

like they should be, right?




CHRIS: Sure, absolutely. And then I think you know when we're dealing with the client again

particularly if we're in the early stages of running the business or if we're in a tight cash spot. I

think there's a certain fear that can hold us back from having that conversation because there's

this voice in the back of our head saying that, "But maybe if you clarify that outcome their

desired outcome is not going to be the same as what you can provide and maybe it's not going

to happen." And I think we need to lean in to that fear. And again, I'm not saying it's easy to do,

but I think coming back to the point from earlier it's a lot cheaper to walk away from it and lose

that short term cash than it is to engage in it. And realize three quarters of the way through the

process that you're totally misaligned as far as what you wanted out of the program.

TRAVIS: Right, completely agree. I'm blown away. I got to tell that you're way ahead of where--

you're fairly young, 30 years old, right? Right around that range?

CHRIS: 32 now. Yeah.

TRAVIS: You're way ahead of me where I was at 32, I'm 48. And so, man, I'm thoroughly

impressed with the knowledge, and insight, and perspective that you've developed in being an

entrepreneur. Geez man, we need a million more just like you. So congratulations on that Chris.

CHRIS: Oh, it's very kind, I appreciate. I can take very little credit for it. Again, I've consumed

probably, like yourself Travis, and I probably consumed 3 or 400 business books, and not just

consume them but actually taken something from them to really disseminate it, take it out, look it

around, look it over and say how do I apply this. And I think anytime that we can build any of

that reflection time into our lives where we're all way too busy, we've got too much going on, we

can't possibly do everything that needs to be done in the days we have. And so, that sort of

quadrant 2 to borrow from various sort of important but not urgent task that never seems to get

addressed. And I think the best thing we can do to improve our own level of sort of insight, and

whatever you want to call it, business acumen, is to building and hold to those appointments of

regular reflection on what you've learned and what you didn't. And whether you're learning the

lesson for the 4th time. Maybe it's time to actually learn it. I think those reflection times are

important.

TRAVIS: Right. I think that the important take away, because I believe there's a misbelief with a

lot of people that when I reach the certain level I'll no longer need to put so much effort in

learning, which is wrong. The learning piece never ever stops. So the best thing to do, if you're

not already there to everybody that's listening is learn to like it, right?

CHRIS: Yeah. And I think find your way of embracing it. That's the beautiful thing about today's

age. If you're not a reader then start listening to audio books. And if you're not an audio book

person then go find some video footage of Ted Talks. I think there's so many different goals see




more conferences. I decide a budget to go out and experience courses. I think there's so many

ways in which we can engage with learning now that it doesn't have to be something that we

don't enjoy. You can find a method or a mode that works for you.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I agree with you.

CHRIS: Sorry to cut you off.

Travis: No, no worries. I agree with you. I consume a lot of books via audio. So I go through

audible and I just have credits that show up every month. And then I go in and select the books.

So yeah, I agree with you. That way I can get some working out in or I can go on a jog, or I can

do whatever. And I can listen to podcast, or I can listen to a book, or whatever, and get multiple

things done. Listen, we could go on or quite awhile here. I'm really enjoying it. What do you say

we transition to the lightning round. You need to do anything to get ready for that transition? Do

you need to stand up and do some jumping jack--

CHRIS: I may be jumping jack or two. I think--

TRAVIS: Right.

CHRIS: No, I'm ready man, let's bring it.

TRAVIS: Okay, cool. So, what book or program made an impact on you related to business that

you'd recommend and why?

CHRIS: It's the combination of The Lean Startup by Eric Riese which I mentioned earlier, and a

book called Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder and his partner who's name I can

never pronounce. Those 2 books got me thinking about business in a new way, got me thinking

about faster iterations. Honestly, between the two of them they probably save me a hundred

grand in a year from software development that I would have done and didn't because of it that

was the right move. So, great books worth reading.

TRAVIS: Lean Startup's one of my favorite books. It's easy to get caught in developing, creating

this big, long, drawn out program when really all you need to do is just create the first 3 steps

and make sure that the thing goes, right?

CHRIS: Absolutely.

TRAVIS: Okay. So what's one of your favorite books or pieces of technology that you've

recently discovered, if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and why?

http://amzn.to/1lqkVrc




CHRIS: Again, it's a combination. I feel like I'm cheating Travis but these work in pairs. 2 tools

for managing my email inbox. One is called SaneBox and the second of Boomerang. The

combination of those two tools, it basically filters my incoming email so I only see ones that are

particularly important and the rest I can look at in batches. And boomerang allows me to

schedule emails so when I am-- I'm in Spain as you said, most of my business is North

American-based. When I start work it's 3 a.m. in Toronto or New York, and that's not an ideal

time to be sending sales emails. So I set it up to go out 7:40 Eastern Time. And those 2

combination, combined with-- I've removed all email notifications from anywhere so I don't see

those anywhere, allows me to stay in the driver seat in regards to email. And I think so many of

us are slaves to emails that these have saved me literally countless hours a week.

TRAVIS: Cool, yeah, I agree with you. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or

attitude in business?

CHRIS: This is hilarious to me. We are truly drinking from the same firehouse Travis. I came on

Skype and your Skype profile message was by Eleanor Roosevelt, and it was the quote that I

had written down, which is „simple minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, while

great minds discuss ideas’. So then I panicked because I thought, well if you've shared it there

you've probably shared it before.

TRAVIS: I haven't.

CHRIS: So I went out and found another Roosevelt—No. Well, we can still stick with that or I

can give you my back-up, whatever you prefer.

TRAVIS: Yeah, give me your back-up also, I'd like to hear it.

CHRIS: Alright, so this is a few seconds long here, but this is by Teddy Roosevelt. "It's not the

critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer

of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the

arena, whose face is marred by dust, and sweat, and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs,

who comes short again and again, because there's no effort without error and shortcoming. But

who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions,

who spends himself on a worthy cause. Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high

achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place

shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

TRAVIS: Wow.

http://www.sanebox.com/

http://www.boomeranggmail.com/




CHRIS: It gives you goose bumps doesn't it? Every time I read that I just get chills. It's powerful

stuff.

TRAVIS: Yeah. I'm sure you've probably noticed and Gary Halbert wrote extensively on this,

that the majority of negative people that say nasty, mean things are the ones that are sitting on

the sidelines.

CHRIS: Absolutely. And in the middle of time. When you're focused on achieving something

that matters to you, there's just no time or patience for criticizing the work of others. Yeah, I

think it's that whole idle hands are the devil's playground or whatever. Well, you just stay busy

during something that matters and that's how we stay more positive in life as well.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I agree. Now, you've probably have heard this before but I'm going to

recommend it anyway. So, have you read Napoleon Hill's-- what he's book that he's--

CHRIS: The Think and Grow Rich?

TRAVIS: Yeah, have you read that?

CHRIS: I have yeah, absolutely.

TRAVIS: Okay, yeah, I figured you had. The book, now I love that book and I've read it probably

5 or 6 times. But the one book that came out of his in 2011 that I absolutely loved, and it's

incredible on audio is Outwitting the Devil.

CHRIS: Yeah. I haven't read it yet Travis. I have a copy of it on my shelf along with several

others. But I've heard great things.

TRAVIS: Oh, you've got to listen to the audio. You said you like to listen to them via audio,

right?

CHRIS: I do, yeah.

TRAVIS: The guy that plays the devil part, he sounds like I would envision the devil to sound

like. But the message in that book is so poignant and so powerful, and really kind of the inverse

of what your quote was that you just read. And box, when you get time, put that on your list of

must-listen to's.

CHRIS: Alright, it's moved up the list, I'll take it.




TRAVIS: Cool. If you had to start over today, what would you do to get the fastest the result?

And fastest doesn't have to be tomorrow, it could be 2 years.

CHRIS: Great question. I think I would spend more time waiting for the break-out moment than

trying to actively create break-out moment. And I know that sounds counter-intuitive. But I think I

took any small taste of success and blew out a program and spent 10 times the money that I

should've before really knowing that there was a market there. And so I think, there's this really

interesting balancing act because we can't wait forever, we have to test things. But I think it's

that idea of always be testing but not going full-bore on things until you know that there-- an

incremental growth is fine. I think that's the biggest thing. We read all these stories about

companies being sold for $16 billion or a $1 billion here. Billion seems to be the new magic

number, right? And so we assume that if companies could do that in 18 months, there must be

something wrong with me if I'd been at this for 5 years and I'm not a billion dollar in evaluation.

And so, for me anyway, the trap was I got caught up in pursuing the next big win instead of

appreciating the incremental and steady growth that leads to most successful and profitable

businesses. So, I would be lot more aligned with analytics and metrics. I would be tracking the

appropriate key performance indicators on a monthly basis which we didn't start doing until

about a year and a half ago. I would really set-up more systems for listening and learning from

the people that were in our community that were supporters of what we did. And just be a little

more deliberate. That would be the big one.

TRAVIS: Boy, that's brilliant advise. That paid for our interview three-fold, ten-fold if people

could just re-listen to that advise t could save you so much pain and heartache. And it's natural

to want to hurry things up and press the gas as fast as possible. But you do need to make sure

that you've got a winner. And the only way you know that is through testing, so completely

agree with you, well said. One last thing is how do people connect with you Chris?

CHRIS: Yeah, sure. So we're actionablebooks.com, exactly the way it sounds. And you can find

my contact info there, or if you want to get a hold of me directly, you can email me

[email protected]

End of Interview

TRAVIS: Excellent. Thank you so much for that. Remember that you can find all the links to the

books and the resources mentioned in this show in the show notes. Just go to

rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and you'll find really all the resources that you're looking for

there. Before I close the show today I'd like for you to think about committing to 2 things. I've

http://www.actionablebooks.com/

mailto:[email protected]





talked about this on the last show and I'm going to repeat in several times because it's that

important. It's something that I'm confident will help fast forward your success. So the first is I

want you to find a mastermind where you can be surrounded by people that have an

entrepreneurial mindset so that you can ultimately help eliminate those self-limiting negative

thoughts and focus on constant forward bold progress. No matter how successful you are, we

still have those negative, self-limiting thoughts that want to creep in. Try to find the absolute best

group that you can get in, and rather than delaying it, get in any group first and then constantly

seek to upgrade it until you feel like you've found a place that you fit in. Now, these people need

to be outside your friends and family circle. Secondly, I want you to find a mentor that has

already achieved what you dream of and see if that person will personally mentor you and your

business, so that you can quickly navigate your way to the next several levels of success while

eliminating the guesswork. I wish I would've did this years and years ago. So just trust me and

take a shortcut, and find a mentor that fits that criteria. My quote for today comes from Zig

Ziglar. And the quote reads, “You are born to win. But to be a winner you must plan to win,

prepare to win, and expect to win." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. To your

incredible success my friend, take care.




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Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your

Business"

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