← Beyond Blind Blaming
Beyond Blind Blaming
Disrupting the Furniture Industry & Solving the Biggest Frustrations in Furniture Shopping | Alex Back
00:40:46
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- [00:01]
A
People are buying furniture. People are buying couches. Right now, the market cap is probably a large percentage smaller than it was a few years ago. But that doesn't mean that you can't fight for your slice of the pie.
- [00:13]
B
Alex Bath. He's the founder and CEO of couch.com, a revolutionary new platform transforming how people shop for and interact with furniture.
- [00:21]
A
Nobody has any idea how or where to buy a couch. It's something we only do a few times in our lives. We're just really helping people get matched with their perfect couch. The last two years for the furniture industry post pandemic have been atrocious. Interest rates have soared. Furniture buying has come to a standstill. A lot of big retailers have gone out of business or had to restructure. So who's to blame?
- [00:46]
B
When you have somebody that is stuck in a decision, what do you think is one immediate step they can take to start moving forward?
- [00:52]
A
I will help you filter through a lot of BS just by asking a few key questions.
- [01:10]
B
Welcome to Beyond Blind Blaming. This is the place where we explore how easily hidden truths can hold us back, trapping us in cycles of frustration and blame, often without realizing what's truly stopping us. Each week I'm joined by experts and professionals who share their journey of taking back control of their story, overcoming hidden challenges, and stopping blind blaming from dictating their outcomes. I'm your host, Kevin St. Clergy and today I'm joined by Alex Back. He's the founder and CEO of couch.com, a revolutionary new platform transforming how people shop for and interact with furniture. With a background in digital innovation and entrepreneurship, Alex has built couch.com into more than just a furniture site. It's a thriving community that helps people make smarter decisions about their living spaces. Before launching couch.com, alex was deeply involved in the tech industry, leading teams in product development and marketing strategies. Alex, welcome to the show.
- [02:05]
A
Why, thank you, Kevin. What a lovely intro.
- [02:08]
B
I want to start with your journey. What led you to create couch.com and what problem were you trying to solve?
- [02:14]
A
I spent a long time in the E commerce space and in the furniture industry. So I founded and ran a brand called Apartment 2B, which was one of the first direct to consumer brands in the furniture space on the scene that was independently owned and operated. The good part of that is that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing when we started, but we had a good amount of time before competition started popping up to figure out the kinks. Riding the E commerce wave. Being in the tech side of retail over the last decade plus was an amazing experience and ended up selling our company in 2018. I worked for new ownership for a number of years and my deal was up and it was time to move on. Was I going to stay in furniture? Was I going to go do something else? In my mind, I have my whole life ahead of me. So I thought about it a lot and somebody mentioned that the domain couch.com was available and I was like, well that's interesting. I started like ruminating on it and first I was thinking that this could be just like a great site to sell couches. Certainly I could just do what I did before, but just do it better and bigger. And then I thought a little bit deeper and realized had sort of an aha moment, as they say, where I realized that this could be something a lot bigger and more scalable and something that serves the industry at large and actually solves problems, not just sells products. So it solves problems on both sides of a transaction, on the user or customer side and on the retailer side for users. Nobody has any idea how or where to buy a couch. It's something we only do a few times in our lives. Whether you're high end, low end customer, meaning you want to spend a lot or you want to spend a little, it's still a very daunting process because it's something, generally speaking you use almost every day. It's in your home, usually in the center of your home, Although most people concrete in the kitchen, let's be honest, but you know what I mean, it's in the living room. So it's a big decision for people and one that isn't usually really considered until people start. So we're helping people go through the process of selecting, buying, negotiating at certain points for couches because there's still a lot of that in the furniture industry. We're just really helping people get matched with their perfect couch on the retailer side. As a marketer for a long time, I was always searching for a third party marketing platform or entity that actually had couch buyers. As I said, furniture is something you do only a few times in your life. So it's quite difficult as a marketer to find people who are interested in buying couches at any given moment. You're spraying and praying out there on Google and Meta, you're almost in the town square saying, do you need furniture? How about you, sir? So this platform that we've built is a place that is a community or a hub for people to find everything they want to know. About buying a couch for retailers, that's gold. These are the warmest leads in the couch industry that we've created and we're sending through to our retail partners. So in essence, it's a marketing platform for them, our clients, and we serve the users as best we can, too.
- [05:33]
B
Well, I would imagine you're lowering their cost per lead as well by getting them qualified buyers, people who are ready or at least looking to buy soon.
- [05:41]
A
Cost of customer acquisition in the furniture space can be incredibly expensive. So from a margin perspective, when you do something like this at scale, it could really pay dividends. Having this middle person or middle entity, a landing spot for customers to get warm before we send them off to buy at the retailers can reduce the cost of acquisition and the time of acquisition as well. And that's important because the shorter amount of time that you're marketing to the same customers or remarketing to them, more likely the less you're spending. So that's the idea. That's the ethos we're trying to accomplish.
- [06:21]
B
I think the same is true for consumers, because I know it's frustrating for me when I go to a big furniture store and they have like, six couches. It's like they're almost trying to do too many things for too many people, but they don't have exactly what I want. So now I've got to go to four other stores.
- [06:35]
A
It's very interesting that you mentioned that, you know, a lot of people, I think, are blind to some of the inefficiencies or downsides of shopping at retail for furniture. Literally, you said six couches. It's funny because in many furniture stores, there's only room for six couches. And of course they're going to tell you that these are the best six couches that money can buy. But is that actually the case? The truth is, once you start peeling back the layers of the onion, you'll find, as in many industries these days, there are thousands and thousands of options. So Kevin goes to store, checks out a few, says, I wonder what else is out there. Goes back home and unlocks an entire world of pain. No world of indecision and options. And our goal is to simplify that process.
- [07:26]
B
I love it because the last time my girlfriend and I were out looking for bedspreads and stuff, and I was like, yeah, I think we do need a new couch. And it was just funny because I. I haven't been to furniture shop in a while. You said this only happens a few times in their life, and it's so true. But I walked in and I'm like, When did the 70s come back? These are terrible. What the hell just happened? That's funny.
- [07:45]
A
The 70s are kind of back. I personally like it, but I can understand the trepidation.
- [07:50]
B
Well, see, luckily I built my home before I had the girlfriend. So I was able to put a 150 inch TV with stadium seating. So the new couch we need, it needs to be stadium seating in there. And I have 11 foot by 17 foot screen in my garage for virtual golf and I need a new couch for that. So we're trying to find a couch for that. But you mentioned blind spots, so it's actually one of the questions that I outlined for you. So as we talked about it, it was frustrating for me, but it's frustrating sometimes for consumers. I read a lot about hidden fees and overwhelming choices, confusing quality differences. What are some of the biggest blind spots people have when shopping for furniture?
- [08:29]
A
You just mentioned a few big ones. Here's a little tidbit because you just touched on it. There's no such thing as free returns in furniture. That's not something that any retailer really offers. And if they do, it's not actually free. It's a gimmick. Because the reality is, whether it's on a local level, even if you bought something from a store down the street that has a local warehouse, or if you bought something from Wayfair, let's say, and it's shipped all the way across the country to you or even internationally, someone's paying for them to go back to where they came from. And oftentimes furniture cannot be resold if it cannot be guaranteed a new condition. So there's a lot of loss in the furniture space. Which is to say that retailers try to mitigate that loss as much as possible by putting in a lot of restocking fees and return shipping charges. In almost no cases do they pass on the entire cost to the consumer because it costs that much money. For instance, you can buy a thousand dollar couch and it can cost $600 to ship it. So if consumers understood that, I think it's just not a concept that people are ready for and it serves to devalue the entire value proposition of buying furniture. In general, shipping costs are included in furniture shopping. So people don't understand that. And people don't realize that if you don't like it, you're going to be paying likely hundreds of dollars, hundreds of dollars to send something back, which is not something in this Amazon world that we are used to. As consumers, furniture is still quite different in that regard. So that's one tidbit.
- [10:06]
B
I love it. If I read through your website correctly, your platform seems to thrive on consumer education and transparency. Can you think of a story, since this is about blind blaming, of how a consumer thought they had one problem but later discovered it was something entirely different.
- [10:23]
A
You know, and furniture retail, for the reasons I just mentioned. The name of the game really is to blame somebody or something that isn't oneself. I've never taken it personally. It's almost like the only card a consumer can play. And just to be more literal about it, it's not that they didn't like their new couch. It's that it arrived with a little scratch on it or something came in perfect or it took too long or the color is not as described. So that's the first thing that comes to mind because it's the most linear example of customers placing blame on something that truly isn't themselves because it's the only card they have to play. And I understand that it's hundreds of dollars. It's just like cutting in front of somebody in a really long line if you're about to be late to miss your flight or something like that. It's just one of these things that you have to do at certain points in your life. Maybe, but I don't know, maybe you can lead me into a better answer.
- [11:18]
B
If I think that was perfect. It was just an opening question, you know, like, for me, I was a little nervous, like, gosh, am I going to be able to find a nice couch? Because, you know, of course Jen's pushing back because she doesn't want the stadium seating on every seat and she wants something that looks nice. And she's trying to deman cave my house, let's put it that way. I was like, but there's that one couch in the corner that I bought. And I misread the fact that I could not return it because when I got the couch, I was like, oh, my God, I hate this. This is not comfortable at all. But they wouldn't let me return the couch, which I totally get. It was my fault, not them.
- [11:49]
A
Well, every retailer wants customers like you writing books about blind blaming.
- [11:53]
B
Of course, yeah.
- [11:54]
A
You don't accept responsibility.
- [11:55]
B
Well, it's hard when you teach this stuff because you. How you do anything is how you do everything is what I say. I think that a lot of times when customers are buying, they don't read contracts, they don't do their homework, they don't do Their research, which is a problem that your website solves.
- [12:10]
A
We're trying to. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink necessarily. At the same time, being a retailer managing national logistics operation, customer service team and every player involved in the retail transaction, the attempt that I've made here is to put out as much education as possible about the things that really matter in a transaction. Whether people choose to do that or. I think a lot of people in furniture are guided through the buying process by their imagination and hope. This looks good. This is great. I think this is going to be awesome in my house. And they don't really want to consider all of the potential downsides. There are plenty of upsides of buying a brand new couch, don't get me wrong. But there are quite a few perils and you just touched upon one of them. I mean, you've experienced it yourself.
- [13:02]
B
Yeah, I just experienced with the bed. I bought one of the new fancy dancy. My trainer wants me to have this smart bed so she can track my sleep. She's not here in this town, but they chose a shipper. I was like, please don't use those guys. They're terrible. And it arrived wet and damaged and it took two weeks to get it. And then it didn't come all at once. It came in like four different things. The last few pieces came and they smelled like pot because the guys were smoking pot in the back of the truck. Swear to God. My girlfriend's like, I don't think you're going to want to come outside, number one to smell this. But here's what happened. And when I called the company back, they didn't care. It was really disappointing. But, yeah, those are the things. I mean, I get it, stuff happens, but they just weren't willing to listen. That was probably the most frustrating thing. They weren't taking feedback.
- [13:52]
A
Well, that's pretty unacceptable. It was never feel. Well, one, no one should be smoking weed on people's mattresses. But number two, you should have some empathy when you hear from a customer about anything that they bring up, even if it's feigned empathy, you don't want to make a customer feel like they don't matter.
- [14:10]
B
Well, let's switch to the businesses now that we're talking about it. Have you ever seen businesses blame things like customer hesitation or price sensitivity when sales slow down? And in your experience, what are some of the real reasons people struggle to make buying decisions? Or what are some of the real reasons that retailers may be struggling?
- [14:25]
A
By the way, I identify very deeply with this whole concept of blind blaming, especially in retail. It is very, very poignant or prevalent? Both. So the last two years for the furniture industry post pandemic have been atrocious. Now the furniture industry generally, the trends you'll see almost to a T follow the housing market trends. So you can imagine that over the last two years, as interest rates have soared, furniture buying has come to a standstill. A lot of big retailers have gone out of business or had to restructure. The company that bought my company is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy right now. And they had a thriving 30 store mega operation in the Midwest of US and a thriving e commerce store. And it's been really tricky. So who's to blame? Retailers playing the blame game. It's their favorite game to play. I just put something on the housing market, right. So it's easy to shirk responsibility when there are macro conditions like a housing market crisis or downturn, whatever you want to call the last couple of years to place some blame on. There are other things like, oh, it snowed today. Oh, today's a Saturday. I mean, all we do as retailers is make excuses. A lot of what we do is rooted in superstition and that's a slippery slope. You know, there's superstition like, oh, we don't send an email at 7am on Saturday because people are just waking up and they're getting it. So let's do it on Sunday when they're more likely to stay in bed for a couple of hours. So many decisions are based on gut instincts that we have as marketers and retailers. And when things don't go right, you look for anything outside of yourself to blame. The reality is this, people are buying furniture, people are buying couches. Right now the market cap is probably a large percentage smaller than it was a few years ago. But that doesn't mean that you can't fight for your slice of the pie. What are you doing to adjust to the new conditions? How are you promoting? What have you changed to adjust to the 2025 customer? And that's the question people should be asking themselves.
- [16:41]
B
Yeah, what you described perfectly, and you'll see this when I get you a copy of the book, is something I call the blame loop. This blind blaming leads to something called a behavioral bedrock. And these are the experience that we have. It's just added layer upon layer upon layer that creates a few other problems for us. One I call preconceived perceptions. These are the filters, the glasses that we see because of our Blaming and our behavioral bedrock, it causes us to see the world in a different way. And then we go through some cognitive biases where we go out and we post, oh God, nobody's buying furniture on furniture, Facebook groups or whatever. And then you get all these people to agree with you. It doesn't do any good. But what happens is it moves you through the blame loop to some other things where it basically becomes physiologically impossible for you to see a solution or a new way of doing things. I call it insight, invisibility. And it's a really dangerous loop to be in. And the problem is that a lot of the people that are in their sphere of influence too, when they go out and tell their story, they're stuck in the blame loop as well. And so we try to do with beyond blind blaming is help them break free of that so they can see some solutions. And if I just give one advice to the listeners today that are in the furniture industry that may be listening to this is when you stop blaming, complaining, you go from negativity to possibilities and it's really hard habit to break.
- [17:56]
A
Big time. Misery loves company. And you walk around trade show, for instance, in a down year or in a down period, there's a lot of negativity and it can be really infectious. And you know, I've seen exactly what you just said enacted hundreds and hundreds of times. It's just, it's hard not to. As humans, we seek that community validation and it can be really, really dangerous. In fact, I would say unless you absolutely need to be around others in the industry, like, networking is fantastic. But if it's rooted in negativity and blaming and complaining, then I would say that it's the worst thing you could do. Perhaps stay in your lane, find your slice of the pie, or find some.
- [18:45]
B
Other people who are killing it. We have masterminds, groups as part of blind blaming. And when you put a bunch of people in a room that are actually growing and they're sharing ideas that are positive, they're not really focused on the problems to a point. But at some point you've got to take a solution to that problem. You can either focus on the problem or you can focus on the solution. And when you focus on the solution, at least you're trying something. It may not work and you can pivot. But I came up with a new one that says pivot or perish. There's an article that I just wrote. There's actually a game for retailers that I believe one of the big Harvard or somebody came up with a game called Pivot or Perish and it's for big retailers. It was very interesting, but I just love the Pivot or Perish. You created a community driven approach to furniture shopping from what I can tell. How does customer feedback and interaction shape your platform?
- [19:31]
A
Well, to be honest, this is the area of greatest opportunity in couch.com's evolution because community A, it's the one thing that AI cannot reproduce. There are a few things left. This is one of them. A human to human interaction, a conversation between two humans. And I think there's a reason why podcasting is so popular, is because we crave that kind of stimulation. But I digress. I think for couch.com, our biggest goal for 2025 is to create a community element that is truly engaging, that we are not manufacturing or supplying or facilitating, but rather creating a hub, you know, the Reddit of furniture. And we're discussing how best to do that because not only is it technically important, because Google now favors sites only with a community presence, at least content sites like the one that we have created, but also because that's. Like I said, I think it's one of the things worth investing in these days because AI can give you answers to questions, but it cannot replicate the human experience yet.
- [20:51]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I'm always nice to chatgpt, so that when it does take over the world, you're gonna remember this guy was very sweet and nice to me.
- [20:59]
A
That's funny, you know, I find myself often saying please, I do too.
- [21:04]
B
Are you tired of feeling stuck in your business, career, relationships or your health? Are you frustrated by problems that just won't go away no matter what you try? After coaching and teaching thousands of people for over 25 years, I've discovered something powerful. Every unresolved problem has a hidden solution you just can't see yet. That's why I created the From Stuck to Breakthrough challenge. A free 5 day live experience where I'll show you exactly how to uncover what's really holding you back and finally break free to the results that you want. Whether it's in your business, your health, your wealth, your relationships. I'll help you discover the real root cause of your challenges and give you the blueprint for permanent change. Join me and a community of like minded people ready to break through. Go to blind blaming.com again. That's blind blaming.com to sign up and we'll see you soon. As you said you got a new goal for this year and I love the community based a Sense of community is very important, I think for any business. And it sounds like you've had to adapt and evolve your platform along the way. What's been the biggest pivot since we just talked about it or unexpected lesson in running couch.com?
- [22:09]
A
I love the pivot or perish phrase. Luckily, I internalized my own version of that while I was starting couch.com I listened to, I don't know, hundreds of podcasts, business books in my ear constantly for months and months before I even started working on couch. And I was just ruminating on the idea. And one of the things, things that hit me the hardest in a good way is the fact that a business is an iterative entity. I think it's so many businesses fail quote unquote, because the initial vision was very rigid and business operators were not willing or able because of maybe some of the physiological constraints that you referenced already to shift or to pivot and change. And luckily I'm not married to anything going on with couch.com I don't really care what we end up because I know that we will find our way from a business perspective and I know there's plenty of low hanging fruit in ways that we can serve our users and our clients, the retailers. There's a quote that I talked about it a few times, but I don't remember the exact thing. But it's like when the market is gargantuan, the opportunity is, is endless. And that's really just sort of the mantra that I'm operating with. It's, it's $150 billion industry, the furniture, us in the US only, we'll find our way. So some of the pivots we're working through right now, like initially I saw ours as a retail education platform, much like we've discussed in this conversation. And when we start putting content out there, the things that started getting the most traction were our expert reviews of brands. What you need to know about shopping for furniture at Costco, the difference between Crate and Barrel and West Elm, things that people are actually confused about. These are things that have, have grown and we've seen a lot of traction. So when we did our first five brand reviews and brand focus pieces of content and we saw traction. I'm like, hey Randall, my writer, let's go 70 more brand reviews, please. So we literally pivoted to for the next few months becoming a review platform, chased that for a while. Google favored us a lot. And then in October started to shift down and I'm like, okay, well clearly we can't count on Google. We have to now focus on our paid acquisition strategy and get back to basics of what makes us special. So a bone was thrown for us, we went to fetch it, we tried, we brought it back, and it wasn't as tasty as we thought. So let's move on to something else.
- [24:51]
B
I came up with this thing called the RCD method. Reflect, connect and decide. So reflect is where you kind of dig deep and you're looking at a couple of different strands of what I call an obstacle DNA. And then you connect and you share that idea with other people, ideally with people outside your sphere of influence that aren't stuck in the same blame loop that we all get stuck in every now and then. And the third step is simply decide, make a decision and do something, and you did it. And that's where it goes to pivot or perish. But I see a lot of people getting stuck and indecision, and that's kind of goes to. My next question is, when you have somebody that is stuck in a decision, whether it's a retailer or somebody buying a couch or even making a career move, what do you think is one immediate step they can take to start moving forward?
- [25:35]
A
On the consumer side, if you start your journey online, as 80% of customers do, you're immediately hit with a myriad of options. Some people like that many options. I don't like going to the Cheesecake Factory. I like going to the restaurant that has five things on the menu. You know, just tell me what to eat. I'll often ask the server, give me two options, I'll give you one. Anyway, you go online, you start shopping for a couch. You go to Wayfair. It's a place you've heard of. You see, there's a filter, but there's not much guidance in helping you sift through the thousands of options that they have. Then you get all the ads for the next week on any platform that you're searching on. Because that's how we acquire customers in the furniture space. We do a lot of conquesting and going after people who have searched up furniture in other places. And it can be extremely overwhelming. To the extent that you will put it off and procrastinate it, it becomes a chore, it becomes a job. Something that's going to require a lot of time and thought. And like many things that fit that profile, we put them off. Go to a furniture store, do what Kevin did. At least start somewhere, sit on a few couches, start gathering data before you get into the feedback. Loop or get into overwhelming territory. Just start with what you are looking for. And that's what we try to do@couch.com, like we have a quiz. Call our couch finder. Nothing fancy. We just ask you the key questions that I would ask somebody if they came into my furniture store. What size are you looking for? How many people are looking to seat? Do you like this style of this 1970s or not? Right. I will help you filter through a lot of BS just by asking a few key questions. And people can ask them of themselves. That's the reality. What do you dislike or like about your current couch? Figure that out. Go to a store, gather some data, sit on the six couches they have to show you and say like, of the six, I like this one the most. And you start narrowing your own results down. But sitting at home having it on your to do list just to browse the Internet every now and again. Like this weekend or I'm gonna spend an hour and buy a couch online. It's likely not gonna happen as easily as if you actually take some action and do some stuff.
- [27:58]
B
The story I always have is that came to that part in the book was I have a coaching client, and she'd been debating on two different loans to grow her business. And she'd been hemming her han and going over for about a month and going back to them and getting more, you know, playing them against each other. And she's like, what do you think I should do? And I just without thinking said, I think you need to make an effing decision. But I didn't say effing. I said the F word. And she's like, oh, okay. We hung up and we had our next coaching call the next month. And she got on the phone call and she was really smiling. I'm like, what's going on? She's like, man, I'm MFD ing all over the place. You have changed my whole approach to business and life. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what are you talking about? She's like, I make an effing decision. I do it every day. It's so freeing. I just make a decision. Yeah, I've screwed up a couple of times, but I'm actually making a decision. I was like, you know, that's so good. Do you mind if I use that in the book? I'll give you full credit for it. But making an effing decision is. I think at some point you've got to do. You've done the research, you've got to get it in the house. Try it. If it's a piece of furniture, just make a decision. Because I found that hemming and hawing on whatever it is, whether it's in your life or your business or as a consumer, just make a decision. You can always get your money back. Unless you do like me and don't read the fine print where there's no money back, you can't return it. I don't know how that works in the furniture industry. Now I'm pretty sure they're going to let me return the wet bed that I received since the delivery guy threw it right in a puddle of water in my front yard. It was such a nightmare. I was like, this better be a damn good bed. But, yeah, so if that, that helps.
- [29:24]
A
I think MFding, you should probably hang out. You can find some new coaching clients at the Cheesecake Factory who are experiencing this indecision decision, man.
- [29:36]
B
We've got the merch plan for the MFD because we did our mastermind with that particular group of folks and we did a group exercise and they came back and like, all right, we've added mfd. We call it MFD and ds. And I'm like, all right, what is that? Like, well, if you make effing decisions, you'll do epic shit. And I'm like, I love it. Let's go with it. So now we've got mfd and, well, you've clearly invested in yourself over the years, otherwise you wouldn't be where you're at today. And you've had some pretty cool interviews that I found on other podcasts. What have you done to develop yourself or invest in yourself? Is it mentors, masterminds, coaches, technology that's had the biggest impact on your growth?
- [30:12]
A
I started my last company when I was 26 and just went into blinders on workhorse mode. Get a little feedback from the outside world, just a tiny bit, but just. I hustled my way into a successful lifestyle without doing a lot of the things that I should have been doing. One, I've always had a pretty healthy exercise routine and eat well. That's something I've had since I was a kid, so I didn't have to work on that. But that is extremely important. My sleep is absolutely horrible right now, so I need to take a page out of my own book in that regard. But some of the positive things I did, I took time. I didn't jump into something else afterwards. I mentioned this earlier in this conversation. I gave myself Six months. And I called it a sabbatical. I did not call it semi retirement or whatever. Like I had plenty of money at the time and I did travel a lot. But every day I learned and I listened. I'm not a big, like adhd. It's hard for me to read stuff, so I listen a lot more. I will read your book though, Kevin. Do not worry.
- [31:22]
B
It's okay. I'm getting an audio version. Because even when I.
- [31:24]
A
If you give me the audio, I.
- [31:26]
B
Will, I'm recording it now. I will get you. Now that I know that, I will get you the audio version asap. It's just taking a while. I had no idea.
- [31:34]
A
That's how I absorb information.
- [31:35]
B
It's okay, man. That's. It's a great point because we, we got in this today with a very high end coaching client. This is. We have some high end coaching programs. It's pretty, a pretty substantial investment. And we found out that she's very frustrated because some of her new hires aren't reading her SOPs or standard operating procedures. And I'm like, oh, this is a good one. Because when I was a little amazed when I posted, like, hey, I need some people to read the proof copies of my book. And then I got so many response backs like, hey, I don't read anymore. Can I listen to the audio version? And then I had a couple younger guys and gals who were like, hey, do you have it on video? And I'm like, well, I never thought about putting it on YouTube, but what the hell, we'll do that too. And when I asked her, different people learn in different ways. Do you have your SOPs in two or three videos? Like Dan Martell, One of my favorite business books is buy back your time and chapter seven talks about playbooks. And he gives you like this outline for shooting two or three videos per important task. How to outline the cadence, how often it's done. But when you put it in two or three different ways to learn, anybody can ingest it, I guess is the best way I'm saying it. So you just bring up a good point. So thank you for that.
- [32:37]
A
It's embarrassing a little. For a smart. I identify as a smart person, a smart identifying person to say out loud that I don't read. Especially to someone who is writing and promoting a book, that's okay.
- [32:51]
B
I mean, I.
- [32:51]
A
No, I know, I know, but I'm owning it because. No, that's my point. I'm not embarrassed about it. It's just how I absorb.
- [32:58]
B
But you still get the information. And that's the key, I think the most important thing. And I've got some coaches like, no, you got to read X amount of pages per day, which I love to read and I'm an active reader, I love to sit down. I but I also listen and watch YouTube as well on the treadmill. That's my way of getting back in shape, is just mixing and matching. So I'll either listen to audio tape or watch some courses that I've signed up for or I will listen to audio tapes. But I think whatever works for you. I think your key message, what I'm hearing you say is whatever works. Just do something.
- [33:29]
A
Yeah, do something. I had my AirPods in my ears playing basketball outside for hours and I mix exactly as you said, mix exercise with learning and I just made my time valuable. I mean I could have listened to music or just let my mind wander, but I made use of my time. I took it seriously, I kept the log. I'm not the biggest, most organized person, so that's not my strong point. But I did some things to keep myself on track, whatever worked for me. And now I just have one more thing that has been tremendously valuable that I never did before. You have mentioned it in this conversation already, which is that I'm in a networking group mastermind community called Rhodium that has been unbelievably impactful over the last year of like minded people and marketers and content marketers who are not anywhere near my specific industry but have a lot of relevant feedback and experience. I've gotten a new business partner out of it. I have countless contacts, a number of mentors and that's just something that I never took the time to do because it, I don't know, I could psychoanalyze why and we can get into that, but that's been very valuable to me.
- [34:47]
B
I used to say you're only as rich as your Rolodex. I think my new one is your network, is your net worth. That seems to make more sense. That's really good. Yeah, that's a good one too. So. But yeah, that's a great advice. I'm a big fan of Masterminds. I'm in three currently and I'm with you. I've met a couple of partners. I've got several business ideas from it. The other thing that I waited, my coach five years ago told me to do a podcast and I was like, oh man, everybody's doing a podcast. And finally he was just put his foot down like you're starting a podcast last year when I first did it. It's been fun to meet and greet people like you and increase my network and have a lot of fun. It took me a while to become what I consider to be a pro or you learn what works and what doesn't and you got to pivot or perish. But that's my other thing that I've enjoyed because I've learned just as much from you guys and today as I have from some of the other groups that I'm part of. So if that means anything for anybody listening, I've enjoyed having a podcast because it's given me a chance to connect with some pretty incredible people like yourself.
- [35:45]
A
Same. I've had a similar experience over the last year. I've talked to a lot of people and had conversations like this and it can be great for making contacts. They have bore fruit for me personally and also it could be very energizing and validating to get to talking about what you're up to. I mean even just talking about yourself a little bit to someone who will listen is a very nice thing, whether they're your therapist or not.
- [36:11]
B
Well, do you have any advice for people for getting the most out of those mastermind groups? Any resources we mentioned we're going to put at the bottom of the podcast, whether it's on our video podcast or the audio version. How do you get the most out of that networking group that you're part of? What do you think is important that other people need to know?
- [36:27]
A
I just think pushing oneself to engage. There are different types of networking groups. Some of them are just a lot of them are slack communities. I'm in a few of those and you know, it's easy to ignore because it's anonymous. I think pushing oneself to remove the anonymity from the experience and make it an established personal connections. Now I am a talker. I'm an extrovert. I always push whether I'm selling something or just trying to establish a connection for a face to face meeting. And when I have that connection ingrained that lasts, I don't know, six months where an email chain will last two weeks in one sort of short term memory. So once I have a meeting with people in my networking group, I mean I'm just in their thoughts and when something comes up that they think is relevant to me, the opportunities come my way versus if I'm just a faceless email or slack character in their story, then I would hear from them a lot less.
- [37:32]
B
Yeah, I think participation's That C Connect method. We talk about how to get the most out of coaching and mastermind groups too. So I always like to ask people, but you hit a nail on the head. Participate, be active, show up, be present.
- [37:46]
A
Yeah. It's not just about listening to what's going on with everybody else. That is a major benefit of being part of a group of any sort. But sharing also and pushing yourself, even if you think people don't care. Like everybody likes to help.
- [38:00]
B
Most everybody in our masterminds, most, even the ones we own, we have a deal that we do called give and ask. That's where you give the group your biggest lesson that you've ever had and then you ask the group for help. Those are my favorite times because I got invited to speak at one of these masterminds a year, almost two years ago. And I was like, okay, this is my calling. This is what I need to do. Because it's so much fun just to hear other people helping each other actually gives you hope for humanity too. Because if you watch the news, you're totally clinically depressed and think we're all going to hell in a hand basket. But actually people are really good.
- [38:33]
A
Yeah, I agree with that as well. And you unlock the humanity just to reinforce my points when you actually have a human connection with somebody. Like, I'm not going to forget you and you're not going to forget me for at least a few months.
- [38:49]
B
Well, hopefully we'll stay in touch and I would like to stay in touch because I enjoyed today a lot. But I do want to say thank you for being here. A lot of great information. We'll put the resources, including direct links to couch.com if anybody needs to get a hold of you. How can they get in touch?
- [39:03]
A
No surprise here. I'm a very communicative person. My email is alexouch.com if you have any thoughts or questions for me, opportunities or any feedback on what you see on couch.com. as I mentioned, it is an iterative process and I don't have that much ego assigned to it. Even though my face is all over the website. We're just throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall. So if somebody has an idea or sees an angle, it's likely going to be valuable for us to hear.
- [39:28]
B
I love it. No stickered cows, as we used to say. Tell us what you know. Awesome. Well, thanks again. Let's keep in touch and hopefully we'll have to be back on the show one time.
- [39:35]
A
Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate it.