Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q Alright, let's talk about tools and software that you run multiple businesses on. What are your favorite ones?
A Well, Slack is a must. It's just a great communication tool, especially now that we're all over the country. Underutilized is Loom. Like Loom is the best. You can just get your idea out one time and people don't have to stop what they're doing to know what it is that you need to tell them. Todoist Is great for me. It's the simplest task management tool, but I write down all the tasks that I need to assign. I record the videos, and then I assign them on Todoist, and then that's it. The rest of the day takes care of itself. Although it's the most expensive, HubSpot, in my opinion, is definitely the best CRM. It makes it easy to keep track of your leads, to keep track of your network, and then ClickUp. I think if you're running a real established agency, Todoist, Isn't gonna be enough. It's just not robust enough. And so Todoist is really where I manage my personal holdings company, but ClickUp is where Stadzi runs. That's like our, our real task management software. So Slack, Todoist, Loom, HubSpot, and ClickUp. And then of course, Google Drive. Like sometimes we laugh that basically every tool that anybody makes is just like a modified version of Google Sheets and Google Docs. And so like, Yeah, Google Drive is a must.
AI assessment note: “So Slack, Todoist, Loom, HubSpot, and ClickUp. And then of course, Google Drive.”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Give me a little bit more of a breakdown about how you built it. So you had your first client, then, then what did you do from there?
A We generated and still generate a lot of our leads through SEO. It was one keyword in particular that I write for. It was just drug rehab marketing. And then we started writing for drug rehab, SEO, drug rehab lead generation. So if there's like one message that somebody can get from me, it's that you don't have to build this giant media entity. Like you can tackle it one keyword, one article at a time. The trick is to be methodical about it. That's why I hate the advice, like, just make great stuff. Just be yourself. It's just being yourself is like terrible SEO advice. What you want to do is you want to know what people are searching for. You can figure that out just by going to trends.google.com, type in a bunch of keywords, see what keywords are available, and then write an article that best solves the particular problem that that person has. I always think of Google as a Problem solving machine. You never go to Google for anything else other than to solve a problem. And so if you can write an article that best solves that person's problem, you can generate leads. And then all of a sudden you can build a business.
AI assessment note: “We generated and still generate a lot of our leads through SEO.”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Can you give me a timeline of how you got started and how you got into the business of entrepreneurship?
A I grew up a blue collar kid. I built houses for most of my childhood. My dad Worked at the airport, and my mom was a nurse, and so I just thought I'd be working my whole life. Got in trouble a lot when I was younger, and I had a bit of a drug problem, so the time came when I needed to change my life, and I went to rehab, and I got sober. About six months into that journey, a friend, basically a mentor, bought me a subscription to Success Magazine, which had this CD in it, and it was this interview, and it was this guy named Seth Godin. He said, start a blog, don't tell anybody about it, and write in it every day. And there was something about that message where I thought like, you know what? I can do that. I don't know why it felt like it was a good direction for me, but I just, I knew I could do that. So I started a blog spot and I would just write random articles about like my day and what I was feeling and the experiences I had. And there was other people that might've been getting sober or might've been going through a journey of themselves. And they were saying like, oh, I really relate to this. Or like, I felt the same way, but I was wondering how are these people finding my blog? Like, I didn't tell anybody about it, so I started researching, and I discovered SEO, I discovered search, and then I would read Copyblogger every day and just improve my skills of, of being an …
AI assessment note: “eventually that Blogspot account turned into Sober Nation, and, and that's how I got my start.”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Let's talk about sales and closing deals. Do you have any tips on negotiation and how to close a deal?
A There's only a couple of things you need to know about closing deals. One is learn how to ask questions so that the person tells you Their pain points. You want the person to tell you their problems. When that's happening, I just write down what the person says. I write down the problem and I respond with a solution to that problem. The second most important thing is to get like the, the price out of the way in the very beginning. Because what always happens, you go through this whole pitch and then people say, okay, I'll call you back. Let me think about it. And that's the worst thing that can happen. So I would start a conversation by saying like, hey, look, just do me a favor and let me know If you're serious about this, that way you get like a commitment and you actually get the deal closed. And then the last and absolutely most important thing is ask for the deal. Here's my line for this is the best line. It's, are you ready to get started? So you got to say, you say, are you ready to get started? And the trick is you shut up. And so what I do is I say, are you ready to get started? And then I mute my phone and I put it in front of me and I just sit there and that's when you close the deal.
AI assessment note: “There's only a couple of things you need to know about closing deals.”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q So your goal is to build these self-sustaining businesses, and now you have a team. How was it going from just a solopreneur to building a team?
A I had access to a lot of young people that were just getting into recovery. I hired them like straight out of halfway houses, and we've all built this together over the last 10 years. So in terms of managing a team, read the E-Myth, Revisited. That book changed my life. I just realized that I am in the way of everything. I am literally the biggest problem in the company, and the best thing I can do for the company is document processes, be organized about it, teach, and then get the hell out of the way, because I don't do anything except mess things up when I get in the middle of it. So, read the E-Myth, and read it again, and then read it a third time, and take notes on it, and just do everything that book says, and you'll be fine.
AI assessment note: “I hired them like straight out of halfway houses, and we've all built this together”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 4 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.55
Q So you build this agency, it's profitable, it's generating cash. Then you start buying businesses. Can you tell me more about what that looked like?
A The first one was a company called Moving Local. Again, like a lead generation site. People buy moving leads a lot. I built another one called Stem Cell Authority, which was lead generation for the stem cell industry. I've recently invested in a company called Kappa, which is an AI content creation tool. It's, it's mainly for SEO. It's an SEO tool. I was one of the founding investors in a company called Sparkloop. It's a way for people to build their email lists. It works with Beehive and it works with ConvertKit. There's a website called Your Boulder, which I bought, which is a newsletter that goes out to the people of Boulder, Colorado. There's another SEO agency called Digital Commerce. We saw a big opportunity to do SEO for people that want to build email lists and sell digital products or sell courses or sell eBooks or Subscriptions, whatever the case may be. So we have another agency, and then most recently, I just invested in a company called Hey Creator. So Hey Creator is kind of like a creator studio, you could call it, of people that are all trying to build these creator-driven businesses. And then, of course, I bought Copyblogger. That's going really well, but I'm still running Recovery Local, and I'm still running my agency, and that's really where I spend most of my time.
AI assessment note: “The first one was a company called Moving Local. Again, like a lead generation site.”
