Celebrating 200 Episodes: Our Top Tips and Lessons Learned

And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson .

We picked out some of our top episodes to share with the audience . We have some funny stories to go over and we have some valuable lessons that we've learned after four years of podcasting , and so I'm excited to be here . Tons of energy today . So let's get right into it . What is one of your top three episodes ?

When I re-listened to that podcast , there were some things I was naive about , there were some things I was overly optimistic about , but it was very raw . We were sharing where we wanted to get to and shared a commitment to document our process along the way , and that's exactly what we did .

One of my top three , episode four and so episode four was about how to be more efficient with your time , and so I think we delivered a lot of value on that show . We had some great tips and tricks from things that we had learned , so I think we shared a tremendous amount of value on that episode , one of the things I really like about it .

I'm pretty sure that we taped that episode in my basement . We might have had a couple of cocktails while we were taping that episode , which we haven't had any drinks for a really long time on the show , and there's probably a good reason for that .

I remember David said hey , when I , david , used to edit all this video and all the audio early on , and so David came back and said hey . I think we were slurring our words a bit on that episode and I was like maybe we need to cut back on the Scotch and so it's a great episode . If you haven't heard it , there's a lot of value to it .

It's kind of funny . Where are we slurring our speech ? I don't know . Go listen to it .

And I have now learned that that is a tremendous skill set is being able to speak clearly after after digesting a whole bunch of booze . So , but I will say there were some raw emotions in that episode . It was a fun one to record , a fun one to listen back on . So , yeah , so going on with my list of the top three Walker Diable , episode 45 .

And this is Walker Diable published a book called Buy Then Build , and in this book he makes a very quantitative case for why you should buy a business instead of build one , and it really rewired the way I think about business , the way I think about entrepreneurship , and it was an excellent podcast . And , on top of that , walker is just a cool guy .

He's a fun guy to talk to , he's got a lot of great experiences and insight , and so that was an awesome podcast and definitely like , without a doubt , makes it into my top three .

But not in , not with the intent and in occurring wealth , because I think you can go much faster by acquisition , and so some very high level strategies in that episode . And I agree , walker's a super cool guy , very well spoken , very articulate in his book . If you haven't read it , yeah , go get that . It's an excellent book .

It was a book review on the Miracle Morning which was written by Hal Elrod , and that book really , really revolutionized the way I get things done and optimize my morning in terms of getting up early , having a game plan , getting things accomplished before anybody else's awake and just knocking things out .

That one was like it was almost eye opening to me because I'd never I'd gotten up early .

When I was in the military , I had to get up early and run , which sucked , but getting up early , getting stuff accomplished , feels great , and so , yeah , that was just a really , really good episode covering this book and the principles of it , and if you haven't read the book or listened to the episode , I definitely recommend listening to episode 85 .

David , what did you think about that episode ?

I think that if anyone is working a full time job and wants to start a business on the side or have a side hustle , that is a great way to do .

It is , you know , you got to pay the piper even in the morning or in the evening , and reading that book and then implementing those lessons as we were getting our businesses off the ground , I think really made a big , big difference .

Oftentimes when you see people build giant businesses and they describe them , it seems really complicated , but Warren Buffett does a good job of boiling down the main points into easy to understand nuggets . Adam Feinberg is the Warren Buffett of e-commerce . He's been tremendously successful in his businesses and some of the exits that he's had .

In episode 91 , he talks about an eight-figure exit that he had , which is unbelievable , and wait , no , it was a nine-figure exit that he detailed and the lessons learned from those episodes were very broadly applicable to people . It was really like stay in stock monitor , ppc .

I mean he had some go back and listen to the episode , but he had some really good points that were digestible and I felt like they were . They were just as relevant to me as a smaller operator as they were to him as a larger operator , and so he's been a fantastic guest and friend of the podcast and in so he .

When I was thinking of my top three , he definitely makes it in the top three .

He's rolling it into another one and replicating it and being successful , and so that's someone that you know . When you want to learn how to do something , you find someone that's done it and ask them how . And Adam's done it twice now . So high level .

You know what did it look like ? You know what emotions was I feeling ? It was just a kind of an interview back and forth . It was super cool . I enjoyed it . Obviously it was . You know , it's been three and a half years over , over three and a half years since that happened , and so it's been a long time .

That episode may be very impactful and if you haven't heard it , go back and listen and , you know , hopefully you can draw some inspiration from that . If you're , if you're thinking about quitting your job now or you want to in the future , you can kind of get into the mind of someone that's done that . And what were they thinking then and what were they ?

You know , how did they impact them and what decisions were you facing , stuff like that . And so to this podcast . That's a really crucial episode and so , yeah , it made my top three list .

I will also mention that I felt like I had this dirty little secret . I had a podcast about quitting my job . I also had a job with an employer that I liked and people that I liked , and I was always waiting for just a knock on the door to say , david , we need to talk to you about this extracurricular project you have going on .

That's not in line with with you being employed here , and so fortunately , that never happened . But episode 60 was that really captures .

It was a dream come true at that point in time , a huge pivot in my professional career and something that I'm not sure if I would have done without this podcast and without seeing you do it and knowing that life on the other side of the fence was okay , that you could continue to make a good income and build a business , and that it was actually even better

, and so then , working for the man , so yeah , episode 60 was definitely one of my favorite episodes . Now , ken , as we were crafting these lists , it was hard to come up with I've been saying top three , I guess it's top four . It was tough to come up with our top four , and so we had had to have some honorable mentions .

And so what were some of your honorable mentions ?

Episode 77 was with our good friend Joe Valley over at Quiet Life Records . Joe is just an amazing guy . He wrote the book Exit Prenuer . We had him on the show , known Joe for several years . He's an outstanding guy and so wanted to definitely give a shout out . Episode 77 . Another one on my list here is episode 127 . I did this one solo , david .

I think you were traveling , maybe on vacation or something , so I did it solo . It was about John's crazy socks and the story behind that brand . It was a guy named John . I believe his dad's name is also John . It was a father and son team and the son has Down syndrome . I believe he wanted to .

You know , when he graduated high school he told his dad , you know , like he was struggling of what to do and his dad and he's like , finally , he's like you know , nobody wants me to work for them and he's like I'll just have my own company and his dad said , okay , well , let's do this . Okay , well , let's do that .

And so they started John's crazy socks , and they employ underserved workforce , other people with Down syndrome , other people with differing abilities is what John senior calls it . And it was just an amazing story . I fell in love with the brand and I bought some socks . I have some John's crazy socks . I wear them . It's a great episode .

If you haven't heard that one , it's episode 127 . Very warming , very inspiring . Last one on my list for honorable mentions episode 172 . And this with Gary Garth . Gary , this is a recent episode . Gary is a super cool guy . He's from a Nordic country . I'm going to say I'm going to butcher it it's either Norway , finland , sweden .

It's one of the happiest countries on earth . I apologize , gary , for not remembering where he from , but Gary is a super , super smart guy , but it has a wealth of knowledge in business . I learned a lot on that episode and I just wanted to give a shout out to Gary . He's a super cool guy . So , david , on your list of honorable mentions .

And then we'll cut into a couple of phoning stories .

I remember in this particular episode he talked about SOPing yourself out of the company and just that sentence really stuck with me and you know , four years later I'm still talking about it . And so tons of great insights there and great episode . The next one was episode 124 , lessons Learned in Self-Manufacturing .

In this episode we talk about the good , the bad and the ugly of our first factory and it was a fun story . It was something that we did kind of out of necessity during the pandemic when we were having issues with suppliers , and for anyone thinking about potentially self-manufacturing , I think this would be a great one to listen to .

And the last one is episode 152 with my brother in accounting , tyler . Jeff Coat Counting is my life , oh shout out .

So Tyler runs Seller Accountant and has a really good way of looking at businesses and he has the ability to look at a lot of different businesses because they're his clients and he observes some very common themes and what are the successful ones doing , what are the ones that are not successful doing , and he shares all of that during this episode .

And so for anyone running an e-commerce business if you're wondering how does my business stack up against 50 or 100 other businesses

this is a great one to listen to . He gives some pretty easy to understand metrics and KPIs to measure and one of those gross profit after ad spend we use in our business and monitor on a weekly basis , and so really , really good stuff there and G&PAC full of learning . Now we've made it through our top four .

We've made it through our honorable mentions , ken . Are there any episodes that stand out ? as odd or crazy or any stories here .

When we started interviewing this guest it went sideways and David and I kind of made eye contact . This was taped remote David's in the podcast studio .

I'm in my podcast studio and we kind of looked at each other like you know what the show outlines out the window , this thing is off the rails , like what's happening , and this guest was just out of control , I would say . But I think we managed to keep him somewhat on the rails and get through the episode . But it was the craziest episode out of 200 .

And so episode 122 , if you want to hear some crazy shit , go listen to that episode .

There have been a lot of lessons learned in this period of time and I think let's share some of those lessons learned Absolutely .

Number one on my list is the power of consistency , and it's very , it's a very powerful thing . You can call it consistency , you can call it a habit , you can call it whatever you want , but just continuously showing up day , week , month , year consistency . It builds up over time . You know , in the accounting world , david would be happy .

I would be saying this would be like a crude interest over time or compounding interest over time , something like that . It really just builds up over time when you drag it out , and it goes with anything in your life you know healthy eating , working out , getting tasks done , you know anything . Consistency over a long period of time adds up .

It's a snowball effect , and so that's something that you know I've learned after podcasting for four years . You know there's been times where , in the middle of a very busy day , we have a podcast schedule .

We got to drop everything , got to get into podcasting mode , got to get out our sheets , and so it's not as much easier to say I don't want to do that anymore , but doing that every day or every week or every month . Consistency adds up , and so that was a big one for me .

Another lesson that kind of goes along with this is during our fire round . We ask all of our guests what is one thing that you think sets apart successful entrepreneurs from those that give up , fail or never get started .

I would say the most common answer is something to do with grit or perseverance and showing up every day , and we've had on a ton of successful guests . That seems to be one of the most common answers , and so , no , I think that's . We've learned that lesson from through a lot of different lenses , and that's been awesome .

So , anyway , what's next on your list ?

You know our podcast for the longtime listeners , david and I share insights into our life and our business and how we're growing our business and operating , as well as we bring on industry experts across a wide array of knowledge base .

And just this is something that I learned is like if you're , if you're talking , obviously we have to interview people , but listen , always listen , and you'll learn a ton when you listen .

And so if you're inviting we're inviting experts on , I'm just always listening and you know , maybe not take action on everything someone says , but just listen and if it resonates and it makes sense , you know you can kind of go and pull something out of that , but it's just always good to you learn when you listen .

And so that was that's definitely something that I've I think I've gotten better at from podcasting is , you know , listening to experts . David , what's what's next on your list ?

Ask good questions , and that's been something that I think has translated throughout our podcasting journey , but also in life is is I am a lot more comfortable now asking people their story or asking them how they did it , and I don't know if I was hesitant or timid before , but I have found that the most enjoyable ways to acquire knowledge is through asking

questions , and so that's been something that stands out to me and has been a huge lesson learned .

So this is something that this is probably , to me , probably the most important one on my list , and this is a something I've learned after , like what you just mentioned , david , four years of podcasting , and so you know if you think about a podcast , you know you're driving to work , you're out on a jog or a walk or wherever however you listen to your podcast

, you listen to it to learn , I think , or to have some downtime , or to whatever , and so , as a podcaster , it's our job to transfer information .

When we're interviewing people or when we're sharing our own stories , it's our job to transfer the most valuable information to you , the listener , and so I've tried to refine my skills on you know what you just said , david , asking the right questions , and so , which I think it folds really well into this , is how to extract knowledge from a guest and pass it

on to the audience , and so I think this is something that we've both gotten better at over four years , from episode one to now , minus the scotch , but I think you know being able to , you know , sit down and say OK , hey , we're interviewing guest XYZ today . They're an expert in this , they're the .

This is their story and so kind of studying that and say , ok , knowing our audience , what are the things that we can ? We can , what are the top five things we can extract from this person , the knowledge and transfer it to our audience .

And that is something that I've learned over over the four years or I've gotten better at so hopefully the listeners , hopefully maybe I'll get some emails and say can you suck ?

Or maybe I'll get some emails and say , yeah , you know you've gotten better at that , but hopefully I've gotten better at that and I think I have but more work to do , but that's , that's definitely something that I've learned .

He was like well , what would that look like ? We probably need one or two professors that had some specialty in it . And I started thinking about that would be like an undergrad program . What would like a PhD or an advanced learning scenario look like for e-commerce ? And I'll tell you what talking to 150 experts in the field would be along those lines .

And , you know , can we ask ? You know , I think we try our best to ask people questions that we want to know the answers to and that our audience would want to know the answer to , and so I do think that this body of work has been hugely , you know , transformative in our careers and how we run our businesses .

Our goal is that it's been hugely transformative in the careers of our audience and so , yeah , that was , that was definitely a big lesson learned , you know . The last thing I would say is and one thing that has made the podcast fun is it's not motivated by money .

It's fun , I enjoy it and we enjoy engaging with the guests , we enjoy engaging with the audience . It's been fun and I think that my hope is that that comes through to the people listening is that we're genuinely , genuinely interested in what the guest has to say and transferring that knowledge to our audience .

And I think if we would have started this off by saying , all right , how can we make a million dollars from having a podcast , the end product wouldn't have been as good it's been .

I hate to use this , but it's like we've been true to the art form of podcasting and that may sound cheesy , but like it has been something that we've been true to and that has made it authentic and a lot more enjoyable .

And so this is not a huge revenue generator for us . We're not . We're not making hardly any money from the podcasting , and so it's just truly a passion project that we enjoy and that we're going to continue to do . And so , you know , one thing I would just like to say is a shout out to all the fans and listeners and the audiences .

You know we got , we do this for you guys , and so I want to really thank you guys for tuning in , listening . If you have any feedback , show ideas , anything , reach out to us . Ken at firingdemandcom , david at firingdemandcom , support at firingdemandcom . Send us an email , shoot us an email .

Well , whatever it is Good , bad , ugly , show ideas , whatever , hit us up . We're here . I feel like we're going to be doing this for a while . We both like it and and yeah , it's , it's fun and to your point , david , like we do the podcast for fun , and it it truly shows we're not . We're not grinding away to you know , to make a profit .

Cool , any parting words , david ?

So welcome to the firingdemand nation . So thank you everyone for tuning in to the firingdemand podcast and we'll see you next episode .