Obsessing Over Improvement - Nick Loise | Ep 13

Nick Loise  
And I remember listening to Sara Blakely, from Spanx. She changed my attitude about a lot of things. But she said, You know, I got into and let's say it was Bloomingdale's, right? So I finally got Bloomingdale's to say yes to me, she didn't stop there. She then went and created media kits that you know, and taught the people how to sell it. So she made sure that the products got sold. Some of us would just stop at I got it into Bloomingdale's done check, let me go on to the next thing. But you become almost obsessive compulsive about saying, Okay, now I got to make them successful. Now, I gotta make sure that they move my product. So I stay in there forever, because I just in there doesn't mean doing Are you gonna if they all ship them all back? It doesn't do me and welcome

Caleb Roth  
to the Stacking Habits podcast with your hosts, David, Matthew and Caleb, our mission each week is to dig into the habits, rituals and routines of guests who are living life to the fullest. But remember, knowledge without action is worthless. So be sure to take what you hear and put it into practice. turn these words into works in your own life. Without further ado, let's dive in. So we had a pre call before, before the New Year, so at the end of December, and it's really interesting, things tend to pop up in life in in multiples. And I guess it's once you're looking for it, like the red car effect, if you buy a red car, all of a sudden, you start seeing red cars everywhere. And one of the things we talked about was rereading a book. And since our conversation, I've probably had that conversation with three or four other people, it's just sort of come up organically. And so we're going to talk about going deep on anything. And obviously, you have a ton of books behind you. Matthew and I are booksellers. So if we start, you know, leaning into our screens and trying to see what's back there, that's why we're trying to see what kind of value we can extract from your bookshelf and flip back online, even though we're mostly out of that business. But why don't we back up just a step, Nick, and tell us a little bit who you are. We talked about some of your experience there with Dan Kennedy. Would you consider yourself an entrepreneur, a marketer, a salesperson like were in the School of Business? Would you sort of say that, that you lie? Yes.

Nick Loise  
Yes. And yes. Right. So I think all great entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs, first and foremost, right? Looking for a different way to serve the marketplace a different something you could bring to the marketplace to add value and profit from right. So that's the difference between an entrepreneur in a small businessman, right small businessman, goes back to what we kind of talked about in our intro, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, right? Where the entrepreneur is maybe on to five different things. And I'm not married to one different industry, and always looking for what can I steal from other industries? Or where can I add value? So entrepreneurial? First, I started as a sales person, right. And carrying a bag cold calling out of a cubicle, Matthew, you know, I had a, I had a landline, you probably don't even know what that is right? But just, you know, a phone attached. Right? And I got really, you know, you got a headset, right? That was high tech, and, you know, started out on the one card system, which was index cards before CRMs. Were even around and you know, you got to be and so I just learned the artists sales, but also, you know, one of my mentors, which was a phenomenal salesperson, and you know, I was smart enough to go seek him out. And he took me under his wing, but he says we're marketers first, right? And so, you know, so then I became a student of marketing. And it's a lot easier when you've got people predetermined and pre educated to kind of work with you, or at least know who you are, or using lead flow to give you the confidence versus just cold calling all day. And what are we I call pounding rocks in the hot sun? Right? You know, that's just hard work. But so, yes, yes. And yes. And I think every business owner and entrepreneur has to be yes, yes. And yes. And we're and one of the things that we talked about Dan, and you know, he'll, he gets it all the time. And I see it in my work here is business owners just get tired of selling, right, they get tired of grinding out and selling every day. And they don't want to do it anymore. And so either they don't to the detriment of their business, or they bring salespeople in, which is the smart thing to do, but then you have to set a process and system up so the sales people will be successful. But as you see all the books behind really are all sales and marketing books as I was joking killed, these are all what I like to call the good books. My wife calls the boring books, right? So fun books are on the first floor, you know, so this is all sales and marketing. And then that floor down there is, you know, thinking right so mindset thinking we talked a little bit about some of those books and then you can't see them but all the Dan Kennedy stuff because he puts stuff in binders, right, you know, so in math, he has no idea what a binder is either but you know that that's over on the Nick, is that that yeah, he just looks younger. He lives in Colorado. Being in the Sunshine. You know that he has retired

Caleb Roth  
you move down to Phoenix with all the snowbirds.

Nick Loise  
Yeah, he's got he's got a green smoothie. Right. So that's keeping him young to provide so. But yeah, I think you got to be both, I think. And that's one of the things that we taught, right. And that's one of the mantras that I think everybody does disservice to, of teaching small business owners and entrepreneurs, that you're really the marketer of the business, right? You have to be the marketer of the business, nobody could tell the story better than you can. Now, where entrepreneurs and small business owners get in trouble is they can articulate their sales process that they intuitively know how to do, and have been doing it from day one, to salespeople. So the salesperson struggles, right, because they've been doing discovery calls for so long that the entrepreneur, they know, when Nick says X in the beginning, he's, I have to now say why? Because I'm gonna get an objection at the at 36 minutes. And if I don't take care of that, you know, so there's a lot that the business owner just intuitively knows how to do on sales and marketing that they can't articulate. And we'd like to say that we translate the founder speak to set to the sales team, are to the marketers, right? Because I think you have to be that, but you got to be all three. But if you're a business owner, and you're listening to this, you really got to be the marketer of the business, understand it, and the chief salesperson of the business, and you can hire people, right? Because you want to exit and have a higher multiple, well, it can't be you doing all of it, right? You have to have a team to do that. And if you want to scale your business, you got to get salespeople on the floor, you know, in some way, shape or form. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
so one of the knocks of entrepreneurs is that they chase shiny. And so we all know somebody, I'm definitely guilty of this as well, it's hard to be grounded, when your your sense of curiosity can overwhelm you. And so a lot of our audience are entrepreneurs, because that's that was our audience in flipping books on Amazon. So a lot of them kind of came over with us. But our main goal with Stacking Habits is to present sort of wide ranging habits. So we don't just want to focus on business, although that's your expertise, we will certainly hone in on it. But what I want is for people listening that say, Hey, I'm not an entrepreneur, I don't identify as that. But I think some of the struggles in terms of chasing shiny and trying to figure out what they want to do, and sort of how to add some sort of grounding or depth or intention, I think we can kind of sort of pull some of those threads out of this conversation. So one of the main things we we go ahead, Nick, no got finished. So one of the things we sort of pulled down a little bit before was that idea of going deep. So we talked about reading multiple books, and trying to pick one specific topic and know more about that. So for you, how have you sort of as you've looked at the entire world of business, and marketing and sales, how have you sort of figured out where to hone in and focus your attention? First

Nick Loise  
off, that's great. And, you know, I think going deep, can be applied to anybody, right? So Cal Newport, right? Deep works, right are just going deep on, we're talking not only on the deep work, but also on the deep knowledge, right. And there's a great I call it documentary, but it's probably loose, it's more of an infomercial. But I think it's called Bill's brain, which is Bill Gates his brain. And it talks to him about his process, right. And he also has a picture of his library, which I kind of talked about, you know, guys, Rolexes and Lamborghinis and all that I want that library, right that you know, all those books. But you know, it's just going deep on all the topics. So to answer your question, I started out and you realize that, okay, as a business owner, you got to know sales, and then marketing and marketing is human behavior. So then that takes you down a road of human behavior, right? And what is that?

Caleb Roth  
Real quick, you have to know sales first, because ultimately, if you don't have a customer, you don't have a business, right? You have to find a way to make money,

Nick Loise  
right? You got to figure out a way to get somebody that raises their hand to say, Yes, I'm moderately interested in it, too. Yes, I'm going to exchange money. Or if you're, you know, back in the olden days barter with you, right, I'm gonna give you my goat for your for your iron Smith services, you know, whatever that looks like. You have to get that person to converge and say yes, and then do some level of exchange or trade as you will in the marketplace. So we can take it down to its basics right so the beginning days, you know, it started with barter, I'm gonna barter your my services. You see that a lot in construction today, right? You know, the guys that own the landscaping, you know, they have a phenomenal house, but they just they just bartered their services through. So you have to convert so you have to have sales to sit get that person to say yes in some way, shape or form. In sales. Quite frankly, some people that are listening may not be in business. So it's getting you I was just talking quite frankly to my cleaning crew that as you're cleaning the house and we're talking about her 15 year old Boy, right? And so you got to sell him on the value of reading, you have to sell him on the value of being active and engaged in school to be an active citizen, right? It's the, you know, it's the teacher that has to sell the student about, you know, just being engaged, right and doing the work. And so sales is everything. It's the doctor that has to sell the new lifestyle to somebody that just got diagnosed with prostate cancer, right or cardiac, right. And now they have to kind of completely change everything that they need to do. And you have to convince them now, they may springshot and say, Yes, I'm going to do a doc. And yes, yes, yes, not a problem, but then it's going to go away, right, because old habits die hard. And that cheeseburger tastes so good, right. And the milkshake is phenomenal. But that's not good for us. So you have to convert them on sales, then marketing, because you have to create demand, right? You have to create a market presence, you have to create a brand, if you will, right. And you have to get people to kind of raise their hand at want to do business with you, or at the very least learn more. So that way, somebody in a sales role can take over and move them to Yes. And then you know, kind of go deep on different businesses and different let's call seasons of business. Right? So that was called the turning point, right? The different seasons of business, because business life cycles and business seasons all happen. Right? History is history, right? We could we could fool ourselves to say, the tools are different, right? AI is different than maybe what happened in the 70s, or the 80s. But the seasons of business will always be there'll be booms and busts. There'll be generational changes of the business. And what does that mean to the marketplace? What does that mean to different things, right? And so you have to know that and understand that. And I like to go deep on all that stuff. Love it. So another really, really long answer to a short question. I apologize about that.

Caleb Roth  
These are great. It's obviously a podcast hosted in a former life. So how do you decide? So I think when I define entrepreneur, there's, there's an element of creating, there's an element of taking on risk. But I think a big piece of being an entrepreneur is the elements of deciding, because you can do anything, but you can't do everything. So as we talk about doing deep work, or finding that subject to dive deep into how do you how do you sort of figure that out? Is there a mathematical way? Is there something that you figured out with your decades of experience in terms of like, we always preached startup, scale up and then find some way to systematize? Or step back? So the startup was just about going from zero to one? How do you get that first dollar? How do you create that first customer, once you know that you can do that, then it's about trying to kind of systematically scale up and so we try lots of different things. And some of the things found us when we were doing books, all the sudden, we had crazy number of new customers coming in the front end. And we're like, Where on earth are these customers coming from? Turns out it was tick tock. And we had customers that just loved our app and started sharing. And that began probably 18 months of primarily Matthew saying, Alright, this is working, let's go dig in this vein of gold. And we started paying influencers, we started creating content, we started doing advertisements, and that one thing that we started going deep in which you know, a year ago, prior to that course, tic toc didn't exist, it came out of nowhere. But a year ago, if you had said hey, your your business model for marketing is going to be paying affiliates on Tik Tok, I would have laughed at you because that was just some sort of entertainment platform. And it turned out that was a very good thing for us to go deep in and learn about and make sure we figure it out. So how do you is that sort of something you just figure out? Like what's working and then go deeper? Or can you sort of systematically or strategically go after that?

Nick Loise  
So I think it's yes, and yes, and I think you said something key, or you or Matthew asked the question of where are these people coming from? Sometimes, we as business owners, just are so caught up in the on the treadmill that we don't ask that question, where are our customers coming from? And it's not just where our customers coming from, but where are our best customers coming from? Right? Where are most profitable customers coming from? Because I may want to have five to seven or eight to 20 different sources of customers. But not all sources are the same, right? So these are my top three and generate 80% of my business and are the most profitable, but there's somebody down here that only generates 10 customers a day or a year or a month for me, but they are micro profitable. They are hugely profitable, right? So they're my slack adjuster. So I want to keep that maybe try to find some others but then keep keep on doing that. And so the answer your question Kib somebody in your business are all of you guys in your business are probably all were smart enough to ask that question. Right? Where what's going on? And then now, it's knowing the back end, right? Because if you were to just you did that for your own business, did the math and then went down the rabbit hole mostly Business owners don't do that. And sometimes we don't know the back end of other people's businesses. So we say, Oh, Nick is blown it up on Facebook by selling, you know, a $39 something or other widget, right. But we don't know that he's got a back end, that is 50 yards deep. And really his lifetime value is not $59 Is $3,000 your time, you know, the time they get done nurturing, and, and selling all different products and services. So know the back end of the business know where it is. And really, second money is better than first money, right? So it's not just getting that first sale, it's getting that second sale, and third sale and fourth sale from that customer. One is it's easier because you've already got that bond to trust, if you've delivered what you said you're going to deliver. And it's just easier because your acquisition cost is already baked in. Right? So it's just going into a deeper and deeper and deeper and trying to figure it out. You know, some of it is dumb luck, right? I think, you know, like, you stumble into it. You're like,

Caleb Roth  
the habit of luck. That's

Nick Loise  
right, and some of that, but that is somebody might say, well, you're just doing stuff, right? Or you're in the right place at the right time. So some of it is, you know, just the habit of luck. Right? And, you know, there's a lot of guys that thought MySpace was going to blow up. Right? And, and Matthew has no idea what that references, but you know, MySpace, yo, it didn't, it didn't blow up. Right. So you know, but but they were making that choice. And so, but you know, there was early adopters to Facebook, right, and early adopters and to reels and early adopters to Tik Tok. And, you know, I got a guy that I follow that's in my space. And he's like, you know, right now, tick tock is blowing up for me, right? I know, sales trainers that, you know, are getting 25,000 $30,000 deals, because of the fact that a younger sales person saw their content on tic toc and then brought it to the VP of sales and says, I think we should have the conversation with this person. Right? And so you don't ask that question. Well, how did you find us? Right? Are you are you might, you know, your, your website person is gonna say, Oh, you're all coming in from Google, right? Everybody's coming in from Google. I used to get that all the time in my agency was like, Oh, I everything I get is coming in from my mind. Well, really, let's look at that. Right? Oh, wait, look at on this month, we did a direct mail drop of, you know, 100,000 pieces. And we saw that spike and online, you know, and then, you know, it became organic searches because of that, because people had, you know, so there's a lot of different things. And we don't go deep enough on everything in life, right? One is we don't have time, right? So let's get ourselves some slack and grace and dignity, right? You know, we're busy, we're putting out fires, and entrepreneurs are trying to be good husbands or wives or partners in some way, shape, or form. Plus, you know, there's only 24 hours in the day.

Matthew Osborn  
I'm saying it sounds like you're saying a lot of it starts with tracking, because without that tracking, you'll never know what to go deep on. And so like Caleb's great at this is developing systems for tracking because once you start tracking effectively, then you'll actually know what to focus on in the first place. So it sounds like you've probably been pretty good in your businesses at tracking to know what to go deep on and what to spend that time on from the very beginning.

Nick Loise  
Yes, and ask the question, right. And so I'll use one. We're working with a client. And we're looking at his source by by source of customers, right source of leads, and how long leads were sitting in the pipeline, like kind of languishing in the pipeline and, and what moved through quicker. But the other thing I noticed was there was a biasness. To geographical. Right. And so now, how do I maximize that? Right? And it was it was his messaging, right? Your personal brand, right? So maybe his messaging didn't work on the East Coast, as well as it did to middle of America, or Texas, or Denver or someplace else? Right? And so you have to go deep, but then ask that question, right? Because it's easy, just say, Okay, these are all the leads, and the leads that are coming in from these sources are closing in, you know, 90 days, and these are coming in, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But let's ask that other question. And let's look at one more column and say, geographically, where are these leads coming from? Right? And is there a biasness? And why is there a biasness? And does New York, move through the pipeline faster, right? Or does the East Coast move through the pipeline faster? Maybe. So then the west coast or the Southwest or something of that nature? And now I want to maximize that, right? Because I know, if I spend $2 on a New York leader $3 on a New York lead, I'm gonna get the $3 back faster than in the southwest, which is fine. I still need the southwest and I need the West. But I need to kind of maneuver my money because it's arbitrage right. But arbitrage starts with data, right? starts with knowing what's going on, where am I at? And then there has to be that gut check, right, which you guys are probably pretty good at. Right? A lot of entrepreneurs kind of make it on the gut check to does this make sense? Right? Why is that and I think that's going deep and reading and learning from a lot of broad different things, because of the fact that it just opens up where you're rat for so many different things, because you're looking at the life so many different ways. Nick,

Caleb Roth  
one question I have for you, and I want to start asking our guests this. How would you define a habit? What is habit mean to you?

Nick Loise  
I think it's habit is something that you either are programmed to do or have programmed yourself to do consistently over time. And it doesn't matter what, right? So a habit of going to the gym, but you and I are in the Midwest, right? Now, it would have been easy to say, I'm not going yesterday, right? Or I'm not going today, because there's snow on the ground, and it's going to be a pain and I don't want to do it, right. So habit is something either your, some people are programmed for it, right? They just have that self discipline to do it, right. Some of it comes through schooling, through parenting, through sports, or through education, or some way shape, or form, that they're just have that habit. And now the habit becomes a ritual. And the ritual just gets repeated over and over and over and over again.

Caleb Roth  
I love it. I think there's definitely a level of habits being automatic. And the reason that matters is we're asking these questions, how do we carve out time to ask the business tough questions? How do we take time to step back and look at the bigger picture and try to figure out okay, where are my customers coming from? How can I do better? How can I know that I should be investing in tick tock. And the if the habits that you have, whether you're in business or not, sort of becomes second nature to you, and then free up because like you said, there's only 24 hours in the day, there's only so much cognitive power that our brains can handle in a day. And so if I'm thinking every day about how to run the very basic building block levels of my business, I'm not going to be able to step back or step up and sort of understand better what's going on at a higher level. So habits to me, and I think you just hit on that exactly is it's what becomes automatic. And then that allows us to build and build a better life and be able to climb higher and get perspective.

Nick Loise  
I think a lot of it too. Is our is our operating systems. Right? Is it? Is it hard baked in? Or do we have to is it an app that we have to buy? Right? Add to our operating systems and then get it to be hard baked? But yeah, you know, I was just thinking about, you know, what you guys found on Tik Tok? Right. And you how many other people in your space would never even thought that right? It just you know, now I know. Now they're second to the party, third of the party, fourth of the party. Well forget it. Right. If you're not first you're last is Jack Welch taught us, right. And so you really kind of have to go. So it's just you know, I wrote that down as a as a takeaway for me. So that was gold that you guys shared?

Caleb Roth  
Well, again, we were lucky because it did hit us in the face. I think at that point, we were getting, let's call it 30 to 40 new customers a day in terms of trials. And all of a sudden, we went from that to, you know, a day of like 80 or 100. And I think at our peak when we really started turning the siphon on we had days of I don't remember, but probably four or 500. Like, absolutely off the charts, as you may remember better than I do. Yeah,

Matthew Osborn  
we Yeah, I think one day was close to 1000, which is the highest day we've ever had, by far. But yeah, which is just turned on like crazy, especially when that second third fourth video went viral altogether at the same time. Yeah, it turned on fast. Yeah.

Caleb Roth  
And I'm a numbers guy. So I, you know, I probably this is actually a habit, I've had to break myself of whether it was selling on Amazon, or looking at our stripe subscriptions, or now pulling up on Buzzsprout. And looking at how many listens we have on the podcast, it's not going to do me any good to look at that eight times a day. Right? So what I've done for Buzzsprout now is I've actually forced myself to only look at it once a week, Mondays is my day to track and see where we're at. And if something blew up, awesome, we can look at it and figure out what happened. And we'll only be a week old. And so you know what, I have gotten that same data if I had looked at our stripe metrics, you know, once a week, probably, but we may not have jumped on it as fast as we did, by going hey, I know the rhythm of our company. I know where we typically stands. And we're outside the bounds of normal right now. So what is going on?

Nick Loise  
Can I ask a question or kind of challenge that a little bit? Yeah. If you think of successful entrepreneurs, and I don't mean this in a negative way, right? Because Because because everybody struggles unused, the term obsessive compulsive and I don't mean that you're

Caleb Roth  
gonna say the word obsess. Okay, right. And

Nick Loise  
so, but listen, everybody has struggles, and I'm not making light of that. But I do want to say that there are things that we focus on, right, and let's say hyper focus on and we want to check those all the way through, whether it's and you know, and I think that's a good thing, right? I think that's it becomes, I don't wanna say you become maniacal about it, right? Because then you kind of lose balance, but I think that's a really good thing. And I remember I was to two points on that, Caleb, I was listening to Jim Cramer, right. And he does the Mad Money or whatever. And he was talking he was launching a book, and he just threw away the comment that he was at three o'clock in the morning. He was checking his out Amazon sales and he had been tracking his Amazon sales visa vie other books at that time, right. I mean, this is this guy, you know, it could buy every book on Amazon if you wanted you probably right. But he became maniacal about that and hyperfocus about that. And I remember listening to Sarah blankly I think it is with with Spanx therapy. She changed my attitude about a lot of things. But she said, You know, I got into and let's say it was Bloomingdale's, right? So I finally got Bloomingdale's to say yes to me. That was she didn't stop there. She then went and created her own little media kits that you know, and taught the people how to sell it and put up little I mean, so she made sure that the products got sold, some of us would just stop at I got it into Bloomingdale's done, check, let me go on the next thing. But you become almost obsessive compulsive about saying, Okay, now I got to make him successful. Now I got to make sure that they move my product. So I stay in there forever, because I just didn't there doesn't mean doing it, you're gonna if they all ship them all back, it doesn't do me any good. And so I think entrepreneurs or really, really great teachers, right? And because I know you have a bunch of different listeners from all walks of life, are really great doctors, really great. Doctors are obsessed right there. They're there, they're there, they're getting their continuing medical, medical education, Grand Rounds are baked on that, right, where they share a really interesting case. And they learn from each other. And they go deep. And it's all based on data, right? And there's a lot of fake data right out there. And there's a lot of little fake gurus that are out there that are you know, have done something in their dreams. And now they're teaching people how to do that. But you know, I think you really, you really have to be about something, right? And you have to know how to turn it off. Right? So if you're at a family dinner, right, or if it's one of the kids birthday party, and you're obsessively checking your BuzzFeed numbers or something of that nature, that isn't going to work, but you kind of have to always be looking for that.

Caleb Roth  
And you were talking about checking your BuzzFeed or Buzzsprout all the time. And that's one thing that helps entrepreneurs.

Nick Loise  
I think it does, right and so so goes back to the to the My challenge to you, Caleb, which is really focusing on you know that you have to be obsessive, right? You have to be focusing on something and it can be obsessive about numbers, which I'm, you know, I listen, math and finances, the numbers have business, right? So we need numbers to kind of understand where we are, because I think it grounds us, I worked with a great entrepreneur by name and witty, and he's like facts and figures, right? We're not going to go with opinions. I want to know facts. And I think coming out of the private equity world, and I actually worked in corporate America, too. It's knowing your numbers. And I think the key is that, because you know, and you probably had it when you guys sold and sitting in the board meetings with a private equity guy, somebody was going to try to get you right to you. So you had to know your numbers and become obsessive about it. But I think you have to be tracking your key result indicators are key indicators, whatever that is, whatever that metrics is. And for some, it's just the basics of how many new leads do we bring in today? And how many people did we close? Right? And now we can become that's just basic, right? And that's just if we use a basketball analogy, that's just doing layups, right. But if you think about the greats, right, and I started writing on LinkedIn, about the mamba mentality, because I read Kobe Bryant's book, the mamba mentality, and just his mindset, and how he goes back to mentors, right, and how he got to people and ask those questions. And, you know, learn from Michael Jordan, who is obsessive about everything, right? So you have to I think, be obsessive. Now you have to limit it. Right? You know, that these guys knew when to turn it off? There's an offseason, right? There's a season for everything. And and I was, I don't know, where we kind of stopped. But where I was saying is, well, you can't be checking the BuzzFeed numbers at the kids, you know, birthday party. Right? I think that's extreme. Now we all want to do it, right? Because it's easy. We like that. We're bored, you know, and so. Right, right. So but you have to be obsessive. And I think all the greats are obsessive about keeping score, about metrics about improving on those metrics, because I think that makes you stale, if you aren't that way. And everything has to be imbalanced, right? And I'm sure there's points where my wife would say, Listen, you were out of balance, right? And so you work on yourself, and you work on getting that but you know, listen, we started out talking about your habits, and I use the analogy of the gym. Well, for some, it's just obsessive about getting there six times a week or seven times a week right now it's about okay, I did 20 minutes on the treadmill at 3.2. And I moved to the 3.4 in my in clinic incline, or I'm doing weights right and I'm moving my weight up. But I think it is I think I think all the bests are right. And you know, I think we we throw around great so much right everybody Jesus, if you go on an Instagram, everybody's a goat, right? You know, I got I got young entrepreneurs that haven't even made $100,000 that are calling themselves to go right in your head. So let's put that in balance. But look at the really, really greats. Like the Kobe says we set about, like the Tom Brady's right? I'm trying to not just use business analogies. But you know, I watched a phenomenal interview with Charlie Munger right before he before he passed away. So you think about a business? You know, and he went deep, right? He he and, you know, Warren Buffett said, you know, what made them the best is, you know, going deep on topics and reading and studying and knowing their numbers and asking the questions, and, and knowing this is too big of a problem that I can't solve, or it's a business that we just don't understand. So I'm not going to get in it. Right. And I think saying no is important, too, as, as, as an entrepreneur, right, as a business owner, as anybody, right? So you say no, yeah,

Caleb Roth  
well, I appreciate your challenge. And I'm gonna pull a neckline on you. I'm gonna say yes. And yes, I think you're absolutely right. But I would argue that without the foundation of habits to get you to the point where you're able to take that time to obsess over the things that really matter, then it's kind of a moot point. Because if you're still trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from, or where rent money's coming from, you don't have the luxury to step back and say, Hey, what are the most important metrics that I should be tracking? And what can I obsess over? And that is a that is a luxury that I think habits can afford you because they allow you to get so much done unconsciously, that you can then spend your precious mental processing power, doing the things that will actually have massive breakthroughs. Yeah,

Nick Loise  
100%. And, you know, those, my heart goes out to those folks right have endless and as entrepreneurs, we've all been to that. It's like, Oh, crud payrolls do right. I gotta get that, right. I used to joke, are my first business it was the Thursday night sweats, you know? Because payroll was on Friday. Right? And, you know, so it's just like, Okay, what's coming in those in those days? You know, it was what's coming in what checks are coming in now, everything's immediate. But I hear you. Yeah. And I agree, right. And, you know, for that person, they need to be obsessive about getting their next customer, right, their next sale, right. And it's becoming better doing the reps on the sales process, getting leads in having the intestinal fortitude to do the hard work of picking up the phone and calling people are knocking on doors, if you're a Main Street business, or whatever it is, to get people into the fold. That's the most you know, that's what you have to become obsessive about. Yeah, I grew up in a leaderboard. Because, you know, like, I wanted to be top of the leaderboard, right, as a salesperson. So I became obsessed with what are the greats that are they're doing? Right? And how are they winning? And how can I emulate that? And now how can I make that my own? And then when I, you know, had a business, and you know, it's okay. And it was a franchise, one of my businesses and so how can I be President's Club, right, because they had a President's Club. So what does that look like? And how can I get there? And there's a little bit of knowing the metrics, so you could kind of game the metrics a little bit, right? It's, you know, and not to your detriment, but you you you have a competitive drive that habit of trying to be the best. Now, things maybe got pushed aside, right. Was I 100%? In my health? No, right. You know, I'm spending time on the road, you know, making sales calls. So I'm at McDonald's, right? Because it was free Rifai. While you're at McDonald's, you got to you know, you'd be rude not to get, you know, a Big Mac or something or Dunkin Donuts, well, you gotta get, you know, you got to get to in a coffee with cream, you know, so, you know, you have to balance that right. And, and kind of look at everything. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
so what are you obsessing over now, Nick, at the, you know, you've done so many things in your career, and you've obviously gone deep on a lot of different subjects. What either it could be what are you hoping to obsess over in 2024? or what have you spent time obsessing about lately? So

Nick Loise  
I a couple things. One is I think, I think business is going to, there's going to be businesses out there that are really going to catapult themselves. And there's a lot of zombie companies out there. Right? And, and so I'm obsessing about can I find some some of those companies and maybe acquire them or acquire the assets of those companies and build those up? I am obsessing of saying, Okay, I've worked in the PE environment, right? I've done an exit but there was small so Can I do one for a couple more zeros? And that's where I really want to build my company add value to the marketplace, where can I add value to the marketplace? And see what does this look like? On a one year run two year run five year run and seven year run? I have the luxury of we've put our kids through college right you know, I don't have to worry about that that some people do. So now. It's like okay, how can I really add this? I enjoy the teaching aspect. That's why I love doing these podcasts. Hopefully I added value to To to your listeners along the way. And I did some teaching and in the graduate level at a university, I don't know if I'll do that right now, there's just so much stuff going on in that environment. But I want to give back and teach, right. So I'm becoming obsessive about being a better educator, and communicator and moving that through. So the first thing is business. You know, second thing here growing my business, acquiring businesses moving this to the next level to see what my exit looks like, being a better communicator and educators. The second thing I'm obsessing about or going deep on. And then the third thing is we've talked a lot about it, you know, health, I'm not, not as young as the two of you guys. But you know, kind of getting that back in play, right. And really, that's one thing I get obsess about, you know, you get the app you can obsess about, you know, what's my calories in? What's my fiber? Where am I added all that. So it gives you a scoreboard and I think the gamification of it is, and really going deep, because I think sometimes business owners entrepreneurs, we put that aside, and we shouldn't, and I'm, I hold the mirror up, right? I'm not pointing the finger on, the four fingers are back at me, I did that on on two of my runs. I'm not going to do it this time, because it's great for the mental health too. Right? It's a great stress release. Right? So that's, those are the three things. I love it and upgrading my internet. Those are like the four.

Caleb Roth  
How did you pick those up? Practically speaking, again, our podcast is about how do we cast a wide net, and just build this habit menu of just interesting habits from high performers and people having a tremendous impact. But we also then want to get extremely practical. So how did you arrive at those three things? And four with the Internet? But was there some sort of do you have like a routine where you sit down once a year, once a quarter? And sort of ask yourself some questions? What does the actual process look like?

Nick Loise  
Great question. And yes, and yes, as, quote myself. So I do an end of the year question that I have. I've kind of I actually got this from Tony Robbins, I think in the 90s. Right? And you know, and it was he sent out a cassette tape. And Matthew doesn't even know what that is, right? We know, but you know, here's a cassette tape, I was probably on his membership, right? And these are eagles. These are my end of the year questions. Well, so now I've gathered those and added to them, and now I've moved it to we do I do a big one. And then my wife and I review the year, right? So we review, we review our year, what do we do? What went well, what didn't went well travel, all that good stuff. And then from there, I figure out where I want to go. And then I asked myself those questions quarterly, because I think monthly, you're too much in the thick of things. So you have to kind of step back and look at it. And so if I give you a two second part of your question is how did you get to those three? Well, the third one, which was health, I didn't do well, right in at certain points of my life in my career. And I've realized, one is the importance of it. And two is when I study high performers, they all made that investment, right? A high performing entrepreneur made that investment, they really focused on it, there's phenomenal, you know, it's phenomenal enhancements of your sleep when you're working out hard, right. And that's I think that really sets us apart. I think there's mental health aspects of things where it really, really, really, really enhances your ability to your cognitive ability to stay focus, right? Plus, you know, I'm learning because I'm listening to audiobooks, I'm looking into podcasts, like this way to read everybody should listen to, right. So you know, I'm kind of double dipping, if you will. And then the second one is just being a better communicator and teacher, I think it's what I love, right? I grew up in a house, my mom was a teacher, my sister's a teacher, I taught and I loved it, I had that opportunity to speak and teach. And when I was at gkc, magnetic marketing, and it's really part of my core. And so I love it, right. And so it gives me energy. And so I want to do that. Plus, I learned this, I think as a throwaway from Bill Glazer, when you become the teacher, you become better at it, right? Because you have to study at it, you have to just go deeper on it. So that's what I do. And then the third, the first one, which is just kind of growing the business, and then the acquisition, you know, it's, it's kind of in my DNA, right, you know, always thinking about business with the next one or okay, how to how did that business get in place? And you know, even something as simple as we looked at a dog walking business, right, you know, it's just, you know, I think, you know, people will continue to spend on their pets, probably more so than their children if you have pets, right. And children, right. So what are markets and demographics? And where can you go after them? And, you know, really, you know, there's some really good assets out there. And there's some businesses that just tired, right, they just, you know, they've gotten through the COVID pandemic, they're ready to the kids don't want to take over the business. Right? So they're looking to get out of them. And so, you know, we're looking at him is, you know, whenever you look at businesses, you got to kiss a lot of frogs, right. You got to figure out your sign a lot of NDAs do a lot of conversations and, you know, well, well, at the end of the year, we'll check in well, I have a bought one. Who knows, right? But I want to focus on growing this business to because it's really, really fun. And it kind of checks all the boxes for me Awesome. Well, I

Caleb Roth  
like that, Nick, you're clearly a student of life, you're very curious. And I love hearing all the references that you've mentioned, I think one things that gets overlooked with habits is it's really easy to imitate others. I shouldn't say easy, but it's very, it's very doable and practical. And so that's one reason we want to bring so many just wide ranging people on the podcast. Because if you see someone else doing something, there's kind of an old phrase, as See One, Do One, Teach One, you're obviously great with words, you're a great communicator, great teacher. But if you can see somebody else sort of pave the way. And for you, that was Dan Kennedy, and all these other names that you've been referencing throughout, you've done a good job kind of hitching your wagon to theirs and pulling out great questions for Tony Robbins, and applying those decades later. And so that speaks testaments, just being able to take that knowledge, and then put it into practice in your own life. And that is going to continue to pay dividends.

Nick Loise  
Yeah, but I think you know, and thank you first, but what you guys are doing are phenomenal. Well, first off, congratulations on your exit right there. What percentage of of entrepreneurs get to that point, you do? Hit take ahead, do a victory. I mean, that's allowed you guys to do some really cool stuff. But you know, that's a huge feather. And I'm so impressed my, you know, I, you know, you're you're on my board of goats, right. Because of that, I don't use that lightly. Because, really, that's really, really, really phenomenal. And to is, you know, I love your concept of your podcast, right? That's, that's cerebral, what you guys are doing of saying, I just don't want the guy on or gal on and have them do their stump speech or talk about their book or, you know, like, what are you passionate about? Go deep on something. And hopefully, we I added value and, you know, the podcast that I listened to, you know, there's great nuggets that you get, and that's why in this generation, where we're at the access to really, really, really good information is phenomenal. Right? Really, and and, you know, shame on anybody that doesn't take advantage of it. Right? And, you know, we just, you know, and, and I learned something from Matthew and you with the with the, the TIC tock, right, and just you okay, and then going after the influencers now, then going after in buying the ads and all that. So, you know, to me, every Exchange is an exchange that can be positive or negative. And this one was definitely positive for me. And hopefully, it was for you guys. And for your audience,

Matthew Osborn  
looking at all those books behind you're hearing about just all the books you've read, and you seem to be very well read person. If you had someone in a nine to five right now approach you and say, What three books should I read? If I want to start my own business? What three books that you have sitting on the shelf behind you? Would you recommend to someone wanting to get out and start a business of their own? So

Nick Loise  
the first the first three that I would have them do is I would have them read Dan Kennedy's sales letter, right? How the ultimate guide to creating a sales letter. I'd have them read. persuasion or pre persuasion, but that's pretty esoteric, right? So they kind of have to understand that. But I think that's a good one on the marketing side. Dan's going to be tactical, right? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, how to write that sales letter, Robert? Suit, I always get his name wrong. But that persuasion or pre persuasion, focus on how to get people to say yes, right. He's got another book that's called Yes. Right, which is the scientific way to get people to have the US. And then on the sales side, there's some there's so many good ones. I mean, I think they have to be schooled and go to zig, if they haven't. Right. So you go back old school of reading Zig is just a huge fan, right of what he's done. But you know, he doesn't mesh with everybody. And some people are like, a little bit old. But you know, Seth good, and still references Zig Ziglar. Right. So come on. And so go with him or go with somebody else on the sales side, but somebody that teaches you the sales process, right? And, you know, realizing that objections are just part of the sales process, and don't get befuddled by those. So those would be the three if you want to go deep on three different topics, rates on marketing, you know, or copywriting, I think, you know, really understanding you probably are just intuitive about really getting great on on words. Right and using the right words to get people to Yes, right. And so what's a great headline, what's a great body copywriting, you know, then I'd go David Ogilvy, right, and, you know, his Confessions of an advertising man, still to this day of how he set up an ad, you know, still used by everybody. Right? So those

Matthew Osborn  
are kind of read the persuasion but before you said, Who was that, by? Would you? The author of the persuasion, maybe I have read it doesn't sound familiar, though. Creepy. Oh, persuasion. Okay. Yeah. Robert. Okay. I need to read that. I don't think I've actually ever read that book. Have you read that daily?

Nick Loise  
I have not. And yes, right. He's got one. I don't want to keep on getting up because it's the podcast, but it's called Yes. Right. It's an influence, right? So you probably read influence or everybody's read influence. And then yes, and then peer persuasion or persuasion? Those are the good ones, you know. And you then you go deep on persuasion, right? There's some good stuff on that. It's a black and white book, and I forget the author's name. But it's, it's really good on the so it's power and force. And that's one, power and force.

Matthew Osborn  
Awesome. Well, thank you for those recommendations got a new book to add to the list? Well,

Nick Loise  
you guys probably have like 8000 books in your, in your story

Matthew Osborn  
sold over 8000 books. Well, I

Caleb Roth  
sent all I stole a line from Ramit Sethi who one of his personal rules is as soon as he hears about a book, he just buys it. And so I'm guilty of that my inflow of books that I need to read or want to read, I tried to remove the words needed showed from my vocabulary this year, but that just keeps ever growing. And after our conversation last time, Nick, I've actually picked up two old books that I've read before, I don't go back and reread books very often. So one is going to be atomic habits, habits, which of course, fits into this podcast. And the other that's probably been the most influential in my life is The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. And he talks about playing offense, it's so easy to chase shiny. And one of the things that he taught me in the book, at least, the big takeaway for me, was to block out four hours a day, and turn my phone on, do not disturb, don't check email, close all the distractions, and simply focus in on whatever the one or two, he would just say one thing, but pick one thing, that's the most leverage thing you can do, even if that's one hour a day, if you can allocate one hour to playing offense, and doing the most valuable thing for your business for your life, or you as a parent, whatever, whatever you're trying to expand in, then that is going to pay just massive dividends. And so I'm gonna go reread that book, because I'm a different person than I was five or six years ago, when I first read it. And I'm excited to see what I'll pick up the second time around. You know, it's

Nick Loise  
interesting, I'm ashamed that I didn't read that book, right. I just read it in December. And it was one that always got referenced. And I listened to it on Audible, but phenomenal, and I agree with you. And I loved his line where he said, I went and fired myself, right, and then just focused on building up team members, and you want to talk about scale, you know, it's building the team, right? And I, and you don't realize that when you're growing a business because you're kind of in the fight of it. But the one thing I didn't realize is how important culture is right? And how important building team people are and building them up and setting clear objectives. Right? And, you know, scorecards and data and stuff like that, and, and I think any operating procedure that you create, you know, for that business, so the business runs, and it's based on facts and moving things and what's the one thing I think, you know, Gino Wickman, they do some good things. Okay. These are the four big things are three big things you want me to do? The fifth one, what are we going to take off, right? Because then we just keep piling on to people, and we force people to shut down.

Caleb Roth  
Thanks so much, Nick. And I saw you take a note during the podcast even on the TIC tock thing. So I would encourage you if you're listening to this and something stood out, don't just let it rattle around in your head and not find a resting place. Take a second jot that down, make an audio note to yourself. And I promise that future you will be glad that you did. And with that that is episode 13 of Stacking Habits. Tune in next week and see what other mystery guests we bring on. Thanks

Transcribed by https://otter.ai