Austin, Amer, and John discussed their respective businesses' marketing strategies and the potential of franchising. Amer primarily targets contractors through online advertising while Austin observed the marketing trends in the home service industry. The team also delved into the success of food franchises, particularly those with attractive presentations and engaging tactics, such as withholding information until the presentation was over. Austin shared insights from her visits to franchise expos, highlighting potential franchises like Salvatore's and 6ixty Wings while expressing admiration for their customer and quality-focused approach. The conversation also touched on the challenges of creating a durable business in the home services market and the high startup costs associated with international franchise options.

John and Austin discussed the changes in the business landscape since the Covid-19 pandemic started and its impact on their respective painting and roofing businesses. They identified trends where customers were increasingly more price-sensitive, and the high-end options were becoming less popular, posing challenges for their sales teams. Despite their company's policy against price negotiation, their competitors were dropping their prices significantly, leading to a gap in the market that their company did not intend to fill. They also discussed the challenges of offering financing options due to high-interest rates and the impact of a rival company's price cuts on their business. The conversation revealed the complex dynamics of the competitive landscape and the need for their company to adapt to changing customer behavior.

Austin faced a challenge related to his podcast and was required to answer two out of three questions, but could only manage to answer one due to potential hacking. John and Amer participated in the discussion, which included issues regarding system access and the consequences of copyright violations. A humorous discussion about the "Bridge of Death" scene from Monty Python's "Quest for the Holy Grail" ensued, with Rydel and John taking turns answering the questions posed by the bridgekeeper. The conversation also involved a light-hearted discussion between Amer and Austin, reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch, where they posed various questions to each other. John noted that this was similar to a recent experience with Austin.

In this weeks episode, John and Amer uniquely covered about 90% of the episode without Austin! Crazy we know.

The reason being was that Austin was driving back from Toronto, got stuck in traffic (typical Toronto) and so the guys weren’t able to jump on his usual zoom link… This meant that Amer had to use his zoom link and funny enough when Austin got back home, John and Amer respectfully had all their devices turned off to be able to focus on their conversation, and so Austin spent some time crying in the Patreon group chat instead of jumping on the call 😂

Contact wise, this is an incredibly valuable conversation for our Student Works listeners and anyone else growing their own business.

Do you guys remember when drop shipping was popular? Some of the people who thought they found success would come back and say “oh I made $3 million on this cup!” But what were the profits like?

Amer points out that one of the reasons he wanted to work with Patrick is that he is actively managing a successful business and franchise. Of course that protects objections during sales, but more importantly it’s evidence that his line of business is actually what generates the most revenue for his career. This is different from random drop shippers in New Zealand (for example) telling you they’ve gotten rich off of drop shipping while they’re making most of their money off of selling courses.

In this weeks podcast, Austin Amer and John take a deep dive into the lens Amer currently holds on his love life.

The sense of purpose that you can drive out of the love you can have of another human being can benefit you tremendously.

These are the main benefits that John has described seeing for Amer:

1. It would be outstandingly humbling
2. He thinks Amer could “unfuck himself” in that, his level of compassion and empathy for others would skyrocket being in love.
3. In order to attract a mate that you actually want, you have to step up your own game. For example, when you go into the dating pool and date a bunch of women. For most of those cases you’ll find out “holy shit this is not at all what I want”. And then you might come to the realization that what you want is not something that you necessarily deserve, therefore, I need to step up my game to acquire a more high-quality mate.

The greatest sales people aren’t necessarily the people who can bring a “no” to a “yes”. The greatest sales people are the ones who can recognize when their ideal client is in front of them, and help them make decisions that will improve their current condition.

In this week’s podcast, Amer talks about the new challenges that come with leading a sales team and how the experience has brought a new light to his own talents.

He uses this phenomenal analogy – if you’re baking and your cookies turned out amazing because you added a little bit more vanilla extract than usual, and someone who tries your cookies asks you what you did differently to make them so amazing this time, unless you’re an incredible baker it might be hard for you to pinpoint. You might end up telling people that you added more sugar this time… and when they try it they won’t get the same result that you did.

Empathy (noun): the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

A baby isn’t in a position to understand wrong from right… which is why everyone just likes babies right? What’s there to not like about a baby? They’re very simple creatures - they live to eat, sleep, and take mysterious dumps :)

In this podcast, Austin, Amer and John take a deep dive into what empathy looks like in their lives.

John gives an example of how he’s had a recent experience getting in touch with his sister, who he doesn’t share much of a relationship with in her adulthood, where he provided her with his honest truth on his opinion on her pending divorce.

It seems that empathy has a logic focus in the masculine brain and empathy has an emotion/relationship focus in the feminine brain.