Great Advice That Doesn’t Work

0:00I got a book for Christmas. It's Ina Garton's biography. And biography or autobiography or memoir, I believe it's a memoir. She wrote it. And I got it for Christmas because I saw her on any polar show and loved it. I felt like I told Steph about it. I was like, I think you should listen to this episode. It's pretty interesting. And I've been a fan of the Barefoot Contessa for a long time when she was on Food Network. I believe she still is. And I listened to this interview and then Steph actually bought her book and read it. Or I think she, yeah, she listened to it in an audio book. And then for Christmas gave it to me and said, yeah, you're gonna like this book. So I've been reading the book. I'm almost done. I've kind of blew through it pretty fast. It's pretty easy read.

1:00There's one thing she said in it. And I'm sure there's a couple of lessons. Lessons or just I'm not going to say lessons because so far there's nothing in the book that she has said where I learned anything or or I learned like, oh that's an interesting way to look at business. Her and I have come to similar conclusions when it comes to business. And so it's more of a book of it's interesting the way that she approached everything the way she did everything. It's balzy. It's crazy. But it's not surprising. But she said one thing and I was like, man, you don't hear this. This is this is something you don't hear from business gurus. And that is great advice that doesn't work for you. So she basically tells this story. And then she gives this like one sentence. The

2:02sentence was so good that I was like, I didn't have a highlighter but I was like, oh my god, I should I should highlight this. But instead I just wrote it in a sauna to do a podcast episode about it. Because it's something that I have never articulated. But I constantly think about it all the time. So the idea here is, well, I'll tell the story. The story at the brief story and I'm paraphrasing like a mother over here. So like, she basically comes out with this her first cookbook, right? And it's a absolute massive success. And the reason it's a success is because she's bucking every cookbook trend at the time. She's photographing the food kind of in a messy format. Like instead of having like, for example, and I've never read the original book, although it makes me want to buy it really bad. She has this one anecdote where she's like, instead of, she's a recipe on like roasted carrots. And instead of having the roasted carrots like

3:03finished on a platter, she has a photo of them pulled right out of the oven on a sheet tray. So it's like kind of like in the middle of cooking or the messy part of cooking. And she does one, she has one photograph where she does like a kitchen clam bake. And there's like a half drunk beer in the background of the shot. And so like what she wanted in her book was photographs that felt lived in and accessible, which was very different than what cookbooks were doing at the time. And if a photo of the food in the end didn't look good, she just didn't include a photo, which is interesting. Like that was a choice. And then she ends up designing the book herself. She has zero design skills. In fact, they hired a designer and kept her purposefully out of the process. And then when she got the book, when it was finally designed, she hated it and forced

4:07the company because she had one guy on her side forced the company to let her do it her way. Now I tell all this because she knows this. So like she has this incredibly successful cookbook, right? It sells like, I don't know, I don't know how many millions of copies of this cookbook, right? And I believe it's just called the Barefoot Contessa cookbook, which is her first one. So she comes out with this book. It's, you know, it's gangbusters. And she's friends with this like famous photographer slash designer from the 60s. And he comes over the house because he comes over the house all the time. It's kind of her stick, right? And she's like, what do you think of my book? And he's like the design is trash. And instead of taking it personally, what she should have, she goes, well, I like, I like this guy. I respect his work. Let me, let me hear him out. Like, what would you change? So they sat down together and he gave her all of the

5:10pointers of like how he would change the book, right? And I think this was one when she was working on her next book. He was like showing her everything he would do, blah, blah. She ignored all of his advice. Did it, did what she wanted? Came out with a cookbook, massive success. And, and like, outsold his book by a landslide. So, and even he says, you know, what do I know? But basically at that point. And her, her, her conclusion from that was, she got great advice. Right? That was, that was what happened. She got great advice from a master of design. But she rejected it because it, it was great advice, but it didn't apply to what her goals were. And she was able to recognize that in the moment. When I hurt, she,

6:14now, I don't know how old she is when she comes to this conclusion. But I'm so glad that this is something I've come to early in my life. Because, and I can tell you like very specific times when it, it made it, it made, it was made clear to me. And I'll tell this, it's not a story really. But a long time ago, a very long time ago, I want to say 2008. Pat Flynn, the, the famous Pat Flynn, who somebody I followed, he was going around and, and he had this advice about being everywhere. And one of his big like, oh, here's how you can grow online was by going on forums, answering questions, and then putting your link in there. Like, basically, his whole thing was get in front

7:17of other people who have the same audience as you get in front of their audience. And this is great advice. This is how you can grow an audience. However, in my world, no one had that audience yet. Maybe I could, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but I'm sure you can make the argument like, well, there were pool companies that existed before you met. And they do target people who own pools. But there are national lists you could have bought and all this stuff, right? But what he was saying is like, there are other people who are teaching online business. So instead of you trying to build your business from scratch, just get in front of their audience and then share the wealth, basically, right? And piggyback off their success. This is great advice. Does not apply to me. I keep running into

8:19this over and over again. And it's not, it's, I'm not trying to be a contrarian. I'm not sitting there going, oh, well, it may work for you, but it's not going to work for me, blah, blah, blah. And like, you don't, what the fuck do you know, right? That's not what this is. That's not what she's saying. She had a vision already. She knew exactly who she was targeting. She knew exactly what she wanted. She was trying to be different. And I think she, her vision was correct because she did not come from a formal cooking background. She wasn't a chef. She was somebody who ran a store for 20 years, a specialty store in the Hampton. So it's definitely fancy. But her whole thing was I want you to be able to enjoy fine foods, but make them more simplistic and in your home without all the fancy shit that goes around it, right? In her, in her world, it was like

9:22Julia Child and Martha Stewart were like making these like really fancy things. And like, yeah, she was doing that too, but she made it easier because she again has no formal training. So she's, she has this vision for what she or her cookbook should be. And she was targeting an audience that she had already built. She had built an audience through her own, through running a store. And of course, this guy who comes over, like he's correct. Her design is probably terrible. Like, it's, you know what I mean? But to him, it's terrible. And to me, it might be terrible because we have a more of a design eye. But that wasn't her goal. Her goal was to make it more accessible for regular ass people. And so she rejected good advice. Just advice that didn't apply to her vision. And this happens all the time. This, this, this is so easy to get caught up in, right? So

10:24as an example, and again, didn't see it before it happened. But I got great advice about starting my own product line of pool and hot tub chemicals. Great advice. Took it and ran with it. Only to realize three years later, oh, that's kind of, it's kind of compromising all of my values and my own customer base and credibility. Now, not that drastically, but still like, oh, so at that point, I had to be comfortable and also push my ego aside to say, yeah, that was a mistake. We're done with that. And I should, and again, did not know what at the time. And truthfully, it is great advice. It just doesn't apply. There's a lot of people who will email me great ideas, great advice from my business. And it's really hard to sit there and go,

11:29you know, thanks for the idea. Trust me, I've already thought of it. I've thought of everything. But like, yeah, I'm telling you, I'm not going to do this because it doesn't fit my world view, my goals, my customer base, et cetera, et cetera. For example, I had, try to think I'm like, not too long ago. This happens all the time, actually. A lot of people will email me because they know they find out that I'm in pools, right? Like, oh, oh my God, you're like, you're missing out on this huge opportunity. You know, you could be, you could be targeting people who don't own pools yet, right? You could be a lead, you could do a lead generation system. And I go, yeah, great idea. Thought of it a million times. I, yeah, yeah. I know it would make money. Is it going to make gangbusters money? I don't know. Depends on how much work I put

12:29on it. Am I passionate about it? No, not at all. And I have to sit there and think, okay, this is good advice. This is a good direction to go in. But let's take stock in what we have and what I, and the vision that I have for myself and for my company. Well, let's just take the company. Are my customers, are my current customers, the people that I'm targeting, are they looking to buy a swimming pool or a hot tub? The answer is no, because the people, my audience already owns those things. So right off, right out of the gate, I would have to target an entirely new audience for this to work, okay? Great. Second thing, well, in order to generate leads, I would have to probably run advertising, which would cost money, because again, I don't actually attract those people. All of our content is for people who

13:31already own pools. So I would have to probably run paid advertising. And I would have to have some mechanism to connect the lead to the person who's going to sell that lead. And I had to find a way to charge them. Well, guess what? You need a second audience, which is the person who buys the lead. And you can see where I'm going here, it requires a lot, like a lot, a lot, an entirely new business model. Not to mention, thinking about my personal life, how much additional stress and anxiety and team and all of these other things are just going to get piled on to what I'm already doing. How much is this going to affect that? A ton. So is it better for me to just focus on my existing audience and just grow it? That's it. And know what they want. And know that

14:33it doesn't have to be fancy. That we're not trying to make this glamorous thing. You make it good. We're good enough or real or now authentic, which is what she did. And so how do you take this? How do you take this advice of ignoring advice? It's so easy now. And I can see it so distracting because I see it all the time. You could watch a YouTube video long form or you could start getting shorts where you get these little tips, little quick actionable tips. In fact, I might even be one of the people who gives you it. I'm not trying to. I'm just showing you what I'm doing. But look, you need to take all of the advice that you get from anyone with a big fat grain of salt. Because is it you? Does it work for your business? Does it make sense for your skill set? That's the other thing. I think

15:38when I think about the lead generation problem, I go, well, I'd have to build that. I'm not a programmer. I mean, I can do it kind of. But I'm like, oh, that sounds miserable. Same thing with the pool chemicals. When I was selling that, I'm not a chemist. You know, yeah, you can hire things. I get it. I get it. But like, and yeah, that one's a perfect fit. Like it feels right. You know what I mean? You could, and that's why I think I wasn't able to see it. Because I'm like, everything about that feels right. But guess what? My ultimate reason for doing it, there was two. And they were terrible. One was recurring revenue. I was trying to solve recurring revenue as a problem in my business. And two, I just kind of wanted to do something new. I wanted to sell physical products. I wanted to do some new branding and have my own products that I could hold in my hand. And those are not good

16:40reasons to do it. They're just not. That means I didn't really care about the customer at the end. I cared more about like how I wanted to be in business. And it turns out like, those problems were, those problems and feelings were still real. But I just went about them the wrong way. Because I got advice. Again, great advice. Just didn't fit me. And what I wanted to do, I just didn't know it at the time. So the goal is to know ahead of time before you take the advice. But here's the thing. And I think this is important that we recognize from this story is she took the advice. She didn't reject it. I said earlier, I would have. If this guy came to me and like, your book is trash, I'd be like, fuck you. Get out of my house. Are you kidding me with this? Come to my house. Criticize me. The fuck out. You know, that's how I would have been. Because I get so defensive so quickly.

17:44You my Italian blood, my South Philly Italian blood, just boiling. And do you hear that boiling sound by the way? Come on. I'm fermenting a beer and that's the bubbler. Anyway, she didn't say that. She listened. She took his advice. She didn't throw it away. She didn't do the Italian thing I would have done. And I hate to generalize Italians in that. But she didn't do that. Instead, she listened. She heard the advice and she politely ignored it. But my guess is that she learned something. You know what I mean? Something from that conversation. Just getting the perspective of someone else, someone who is an expert in their field, just hearing them out. She probably just employed

18:49maybe one little tiny tip from that conversation into her design for her next book. I don't know if that's true. But I think it's one, when you hear advice, take it with a big grain of salt. But two, take it. Take it. Because you might be able to break it apart. You might be able to use pieces of the advice and not just the whole thing. So in the case of the advice that I got about, hey, you should start your own products. Yes, maybe not chemicals. But I need or I want something physical. I want to be able to give somebody something that I own, that I can hold in my hand. Well, we ended up accomplishing that. Through the thing that we were already doing, we just took our ebook and turned it into a real book. Simple, easy, good piece, it's literally a piece of advice.

19:52Then we needed to solve the recurring thing. And that problem actually presented itself to me. I didn't have to go looking for that. It just showed up in my door and I went, oh, that is our audience. That is my skill set. That does make sense. Let's go. Very, it's an easy yes. But I can tell you this. I think the reason for perhaps taking advice is especially advice that does not make sense is out of some type of desperation in her case, in this particular story. And maybe she just liked this. Maybe it was the circumstance that I'm pulling from the context around where she was at the time. But she wrote a book proposal for that first book. Because someone told her it might be a good idea. Like she had no interest in that. She's never

20:55written anything. Or sorry, she'd never written a cookbook before. Because she was definitely a writer of it's just for the government. But she did not do that. That wasn't her thing. She ran a store for 20 years, a retail store for 20 years, a business owner. And then she sold it. And then she was bored. And maybe I forget if someone suggested that she write a book or she just thought, hey, I'm going to do this thing. She got made a book proposal, sent it into people that she already knew. One guy was like, oh, yeah, I've been to your store. I think it's great. My store loves your store. Like, let's go. Let's make this book. And so she had nothing to lose. Like she was like, wasn't trying to make money from the book. She had no idea if it was going to sell or not. She had no control over the sales. She wasn't a personality. She had no, the only audience that she had at the

21:57time. And this is crazy. This is back in like 2000, right? Or maybe it was 97. I think it was her first book. So the only audience she had at the time was a store in the West Hamptons. And I believe another store in the East Hamptons. And that was it. So we're talking about like, yeah, big name people go and vacation the Hamptons, but like small audience, not enough to, you know, not a, not a, not a, not a global audience. You don't have a mailing list like where she could just like, you know, whatever. But her book was so approachable that it just sold like crazy, which is I can't, I still don't really fully understand like how, how is that even possible? Like can a book just be that good that you can just put it on a shelf and it just disappears without any promotion? I don't, I don't know. Maybe that's how cookbooks work. Maybe the, maybe the cover, maybe somebody opened it up and was like, holy shit, maybe word of mouth spread,

22:59like crazy. I don't know. This is back before the internet. So I don't know. But like she, she didn't know any of that. She thought the whole time she's like, who the fuck's going to buy this book? And yet that's why she made all those decisions that way because she was like, well, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it my way and, you know, basically fuck everybody else because like who cares, right? Either it sells one copy or 10 copies or a million. She's happy either way. She's happy. She just accomplished the book. Now that's the way it should be. But a lot of people, including myself, get caught up in like the money side of things or what will happen if doing this like, oh, wouldn't it be fucking cool to do it this way? Wouldn't that be awesome? And it's like, you're not thinking about all the work. You're not thinking about the maintenance. You're only thinking about the money outcome or how you think you'll feel at the end.

23:59Like, wouldn't it be great to have my own chemical line? It's like, yeah, did you know you need to ship? Do you know you need third-party logistics? Do you know that you need to have like EPA regulations and lawyers to look over your copy work? And what if a kid swallows your product? And like, you need, like, oh, and you need to have a ton of cash on hand so that you can keep buying inventory and you basically never make money until you sell the whole company? Not saying that none of this is a good idea or a bad idea. I'm just saying, for me and my goals, doesn't fit. Doesn't fit. But at the time, I'm thinking, I need to do something. I'm desperate. I want recurring revenue. This is a good thing to get into. It was ego-driven. It wasn't, you know, I wasn't clear on what my whole business was supposed to be. And since I started that, and I think

25:03actually because of that, because of going in headfirst and taking this advice and going, oh, shit, it doesn't fit me, I learned a ton about who I am, what I stand for, and what kind of business I want to run. And I think it's easier now for me to hear advice and go, cool, great, great idea. I'm not doing it, but great idea. And I mean, and people are just like, wow, what do you mean you're not going to do it? I'm like, I don't know what that extra work. What? What do you mean, don't want money? Yeah, well, I guess if that's what I'm saying, then that's what I'm saying, yes. You're leaving money on the table. I guess I am. I guess I am. But guess what? I don't have all that built-in stress. So, it's fine with me. It doesn't fit my worldview. Point is saying that story and

26:06saying all that. Think about something that you've been told. Think about advice that you've taken or you've heard. And think about the actions that you're doing right now. Do they make any sense? Are they working? Not working? Like, what's going on? And maybe reevaluate that. But again, take the advice. The hardest thing to do is to take the advice and go, hmm, I'm going to thank you. Thank you for that advice. I'm going to sit on that. I mean, you just sit on it. Maybe one day, you'll use it or pieces of it. Maybe you won't. But unlike me, don't take every piece of advice as, oh, that's a fucking good idea. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go do that. Because here's the thing that they always say like, oh ideas are at diamond dozen. It's all about execution. But if you're executing on every goddamn idea, which

27:06are at diamond dozen, then you just end up spreading yourself. Then you get nothing accomplished. And you create nothing new or nothing interesting because you don't have your own principles to guide you in the right direction. You're kind of just like, well, I'll do a fucking anything. And that certainly was me like, I'll fucking do anything, man. Let's go. Easier for me to say that in a position now, but I'm in that position now and I'm saying it. So, here you go. I don't know. If you're interested, I think you should read the book. I think it's pretty cool. If you like, Ina Garten, which I do, I love her. I liked her, but I loved her before. I loved her. I loved her before I saw her on Amy Poler. I actually didn't know where she went because I don't know where food network is. Although I did watch her show, I think it's called Be My Guest. Is that the right one? There's that David Letterman show. I think it's called Be My Guest

28:07with Ina Garten. And she was like interviewing celebrities in our kitchen and cooking food. I watched a few of those on Hulu, I think. Anyway, books great. She's got an awesome life. Aligns a lot with me, except for the crazy business changing and and she does a lot of traveling and gets married very young and you know, all those things that don't align with me, but like, hey, business owners, don't have kids, wants to enjoy life, that's cool with me. So I do recommend the book. I'm again, I'm like about to finish it within a day or so and it was a fun read for sure. Anyway, if you want, instead of me, like, I mean, my email address is manageivinesi.com. Easy one to remember because it's my name, but also hard to spell. So it's GI O V A N I S C I you can go to jivinesi.com, subscribe to my newsletter,

29:11which is new. And I'm sending emails at least every week, but sometimes I'm going to do two or three, you know, I got shit. I want to show you. I got shit to say. Obviously, I do this podcast every day, but I can't show you anything because it's just an audio podcast. So the newsletters my way to show you the things that I talk about in the show on my computer. And I don't know. Again, hopefully you take bits and pieces of it that work for your business. I think that should be, we can all help each other there. I certainly still need help and, you know, that's it. So talk to you next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time. Next time