Calling all entrepreneurs and early-stage business leaders! This episode is for you!
Andy Cabasso is an entrepreneur, speaker, and lawyer. His most recent business, Postaga, is a fully remote, all-in-one platform for link building and email outreach. He joins the show to share his lessons for starting, growing, and selling a first-time company, including:
-
The importance of implementing a business operating system
-
How to build company culture across several time zones
-
Critical skills for early-stage leaders
-
And more
Don’t miss this opportunity to get your idea off the ground and running!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Andy Cabasso: You can’t scale your business, you can’t onboard new people if everything about running your business is stuck in your head.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. There it is. Welcome. I’m Nicole Greer. I’m absolutely delighted to have you here I am the vibrant coach and I am here with none other than Andy Cabasso. He is an entrepreneur, a speaker and a lawyer. And Andy runs Postaga an all in one platform for link building and email outreach. Prior to Postaga he started, grew and then successfully sold a digital marketing agency. So he is like a serial entrepreneur is what I’m thinking. He’s gonna straighten me out if that’s not true. So Andy, welcome to the show.
Andy: Thanks for having me, Nicole, I’m really excited to be here.
Nicole: Yeah, so you are up in New York. How is the weather up there? Have you guys thawed out from our little Arctic thing that went through a little while ago?
Andy: A little bit we, but it’s been you know, in teens in the Fahrenheit lately. We, are our heating pipes froze.
Nicole: Oh, no!
Andy: A few times in the last two weeks. We’re recovering. We’re doing okay now though, thankfully. So. Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t happen again.
Nicole: Okay. Yes, I agree. I agree. Well, actually here in North Carolina it is 61 degrees today. And everybody is just like, so much happier. It’s amazing. The sun comes out, everybody says, you know, it’s that vibrancy thing.
Andy: Yeah, I can imagine. That sounds really nice.
Nicole: Yeah. Prior to us getting started, I was telling Andy he had to come to North Carolina and visit me and he had to go to my bucket list spot. If I write this down, Kiawah Island if you’re not from North Carolina, South Carolina area, you got to get yourself there. That’s your travel tip. And that was a bonus on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. There you go. Alright. Andy, we always start out the show, not with a travel tip, but with a definition of leadership. So I wanted to find out from you, what is your definition of leadership? You’ve started two companies, you must know all about it.
Andy: I don’t know about that. I hope I have something to share. For me, I guess leadership is directing all of the moving parts that is a business from the people to the processes, the operations, to make sure it all is going together in the same direction towards its destination. I think a lot of us have worked for great companies, great bosses, bad bosses. And so we can we have in our minds what good and bad leadership look like. And I think the best leaders that I’ve ever worked for were very focused on the specific goals and trying to bring in the team on board, like addressing everyone’s concerns, making sure everyone’s heard, but at the end of the day, bringing everyone together to help everyone, like achieve their big overall goals.
Nicole: Hmm, I love your definition. And like if I was to like, boil it down, I’d be like, I heard alignment. Right? Everybody going the same direction. Everybody knows what we’re doing. There’s not a lot of questions. I’m clear. I’ve communicated. So that’s a fantastic, fantastic definition. I am so curious about the business you have now. Because you told me a little bit about it before we got started. But tell me a little bit about your first business. What are the big lessons you learned, in the first entrepreneurial endeavor you dove into?
Andy: So my, I guess my first entrepreneurial endeavor was running a digital agency. And so in this business, we were doing web design, paid search, SEO for our clients. And before we got acquired, we we were a small team based in New York, one team member of ours was based in Boston, and we had some contractors all over the world, really. And so like some of the lessons I had, I’d really never been a boss before. And that like I think there were a lot of mistakes that I made in hindsight things that I could have done better. I don’t think I did bad. But I think as a founder of a small team, a lot of what we have is in our heads.
And I think maybe there are things like I could have done better communicating big picture vision to the team so everyone is better aligned. There are some things that like come to mind now, things that I learned along the way. Were things like having a business operating system to work with like there are there are a bunch of different frameworks out there like Eos, also known as like traction, or the Rockefeller habits, which was also called Scaling Up I believe is the latest book on that. But basically, these systems lay out ways to run your business daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly yearly, and like five year, 10 year horizon way, so that you can best stay on track and that everyone on the team knows what they’re doing everyone and everyone is working towards the big goals that you have.
And early on, we were scrappy, you know, I definitely felt like I could be pulled in any of a million different directions, like different projects come up different customers need attention, and you can sometimes lose sight of the big picture. And so I think, definitely a thing that I learned along the way was that at the high level, we all have to be everything, it needs to be clear and transparent. And we all have to be aligned towards what these big picture goals are. So that when team members have ideas and have contributions, we can look at them and say, alright, like, like, this idea is great. Does this help us towards our our big picture goals?
Nicole: Yeah, and I think that’s, that’s really now your defining alignment. Right? You know, it’s because here’s the thing, my imagination tells me that you’re a pretty creative guy. Do I have you nailed? Is that right? Are you pretty creative? I mean, if you started two businesses, you got to have some kind of mad lightbulb thing going on?
Andy: There is definitely some madness going on. Yeah, I think, yeah. Over time, as I’ve gotten older, I realized what my strengths are. And also importantly, what what my weaknesses are and what the things are that I need to rein in. I can, my brain could be in a million places. But using something like a business operating system, helps me stay on the course, like things like that, and trying to be more strict about my calendar. So I’m not all over the place.
Nicole: Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And so you know, you have the the light bulbs, but it’s a really vetting, I think is where you’re going right, like so, I love your ideas, I’m glad to have this, you know, creative idea thinker on my team, hello.
Andy: So a big problem can be that you like, if you’re an idea person, you can be prone to distraction like you. Like, there are tons of shiny objects, you have an idea one day, and you say like, alright, this is this marketing initiative, I think is going to be really impactful for us. Let’s get on this. Then it’s going to be a big project that’s going to take many months, great, let’s get started on it. And then one day, a customer gives you an idea. And it’s oh, wow, this is a great idea. It only take a few days or weeks to get on and you like put the other one project aside and then start working on the other one. And nothing gets completed. Because you’ve started a million different projects.
And that definitely was something that I was doing a lot of years ago. And now I’m better about because whenever I have an idea, I’m like, oh, this is gonna be a great project, that’s going to be helpful for us. I add it to the list. And at the end of the quarter, when we’ve finished our like major quarterly projects, I can then review everything and decide what are the three things in this particular area that I want to focus on? What are the few things in operations, marketing, sales, development, that I want to focus on this quarter that I can reasonably get done in this time period? Otherwise, we get into a situation where we’ve started in stopped a million things and nothing gets finished.
Nicole: Right, right. And that is why the book is called Traction. It’s because it helps you get traction, right, on your ideas. Okay, so I don’t want everybody to miss. I have this little habit, Andy, where I tell people what you just said. And the reason I do that is because I think they’re on their treadmill or driving their car. So he gave you three great lessons. One is get your vision out of your head and on paper and out your mouth so that people know where we’re headed, right so that you can get alignment.
Get yourself a business operating system. And so he’s talking, I think what you’re talking about, am I right? Is the vision tracker. So really valuable. You can go right now on the internet and put in EOS traction download all the pieces of paper. It’s right there for you. And then Rockefeller habits and then I love this one, be clear and transparent. So not to leave that to you know, nebulous. What do you mean by transparent? How transparent should a leader be? How much should we tell everybody? What do you think?
Andy: Um, I guess it probably depends on how comfortable you are and what you’re comfortable sharing with everyone, but transparent to the extent that people on the team should know like, what like if you have a SaaS business, what is currently in development, what’s on the short term and like long term horizon in terms of like marketing and sales. Like these are the customers that we’re trying to that we’re trying to get this quarter. Here are some marking materials that we are creating. Kind of like big picture stuff, like sharing with team members, things that might be outside their department and like you might be thinking, well they don’t need to know what’s going on in sales, they don’t need to know what’s going on in development.
But helping your team members get more of the big picture can better help them contribute and bring things to the table that are relevant to that. I definitely had like situations where some team members and this a learning was that some team members would have like, tons of suggestions related to this one specific area. But it was, I guess, it wasn’t clear to them that like, maybe like these people that they were trying to build a solution for, were not our ideal customers, or I didn’t think were our ideal customers. And so they would, they would feel rejected when I would say like, you know, thanks for bringing that to me but I don’t think that’s a good fit.
Because they didn’t have the, they weren’t on the same page where I was looking towards of where I wanted to go with the business and where I thought the ideal customer would be, like, where I thought the ideal customer would be that I’d be going, that we’d be moving towards in the future. For example, like moving up towards enterprise customers rather than towards smaller businesses. If a team member has an idea towards how to connect with more small businesses, when you’re trying to go for enterprise, and there’s a disconnect, you know, the it can feel lousy if you’re a team member throwing in ideas in there, that you feel like you’re not getting heard.
Nicole: Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. And so not only do you get alignment, everybody knows where you’re going. And then they’re contributing the right ideas. But then now you can actually receive their ideas, because they’re giving you the right ones, they’re thinking about the right thing. And then now all of a sudden, we get that synergy where it’s like, we’re gonna win, we’re gonna get some awesome results. And that’s, I mean, I think most people want to go to work and get a win today, you know, nobody wants to get a lose today. So I love that. And so I’m gonna repeat something you said, you have to let people know what’s going on outside of their department.
Oh, I just got to say amen. That was really good word. And the reason why I say that is because one thing I realized, Andy, is that not everybody has a ton of business acumen, meaning that they don’t know how sales and marketing and operations and whatever all go together. But like when they see that for the first time, they’re like, oh, so not only do you need to tell them, but they do need to care what’s going on in the other departments. So can you tell me that like, maybe a time where you shared across, you know, the lines of communication, what was going on a different area, and you got something really cooking.
Andy: So, um, I guess in probably in the current business, in my software business, Postaga, relatively recently, we were building a some we were building some new features related, like related to basically adding new features that some of our customers have been asking for. And we kind of shared with the with other departments, and other team members. Here’s what we’re working on right now, here are some issues that people have said that they’ve had, using the software. And then and here like, so like, we explained, like, here’s why we are prioritizing it. And then one team member had mentioned, like, you know, I’m using the software all the time myself.
And like, I see that this is a problem. And this is something that is a priority. But given that, like this is a priority here is why I think this other thing, which relates to their other problem is probably more of an urgent thing, which would help solve this problem. And us just being transparent about like, our path, and what we’re building, we got that feedback from the team to help us better solve the problem than we thought that we could. And it ended up being like, hugely, hugely valuable, and they were right on the money let us prioritizing this one feature ended up being well, like it took less time to develop then this other bigger solution, but I think it ended up working just as well.
Nicole: Yeah, so there’s huge efficiencies when everybody’s talking to each other. And transparency, right? So that’s fantastic. Well one one thing I want to talk about is you shared before we got on that your company has been virtual since the get go. So like this whole pandemic going virtual thing you guys planned it that way. And so how how do you create company culture? When you’ve got as you say people all over the world and you know, people not right there next to you, how do you do that?
Andy: It’s not the easiest thing to do. I’m not gonna lie, it was much easier when I, me and my team in New York, we’re working from the same office and we could after work go out to the pub or something like that, or you know, all together watch the World Cup a few times and stuff like that. And but like having a having a distributed team across different times zones and some where the time difference is like 13 hours, there’s a lot of asynchronous communication that that has to go on. It’s like, it’s hard to, it can be hard to communicate, it could also be hard to, like onboard and bring on team members. But since this is what we were focusing on from the beginning, we really made like conscious efforts to be like, be remote first and be able to interact in a way that was really building a culture that was, that didn’t feel like it was micromanaging.
Because I know that, like with remote, some managers can feel the need to like check in constantly with team members. And that’s, that’s not really helpful. That’s not what people want. They want to, you know, like, know what they have to do, and then do it. But at the same time, there’s some like communication loss, and you don’t want people to feel isolated or anything like that. So our team, you know, communicates regularly, like we communicate on Slack. Everyone, everyone these days, either uses Slack, or Teams or anything like that. We have, like, different departments have, like standing Zoom meetings that like a time that is maybe inconvenient for me, but works for most other people. So I’ll be on a team call at you know, 9pm my time because it works best for everybody else.
So there’s some compromise there. But otherwise, like, we’ve built a lot of procedures, and processes, so that like when people need feedback, like we can give it to them, and they’ll get they’ll get the feedback, you know, maybe the next morning their day, but we also want to make sure that people aren’t stuck, like stuck waiting for some feedback. And so we besides Slack, we use things like Clickup for project management. And we built SOPs and procedures and stuff like that to best onboard and give people ownership. But more to kind of culture, how do you really foster culture? Some things that like that, I think have worked well for like, you know, just like with in office is like you see what people’s like common interests are.
And you have like channels that are not work related, that can be related to different interests and things like that. Some things that, I’m in a few different Slack organizations related to things like our startup accelerators, and things like that. And some of them I’ve taken some of their ideas like there are, are like Slack weekly trivia things that you can do and people can participate in. Right now, as we’re recording this in towards the end of January. I don’t know if this is going to be even be a thing a year from now. Or if anyone’s listening to this in the future.
There’s this game called Wordle that is very popular on the internet right now, where you have like six guesses to guess a five letter word and they’ll tell you if that you’ve guessed the word, right. And people will, you know, share their scores and brag about it and stuff like that, you know, fun stuff outside of work. If you have like those kinds of channels, can I find, help foster a community better and make people feel more comfortable opening up and asking, you know, even like related to their jobs, opening up asking questions and reaching out when they need to, and having that kind of non work related water cooler kind of stuff, I find can help.
Nicole: Yeah, I totally agree. I think I think that humans are just wired that way, right? They’re looking for common ground. You know, when we when we got on the call, we’re like, where are you at? I’m over here. Have you ever been there, you know, we’re almost like searching for that common ground. And then we found it in South Carolina between Savannah and Kiawah. So, so I think people really do need that connection. But I do want to highlight something you just said if you’re going to have a global company and in all different time zones, somebody is going to have to make a sacrifice and don’t miss this. Our leader Andy said, I do it. I think that’s important to note.
Andy: I mean, I’m the one who hired them in other timezones, I take responsibility for that. I’m not going to drag someone to a like a phone call that’s at like 5am their time or anything like that. So yeah, it’s on me. And I think my, the team appreciates that.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely think so and I think that’s fantastic. Yeah, so the other thing I thought that I kind of was reading between the lines is you must be very good at empowering people.
Andy: I hope so.
Nicole: I heard what you said about you know, I I get my procedures and processes in place, and I’m going to tell you folks, you don’t have a procedures manual, something on the internet telling people how it works ,they struggle, they just struggle. You got to get it written down to people it’s easy for people to execute. Since that’s how it is, and maybe people do not have their processes written down, they verbally share them.
Andy: That’s the worst, though because you can’t, you can’t scale your business, you can’t onboard new people, if everything about running your business is stuck in your head. You can’t, as a business owner, take a vacation, if procedures and things like that are not written down, and if you leave, people don’t know what to do. And so kind of from my experience in running the agency, one, you know, of the big dreams of running a business is being able for the business to exist and run while you are away, so that you can take a vacation if you if you want to. And so from the beginning, like looking at with with this current business, we we created SOPs, standard operating procedures for roles and for all the like major functions of the different departments and things like that.
But we also built KPIs and metrics that every employee has access to. So they can know, here are my big goals for you know, this month or this week, here is where I’m at, on towards achieving these goals. And I know everything that I need to do to, to progress further towards these goals, because I know exactly like I have all the materials I need for from training materials to checklists to everything they need to do to, to do their job, basically. And so nothing, nothing should be only in someone’s head.
Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. And so all of those things, empower people. But is there are there other things that you might do? Or maybe a part of your style? I get a sense you are, I know you’re serious about getting stuff done. You’re a serial entrepreneur, but you kind of have like a calm, like laid back kind of feel to your something. So tell me, tell me how you talk to your people? What do you what do you share with them? So we talk about our KPIs, we looked at our strategy, we do all that, but I’m sensing you might have some other skills that you could share.
Andy: I don’t think I am a harsh boss or anything like that. If, if someone isn’t meeting like their metrics, like I don’t want like I don’t lead with you’re not meeting your metrics. Like, fix this. Really, I want to take a problem solver collaborative approach, like, so here are the metrics that we set out, I saw that you you fell short. Is there anything that was like that was preventing you from like achieving them? What was, what were the roadblocks, what was in your way, because I want to help you, like achieve these goals. And so really taking like a, like, I want to take a collaborative approach to it and see, like how we can, you know, solve these problems, because like, that’s going to be I think, at least the most effective solution. I lead with positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement.
Because I think just being like, you didn’t do this, you didn’t like meet are expectations, and just leaving it on them to figure things out, it’s going to be more likely that they’ll sink rather than swim and just waiting and sitting at your lifeguard stand watching, rather than getting in there and, and helping out. And because I would much rather like see my see my people succeed. And so I want to, if there’s something that I don’t know about, I don’t know what I don’t know, all I have are all I might have are numbers or metrics. And so from my high level view, I can see like, alright, here’s what I know, what don’t I know, and what can I help you with? What’s like preventing you from from achieving these goals?
Nicole: Yeah, so it’s like the quantitative data, but we also need the qualitative data to go along with it. We need to know the story behind the number. Absolutely. So what other data can you give us? Yeah, and I love your approach, you said, I try to lead with positive reinforcement. And as we started out, you gave me your definition of leadership. And one of the definitions I’ve picked up along the way that I’ve been really hanging on to Andy is, leaders remove obstacles. And that’s exactly what you just said. And I just, I love that definition. And that’s true.
I mean, if I work for Andy, and I have this, this thing in front of me, he’s got to get in there with me not just tell me figure it out, you know, he’s got to give me part of his brain power to. So that’s fantastic. So when you think about doing your startup and getting things going, and then you’ve sold the business now you’ve started another one, what are the most important skills? You’ve talked a little bit about some skills in terms of well, ideas like be clear, transparent, business operating system, and tell the vision. But are there some skills that leaders have that they need to really work on? Is there something you’ve thought oh my god, I got to work on that or you’ve mastered something some kind of mastery you might hone.
Andy: So it’s different skills, probably at different stages, like early If you are a solo founder or working with a co founder, most of the projects are going to be you. You are going to be responsible for marketing and operations and sales and everything like that. But as your business grows, and you start bringing on team members, you’re going to find yourself being in a position that’s more managerial. And so you have to find figure out how to be a better manager to empower your team members to do all the projects that you yourself would have previously been doing. And then big picture as you’re scaling, you, you’re working on more big picture things that help you scale, rather than you working, you know, in the business working on the business.
And so I think, at different places of the business’s trajectory and growth, you’re going to need different sets of skills and like, I’m not like a, my business is not at like a, you know, $10 million a year business where I’m worrying about different things than like a younger earlier stage startup. At different stages, you have different things that become your primary focus. And for a relatively young startup, we’re thinking about different things than a more mature company. And so I guess I’d say like, overall, I guess, the things that are that I find are most like important with leadership for an early stage business is, like I mentioned before, like having a, I think what’s been most helpful is a certain humility.
Nicole: I sense that about you.
Andy: To recognize what you don’t know, to be curious to learn as much as you can about, you know, not only your industry, but also you know, like as much about your competitors, your customers, their problems, just taking like an open mind, because you want to know what your customer, your ideal customers really want and really values so that you can, you know, help them solve their problems and do their jobs. And for like, a founder like I, I have definitely known some people who have a bit of are seemingly more self assured. But in a way that is not conducive to helping their business grow.
Someone might have a certain idea in their head of what an entrepreneur is. But I find that the the most curious people, the ones open to change and not hold on to assumptions are going to, I think, be more successful. Provided they also have the discipline to be smart about operations, about their time, about, you know, everything from like time management and project management, things that I’m constantly trying to get better at. But I think those things are particularly valuable skills to have, especially for a founder who’s can be have their attention brought into a million different places.
Nicole: That’s right, squirrel, right. Okay. So there was a lot of gems in there. So here’s the list that you got to be working on. So you have to have a certain amount of humility and understand you don’t know what you don’t know. I mean, we could spend another hour on that alone. One of the things I talked to people about Andy is the fact that like, we all have blind spots. And we need back to your clear, clarity and transparency. I mean, you’ve got to have good rapport with your people, so that they can go, you don’t see what I see.
Let me show you just like that guy that said, wait, that’s not really the problem. I’m going to go one layer deeper. And we need to fix this first and move this up the list on the priority list. So that is a great one. So take a good look at your humility level. And then I love what you said about being curious about the industry, the competitors, the customer, how can you serve them better? So there’s a you know, you didn’t say it like this, but like, you know, all the way up the CEO, we have to have customer service skills. Right? Customer first, right? And then you said open mindedness, be self assured, but like, I’m going to finish his sentence there, like not too cocky, not too arrogant, right?
And then don’t make assumptions, be disciplined around time management and project management. So amazingly good list of important skills for a successful leader. So I’m curious. I mean, you’re a well educated fella. I mean, you’re an attorney, a lawyer. Where, are you picking up your project management kind of as you go, or have you formally been trained in that? The more I work with people, the more I feel like, everybody needs a pin box, and we got to take a class and we got to be disciplined. That was another word he said around doing stuff in a way that makes sense.
Andy: I wish I had some sort of class that I would have taken or like would have been a opportunity for me, you know whether it was yeah, I think like in operations management or big picture, really the lessons that I got from traction and other like and like Rockefeller habits. Like that stuff once I became aware of it and like I read that, that was like one of those like lightning bolt, aha moments sort of things. I didn’t, before I came across Rockefeller habits, I didn’t know that this kind of thing existed, I just assumed that some people were just naturally very disciplined, and had all of their time and project management really figured out.
I never thought about big picture, one year, five year, 10 year kind of goals for a company or quarterly goals and stuff like that. I had assumed like, alright, like, I figured that businesses, like bigger businesses have metrics and things that are important to them and KPIs. But I didn’t really see things like, like smaller businesses, I hadn’t really heard about that. And so once I really got into traction, I got, I guess, and I started talking about it. Other people were let out like other colleagues were like, oh, yeah, we do that. I’m like, Well, how come this is the first time I’m hearing about it?
Nicole: Yeah, why didn’t you text me. What’s up?
Andy: So yeah, like, I think, I, I wish I had just, like, found that earlier on. Because that would I think that would have helped me focus better. But eventually, I did find it and I, you know, set up all of the procedures and things like that in place. And it were, you know, like, my business today is in a much better place, and in a shorter period of time than my previous business. But that’s also probably because I’ve, you know, learned things along the way about running a business.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. And I would put traction, kind of, you know, there’s time management, there’s project management, and that’s all kind of inside traction. And I would call that like strategic planning. Right? So there’s, there’s really kind of three disciplines there. But they all go to they go together, like a BLT. I was gonna say peanut butter and jelly, but there’s three. So we’re gonna go BLT on that one. All right. So um, what do you believe makes some leaders super successful, while others are on the struggle bus?
Andy: The I think the most so I guess, kind of people in my network, the people that this just I really just speak from my experience, the people that I see, like being the most successful are very disciplined. They know their numbers cold, they, they know, their business, and every aspect of it, at least that a big picture, they know every aspect of the business. They know the direction they’re going in. They are confident about it. But they’re also able, flexible enough that they’re able to pivot when they see down the road, that things are changing that the land that like, maybe their industry landscape is changing. So they’re going to have to be adaptive.
And maybe they should, ahead of time plan to avoid the downed tree in the road, if they see like things in their industry are going to change. And so what this product that might, that it may be as a big source of revenue for them may not be in the future, they can plan ahead, you know, diversify their product lines or change it if there are certain things that need to. Besides that, yeah, I think there’s a certain, I guess, the most successful people I know, as business owners, like they, they’re very, like their business is their baby, but they are detached to like, seemingly to some degree detached in that they can take a look at the big picture.
And the objective, I’d say is in a particular way, that they are not married to any particular thing, idea or piece of the business if it’s not serving their their bigger picture goals. And I guess aside from that, last thing that, I guess that stood out to me is the like the leaders that I kind of admired most are, the businesses best salesperson. They are, when it comes to talking about their business, they could they could sell anybody on it, they’re they’re so passionate, they are are very but they are very coherent. They like they sell their business they know the business called they can sell it to they know who their target audience is and speaking to someone that’s that fits that they could sell their business to better than anybody.
Nicole: I love that. So, let me tell you the three he gave you all because they were so good. The first one was having proper perspective that like this, you might have started this thing, but you are going to be able to see what’s down the road, what’s in the future and kind of be able to look at what are we going to do in the pathway between there right. So having a proper perspective. And so I call that the IRP. You got to have an introspective, like what could happen, then you got to turn around from the future back to the present. That’s the retrospective. That’s the R. And then you’re going to get the prospective.
Like, what should we do next, right? So a leader that can have proper perspective and work the IRP, I think is important. And then I love this one. Being detached. So you don’t not have what I’m what I’m really kind of hearing Andy is like, maybe you don’t get your way, maybe you’re wrong about something, maybe, maybe you thought it was gonna go this way and now you figured out it’s going that way, and you can just not get your ego engaged or something. I mean, I’m kind of hearing that. Is that, is there’s some of that in there?
Andy: Yeah, I think part of it in particular is just being able to be objective. So you’re not like, this thing that like, isn’t it’s not like the business is your baby. But it but business is evolving. And you respect that and where what makes most sense for where the business is going is the direction that you’re going to take it in. And if it’s not going to be, it could be, the business could be unrecognizable in five years from where it is today. And you can see that and be like, well, that’s where we need to be.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And then I love this one, this one is so good. The leader needs to be the best salesperson, know the numbers cold, be passionate and sell it to anyone. Oh my gosh, like if the leader isn’t in 100%, who else is gonna be right?
Andy: I know that thing. I know that. I know a lot of business founders, they hate sales. Like it, they don’t want to get on the phone with anyone, they don’t want to go on the demos. And they, they just they dread it. And that’s, you know, understandable. It may not be your skill set. But maybe I kind of feel like no one should be able to outsell the owner, like when someone’s talking to the owner, it should very clearly come across the the owner’s passion for the business and understanding of that particular customer. So they should really be able to sell the product to any potential customer.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So I’m curious about your business. Tell me a little bit about Postaga. What do you do, exactly? You’re still working the working the the system in terms of trying to get people to get leads back to their company, still has a little bit to do with SEO, I’m thinking. Straighten me out. Tell me all about what you’re doing now.
Andy: So a little bit of everything. So at its core, our product is in platform for email outreach. A few different like applications of how people are using it. They’re using it for for sales lead generation to find new potential customers or partners or affiliates. People are also using it for press outreach to get their business’ press coverage or to be a guest on podcasts. They’re also using Postaga for link building outreach. So reaching out to other bloggers that could hopefully link to your website’s content so that your content can rank better in search. And it’ll show up first, when people search for keywords related to your business.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. And so I also think to your point about the leader needs to be the best salesperson, they also need to understand what’s going on in marketing today. Understanding how the internet and the web can really serve you is absolutely huge. So I think that’s fantastic. All right. So tell me a little bit about what you might share with a single special listener. They’ve listened to you download all sorts of great ideas, all sorts of things they need to be working on. You’ve given us some hints and help about running a company all across different time zones and culture. But if there was one person listening, thinking, you know, I want to do start something up, I want to do something, I get an idea. I think I can do what he’s doing. What advice would you give them?
Andy: For someone like looking to start out, probably the very first thing I would tell you to do is you really need to validate the idea. Like you may have an idea. And you may think it’s like oh, wow, I haven’t heard this before. This is like I love this idea. But and you may have friends telling you, oh, that sounds cool. But you really, really should be doing some customer research. One framework that I like a lot that we’ve been doing is called jobs to be done. Which helps you better understand the like your target audience and what what their workflows are, what they’re doing and what jobs they’re doing to help you kind of figure out like this idea that you have fit in as a really as a solution for helping people do their jobs. And importantly, like is this idea that you have going to be something that there’s not just interest in but that people are willing to pay for because it is actively helping them.
I think the the story that I heard about like jobs to be done relates to McDonald’s. So the person who came in, the consultant who came in, for jobs to be done was taking a look at McDonald’s and they were seeing that they had just unveiled I think it was like a vanilla shake or something like that or some something to the menu. And they were trying to better understand who was buying the shake, like when were they getting it. And they were finding that people were getting shakes in the morning, which they’re thinking like, this seems kind of odd. Why are people getting shakes for breakfast, and through interviews, it became clear that the people were getting the shakes, because that was their breakfast replacement.
They weren’t getting a shake, in addition to like an eggs and egg McMuffin, or in addition to the fries or dinner or anything like that, they were getting the shake to do the job of filling their stomachs. And like that was not anything that they thought of. It’s kind of crazy to hear it. But like doing those interviews, and really knowing what problem the shakes were solving on the menu, help them better kind of understand that. And so I think that’s particularly interesting. So like, if you’re thinking, if you think you have a great idea, I would say, before you go all in on it, really make sure that your ideal customer, that is your solution potentially is relevant to them. And if not, is there a way that your idea could be tailored better to provide a viable solution for them that it’s gonna be something that they actually want.
Nicole: Yeah, fantastic. All right. So you have dropped a lot of great references for us all the way from EOS to Rockefeller habits now to this thing.
Andy: I guess we have to start a book club now.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, I tell you, everywhere I go, I will, when I speak and when I’m training, I will drop names of books. And people, you know, tell me that book again. I need to know that book. So I’m wondering, what’s the best thing you’ve read lately, or a documentary that inspired you? That you’re like, oh, my gosh, every business person should watch this. Or read this.
Andy: Like, despite all these books, I haven’t been reading anything lately other than toddler 411 because I have a two year old.
Nicole: Yay! Congratulations. What’s his or her name?
Andy: Her name is Rory. And she has a lot of energy.
Nicole: I know that’s right. I’ve had those two year olds in the house. Now I have 20 year olds. But anyway, so tell Rory, Ms Nicole said hello. Yeah. And so when you leave this job, you gotta go go do that job. I totally get it. Yeah. So so nothing, nothing inspiring nothing, that you’ve read a TED talk, somebody that somebody that you just think, you know, I’m watching this guy, because what he’s doing, or she’s doing is really interesting to me. One little last tip.
Andy: You know what, I have, might be a really random recommendation. But, years back, this book was recommended to me by by a singer in a punk band outside of a club after a show. So that was the recommend. So the recommendation was this. This book, I think the book was called Endurance. It was about the Shackleton expedition to the South Pole. And not not so spoiler alert, their ship got stuck in the ice, and the entire crew had to travel across the South Pole, working to get rescued. And this is like in the early 1900s or so.
And it’s a crazy story, but it really highlights some, like amazing leadership skills that the captain had. Especially like, in these elements under pressure with this crew. Some of them getting sick and having to figure out how to like ration supplies and get them to safety. It’s, it’s a crazy journey. And like, it makes you feel a little small in the big picture of what I’m not, I’m not manning a crew and like like this and trying to lead that way. But at the same time, it’s still it was very, very inspiring.
Nicole: That’s a fantastic recommendation. Okay, Endurance, everybody is the name of the book. And we have been talking with Andy Cabasso. And so Andy, if somebody wants to find out more about your business, where where should they go? Should they just go straight to the website?
Andy: Sure. So yeah, you can check us out at postaga.com. That’s p o s t a g a.com. And if you want a coupon for the audience for thanks for watching. If you use the coupon code, podcast50, that’ll get you three months at 50% off if you want to use Postaga for all of your cold outreach needs. Beyond that, I’m pretty easy to find online, Twitter. Andy Cabasso. If you search the internet for Andy Cabasso, I have website also it’s I think it’s andycabasso.com. LinkedIn, it’s Andrew Cabasso. And then Facebook I’ve got a group dedicated to cold outreach and SEO called Grow Together SEO.
Nicole: Grow Together SEO. Okay, well it will be in the show notes for those of you on your treadmill right now, and we’ll make sure that we get that all to you. Andy it has been an absolute delight to be with you. I know you’ve got to go. Give Rory a kiss and a hug right now. So we’re gonna set you free because it’s 6:14 it’s time for dinner. She’s starving. You gotta go feed her. Maybe you might go to McDonald’s and get a shake. I don’t know. Yeah. All right. Great to be with you. I appreciate your time and energy and your genius.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
