Joe Casabona [00:00:00]:
Most people who start businesses become upset when they get away from the actual work of the business and move more towards managing the business and the people. But not James Laws. James has started several successful businesses and his favorite part is building the culture, ensuring employees are happy, and ultimately making sure everyone feels fulfilled. So much so that he wants to help more founders do just that. And he plans to with tools, software, coaching and more. But that is the long game. It all starts with his podcast and his blog. Yes, James is using these to establish authority, build an audience, and learn about this new field so that he can successfully sell to this audience in the future.
Joe Casabona [00:00:55]:
And a quick programming note here. James and I are friends. We go way back. We go on a lot of side quests about movies, children, Jerry Springer and baseball. So I am going to put chapter markers in this episode. If you use a podcast app that supports chapters, you can skip the side quests or just listen to the side quests if you want. But I think the whole conversation is good. It is a great conversation between friends.
Joe Casabona [00:01:26]:
And then in build something more if you haven't gotten enough of us, we talk about what it's like expanding our audience beyond the WordPress space. We both started businesses pretty squarely in the WordPress space and we're trying to move outside of those. So if you are interested in all of that, you can get ad free extended episodes over at howibuilt.it 266. You can sign up for the creator crew for just 50 bucks a year. You'll also find all of the show notes as well as a way to join my newsletter over there. So again, that's Howibuilt IT266. Today's sponsors are Learndash, Textexpander, and Nexus. All right, let's get on with the intro and then the interview.
Joe Casabona [00:02:18]:
Hey everybody, and welcome to How I Built it, the podcast that helps small business owners create engaging content that drives sales. Each week I talk about how you can build good content faster to increase revenue and establish yourself as an authority. I'm your host, Joe Casabona. Now let's get to it real quick. Before we get started, I want to tell you about a free weekly newsletter I'm doing called Creator Toolkits. I want you to become a more efficient creator. It's the whole purpose and mission of this show. I want you to be able to free up more time to create, to get more sales, and to make more money.
Joe Casabona [00:02:57]:
And you'll be able to do that with these free weekly tip delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning at 7am with the Creator Toolkits newsletter as a thank you for signing up. You will get a free content planner that I use personally with YouTube and podcasting and that is built in Airtable. You'll get that completely for free. If you head over to howibuilt It Airtable, become a more efficient creator with free weekly tips delivered directly to your inbox every Wednesday morning at 7am Eastern over at howibuilt.itairtable. all right. I am here with my good friend James Laws. He is the CEO of Saturday Drive and one of the earliest guests on this show. James, I don't think we knew each other really.
Joe Casabona [00:03:51]:
We kind of knew of each other.
James Laws [00:03:54]:
I think that's a fair way of putting it.
Joe Casabona [00:03:56]:
Yeah, just kind of knew of each other. And you were generous with your time and came on an unproven podcast back at a time where podcasting didn't seem to be everywhere. So I appreciate that. And then we met at a couple of wordcamps and of course, probably both of our favorite. I'm gonna put words in your mouth. Probably both of our favorite conference, Cabo Press, where we got to hang out. And I'm excited to talk to you today because as the listeners have already heard, because I recorded this bumper just to get out of time, time traveling. You've started a new podcast.
Joe Casabona [00:04:40]:
And I'm really interested about it because I'm trying to teach people how to. How to podcast to establish authority and how you don't only need sponsors. I mean, as somebody who makes most of his money from sponsors. Right. You don't only need sponsors to make money. And I know you also have an affinity for podcasts, so I'm really excited to get into that. You. You started Ninja Forums way back when.
Joe Casabona [00:05:09]:
That now, correct me if I'm wrong, it was Ninja Forms was the original name of the company and then you renamed it Saturday Drive as your portfolio grew. Is that accurate?
James Laws [00:05:18]:
Yeah, actually, the original name of the company was WP Ninjas and we still hone the trademark on that and still use that for some internal purposes and even some external purposes. Then we switched over to Ninja Forms because that was the main product and we didn't. And then we switched back to WP Ninjas and then we finally created Saturday Drive, which is now our kind of parent company to all of the other things that we do.
Joe Casabona [00:05:42]:
Nice. That's funny. I don't ever. I don't think I ever connected WP Ninjas. I mean, I must have if I saw Ninja Forms. Right. But I mean, you know, this was probably at a time where, like, it was like Ninja and Unicorn and Rockstar were like, the things that people were saying in jobs too. But.
James Laws [00:06:01]:
Well, it's funny if you look back, way back into the old branding too. And we came up with Ninja Forms, our first logo. Those of kind of my age will remember this especially. The logo was a throwback to the clan that Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow from GI Joe were a part of.
Joe Casabona [00:06:20]:
Nice.
James Laws [00:06:21]:
So our logo actually kind of mirrored that a little bit. Was an homage, if you will.
Joe Casabona [00:06:27]:
Nice. That's awesome. And proof of why we're friends, because that's next one happens. Yeah. So, okay, so then you rename Saturday Drive, which, by the way, I must have told you this when you announced, but, man, I love that name. It's just like, whenever I hear it, I just picture, like, driving on the open road on, like. Like a cliff. Right.
Joe Casabona [00:06:50]:
That's like overlooking the ocean. That's just what I think of when. When I hear it.
James Laws [00:06:55]:
Well, you know, it's funny. Where the name came from was me and my business partner, Kevin, we were pastoring a church at the time, before we actually got into all the business stuff. We were actually. He was my executive pastor, and I was the lead pastor of this church. And we spen lot of Saturdays doing kind of message prep on Saturdays, like driving around and just talking theology and talking philosophy and all of these different things. And it was a kind of a fun exercise. And then when we started to get into business, we just kept doing the same thing. We would just drive around and talk shop, talk ideas, brainstorm product ideas or whatever it was.
James Laws [00:07:33]:
And that was a common thread into how we processed information. And so it was a kind of a throwback of something that really was where it all kind of all started for us was just these kind of Saturday drives. Just get in the car, drive around and talk.
Joe Casabona [00:07:49]:
That's super cool. And again, another thing I didn't. I'm really, like, proving how great of a interviewer and researcher I am. I don't think I knew you were a pastor before this. Before.
James Laws [00:08:02]:
Well, I don't talk a lot about. Was a long time ago too. So it was around right when Ninja Forms was actually just getting ready to kind of getting out there and launching. It was at that same time that I was transitioning out of pastoring. So most people who got to know me in those early days were meeting me really after that transition. And so it wouldn't be something that I know. And it's not something I generally put everywhere out there on the websites or anything, so.
Joe Casabona [00:08:31]:
Gotcha. Gotcha. That I feel like a lot less significant. But I can basically tell, you can tell when somebody met me by whether they call me Joe or Joey. They call me Joey. They met me before 2010. We were college or high school friends. And if they call me Joe, it's most likely my professional life friends.
James Laws [00:08:55]:
I have that same thing. Before I moved to Tennessee, where I live now In 2000, I was from New York. Upstate New York is where I'm from. And my name is James, but my parents really wanted to call me Jamie. And so they put James on the birth certificate. But everyone up north knows me as Jamie. When I moved to Tennessee, I started going by James. Cause I felt like it sounded more adult and more professional.
James Laws [00:09:22]:
And so I transitioned. I once tried to go back to Jamie, but my wife vetoed it.
Joe Casabona [00:09:26]:
So that's really funny. Maybe I'll test those waters too, with my wife and be like, oh, yeah, you just start calling me Joey. And she'll probably be like, absolutely not. And for those who don't know this story, it's mildly scandalous to some people. But my wife, we met, she was a student of mine. And then a couple of years later, we started dating. So she. Yeah, she was.
James Laws [00:09:58]:
Wow.
Joe Casabona [00:09:59]:
It was my first semester. I know. It was my first semester teaching. So I was like 24 and she was like 20 or 18, 19, something like that. There's five and a half idea that.
James Laws [00:10:12]:
You were dating your students, man.
Joe Casabona [00:10:14]:
I know, I know.
James Laws [00:10:15]:
It's scandalous, I guess. Student, Student. I should be careful.
Joe Casabona [00:10:18]:
Singular.
James Laws [00:10:20]:
It wasn't a habitual thing.
Joe Casabona [00:10:23]:
Me dating in general wasn't a habitual thing.
James Laws [00:10:28]:
That's fair.
Joe Casabona [00:10:29]:
Yeah. But we didn't get together until a couple of years later, so you can put your pitchforks away. But. So I suspect all of that to say. I suspect that she'd be very against calling me Joey because she just. I also had that class call me Joe. Like this was before. Like, oh, Mr.
Joe Casabona [00:10:51]:
Casabono's my father. But then, like, I realized that, like, students got really disrespectful if, like, you didn't think you had authority. So I was like, well, now you gotta call me Professor Casabona because you're all jerks.
James Laws [00:11:02]:
Yeah. How do you like me now?
Joe Casabona [00:11:04]:
Yeah, exactly.
James Laws [00:11:05]:
Do you do. I mean, it seems like from the dating perspective, you should have had your wife call you that.
Joe Casabona [00:11:12]:
Professor Casabona. I know.
James Laws [00:11:14]:
Well, I mean, that sounds fine. Maybe you say that for, you know, personal times and, you know, I don't. I don't know what, what, what your personal life is like. So, you know, maybe. Maybe that's the thing you do. I don't know.
Joe Casabona [00:11:27]:
You know, it's. This is. That'll be for how I built it after dark. I love it. Awesome. So all of the stage setting. I hope we didn't lose you all here or maybe we gained more followers at this point.
James Laws [00:11:44]:
I'm having fun.
Joe Casabona [00:11:45]:
I don't know about the list. This is because neither of us went to Cabo Press last year. Right. So we didn't really get to that.
James Laws [00:11:52]:
It's true.
Joe Casabona [00:11:53]:
We're catching up. But all of this to say right Saturday Jive has multiple brands. You've got ninja Forms. You've got. I think Caldera Forms is kind of. Of been folded into ninja Forms at this point.
James Laws [00:12:05]:
Yeah, we. We really wanted to keep it as a separate brand and we did try for a little over a year to really find its unique voice and its unique audience. And this. The more that we dug into the audience base and started talking to the customers, realized they were really the same customers. And so it. We were doing both products a disservice, trying to meet the same need in two different places. And so we just recently actually just shut the doors on Caldera Forms and are helping and have been helping for over the past year convert Caldera forms over to ninja forms and make sure that their needs are being met as much as we possibly can.
Joe Casabona [00:12:45]:
Yeah, absolutely. And that's tough, especially in the WordPress forms space. Right. There's a lot of competition and trying to differentiate and find the right kind of niche for certain markets could be hard. Absolutely. Yeah. So. So you've got Ninja Forms and formerly Caldera Forms and then you've got.
Joe Casabona [00:13:09]:
You got a coffee brand still. Right?
James Laws [00:13:12]:
Yeah. We have Bond Bond Life Coffee roasters, our brick and mortar, internationally award winning coffee shop. We roast our own really good coffee.
Joe Casabona [00:13:20]:
Really good coffee. It really is. It is.
James Laws [00:13:23]:
It is phenomenal coffee. And you know, I'm not the coffee drinker of the. But the team we have around it does such a phenomenal job and they do really love and care for coffee. As a matter of fact, my other partner, Jeremy, who is the kind of one of the coffee people, he and his wife was just in Boston this week as we're recording this and is at a competition, so. A coffee roasting competition.
Joe Casabona [00:13:49]:
Nice. I bet they are wicked psyched to be there. That's my best Boston accent. I'm in you know, Yankee fan.
James Laws [00:14:00]:
And then you have to have that in your back pocket just so you can make fun of.
Joe Casabona [00:14:05]:
Yeah, exactly.
James Laws [00:14:06]:
You know, of Boston bands.
Joe Casabona [00:14:07]:
You know, that's exactly right. Actually, I almost left the last time I was in Boston, which is, like, years ago now. I was talking to a guy at a cigar shop, and he, like, immediately pegged me as a New Yorker. And, like, I couldn't figure out why. Cause I hadn't said. He's like. He's like, yo, you in the north and early. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah.
Joe Casabona [00:14:26]:
He's like, you walk here, you take a cab. I was like, I took a cab. He's like, y' all from New York, Aren't you? Like, oh, my God. But, like, later, he was like, oh, so what are you gonna do around here? His name was Pat. He was a firefighter. And I'm like, you are very. This is very stereotypically Boston. And.
Joe Casabona [00:14:45]:
And then he was like, so you're gonna go to Fenway Pack? And I almost laughed at him because that's how my friends and I would say making fun of Boston fans, right? Oh, Fenway Pack. But I'm like, that's how they say it. So, yeah, so I gotta have it in my back pocket. I also really like that accent secretly. Like, I just think it's a fun. Yeah, yeah. But you can't tell.
James Laws [00:15:04]:
I mean, you just said it on a podcast. I was gonna say you kind of have to keep that on the down low, but I guess if you're gonna say it on a podcast, you know.
Joe Casabona [00:15:11]:
I feel like the overlap of sports fans and people who listen to this podcast is relatively low because everyone. Everybody I talk to is like, I love baseball. And they're like, yeah, sports ball. And I'm like, I guess. I guess sports ball.
James Laws [00:15:25]:
That's fair. That's fair.
Joe Casabona [00:15:28]:
Awesome. So the reason that we're going through all of this is because you have experience managing lots of teams and creating kind of these different work environments. Right. Because you have the brick and mortar store, you have multiple teams, and you were in an office space. Now it sounds like you're kind of mostly remote, which is kind of, I feel like a WordPress company cultural thing. Like, I feel like it's, like, more expected in the WordPress space that you should be remote. But you did have office space in Tennessee, right? Yeah.
James Laws [00:16:04]:
It's funny, we started as a co located on site team with our own office, and everyone we hired either lived in this area or relocated to this area because that's where our company was. And yeah, there is this stigma in the WordPress space that you really have to be remote. And if you're not, you're like this pariah of like, why, why aren't you remote? Like, yeah. And so I was a. I was an evangelist for being co located for a long time in the WordPress space. People would talk to me and I would talk about the great benefits of being in an office together. And there are some great benefits. But we acquired caldera forms and they had team members in France and Indonesia and really all over.
James Laws [00:16:51]:
And there was no way we were gonna ask them to move to Cleveland, Tennessee. And I didn't wanna go towards the hybrid route because I feel ultimately when you have a hybrid business, there's always an us versus them mentality. And I don't think it has to be that way. I'm sure there are people who have cracked that code. I was not well versed enough in that culture yet to tackle that problem. And so I didn't want an us versus them mentality. So we sent everyone to their homes and just said, we're just gonna go distribute it completely that way. There is no these people meet in the office and there's still sadly, a little bit of it because there's a lot of us that live in Cleveland and we see each other at the coffee shop or cross paths a lot.
James Laws [00:17:31]:
But we've tried to downplay that as much as possible so that everyone in the company can feel like they are just as much a part of this company. Whether they live in France, Indonesia or India, it doesn't matter.
Joe Casabona [00:17:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. And as somebody who's worked mostly remote my whole professional career, there were a few years there where I worked at the University of Scranton and they were very anti remote or at least the one who ultimately made the decision was ultimately or was against remote. But there are some days where I do miss kind of being able to get together with. With people. What I don't miss. Here's the thing I don't miss. Hey, I just sent you an email.
Joe Casabona [00:18:23]:
Cool, I will get that email. But also one of my co workers who worked in a different department, Matt and I would get together every Friday and work on the website together. And we had a whiteboard and we would meet in different places on campus each week. And like that was a lot of fun. So, you know, as we record this, there's a lot of hubbub about there are the people who want their employees to be back and they're like, well, it's more productive that way. And then there are the pro remote people who are like, you just want to keep a more watchful eye on us. But there really are. I'll put it to you this way.
Joe Casabona [00:19:06]:
As somebody with three kids and two under two right now, there would be no screaming children, presumably in an office, if I were working there.
James Laws [00:19:19]:
Work culture's changing, Joe. So maybe there would be.
Joe Casabona [00:19:23]:
Maybe there would be. That's true. I love that I can go up and see my kids anytime. Like, it's just I pop up and my son is very excited to see me or like my daughter is. Wants to come hang out. But when I'm, like, in the thick of something and my infant starts screaming, it really hurts me.
James Laws [00:19:45]:
Yeah. And once your kids are in school, it's a little bit different too, right? Like, the school year feels really easy because, yeah, they get home a little earlier in the afternoon, but you've had a whole day to really focus on work, and so that's not a problem. But summer gets really hard because, you know, they're here every single day and the work didn't stop in the summer. So there are some challenges. And I just. When I weigh it, when I look at remote versus being on site co located, the benefits of remote work just outweigh the benefits of on site. It's not that there aren't benefits, it's just that they are eclipsed by all of the benefits of being distributed. And that's why I've.
James Laws [00:20:28]:
I've become, I guess, if you will, a evangelist for distributed work.
Joe Casabona [00:20:35]:
Yeah. And like, you know, I agree, you know, you're not spending whatever. Like, you're not doing the rat race anymore. You're not spending a bunch of time in the car, which. Which is good. Like I said, if I. If I'm not focusing, I can go up and, like, hang out with my kids and, like, watch them run around in the yard or like, my daughter was in a school play. I didn't have to drive home from work.
Joe Casabona [00:21:00]:
I could just go right around the corner to the school. And so there are a lot of really, really good benefits. I think what we're gonna do when we buy our forever home, right. We're still in our first house. I'm gonna get one of those work pod things, right? Like those standing structures that go in the yard.
James Laws [00:21:17]:
In the yard where you have to actually walk out the back door and actually leave the building a little bit. Yeah.
Joe Casabona [00:21:22]:
Yes. Daddy's going to work. Because the other thing is, like, my kids, like, their toys are like in the other room down here. And so they'll come and they'll be like, what's up with dad's computer? And I'm like, this is daddy's brand new Mac studio. Like, don't touch that.
James Laws [00:21:37]:
Don't touch that.
Joe Casabona [00:21:38]:
So having some separation is definitely good. But like, like you said the. Maybe we could talk about that and build something more too. Because I'm thinking about that right now. Like my daughter's Easter break was extended and I'm like, what am I supposed to do for this unexpected day that she has off now? But then like she's also. And it's like a little different because my daughter's at home still. Like she's not in daycare yet, my youngest daughter, so. But it's just like things that I didn't.
Joe Casabona [00:22:04]:
That as a kid I didn't care about. And then my mom was a stay at home mom until we were all like kind of school aged. So yeah, all these problems that I never anticipated that are probably ultimately made easier by working from home but feel hard when you're comparing it to like not having kids.
James Laws [00:22:28]:
Yeah, I think you're right. And that's. I think, you know, some of what I do and what I write about a lot is to. Is the idea of recognizing that like my team is dealing with a lot of different challenges being distributed right. Maybe they have sick loved ones they're taking care of. They have young children that they're watching, some of them are homeschooling because of their hand, has been forced in different ways. And all of that is a challenge to how do I have a career, a job that is fulfilling for me and that I am actually productive in and juggling all of these life things and so trying to figure out how to manage that, juggle that, or sometimes just lower the expectation a little bit so that people aren't freaking out about it is a. Goes a long way.
Joe Casabona [00:23:20]:
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Joe Casabona [00:23:58]:
With textexpander, your knowledge will always be at your fingertips with a quick search or abbreviation textexpander is available on all platforms and show listeners get 20% off. Take back your time today at@textexpander.com podcast. So you have Saturday Drive. This is like your. If we talk about the practical experience, the thing that gave you this expertise, and then you have kind of two content based properties, or maybe it's one content based property with multiple types of content and it's circles.com, circles with two I's. So that's C-I I R C L-E-S.com tell us a little bit about that.
James Laws [00:24:43]:
Yeah, so you know, as you said, we have a few different products, so we have Ninja Forms, we have Bond Life Coffee. We actually have SendWP, which is a transactional email service. And what I started to realize is, you know, every entrepreneur has. We call it, right, the. The entrepreneur's dilemma, if you will, where you start a business. You were a developer, you were a podcaster, you were this, you were that, whatever it is, right? And you get to the point where your business starts to grow and you have to hire people, and then you realize, I'm no longer doing the thing that I loved doing that got me started. I'm not doing the engineering, I'm not doing the designing. I'm managing people I'm worrying about, are they getting worked on, are they fulfilled, are they able to do they have what they need removing blockers for them? Well, a lot of people, when they get in that situation, they will either decide they didn't want any of it and they will kind of try to pull it all back and get back to just doing the thing that they love, or they'll hire someone else to do that other stuff.
James Laws [00:25:38]:
I am one of those unique, weird people who goes, this is actually what I want to do. You know, form builders, eh, you know, WordPress products, whatever, right? I like managing teams. I like thinking about organizational structure and operating systems and frameworks and how does the business work and how do we make the business healthy, keep the business healthy and keep the team fulfilled and healthy. So ultimately I found something that I really loved, started developing my own kind of fulfillment theory and framework, and then decided I wanted to start writing about these ideas. And so about a year ago, we started circles.com, which was initially just a article a week. Now we publish two articles a week and send a newsletter every week. And it was just about leadership, fulfillment and healthy work culture and how do we take care of teams and manage teams and grow in that capacity. So we just, I Just started writing content.
James Laws [00:26:40]:
My business partners started helping and they started writing content. And now we just. That's what we're doing. We had, you know, we had a podcast on there. I'll tell you, you know, you talked about in the beginning how I was on your podcast. We didn't even know each other very well. But the truth is, you know, your podcasting inspired me and got me somewhat interested in podcasting. Right? Like, it was like, all right, this podcasting thing's kind of interesting.
James Laws [00:27:07]:
This is kind of fun. I kind of like this idea. So I had started a podcast with a friend called Mastermind FM. We did that for a while, just talking about WordPress businesses. Then we started a podcast that ran for three or four years, I think, on and off, called Adventures in Businessing, which was just me and my two other business partners and another entrepreneur here in town. And we all had different types of business. We had a service business, which was mostly marketing and pr. We had the brick and mortar.
James Laws [00:27:37]:
We had some software businesses. And so we would just talk about work culture and businesses and challenges of being an entrepreneur and things like that.
Joe Casabona [00:27:46]:
I just want to interrupt you there for a minute because there is one episode that you must have been years ago at this point that really stuck with me and I think it was it, Kevin likes to go see movies in the middle of the day. Was it Kevin who likes to do that? Yeah. And it just like that really made me think, why don't I go see more movies in the middle of the day? Like it really? Cause like, you know, again, working from home, working for yourself, you have that flexibility. And I think it was just my hang up was a long time ago. I got a stuck in my head that it's weird to go to the movies by yourself. But I feel like now with a house full of other people that I'm never leaving. I feel like the pandemic has really shown me you can go to the movies. This is like guaranteed quiet time, essentially for you.
James Laws [00:28:36]:
The problem is now is that most of these theaters aren't doing matinees, especially during the week, and so it's hard to go to the movies during the day. So around the same time we recorded that episode. I don't know if ever anyone remembers the movie Warcraft. It was basically like the world. It was supposed to be like the World of Warcraft style movie with the ogres and orcs or whatever they were. Anyway, I was. We had a bond life, had a location in our mall in town, and I was working out of that location that day, I was just doing some work, and out of the nowhere, I was like, I'm gonna go watch a movie. So I went and got tickets and went and saw Warcraft, brought my computer.
James Laws [00:29:14]:
There was nobody in the theater, so I just opened up my computer and had my popcorn and soda, and it was just working while I was watching Warcraft in this empty theater that I had all to myself. It was glorious.
Joe Casabona [00:29:28]:
Yeah. That's amazing. My wife and I had the theater to ourselves once, and it was American Something with Jennifer Lawrence. Right there was like, American Gangster, and then, like, another movie with American came out in the same place.
James Laws [00:29:42]:
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about.
Joe Casabona [00:29:43]:
Yeah. And we just. We had the whole theater to ourself, and I'm like, this is how movies should be all the time. Nobody. Nobody. I remember seeing X Men First Class in the theater, and it was like a packed house. Spoiler alert. I guess if you haven't seen X Men 1st class and don't know anything about Professor Xavier.
Joe Casabona [00:30:07]:
But there was the part where, like, Magneto, like, deflects the bullet and it hits Xavier, and the guy next to me goes, oh, that's how it happened. And I'm like, are you surprised that we're finding out how it happened in this prequel where he can walk, where he's never been able to walk in canon? And I'm just like, ah, man, that's how it happened.
James Laws [00:30:37]:
Watching movies with people is awful.
Joe Casabona [00:30:39]:
It's the worst. Who is that? I don't know. I'm seeing it for the first time too, but, gosh, could talk about that forever. But anyway, that episode really changed my perspective. So you had adventures in businessing. I was on Mastermind fm, I think, a couple of times. And by the time I was on it, you and John Galea had passed the torch to Mark. Mark.
James Laws [00:31:14]:
Yep. Yep.
Joe Casabona [00:31:15]:
Okay.
James Laws [00:31:16]:
Yeah, we had passed it to Mark. And then I guess what's happened now is Ajan is making new episodes now where he's mostly talking about cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Joe Casabona [00:31:29]:
Ah, mastermind Eth.
James Laws [00:31:32]:
Exactly.
Joe Casabona [00:31:33]:
Exactly. Awesome. Okay, so you had Adventures in Business thing that was kind of a little bit of a precursor to circles.com.
James Laws [00:31:43]:
Yeah.
Joe Casabona [00:31:44]:
And now you're putting out two articles per week plus a newsletter. Did you find when building your business? Right. Because this is a little bit different from. I mean, it's a lot different from your Forms plugin. Right. Where it's. Which, you know, Ninja forms is a. Has a freemium model, so you get A lot of people who just need a form and then for the people who need to do heavy lifting, but those might be freelancers, they might not necessarily be people who are also interested in managing.
Joe Casabona [00:32:13]:
And we'll talk a little bit about this in Build Something More, which you can sign up for over@howibuilt.it 266ad free extended episodes of every episode for 50 bucks a year. But I do want to mention it a little bit here because the audience building stuff for me at least felt especially hard. I had built a very dev heavy audience and then I'm trying to move to creators and there's very little overlap between the two.
James Laws [00:32:46]:
I find it exponentially more difficult. It is not even, I don't think it's apples and oranges, it's apples and carburetors. Like it is so infinitely different to me because for those who know the WordPress community, the WordPress space, you have a built in community of people who genuinely want everyone to succeed. That's one of the great things about the WordPress community as a whole. Now, are there outliers to that? Sure, certainly. But for the most part the general community is if you're a good person and you try to do a good thing, people will acknowledge that and try to support you. And so when we launched Ninja Forms, we had a community of people that were like, you seem to be cool people and doing something that might matter. Let's try it.
James Laws [00:33:37]:
And it just like it took a little while, but it didn't take. It wasn't the same as like with circles.com and we're writing about something that doesn't really have a community. Right? There's no, there's no. I mean there are all kinds of pockets of communities, but they are almost in competition to each other. No one is freely saying, hey, I have this huge, you know, cohort of leadership people and by the way, you should check out all these other leadership sites and not be on my site. Go to their site and check out. There's like, there's no one doing that. So you, you have to earn every single view and every single listen with your content because it's just not.
James Laws [00:34:19]:
It's not. There's no built in community that's sharing it. And that's actually part of the reason why we sunset adventures in businessing and transitioned to the new show.
Joe Casabona [00:34:32]:
Gotcha. That's so. Okay, so let's, let's talk a little bit about that then. So what made you, I mean, you just said that's essentially why? But it was kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, as specific as you're willing to go, I guess.
James Laws [00:34:46]:
Yeah. No. So here. Here was the thing. Adventures in Businessing was me, Kevin, and Jeremy, my two other business partners. And at the time, we had our friend Rob Alderman, who has a local business in town here, the Alderman Group. And we would talk about stuff, right? We'd talk about business and stuff. And some of the topics were related, like, they.
James Laws [00:35:05]:
They fit the show. And then we transitioned to trying to be more circles, content focused, but it was still just me, Jeremy, and Kevin. Well, here's the thing. Me, Jeremy, and Kevin have an overlapping audience, right? We know a lot of the same circles. And so. And let's be honest, we weren't super, like, sharing it. Like there was. You can only share it to your own circle so often.
James Laws [00:35:29]:
And then people are just like, all right, we've seen it, we get it. You got a podcast. Like, if I wanted it, I would have already subscribed. Stop telling me about it. So there was this chance challenge of getting distribution for a show where there was no new audience ever coming. And so we, in our strategic planning last year, we had this thought, well, what if we move to an interview style? So we're bringing on people that have their own audience, and we're not trying to steal their audience, but as we expose them to the audience that we're building, we also expose ourselves to their audience. And some of them, not all of them, but some of them might be like, I like what these folks are doing. I'm gonna follow that.
James Laws [00:36:12]:
And so the real reason for starting, leading to fulfillment was to continue the content we had already were starting to create, but do it with a new audience in mind. And so this idea of being able to have a new guest every single episode that has their own audience. And another reason for starting it for me is to get different perspectives from different people on the topics that I care about. And so to be able to hear about what fulfillment or leadership or managing teams or culture or work, life balance or diversity from people who aren't like me, that don't look like me, that don't have all the same experiences that I have is a enriching experience for me, and therefore, I hope will be an enriching experience for my listeners.
Joe Casabona [00:36:57]:
Yeah, that's so great. And I think that's really great advice for anybody who's thinking of starting a podcast. Right. Because I tend to tell people, if you're trying to build authority, you might not want to do an interview show. But you might also want to do have, like, maybe a more conversational show, right? Where it's not just you asking a bunch of questions to try to tell, like, a founder story. It's you kind of exchanging notes with somebody. That way you get to build the expertise, but you get somebody else's perspective.
James Laws [00:37:32]:
That'S solid, and that's ultimately what I'm trying to do. Like, I'm trying. I think in the beginning, I started selling it like it was an interview. But the more I have guests on, there are some guests that it certainly ends up being an interview. And that may be because of, you know, either my ability to engage with the content myself for some reason, or any number of reasons that can happen. But more times than not, it does end up trying to be a little more of, hey, you have experience in this thing. We talk about this. Here's a little bit of what I think about it.
James Laws [00:38:01]:
Now you tell me what you think about it, and then I'm gonna play of what you just said. We're gonna have this conversation and talk about this thing that we share experiences with and do that. The other thing I do from the, you know, talk about, if you want to establish authority, you might not want to do an interview show. A conversational show certainly is better. The other thing I do is at the end of my show, I try to do a. I call it. Do you remember the. Is it.
James Laws [00:38:25]:
Was it the Maury Povich show or Jerry Springer? I don't remember what it was. Jerry Springer. He used to have those Springer moments at the end. They were actually pretty thoughtful, right? They were thoughtful. Like, you watched this garbage fire of a show of people doing things that were seemingly inhuman, like craziness, the way they treated each other. And then he would come at the end and you'd go, this dude's actually really smart.
Joe Casabona [00:38:48]:
Like, he has some.
James Laws [00:38:49]:
Like, this is a really good, thoughtful insight. So I try at the end of each episode to pull something out of the conversation that we had and say, I'm just gonna talk for just two minutes on this little topic and give a serious moment of. This is something for you to consider as we leave the show. And, yeah, that's another way I'm trying to continue to establish authority, but still have other people on and let their voice be heard.
Joe Casabona [00:39:13]:
Yeah, yeah, he called it the final thought. Right?
James Laws [00:39:16]:
That's exactly it.
Joe Casabona [00:39:17]:
And, yeah, it was so funny, right? Cause it was like, oh, you know, Billy spit in Bob's mouth. But I think what we could all learn is to be Open to different experiences, not take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Like, what?
James Laws [00:39:32]:
I don't remember that correlation, but I'm sure it existed.
Joe Casabona [00:39:36]:
Yeah, right. Like, it feels like he, you know, it was all very. It was all, like you said, very trash until the end. And it was like, yeah.
James Laws [00:39:49]:
I mean, it was all. It was always like, you know, I. I know you love me, but I'm. I'm your mother's baby daddy. Like, yeah, right. Like these weird things.
Joe Casabona [00:40:00]:
Like. Yeah.
James Laws [00:40:01]:
And then. Yeah. He would always have this moment at the end that, like, you listen to it and you're like, man, that's really good advice. If the show was just more of that content, this would not be such a dumpster fire.
Joe Casabona [00:40:11]:
Yeah, yeah. It's funny because we were both giving examples of the bad part, but when neither of us are skilled as Jerry, I can't remember.
James Laws [00:40:18]:
The good reason why the show was successful was for the dumpster fire stuff. Right.
Joe Casabona [00:40:23]:
My girlfriend took my dad to prom. You know, it's important to do things as a family or whatever.
James Laws [00:40:32]:
I think you should have wrote those final thoughts because think that yours are better than his.
Joe Casabona [00:40:40]:
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James Laws [00:41:45]:
I was gonna say, I don't know how you bring that, how you. How kudos to you when you're able to bring it back into the topic because it's gone everywhere.
Joe Casabona [00:41:54]:
That's one of my superpowers because I get distracted a lot, but I still keep that thread in my head and I have to. I love it. So you moved from adventures and businessing to leading to fulfillment. How are you building that audience? You mentioned the One way of having guests on which in general, if it's a good interview, I found that not everybody wants to share. But. But if you do a good job in the interview and if you extract out things that they're not saying on every other show, I think they're more inclined to share. Because now you're helping them show their expertise in a different light, maybe to their audience. But I know you're also on the TikTok, right?
James Laws [00:42:41]:
I am. I'm not big on TikTok, but I am on TikTok.
Joe Casabona [00:42:46]:
Nice. I tried it for a small amount of time. I would have these little cigar chats, I'd go out for a walk and then it got cold and I wasn't doing the cigar anymore. So I wasn't doing the TikTok anymore. So maybe now that it's getting warm, I'll just pre record a bunch of content, like a year's worth of content.
James Laws [00:43:02]:
And that's what all of the TikTok experts will tell you to do, like batch all your content and then just schedule it out as you go. It's fun. I watched from afar trying to understand the platform and I obviously haven't done a good job. Cause I only have a little over 500 followers. But I watched it and I was like, okay, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not. I'm not going to lip sync and I'm not going to do dances and I'm not going to like what, what TikTok got famous for. At first I said, but I have, you know, a one to three minute piece of insight that I can share and I can do that.
James Laws [00:43:38]:
And so as we started writing content, I started transitioning and just kind of putting myself out there, which was new to me. I never really put myself out there on video and said like, hey, you know, here's. Here are three tips to be an effective manager in the coming year. And here are like, you know, things like that. And I just putting that content out and some of them do have done really well and some of them have not and just keep kind of putting it out there. But I enjoy it. I actually enjoy TikTok as a platform now, now that I've kind of tuned the algorithm into the things that I care about.
Joe Casabona [00:44:08]:
Nice. Yeah. I'm going to have to go back. I've had two guests on the show talk about it, Alex Rossman and Rebecca Simon, and they both encouraged me to go on and things like that. So I did try it for a while, but I should get back to it because it was like you said, some do really well. Some do, like, better than anything I've ever posted on Instagram. Well. Or on Twitter.
Joe Casabona [00:44:35]:
Well. And so, you know, that kind of finding that new audience, I think, is the big benefit of TikTok.
James Laws [00:44:43]:
Yeah. I think there's a lot of potential there, and I'm still trying to discover it and unlock it. It I could be doing better because a lot now a lot of the things I do, like short clips from the podcast, I will put those videos on there and share that kind of stuff. And I do that across all of the social platforms. But I could do more, like, kind of in the moment, which I think does better on TikTok than the produced. This was a part of my show stuff.
Joe Casabona [00:45:08]:
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that's. I think that's kind of the same thing that was echoed previously. Right. Is TikTok looks and feels kind of more real. Like it's like. And so that's a really interesting part.
Joe Casabona [00:45:22]:
But, you know, the advice that I also got was like, you know, you gotta do some of the memes. And I'm like, I don't really want to do the memes. You know, I just want to talk in front of a camera for a little bit and then release those.
James Laws [00:45:36]:
I think, you know, I will say the truth of TikTok is you just got to be you. You gotta be real and authentic and this is who you are. I tried. I actually, I think there, if you go through my TikTok feed, if anyone wants to go through my TikTok feed, I think there's a couple times where I tried to do like a meme and make it fit what I was thinking. And I cringe at em. But I leave them because, you know, they remind me that I'm not good at that.
Joe Casabona [00:46:05]:
Keep it out there. You know, I've been saying content creation is experimentation a lot. I want to put it on the T shirt.
James Laws [00:46:13]:
I like it.
Joe Casabona [00:46:14]:
But yeah, I mean, you got to keep those experiments. Right. Because, yeah, they show you what you've done and what's working and what's not working. As we. Because we've very wildly been talking for almost over 40 minutes at this point, as we kind of wind down, I want to talk to you about the goals of the podcast. Right. Because again, I think a lot of people see big podcasts have sponsors, and that's how it's monetized. But in my own content, I talk about.
Joe Casabona [00:46:48]:
There are kind of. I think of it as the SMASH framework, five ways to monetize your podcast. Sponsorship is one. Then there's membership, affiliate links, selling a product and helping, which is showing people you know what you're talking about and then gaining coaching clients or people into a cohort based course. So what is. And I'll just say this, you don't have to start a podcast to make money, but it costs money. We didn't talk about gear, but if there's time at the end, we'll talk about gear, but it's just general, like hosting the time. So you want to see a little bit of a return on your investment.
Joe Casabona [00:47:32]:
So what's your game plan then there?
James Laws [00:47:35]:
So for me, the purpose of the podcast is to build an audience that I can share future endeavors with that are within the same vein. So is there future monetization in place? Yeah, I mean, I own a software company. We build software. You can assume that we're building some software that fits this audience. And we are. I also am working on a book around my fulfillment theory and my ideas around workplace culture and fulfillment. And so I, I'm working on that. I see some membership stuff.
James Laws [00:48:09]:
I'm working on a business operating system around the Circle's fulfillment theory as well. These are all things and resources that in the future I will want to distribute in some way, shape or form. And I'm going to need an audience to do that. But I know that you don't build an audience when you're ready to launch something. That work has to come well before you're ready to launch a thing. And so I'm, I guess I'm out here doing the hard work of building a lot of content and trying to add a lot of value for free so that when the time comes, I have something to sell. I have some people who are interested in the content that I have.
Joe Casabona [00:48:49]:
I love that you don't build an audience when you're ready to launch something. Right. You do the hard work before. That's such great advice. I think that, I mean, most of my experience is people within the WordPress space, right. But I fell to this fallacy a lot where I would do and tweet it and then assume it would do well. Right. But that's not how it works.
Joe Casabona [00:49:11]:
People need to trust you more than ever if you wanna, if they're gonna hand their money over to you.
James Laws [00:49:18]:
It's. They have to trust you and they have to need what you're offering. Right. And so I have a lot of people on Twitter, you know, I don't have a ton of followers. I only have like 2000 something followers. But I would say that most of the people who follow me trust me and genuinely like me. That's why they follow me. But they don't also, they don't all need what I'm offering.
James Laws [00:49:37]:
And so if I don't start to focus that and build an audience elsewhere that is meaningful to the things that I am producing and I want to release, then I'm going to send it out on Twitter and it's not going to go anywhere because that isn't the audience. Like, those are people who know me, are friends, our acquaintances, we genuinely like each other, but they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily buying what I'm selling. And that's okay that I don't follow them and they don't follow me just because we're transactional. But you have to have. If you're gonna be run a business, if you're gonna make money, you have to also build that transactional environment somewhere. Like somewhere that has to exist.
Joe Casabona [00:50:14]:
Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like going to, you know, a sports bar and trying to sell Yankee tickets, right? It's everybody's there because they like sports, but not everybody's willing to pay to go see the Yankees. Yankee Stadium.
James Laws [00:50:28]:
Especially when you're in that bar in Boston.
Joe Casabona [00:50:31]:
Especially that bar in Boston. I wouldn't recommend trying to do that in Boston.
James Laws [00:50:36]:
Yankee stick. It's right here.
Joe Casabona [00:50:38]:
Neither James nor I are responsible for anything that happens to you. If you try to sell Yankees or Yankees related gear in a bar in.
James Laws [00:50:46]:
Boston or even wear a Yankees hat into a bar in Boston, you don't even try to sell it. She's probably shouldn't rep it.
Joe Casabona [00:50:53]:
Just don't. Yeah, here's what I did. Because I went to a game at Benway park, they weren't playing the Yankees, but I still wanted to wear the Yankee symbol. And so I went to the gift shop at Fenway park and they had a Greatest Sports rivalry T shirt where they had the Red Sox logo and the Yankees logo. So I was like, perfect.
James Laws [00:51:14]:
They won't know what side you're on.
Joe Casabona [00:51:16]:
They won't know what hit them. They lost. They sensed the bad luck of a Yankee fan being in their presence. So you're playing the long game here and I think this is really important, right. As we record this yesterday launched a new newsletter for podcasting tips. And let me tell you, 37 people signed up after I tweeted about it, right? Because I've been on Twitter, I've been tweeting more about podcast stuff Right. So I've been following more people, and then I announced this free News Newsletter, and 37 people signed up the day before it launched. Just for comparison, in the previous 29 days, seven people joined my mailing list.
Joe Casabona [00:52:06]:
So you can't just say, join my mailing list. You need to provide clear value, and you need to solve a problem. And the problem I'm solving. And somebody asked, and I answered, is this for beginners, or is this for people who are looking to take it to the next level? And it's for people who are taking to the next level. I could have said it's for everybody to get anybody on the list, but it's not. If you don't have a podcast, you're not gonna be ready for that newsletter. And if you already have a podcast, I'm sending out beginner stuff. You're gonna unsubscribe.
Joe Casabona [00:52:41]:
It's not for you. You don't need to know how to choose hosting. You've chosen hosting. So, like you said, solve a problem, build your audience. So I think we're both in a spot where we're. Where we're playing the long game a little bit. Right. I'm building this newsletter.
Joe Casabona [00:52:54]:
I don't have a very. I have ideas. I don't have a clear sales funnel built into this mailing list yet, though, because I want to build their trust, and I want to know what they want to know. So it's a little bit of research, too.
James Laws [00:53:08]:
Yeah, I think. And we're the same way. Like, we have a newsletter, but we're not. We don't. We're not selling anything. We're just sending them value every week. And. And one thing we need to do better job at now, as I think about it, not necessarily the topic of this show is we need to do a better job of following up with people who do subscribe to the newsletter to find out what is of most value to them.
James Laws [00:53:31]:
So you've been getting this newsletter for 4 weeks, 5 weeks. What do you like? What do you don't like? What do you wish there was less of? What do you wish there was more of? What's missing that we could be adding to this newsletter that would add additional value to you. And so talking to your followers, your subscribers, your listeners, and finding out what they do like and don't like can help you make a better show, better content, better newsletter all around?
Joe Casabona [00:53:57]:
Yeah, absolutely. And you want to try to build in that engagement often and regularly and show that there's a benefit to it, right?
James Laws [00:54:04]:
Yep.
Joe Casabona [00:54:05]:
But that also kind of goes into the solving the problem thing. Right. I have a weekly digest. The people who read it are not as vocally engaged. They click the links. I can see that, that they're very interested in the links I'm sending. But when I ask for an opinion or when I ask the. Right.
Joe Casabona [00:54:21]:
A few people maybe like 1% roll right in or take the survey. Right. I'm guessing with this podcast tips newsletter, they'll be more engaged because again, it's, it's very goal oriented. It's not just like, here's what's going on in my life. It's. I want, I want to help you make your first hundred bucks this year. Right. Or I want to help you cover the cost of hosting for this year.
James Laws [00:54:45]:
Year.
Joe Casabona [00:54:45]:
So how can I do that for you? Yeah, definitely.
James Laws [00:54:49]:
Having that more targeted. Targeted list that's actionable, that people, you know, people want to think when they open that new newsletter like that. Right. They want to think that they're going to get actionable advice that they can apply. Right. As they read it and instantly change their show. Their podcast for the better. Yeah.
Joe Casabona [00:55:08]:
Yeah. And it's, it's. I'm really excited. I'm at the beginning. Right. By the time this episode comes out, I'll be several weeks into it. It. But I'm excited.
Joe Casabona [00:55:16]:
I end each one with kind of, here's the tip now, here's your homework. Kind of. Who are five people you can interview outside of your circle or whatever. So awesome. But James, gosh, we've been talking for so long. This has been an absolute, absolute pleasure. Just to recap some of the important things we talked about here. We talked about the kind of challenges of working from home and how you have kind of straddled that line of managing people in an office, out of an office, different work cultures.
Joe Casabona [00:55:53]:
That kind of led you to talk a little bit about business and then you started. Essentially, you've made your way to starting circles.com building the audience has been the hard part. But interviews has worked for you and you're putting yourself out there on TikTok, but you're also trying to solve a specific problem for specific people. I think is that maybe the, the big takeaway here, if you're starting a product or a service, our friend Chris Lama talks about the vitamins and painkillers. Right. Solving someone's problem.
James Laws [00:56:24]:
Yep. I think you have to really. And I'm not great at this. And this has been a work in progress. When we started the website, it was just a shotgun approach. We just write about all these topics and we're slowly starting to focus it more and more and more and more and really find out who is that? Who is that one person that we're talking to every single time we write a piece of content, every time I get a guest on the podcast, every time I record a video on TikTok, who is that one person that I'm talking to that's going to dramatically change how they think about their leadership style, how they think about their organization, or how they think about their team culture and the walk away for the better because of it. And so, so yeah, I think that's a huge part of that.
Joe Casabona [00:57:12]:
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Joe Casabona [00:58:00]:
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Joe Casabona [00:58:37]:
And I, I think you said this, I think you said this and I want to reinforce it. You have the thought at the beginning, so I think a lot of people kind of do it the other way around. I'll start a podcast, I'll see how it goes and then I'll think about monetizing it. But I challenge people when they're starting a podcast, a newsletter or whatever. Think about monetization strategy then, because you'll have an easier time building it in, right? It's like if you're building a house, even if you don't need that second bathroom, you're gonna do the piping so that you can easily add in that second bathroom later or that first bathroom. You should probably have a bathroom in your house. That's what I'm saying.
James Laws [00:59:22]:
You should probably have a bathroom in your house. That's correct. Yeah, that is exactly it. When we leading to fulfillment, we had an end goal in mind. Now that goal is a year, year and a half, two years out. But we know when we plan on getting value out of this podcast. But we know what we're, we are creating the structure and the framework so that when we are ready, we have already put everything in place and it's ready to go. And now it's, it's a machine.
James Laws [00:59:51]:
You just have to keep it running. You just got to keep that thing moving forward. So, yeah, this is, it's, it's weird that we don't think more like this. I, you know, coming from the WordPress space, I made the same mistake. You launch it. If you launch it, they will come and then they don't come and you're like, what am I supposed to do now? Well, now you have to actually do the thing you were supposed to do six months to a year before you actually launched it. Now it's going to take longer.
Joe Casabona [01:00:16]:
Yeah. And I think it's, you know, you talk about it's a game of patience, right? You're a year, year and a half out. I think that. And I know this from experience. I'm not generalizing from what I've seen. I know this from experience. I've started projects out of desperation because I needed money today. That is not a good way to make money.
Joe Casabona [01:00:36]:
It's very short sighted. You're going to waste your time. Maybe you'll get a short term payout, but long term, it's going to cost you more money than it's going to make you.
James Laws [01:00:44]:
Yeah, I agree with that.
Joe Casabona [01:00:47]:
Awesome. So have monetization in mind at the beginning and be patient, you know, have, have a plan. Understand what's happening. And I like that a lot. James, this has been great. I do need to ask you my favorite question, which is do you have any trade secrets for us when it.
James Laws [01:01:07]:
Comes to the podcast? Here's what I will tell you. This is, this is my. I would, you know, it's not a trade secret, right? But it's a thing. It's a tip that I learned the hard way. Figure out your pace. Figure it out early because you can start a podcast that you think you love and if you create a pace that is too, too much, you will end up hating that thing that you loved because it takes so much of your time. So much of your energy and you can't find a way through it all. When I started leading to fulfillment, I was doing it as a weekly podcast and I was building in, trying to get as many guests and trying to build a backlog, build a backlog so that I didn't have to worry and worry.
James Laws [01:01:50]:
And then I myself doing interviews almost every day of the week. And then I was doing all the publication, all of the video editing, all of the content, I was doing it all and I was burning myself out and I could feel the burnout happening and I decided to switch it to every other week. I started to only do one interview a week and set myself to these boundaries. Like I will do one interview a week. I will, I will release every other week. And you know, today I have scheduled and recorded enough episodes to get me through the end of March of next year.
Joe Casabona [01:02:25]:
Wow.
James Laws [01:02:26]:
Yeah, that's how off pace I was in the early stage of trying to do this thing. But now I'm still recording every week and I'm still building that. I'm just way in advance now. But what it's done for me now is I love it again, I get excited to do the interviews, I get excited for every conversation I'm gonna have, have and it's a pace I can sustain. So yeah, I would say figure out your pace for your goals and lock that in.
Joe Casabona [01:02:59]:
Yeah, that's, that's really important. I, I will echo that sentiment. Right. And I've told people like, you know, it doesn't need to be weekly. I know podcasts that are monthly and they do well as long as the audience knows what to expect. Because you're right, you feel like you feel beholden to the schedule. Right. And this is all creative creators.
Joe Casabona [01:03:20]:
I felt the same way about YouTube to the point where in the last six months I've taken two month long breaks because I'm just like too much work with everything else going on. So figure out your pacing, podcasting or creating other content. I think that's such great advice. Quick follow up question. Are you worried that some of that content now that's ready to go almost a year out is going to be out of date or feel aged?
James Laws [01:03:51]:
You know, I was worried about that in the early stages and then I realized I just can't talk current events on this show. That's not what the show is about. This show is about tried and true principles and frameworks that work whether it's 2022 or it's 2025. This is the future of work, culture, and so we can talk a little bit about this stuff and we're okay. But I can't talk about that article that happened and talked about work life balance, or how the ex Google CEO Schmidt talked about how he doesn't know how to train managers virtually. Like, okay, that's not a reason why remote work is bad. That's your shortcoming. That's not.
James Laws [01:04:32]:
You know. But I can't talk about that stuff. I can't bring that stuff up because, again, I have recorded episodes that aren't gonna be. I think I'm already. I've actually recorded through the end of December, and I have scheduled episodes that I will record by the end of June that will launch at the end of the first quarter of 2023. So I am so far ahead, I have to keep the topics kind of that, I guess, in content. We would call that the Greenfield content. That's gonna be true and last forever.
Joe Casabona [01:05:07]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's almost like a litmus test, right, for the advice you're getting. Because if you record it today and then you listen, like, nine months from now, and you're like, wait a minute, this is terrible advice now. Like, well, now you know that was a bad episode. Right. It was just someone talking about what they learned in the moment.
James Laws [01:05:22]:
I don't know. As a podcaster. So you have. In your podcast process, you have this thing where you. I reserve the right to not publish this content if I don't like it when it's all said and done, I'm not publishing it, and I don't do that currently. Although I should. Have you ever had an episode that you've recorded it? I don't know how long you've had this policy. Maybe there was a time when you didn't.
James Laws [01:05:44]:
Have you ever had an episode that you record and you're like, this isn't coming out for a while and it's gonna suck. It's gonna be a bad episode.
Joe Casabona [01:05:53]:
Yeah, it was before I had that policy and before I did a little bit more research. Right. I mean, I joked in the beginning that I didn't do a lot of research, but. But you and I go way back. So, like, there are some kind of fuzzy details, but I know what I wanted to talk to you about. When somebody comes across my desk, either from a podcast outreach agent or I just discover somebody, I do the research and I make sure I want them on my show. Now, I didn't do that back then. And, yeah, I will say I've never executed that statement.
Joe Casabona [01:06:34]:
There was One interview that didn't make it to interview because the person failed the pre interview. Their refusal to put on headphones was a deal breaker because he was like, it's not that big of a deal. And I'm like, I've been doing this for 10 years. I said, he's like, oh. He's like, you know, I've done this before and nobody's ever said anything. I said, well, that's because the other people were too polite to tell you it's gonna sound like crap. And he's like, well, I don't have headphones. And I'm like, then we can't do this.
Joe Casabona [01:07:10]:
He didn't have headphones. Okay, now I'm gonna get on a soapbox and I wanna do that. So, James, thank you so much for your time and your fantastic advice. If people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
James Laws [01:07:24]:
I am James Laws. Everywhere on social. Pretty much everywhere you look, you'll find my bald head somewhere on social. So just search James Laws and you'll find me. Otherwise, circles Do Circles with two Eyes. That's where I do a lot of writing. I post a lot of our videos. That's where the podcast is and that's where you can subscribe to the newsletter to get information on leadership, healthy work, culture and fulfillment.
Joe Casabona [01:07:48]:
Awesome. Circle with two Eyes because it'll help you see fulfillment. Clearly. That is.
James Laws [01:07:57]:
I'm using that. Thank you.
Joe Casabona [01:07:58]:
You can have it. It's yours. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks to our sponsors for this episode. And if you want to hear even more, if you're not sick of James and me talking after an hour and you want to hear us talk about what it's like trying to expand our audience outside the WordPress space. I alluded to this. We didn't talk about gear, so we might talk about gear.
Joe Casabona [01:08:23]:
You can become a member over@joincreatorcrew.com it'll also be in the show notes over at Howibuilt. Hi it two six six but that's it for this episode. James, thanks for joining us today. Thanks so much and thank you for listening. Until next time, get out there and build.