Recommended Books for Business and Beyond  ## Metadata - Author: [[WP Minute Podcasts]] - Full Title: Recommended Books for Business and Beyond - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#business, #leadership, #books, #wordpress, #entrepreneurship] Author: Kurt Vonan & Toby Kines Source: Whose WordPress Agency Is This Anyway? Podcast Reference: [YouTube Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k) date created: 2025-09-02 14:30 --- # Title: Recommended Books for Business and Beyond – Lessons from WordPress Agency Leaders ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: Kurt Vonan and Toby Kines share their top book recommendations, blending business strategy, leadership, and personal growth. Highlights include *The 4-Hour Work Week* by Tim Ferriss, *360 Degree Leader* by John Maxwell, *Moneyball* by Michael Lewis, *It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work* by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, and *Built to Sell* by John Warrillow. The conversation explores productivity, influence, automation, cash flow management, and product-market fit, weaving in their lived experiences running WordPress agencies. Non-business picks like Shel Silverstein’s *Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book* add levity. --- ## 📖 Main Content: This podcast episode blends practical business insight with humorous anecdotes. The hosts argue that true leadership stems from influence rather than formal titles, and stress balancing ambition with control. Business books serve as springboards for reflection: questioning assumptions, automating processes, and building companies that don’t depend entirely on their founders. They emphasize that client behavior often diverges from tool adoption, and that understanding product-market fit can determine success more than raw effort. Libraries are celebrated as underrated lifelong learning hubs. ### 🗒️ Notes - **[00:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=7)** - Both recommend *The 4-Hour Work Week* but caution its title is marketing. - Core lesson: challenge assumptions and redefine what work looks like. - **[02:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=122)** - Take mini-retirements instead of deferring joy to old age. - Differentiate *effectiveness* (impact) vs. *efficiency* (speed). - **[06:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=361)** - Only 5–8% of clients used the agency’s SaaS project management platform. - Clients default to email, revealing mismatch between perceived and actual value. - **[08:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=482)** - John Maxwell’s *360 Degree Leader* shows influence across all levels. - Manuals are ignored; people prefer direct communication. - **[12:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=725)** - Leadership = influence, not position. - *Moneyball* proves innovation can succeed under constraints. - **[17:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=1078)** - Business choices balance ambition with control. - Not every decision is critical; perspective reduces stress. - **[19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=1193)** - *Built to Sell*: create businesses that function without the owner. - Independence in children mirrors independence in companies. - **[23:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=1414)** - Automated onboarding = scalable revenue. - Yet personal touches still matter for customer satisfaction. - **[28:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=1730)** - Cash flow is key metric, but invoices and expenses distort perception. - Aggregation of expenses avoids misleading “bank balance” thinking. - **[34:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=2052)** - Competing financial philosophies (Ramsey vs. Kiyosaki). - Advice is subjective—find the philosophy that matches your goals. - **[39:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=2366)** - Libraries support lifelong literacy, family bonding, and free access to tools. - Services include audiobooks, LinkedIn Learning, and even park passes. - **[44:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k&t=2672)** - Product-market fit often emerges from unexpected demand (bike-riding course). - Viral content and market resonance trump production effort. --- ## 📖 References: - Tim Ferriss, *The 4-Hour Work Week* - John Maxwell, *360 Degree Leader* - Michael Lewis, *Moneyball* - Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, *It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work* - John Warrillow, *Built to Sell* - Shel Silverstein, *Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book* - Dan Martell, *Buy Back Your Time* - Hummel, *Tyranny of the Urgent* - Robert Kiyosaki, *Rich Dad Poor Dad* - Dave Ramsey, *Total Money Makeover* --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. *Original (00:47)*: “The title’s a joke… it’s not about a 4-hour workweek. Even Ferriss admits the title was just to sell books.” *Paraphrase*: The book’s title was crafted for marketing impact rather than literal truth, with Ferriss himself acknowledging its exaggeration. 2. *Original (12:05)*: “Leadership is just influence. It’s not really a position.” *Paraphrase*: True leadership is defined by the ability to influence others, not by holding a title or formal authority. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: 📚 **Business Wisdom Beyond WordPress** This week on the podcast *Whose WordPress Agency Is This Anyway?*, Kurt and Toby unpack their favorite reads that shaped both their agencies and their outlook on life. From Tim Ferriss’ playful challenge to rethink work in *The 4-Hour Work Week* to Michael Lewis’ *Moneyball* lessons on innovating under constraints, the thread is clear: success comes from questioning assumptions. Expect leadership gold from John Maxwell’s *360 Degree Leader*, fresh perspectives from Jason Fried’s *It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work*, and practical independence from John Warrillow’s *Built to Sell*. They also remind us that libraries—yes, your local library!—remain one of the most powerful tools for free learning and growth. 👉 Catch the full episode here: [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k) --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Frame *Built to Sell* and automation lessons as case studies in sustainable open-source contribution models. - Apply leadership-as-influence concepts to onboarding programs in WordPress contributor teams. - Use library-as-resource metaphor to promote open knowledge repositories in OSPO work. - Incorporate “effectiveness vs. efficiency” distinction into contributor education curricula. - Translate product-market fit lessons into WordPress plugin sustainability conversations. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Business owners who automate processes achieve higher satisfaction and sustainability than those who centralize decisions. - Community leaders who frame leadership as “influence” increase contributor retention more effectively than hierarchical structures. - Libraries remain undervalued resources for professional development in the digital era. ### 📊 Methodology: - Surveys of small business owners on automation and stress levels. - Contributor retention studies in WordPress teams using influence vs. authority frameworks. - Comparative analysis of workforce skill development via libraries vs. paid platforms. ### ❓ Questions: - How can WordPress agencies better align SaaS client tools with client preferences? - What role do micro-retirements play in reducing burnout among entrepreneurs? - Can open-source product-market fit be predicted with better contributor feedback loops? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Long-term agency sus - Summary: In this episode of The WP Minute+ podcast, Kurt and Toby discuss their favorite business and non-business books, exploring themes of leadership, project management, and the importance of community. They examine the concept of product market fit, the balance between ambition and control, and the role of libraries as valuable resources. The conversation also touches on financial insights, the use of debt in business, and the significance of automating processes. They conclude with reflections on engagement and content creation, emphasizing the need for continuous learning and adaptation in the business landscape. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-DkHHwL4k Hey folks, welcome to another episode ofWhose WordPress Agency Is This Anyway?My name is Kurt Vonan. I'm here with myco-host Toby Kines. And we're juststoked to have you. Toby, I know thatyou usually like to open with a story ora question, but today you're going toopen with a list of books. Books. We'regoing to talk about books today. This was thecliffhanger from last week. So, bothKurt and I each put together two listsof books. One is businessy and one isnon-businessy. Interestingly enough, when we weretalking offline last week, we both had one recommendation incommon that we both kind of jumped to,and that was The 4-Hour Work Week by TimFerriss, which is now a very old book. There it is. I've actually owned, Ithink, two or three copies. Two that Ipurchased because I lost one and one I gotat a little library because I lostthe other one. So, you just took it fromthe library and stole it?Well, in Minneapolis there are these little libraries. Are youfamiliar with that?Oh, need a book, take a book, have abook. Yeah. They're all around town. Just people put them up in their yardandsometimes you can find some goodstuff in there. But anyway, "The 4-Hour WorkWeek." So,it's like to me it's thetitle's a joke because it's not aboutgetting to a 4-hour work week. And evenTim Ferriss has admitted that it wasjust a marketing tactic; in the book, he admits the titleis just a title to sell books. Yeah. And so he's like, "Well, an eight-hour workweek is not as interesting as four hours."And so he talks about this in the book.You have to kind of takeeverything with a grain of salt and also realize that the stories inthe book are probably not real; eventhough he touts them as real. Um, andthere's some great stuff in there.To me, the core is probably like the book encourages youto challenge your assumptions.Whatever you think business is, whateveryou think work is, challenge that. You know, it's kind of like living life like amillionaire without actually having tobe one. Um, and so for example, in thebook, he talks about taking miniRetirements of a week or a month ratherthan save it all up till you're dead. One big retirement at the end — like, why not do it now? Um, you know,let's say you love golfing. Why waituntil you're 65 to golf a lot? Like, doit now. You can figure it out. You know,whatever. Let's go golf; that means foryou. Um, talks a lot about being effectiveversus being efficient. And the ideathere is to find the things that movethe needle for your business. Or ifyou're at a job, find those things. Um,for example,let's say you have a boss — let's sayKurt's your boss. There are things thatare going to make Kurt happier thanother things that you do as an employee.Do the things that make Kurt happy.Don't worry about the others so much. I like the idea of this book being for alot of upstart entrepreneurs;they're good as solopreneurs, but whenthey become people that want to hirepeople, it's like you put up this walland you go, "I can't do that because XYZ —1, 2, 3, whatever." Um, this book does areally good job of opening up theblinds, right, and saying, "No, youYou could get a virtual assistant for fourhours a week. You could do this. Youcould do that." And then you go, "Wait aminute. I really could start to do someof these things." Um, when Manoan Nomstarted to grow, it was through the ideathat, yeah, I could leverage the work ofother people without abusing them ortaking advantage of them. And that's notwhat I'm saying, but I'm saying to usepeople in their skill sets to promotewhat we do. Um, and I don't want togive him full credit for it because Ithink that's kind of the wrong way togo, but it was certainly inspirational. Like, I have put way too manylimits on myself as a person growing abusiness. And if I start to pull some ofthose limits back a little bit, I seemore opportunities for growth.Yeah. There was a time when the mightyMo delivered pristine code using theWordPress code standards that arepublished on the WordPress docs. Andafter a few years of that, at some point,I was like, "What would happen if we justthrew away this requirement of doingpristine beautiful code? Is poetry thator code is poetry?" That's something thatCommunity. Yeah. And one day we just threw it away, and itjust saved us time, energy, and money.Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Yeah.It's amazing to me the things thatwe hold on to as individualsbecause we think it's important, but no one else cares.Like, we never take the time to really ask, right? But if we ask more questions,if we got more involved with our clients,we would be able to extract that information andgo, "Well, then why am I doing it thisway?"Yeah. And another thing, I think this isin the book. One way to figure outwhat's important in your business is togo on vacation unplugged for, let's say,a week. You know, if you haven't done aweek, do ado a week. See what's important. You'llknow what's important when you get back. Yeah.And probably not much is all thatimportant. That's probably the shortanswer. There are probably one or twothings, but like, the longer you go,the more you'll kind of notice, you'llget a better sense for what theImportant things are. Um, what'ssomething you think, Kurt, in yourbusiness right now that you might bedoing that is basically a waste of timebut that requires a lot of your timeright now? So we are really, really big on projectmanagement software that I use to run mydifferent projects. It gives metremendous oversight over what we’redoing. So for me, it’s still a valuabletool. But we also give that transparency to our clients.And there’s always some kind of onboarding or somekind of friction about this is the SaaSplatform. This is how you log in. Thisis a screenshot of what you’re going tosee. This is how you add a comment or anote, you know, to the work that we’redoing for you. And I think it’s this great value-added thing. Like for somereason, you’ll hear it in my ownmarketing: like this is this great thingthat we do. But in reality, when I lookat the percentage of clients thatactually use this tool, it’s like 5% to 8%.And the people that are usingit aren’t even using it at a high level.Like I’m saying, you can direct messageme. You can put comments on differentThe tasks we're doing for you, you can doall of this stuff, but nobody uses thataccess. What they want to do is send me an email. They want to say, "What's the status of this?"I was thinking, um,Glenn, my SEO guy, and I are producing areport, a six-month SEO report for aclient who is paying us for SEOconsulting.We've worked on this one report thatwe're going to deliver next week or thefollowing week. I bet you after all theresearch and analysis has been done, soGlenn did a ton of research andanalysis to compile the results andthink through it. He presented this firstdraft of this report to me, and it’sprobably like 20 pages. Since thatday, about three weeks ago, I bet you heand I have invested—I wouldn’t doubt ifit’s 30 hours combined on refining thisreport. And likeI bet you we didn’t need to do that.Yep, because it’s going to go in adrawer.I used to work for a large corporation. Um, and they would onboard otherbusinesses to their distributorship, andthey had this giant binder of allthe company guidelines andcommunication systems, and how to place apurchase order, and all these — this giantbook they sent to owners of all thesedistributed businesses. Nobody readthose books. Everyone just grabbed them,threw them in the bottom drawer, youknow, underneath a bottle of whiskey, andthat was it. And then, of course, 6months, a year later, those things wouldcome up, but it would always fall ondifferent department heads within theparent company to put those fires out.And you'd always go, "But that's in thatguide we sent you." And they're like, "Ihaven't seen that since the day Iunpacked it."Exactly. So Kurt, what's a greatbusiness book that you'd recommend? You know,this was one of my go-tos from the verybeginning. This is a John Maxwell360-degree leader book. Um, I was, for lack ofbetter ways of describingthings, I've always been kind of likethat middle manager person trying tofind a way: how do I run my team? I communicate really well, but how do I have influenceon my peers and the people above me?I always found that I had thisniche of being able tocommunicate really well. UPSis a great example. I worked for UPS fora couple of years, and so it was like Itrained my team. I had a peer ofsupervisors that I, you know, hadinfluence with, and then there were allthose people above us, all the way up tothe hub supervisor. You know,we could have an adult beverage togetherand have a conversation, and I could haveinfluence in that conversation. Somaybe it's an echo chamber for me, but Ireally took a lot of great gold nuggetsout of the 360-degree leader because Ifeel that that's where most people inleadership struggle. Yeah.I was curious about this 360-degreeleader because I've never read that one.One thing I was curious about, justgenerally speaking in my life, because Ialso try to conceptually achieve that end—how can I be of most utility? To the community, whether it's the WP Minutecommunity you know or the localWordPress community here, or my family, myhouse. Um, one thing I struggle withis that I have a friend who runs a similaragency. He doesn't do any of this stuffand he's doing just fine. Good guy. He'snot influential. Doesn't knowanybody, but his business is just fine.It's been going for decades, you know. Yeah, it's unique to see how youcan choose to become part of thecommunity and try to have influence andwork things through. To me, it's Iwas in the WordPress space since 2004,but I didn't really embrace communityuntil now. I'm losing track oftime. When was the WordCamp USin San Diego? It was three years ago,four years ago. I mean, that's reallywhen I started to go, "Oh, you know what?"I probably need to do a little bit more. I mean, I was doing stuff with LifterLMS and WP Tonic, but going to thatWordCamp was my first real exposure tocommunity in person. You know, doingstuff. And then I started going toWordPress meetups and all that stuff.And so, to your point, yeah, I had anagency. I had hundreds of customers. Between 2008 and 2020, you know, uh,business was just fine.>> Uhhuh.>> So, I don't think it's a requirement,but I think and, andyou're going to make me do it. I putit off to the side. I wasn't sure if Iwas going to do it or not.>> You and Kurt,>> I wrote my own dang book on leadership.Action Leadership from the Edge. Um, Ipersonally think that everybody iscalled to a certain position ofinfluence or leadership within theirlifespan. I feel that incommunity as a whole. I feel that likesociety, people don't acknowledge their own call to leadership, and that createsa gap in leadership. The universehates gaps, and that's why people thatare poor in their positions get thosepositions. I believe people that weren'tnaturally called to their positions getthose spots because the people that werenaturally called to those positions, youknow, they abstained. They go,"Oh, like I know a lot of people thatshould be leaders, that should haveinfluence within their circles, butthey'll say things like, "Oh, I don'tI really think I’m a leader. I'm a goodsupport person. I'm a good number two. You know, I’m a good co-host, not ahost." Right? Like, and that’s falsehumility. Like, if you have a skill or atalent, you just need to put thatforward, and by doing that,you’re going to exert influence overother people. And that’s what leadershipis. Leadership is just influence. It’snot really a position; it’s theinfluence. >> Yeah. You know, that’s a good segue intoa book that I love and I’ve read manytimes. I even gave a presentationon it that was called WordPress Moneyball.But it is Moneyball byMichael Lewis. Um, fantasticbook about kind of just looking at thelandscape, and this is a biography abouta guy who still runs, well ran theOakland A’s. I don’t know if he’s stillthere now that ownership changed. But, um,so Billy Bean ran the Oakland. A gist of it is,he was reallygood at seeing what was goingon in the business side of baseball andworking within some very real monetaryconstraints that his team was facing. Compared to big market teams like the Yankees, the Cubs,and the Dodgers, you know, in LA and New York, I alwaysthought — I mean, I think it's a great business book even thoughit's a movie starring Brad Pitt and it's a baseball movie.But the movie and the book are actually both really good,and I don’t always say that, by the way. Most of the time,it’s either the movie’s better or the book’s better,but both are great in their own way. It's just agreat inspirational story about how to think outside the box.As he’s doing it, nobody’s catching on, and that’s kindof the greatest part. He’s crushing everybody andthey're not even noticing that he’s doing it. That silentsuccess, to me, has a certain power to it. You know, whenyou can work in the background and really see some strides,then one day you wake up and you’re like, "Hey, I gothere." It’s pretty cool. As we talk about that leadership thing, after a while,everyone started noticing, and now the whole — not onlybaseball, but basketball and football are now totallyI subscribed to the theory in Moneyball,and it's because of Moneyball, basically,that got that ball rolling. >> Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So, what other booksare you more like a leadership person, ormore like a numbers and finance person? I’m more of a business person. So,um,I prefer—I like thinking. So there’sthis great book called It Doesn’t Haveto Be Crazy at Work by Jason Friedand David Heinemeier Hansson. Theybuilt the 37signals company, which builtBasecamp, um, and still run Basecamp tothis day. Um, but they’re kind ofnotorious for, um, thinking outside of thebox. Here’s how most people thinkabout work. Here’s a different way tothink about how to run—here’s how mostpeople think about running a company.Here’s a different way to run a company. I take all business books with a grain of salt,but there are somegreat lessons in there. In fact, um, Isaved a little paragraph here in thisbook. So, here’s the cover if you’re watching our podcast.Um, but thegist of it is this. They’re veryshort chapters. This is what it—It doesn't take, because there’s thisthing in business. I’ll do whatever ittakes to get the job done. And they'relike, "What does that mean?"Like,you can't give whatever it takes everyday. That’s like something to reserve for anemergency. And what theysay is, um, if you're in business longenough, there’s certain — I’m quotinghere — there certainly will be raremoments when whatever it takes is trulycalled for; a real, honest emergency ormaybe because you won’t be able tomake payroll, or because inaction willpermanently scar your reputation. Soyes, there are moments; rare, extrememoments. Don’t drive your everydaybusiness by the fear of those outliers. Yeah. Um, and so what they say is, ratherthan do whatever it takes or demandwhatever it takes of your team oryourself, they ask, "What will it take?"And so it's an invitation for aconversation. It’s kind of likelet’s put some measurable stuff on here.Like, what will it take to achieve enoughto move on to the next thing?Like that sort of approach.What’s not worth doing? Because when youSay, what will it take? Then you can say,"Well, what won't it take? Like, maybe thisSEO report I'm making doesn't need toexist. Like,it sounds reallyodd. All right, but I'm getting older. So I think maybe these thoughts arenormal when you get older. There's a lotof times when I think from an agencyperspective:Why am I doing this? Do I need to bedoing that? Like, is that the kind ofclient that I really want? Like, justbecause a client's like, "Oh, hey, doyou make websites? Hey, can you make a,you know, is that the path I want tochoose? Do I want to go down? Do I wantto babysit this project for the next fiveto ten years? Do I, you know, you startto have conversations with yourself thatsay, "Wait a minute. If I'm morepurposeful about what I choose to do orengage in, I'm going to appreciate thosedecisions more downstream."And so there's a lot I don't — I findmyself not saying I'll do whatever ittakes. I do find myself saying, "What doI really have to do?" Mhm.>> Which is weird because I used to, when Iwas younger, have a higher ambition. The level of ambition, it'slike that seesaw life, right? So,control and ambition are kind offighting each other on the fulcrum, andI'm starting to fall more and more in lovewith control and planning and purposethan I am with blind ambition. Yeah. So, when I started my business in 200— I mean really when I started doingit full-time, it was 2007.What I wanted was to be the greatestat building amazing,thoughtful,beautiful designs and things.And like you're saying, after a while,the reality of that, first ofall, that's not measurable. What isthat? You know it when you see it.Well, I know it when I see it. You might seeit differently.You might not know it even when you know it. And I think this happens, like you'resaying, with age and experience. A lot ofpeople, and this is good, I think thereneeds to be some balance there.Here's an example: I was reallystressing about a business decision that could change theoutcome of my business. In the direction of the mighty mo, like for the long term, I'm going through some sort offiltering process to make thisdecision, and I don't have a formalprocess. It's just kind of like I'vebeen sleeping on it. Um, kind of losingsleep about it. But then I got tothinking today, I'm like, what if I assumemy wife will continue working and makingenough to pay the mortgage? Like I'mand that actually gave me a lot ofrelief. I'm like, maybe this decisionisn't that big of a decision after all. Likesometimes we put so much importance onourselves unnecessarily,right? Like we think everything hingeson us. Then when we just, like yousaid, go on vacation, right? If we takeourselves out of a situation,what is the real result? You know, wejust visited my son in Colorado. He'svolunteering at a camp out there for thesummer. And I got to tell you, he’sdoing great.He didn't need to see us; he didn'tneed us to be there. He didn't even needto drive a thousand miles in a weekend.He was having a great time. He'sgot friends. He's takenUs to church, and he apparently knows thepastor. He walked right up and shook hishand, then sat next to him for service. I was thinking to myself, he’s doing great. It’sgreat to see him.But he didn’t need us to be there. Weweren’t rescuing anybody,right?Yeah. And I think there are a lot of timeswhen we put this pressure onourselves that doesn’t need to be there.That actually is an interestingsegue to this other book I’ve beenreading and recommend. Theidea that you’ve produced a child isreally the goal. I think thegoal of being a father isto produce children that don’t need me,that aresustainable.They’re in a place where your kid is doinggreat. Maybe they’ll like tosee me, but they don’t need me. That’smy goal. There’s this book called Built to Sell,and that’s thepoint of the book. They’re like, “How do you build a business that doesn’t needyou, one that you could sellif you want, or you can maintain?”You know, like how do you build it insuch a way that it relieves thatpressure? And so one question I've beendealing with just outside of thispodcast this week — it's part ofthis question is about productizingofferings and likehave you thought about thatlonger term? Like, what products doyou have that might exist without you ifyou hired the right people? Um,that's part of the allure with theproduct side of WordPress, the market,right? So if you want to get into theplug-in market and do somethingthat, you know, wink wink, somebodymight be getting into the product spacesoon. Um,the idea there is that you're now in products. So hopefully you'regoing to have subscriptions and salesand all these things. But the other sideof the coin is whatever we develop inWordPress is based on open source andsomeone can fork it and all these otherthings too. So I have, you know, it'slike the angels and the devils, right?It's like these things on my shoulders,like, oh my God, don't do product — oh, youshould do product, right? Um, so there. There's that, but even in WordPress, as anagency, we have the ability to productize certainblueprints or bundles or things that we do with sites.I’ve been really fascinated by that lately. Part of me is attractedto these super cool large enterpriseprojects with the e-learning stuff thatwe do. Um, but the other part of me islike, hey, in between those bigprojects, it’s really satisfying tolaunch 10, 15, 20 sites a year that are$2,000 for startup and 80 bucks a monthfor hosting and maintenance. Like,they're easy to sell; they’re based on atemplate. The customers are happy, andit’s affordable enough to where it’sjust that recurring income that happens month after month after month. And Ithink that that’s, in a dream world,how awesome is that? If youcan build a business on that, and then inmy case, you know, train my kid, hey, ifI get hit by a bus, this is how youmaintain this. It’s revenue for themafter I’m gone. Or if it’s productizedand shows ongoing revenue based on arecurring revenue payment structure,then you know they have thatmathematical equation, right? They say,"What's your projected revenue over fiveyears? That's the value of thebusiness." And sell the business. Do any of those service offerings youjust mentioned—um, you know—design,launch, maintenance, do any of those notat all require your involvement atpresent? Yes, I have a fewof them set up as automated processeswhere they literally go. I have a foodtruck. I'd like to have a food truckwebsite. Click,you know, name, address, phone number,swipe a credit card, and it says, "Picka URL. Do this. Here's your login.Here's your sign-in. You're off andready to go." And it sets them up at $79a month for hosting and maintenance. Like, done. And so, do I have to touchit? No. Do I touch it? Yes. Right. Do Ihave to? No. But I like to meet andgreet each customer when they come inand I like to say, "Oh, hey, I noticedthat you bought thispackage. Do you have any questions? Um,we always try to exceed theexpectation on the customer side, butrealistically, I don't need to. And ifthe business were to develop more onthat productized offer and then become aA company that was sold on that premise,they wouldn’t have to do anything withit other than maintain it. Right. I think too, like one thing thatwe do is, um, like I have a full-timedeveloper whose job is partially devoted towebsite maintenanceand security, and um, the goal is thathe’s rather new. He started this year, sohe’s still raising, I don’t know, a couplequestions a week with me. Um, but we’regetting to a point, I think pretty soon,probably by the end of the year, he willnot, you know, maybe once a month, he’llreach out and say, “Hey, I have aquestion about this upgrade thing andprocess.” Like I just think, like people, agency owners will say, um,they kind of like, when they thinkof automation, oftentimes they think ofthe product you just described. Youbuilt some computer software thatdoes stuff. I always think, first, it’softentimes easier, like you could buildthat process you described and justhave an employee do the whole thing, andyou still wouldn’t have to touch it, likeexcept to tweak the process.And there’sI was thinking. There are interesting things from anagency perspective, like just this week,we came up, and I don't want to call ita bug because I think that's insulting.But I noticed that the Cadence accordionwasn't working the way the Cadenceaccordion should be working. And then Ihad my tech guy look at it, and my techguy goes, "Oh, it’s a conflict with theZoom integration. So if the Zoomintegration is activated, the accordiondoesn't work the way it's supposed towork." Okay, so I have no idea. I'm nota coder, and I’m not going to putthe time into it. Here's what I'm goingto do. I'm going to deactivate the Zoom integration. I'm going to make thechange to the accordion, and then I'mgoing to reactivate the Zoom integrationfor them. So it’s done. It’s aworkaround. But as an agency,knowing those types of small detailskeeps us from making those same mistakesgoing downstream. Like from now on, if acustomer says to me, "I want to have theZoom integration inside my website,"well, I’m going to put them on the Astrotheme, not the Cadence theme, right?Because in my mind, I’m like, well, ifit went bad before, it’ll go bad again. Who knows? Um, the same thing applies to LifterLMS and Cadence with the dashboard menu.Sometimes there's a menu issue there.Um, I don’t know if I know it’s a LifterLMS website; I’m going to put them onthe Astro theme. As an agency, asyou build it, that build mentality is I should build a businessthat’s sustainable,even if I don’t know all the ins andouts of all those weird littleeccentricities. We should focus on justthe tools. So I really focus onsimplicity at Mñana. I have customerswho come to me with all kinds of weird,asking, "Can we do this? Can we do that? Can wedo the other thing?" And I’m like, I’dreally like this to stay as simple aspossible so that we can maintain thisand know that it’s reliable. And so Ireally only focus on about 20 mainplugins that generate our revenue. Wow. Give us another book.Uh, you mentioned business. That’s why Iasked if you like business or do you preferleadership? Um, "Seeing the Big Picture" byKevin Cop, is a really great pieceof work. Uh, he owns a company; he’sthe co-owner of a company called AcumenLearning, and they do training and stuff. Like that. The forward is written bySteven Kovi, so apparently he hasfriends in high places. I actuallydid an online review of this book withthe author's blessing. I did anonline training with this book. Froma business perspective, it's reallyquite good, and it's small enough thatyou can read it without losing yourmind. It's not War and Peace, but itgoes over things like cash, profit,and assets, and how to identify thosebusiness markers, those KPIs, andthen, you know, how to make educateddecisions and choices based on thosefindings. >> I read, I can't remember the title, butit>> the whole book was about how youonly need one metric in business: Howmuch money landed in your bank accountthis year?Yeah, that's a hard one, though, becausethere are so many variables that affectit, right? So from a truebusiness analytic perspective, likefor instance, let's say I have abusiness that requires capitalization. I do landscaping, right? Everythree or four years, I know I've got toReplace myzero-turn mowers, right? So I'm going tohave a couple of years where how muchmoney landed in my bank account? Well, alot, because they were great years. And thenall of a sudden I need a $7,000 mowerand it's like, "Oh, wait a minute. Myaccount's $7,000 light." It's not $7,000light. You should be aggregating thatcost over an annual basis, right? So, Ithink when it comes to certainbusinesses, what's in the bankaccount is really like fakesecurity, right? Or fake warnings,right? Because you—like for instance,money on right now, we have invoices outthat haven't been paid yet, that haven'tbeen reconciled. And so it—so we feel broke, but we'renot broke because we have invoices out.Like, we know the money's coming; it'sjust not here yet. Um, I think a lot ofbusinesses run that way. And the biggeryour business gets, the more that uglything raises its head. Yeah,that is true. Like, um, now that said, soI know somebody who runs a very smallbusiness. It was—well, it was her andshe had six employees or something likeThat. Um, and she was having troublemeeting payroll one month, and she had abunch of invoices out, kind of thing. AndI was like, "Well, just get a businesscredit card, put it on that," and shehadn't considered that as an option. AndI think you're right; there isthis tyranny of the cash flowbusiness mentality. Um, I do think thatit is what we should aim for generally,especially if you don't have a lot ofcapital investments needed, you know,which we don't besides computers, really. You know how much, but we only need oneof those, and we only need it every fewyears, maybe, or more than that. Um,so I don't know. I, uh, this goes liketo another thing, likejust that ad, just that knowledge, like, "Oh,there's a credit card for business." Like,people don't even know that.Yeah, or lines of credit, you know, youcan get a line of credit to coverthings.I hate the idea of added expense tocover a fixed expense.Right? And hopefully I'm saying thisin a way that people get, because thenthat comes out of the margin, right? That's what's left in your bankaccount, right? Well, it's actuallynegative, right? So, and then it addsexpenses. So, if you ran negative andyou had bank fees, that would be anexpense too. So, then you've got to figure what'sthe best of two evils. Andthe best of two evils in that instancewould be paying the interest. Yeah. And I think that's okay. Idon't think paying interest isinherently bad, you know, as abusiness move, but you know, too manymonths in a row maybe, but like,well, Grant Cardone would tell you it'sthe absolute way to go. Who would tell you that?Have you ever listened to Grant Cardoneor any of those? Um, Kiaki, he'sanother one that does it.Um, they're the opposite of God, what'shis name? I have his book. They're the opposite of Dave Ramsey.Uh-huh. So Dave Ramsey says, "Youshouldn't have any debt, right?Everything should be paid off. Youshouldn't have any debt." And then GrantCardone and Robert Kiyosaki and some of"No, no, no. You're missing the wholeboat. The wealth is based on cashflow, not cash holdings." And so if youhave a lot of debt, how much tax do youpay on debt? >> Right?>> And they're like, "Tax doesn't, uh, debtdoesn't get taxed. Income gets taxed."And so if you leverage debt and thenleverage more debt to get more debt, youend up buying things and capitalizingthings with debt that you don'tnecessarily have to pay absorbent taxeson. I think I'm following you. So let mejust give you an example. If I'mcurious if this is an example. I bought acar. Uh, it was a used car, but it wasstill quite a bit of money. Um, webought it and took out a loan for theentire amount. Uh, most of it, and theinterest rate on the loan was, let's say,6%.Um, is that what you're talking about?Something like that. >> Like Grant Cardone talks about buyingbuildings and flipping buildings.Then, I mean, the guy says he's abillionaire, but he talks aboutleveraging debt to make more money. Um,It's a very interesting way to look atthings. And I am not, by the way, folks,this is not official financial advice. We're simply making a podcast. This isfor entertainment purposes only. Um, Ijust get fascinated at listening tothe different voices in the same space.>> You know, we've got Dave Ramsey saying,>> you know, this is one way to do it. Andthen you've got um uh you know theGrant Cardone's and the RobertKiyosaki of the world saying to docompletely different things. RobertKiyosaki is the Rich Dad Poor Dad author. >> So I have this theory about um stufflike this. It's about child rearing. Um,when you have your first child, you'relike, what do I do? I always tellpeople to figure out what you want todo and then find a book that supportsthat. And this is the same with business,like you're saying, financial advicethere. There's every bit of financialadvice that you can imagine. Go find itand follow that. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's I once worked for a guyand um he by the way didn't seem to haveany problems with any of this stuff. Itwas like a struggle for payroll. It wasa struggle for the building. The struggle for it was always a struggle.And then he shows up with a brand newexcursion one month and a brand newspeedboat like two or three months later. AndI'm like,"I thought it was a struggle."Yeah.Like, I think you're strugglingless than some of us.It's all relative, isn't it?It's all relative. It's all relative. So, let's talk about fun books.What do you read for fun?Um, I was thinking, umI have about 20 books. I only keep books I love. This isone that I keep. It's called ShellSilverstein's. It's by ShellSilverstein. It's called Uncle Shelby'sABZ book. I'm going to read one of thepassages from here. They're all veryshort. This goes, uh, this is quoting ShellSilverstein in this book now. Everypassage is like this, by the way. So, ifyou like this, definitely get the book.It goes, "Oh, it's an ABC book." So, we'reon the letter D. D is for daddy.Daddy sleeping on the couch.See daddy's hair. Daddy needs a haircut.Poor daddy. Daddy has no money for aHaircut. Daddy spends all his money tobuy you toys and oatmeal. Poor daddy. Daddy cannot have a haircut. Poor, poordaddy. See the scissors? Poor, poor, poorpoor daddy. Okay.Okay.>> Yep. Um, what about you? What funones do you read? Um, I used to race motorcycles, and so Iallow myself to get wrapped up in peoplethat won championships, likebiographies and things. Mydaughter's actually named Rainey. She'snamed after Wayne Rainey, and so I readhis book. Um, super, super driven, youknow, professional athlete. Um, got hurtin the sport, ended up in a wheelchairand now is still involved in the sportas a team manager and things like that.So, uh, I've tried to meet him in persona few times, and he's not the mostagreeable, easily greeted person.Um, even when he came to the offices atlike Ducati, he was at the office atDucati and I was like, "Hey, I named mydaughter after you." And he's like, andwalked away. >> Screw you.>> So, it's one of those, you know,Be careful when you meet your heroes. Stories.>> Yeah.>> Um, I listen to audiobooks a lot when Imountain bike or when I'm, you know,doing stuff. And I've been listening toa series from M. A. Rothman. Uh, and it'scalled the Perimeter series, I believe.And it's the weirdest story ever becauseit's a story about an Amish guy thatsomehow ends up becoming like a samuraisomewhere and then, um, ends up workingwith the CIA and with the mob at thesame time. Like, it's just a reallybizarre character, and it is so, sopulled from reality for me that it'sa little bit of escapism. So I enjoy that. I listen to the audiobooks about that series, and I think I'velistened to four of the books so far. Ireally enjoy it.>> Cool. That reminded me of one thing.Let's say you're struggling for cashright now, but you want to listen to abunch of great audiobooks. Check outyour local library. Like I know inMinneapolis, they have a whole audio appthat's very comparable to, uh, what's thebig one that Amazon, it's like Audible.It's like Audible. It's pretty much theSame, but you log in with your librarycard and it's totally free. They havea giant library of audiobooks. UmIt's like Netflix withoutbeing Netflix, right? Libraries are connected to allkinds of things. I mean, they’reconnected to online learning programs.You can get DVDs for free,watch them for the weekend, just likestreaming services.Yeah. It’s really kind of a crazydeal. And you mentioned learning. Ourlibrary in Minneapolis has freeaccess to LinkedIn Learning, the entireLinkedIn Learning catalog because that’s really good stuff.Yeah. And maybe your library does too. You kind of have to ask.Yeah. You got to go figure that stuffout. Our community here in Kansas has somany programs and so many things for somany differentareas of society. It's like you just have to go andlook and see what's available. Yeah. Also, like, I learned just lastweekend that in Minnesota, wehave beautiful state parks. I knowKansas does too. You can go to thelibrary and get a free state park pass forthe day. Like, the library—like you'resaying, I love libraries; libraries arethe greatest resource, I mean, among thegreatest institutions ever invented,probably like the public library. It's funny to me because you can askpeople now, like, "Hey, when's the last timeyou've been to a library?" and ifthey're young people, they may have neverbeen to a library. Like, that's thecraziest thing. My kids love the library;my wife got them started at a veryyoung age. You can go to the library andpick out—you can only pick threebooks, you know, or four books, orwhatever. Like, the library says you couldtake 20 books. Um, but you know, you canonly take three or four, and then theywould read them at home andget all excited. Then they'd go tothe library, spend a couple of hours there,and there was story time and all thatjunk that you know for kids. Butthey really got into reading and goingback and forth and getting new books. And now, to this day, both of them likelibraries. When we moved to Kansas, Itook Hayden to lunch in Kansas City tomeet some friends I used to work with atDucati. And I said, "Hey, is thereanything you want to do in Kansas Citywhile we're there?" I'm thinking he'sgoing to, I don’t know, a restaurant orsomething, but he's going to want to. He goes, "Oh, Iheard there's a library there where theoutside of the library looks like abookshelf. I want to go there."Wow.And that's where we went. We went tothis really cool library where theoutside of the building looks like abookshelf. Thebooks. That's awesome. Yeah,other great fun tales. Do the wholeDogman. I celebrate the whole Dogmanseries. If you like fart jokes, poopjokes, heads exploding jokes,there's nothing better. And you canread a book in, you know, an hour orless. Yeah. Yeah. I What? So, for reallyshort books, I like books and it takes me back tothe businessy thing, but there was a book, it was like 37The book is called "Tyranny of theUrgent."That book will change your thinking. It's kind of like "Buy Back Your Time" byDan Martell, except Dan Martell's bookis a whole book, right? But thisis a little tiny pamphlet,37 pages. It's a little tiny book."Tyranny of the Urgent." You read that bookand then all of a sudden, you start torethink every meeting someone wants toschedule with you. You're like, "Is thatreally important?">> Yes. If you really don’t like meetings,you should read more by Jason Fried andDave Hanmer Hansen.Half their writings are about meetingsand the tyranny of meetings. Goodness gracious. Well, folks, wewanted to try and share with you some ofthe inspirations that we've had. So, wethought this would be a fun episode totalk about some of the books. Wementioned it in the last episode, sohere we are. But what else do you havegoing on that we can discuss besidesbooks? You did something with AI thisweek, didn’t you, Toby?>> Yes. So, I went to LinkedIn Learning,which was free with my library card. Uh,I just wanted to learn moreabout how to do prompts, and I’m also ina vibe coding thing, a newclass on LinkedIn Learning that wasbuilt in April. So, I’m like, oh, thisis pretty recent. I’m doingthat right now. But also, I took this AIcertification thing through LinkedInLearning, and it was like an hour lectureand then you answer five or six questions. It’s like>> What should you do if you’represented with AI? Should you learnabout it? Should you throw it out thewindow? Should you smack it? You know,it was just like obvious answers. Butanyway, I got this certificate fromLinkedIn Learning, which I then postedto my LinkedIn profile. Fromthere, it says, "Do you want to create apost about this on LinkedIn?" I waslike, "Yeah, sure." I just clicked gobecause it writes it all for you. And, um,the funny thing about all this is thatthat post saying I completed acertification, it was all like justclick, click, click. It got moreengagements, likes, whatever you want tocall it. This post is probably my mostpopular post to date. Oh my goodness. I literally have hundreds of videos onYouTube on multiple channels. Hundredsupon hundreds of videos. To this day, mynumber one video on YouTube is me and afriend putting a 49cc overboard kit in apocket bike. And it’s so frustratingbecause I have made, in my opinion, Ihave made really great, you know, payingit forward content, you know, goodtraining content, and then somethingsilly like, "Hey, let’s hang out in thegarage, drink a couple of beers, and puta different motor in this little tinymotorcycle." Everybody's like, "I got towatch that.">> This is so fantastic, Kurt, because theguess what? We have, I don’t know,let’s say a thousand blog posts. Mostare about WordPress-related things. Guess what the most popular post is byfar? I mean like a 20 to 1, 30 to 1 ratio. UmHow to install Minecraft on Ubuntu.Isn’t that heartbreaking? Like on onehand it’s incredibly entertainingto think that way. But on the otherhand, it’s like it’s heartbreaking you'cause I see just as a coincidentalthing. Chris Badget, and I — Chris Badget isthe founder of Lifter LMS — and we werehaving a talk about, “Hey, some coursesMake it some courses, don't some peoplefail at the marketing thator they fail at the product market fit? Like, they didn't even really recognizewhat the market wanted from them in theshape of a course, you know, and Iwas joking because I do this ride everyyear called the Great Cycle Challenge.It's a nonprofit ride to raisemoney for kids with brain cancer. So,this is my eighth year, and I'm jokingaround with Chris, and I said, "Igoes, 'You should do something you'repassionate and knowledgeable about, andit should have product market fit.' AndI said, "You know, there's like14,000 people in this stupid Facebookgroup asking dumb questions every yearabout riding bicycles for this thing,right?" I said, "I should just make anonline course about how to ride abicycle." And he goes, "You should. You'd be amazed who would sign up forit." So, I put a question in and I said,"Hey, in the group I said, 'I'm nottrying to spam the group. I'm not tryingto sell anything yet. I just want toknow I answer a lot of questions in thisforum. If I were to arrange thosequestions in a course, how many peopleWould you be interested in a course on how to buy the right bike, ride the right bike, and you know, ride it as an athlete? You know, within an hour, two hours, like 600 possible, positive responses."And that to me is like, it's a real kick in the gut because I've got a decade of making business content, leadership content, you know, publishing a leadership book, and I put like a thousand hours into making the Powersport Academy. You know, courses for the motorcycle industry. And then it's like a course on how to ride a bicycle and 600 people are like, "Take my money."Exactly. So people, if you, you know, Kurt does WordPress and digital stuff, but if you need to know how to ride a bike, he's the go-to resource. If you need to know how to ride a bike, it's amazing. You don't know until you ask. Like, you don't know what you don't know. So, what is product market fit? What do people want? What are people looking for?And if you look at people's Netflix accounts and what they really watch orIf you saw people's real search results,you would be mortified. You'd be like,"How stupid are we as a society?" Like,this is what people want. Um, but if wecreate what they want, we have productmarket fit and we can make success outof that. Yeah. Well, I think we're about timehere. Let's call it a day. We haveother items. So, people stay tuned nextweek for more excitement. Also, uhleave us comments, questions, email us.I don't know. Kurt, how can we get it? The questions are, what doyou want to hear? What questions do youhave about running an agency? Like thatwould really help Toby and I out withmaking sure that we have product marketfit and that we're doing the rightthing. Also, um I know this sounds dumbbecause you hear it everywhere, butapparently it makes a difference. Likeand subscribe or whatever the optionsare on wherever you're listening orwatching this, because it does help thealgorithm, I hear. And also whatI've heard from other podcasters is thatit helps to ask. So, please like andsubscribe and hit that bell or whateveryou do on whatever platform. Um, Kurt,How can we get in touch with you? Well, on a personal basis, I'm the onlyKurt Von, and on LinkedIn, I'm easy tofind there. So, uh, hit connect morethan follow. Hit connect, and then thatway we'll really make a connection. Andthen for business, my company name isMñana Nomas, and that's everything onsocial media and its website. Toby,>> Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. My last name is C RY N S. I run the Mighty Mo. If you typethe Mighty Mo WordPress, we'll be numberone in the search results. So, hope toum, you know, reach out in whatever wayworks for you. So, uh, would love to alsolike Kurt said, we would love tohear questions that we can address on afuture podcast. So, via whatever mediumworks for you, send them our way. Perfect. I think that's it. Have a greatday., Recommended Books for Business and Beyond, WP Minute Podcasts, 01k45fq55f1pg2g2kjc67q1ban.