Welcome to the Tool Belt Empire: From Hustle to Fully Booked

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>> Lani Dickinson: Welcome back to the Freedom to Exit podcast. I'm Lani

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Dickinson, your hostess, and

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today I have a super exciting

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surprise. I have my tech

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wizard who is responsible for all the magic

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behind the scenes, Jeana DeShazer

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Because we are rolling out something

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new called the Tool Belt Empire, and

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we are super excited about it.

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for me, we built this.

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We're building this for

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the guy in the truck who's in the Starbucks. Or

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the Dutch brothers drive through living on

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coffee, you know, trying to get to the next job,

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scheduling things on their cell phone while they're at

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stoplights. Hey, I'm going to be late. Has the

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no shows, all the things that are going on. the

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gu who's like, great at what he

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does, but exhausted. Trying to

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run the business side and

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maybe not making it to all the baseball games, but

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getting the braces paid for all those kinds of things.

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I'm passionate about this guy

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because my biggest regret in life is how much

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I worked when my kids were young.

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And Gina has a cool story about

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a painter that, can kind of

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highlight what we're going to start talking about in

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the Tool Belt Empire. So you want to talk about your

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painter?

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>> Gina de Shazer: Sure. So, I had my house painted. Only did half

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of it. Could only afford half at a time, and it had

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been a couple years, and I kept thinking, I need to get this done. I need this

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done. Life gets in the way. You get busy

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and I forget about.

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>> Lani Dickinson: It, but not the time.

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>> Gina de Shazer: And now I have the money and not the time. And I keep forgetting to

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call him. And I get an email one day that says, or might

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have even gotten a text, I don't know. Anyway, it said

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10% off if you scheduled before

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this time. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I got toa do this. I

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mean, everyone wants to save 10%, right? And

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so I called him, he came out, reooked at it, gave

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it to me, and I was talking to him and I was like, that was so

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cool. That's what got me. I was like, how's it going

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with that? And he was like, oh, my gosh, I'm booked out for three months

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now. And so as we were talking

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about this last night, it's funny that today I got another email from

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him. Now we're doing a 20% off summer special. I

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don't anything else to paint, but.

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>> Lani Dickinson: But you would.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Great. I would if I could's.

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>> Lani Dickinson: 20% is better than 10.

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>> Gina de Shazer: So that tells me that he's used up his last one.

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And I's got to go after more. And so that's one of the things that we're going

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to talk about later is that roller coaster of I've got a lot

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of business. I don't have a lot of business. I got a lot of business. Don't have

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any. So.

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>> Lani Dickinson: And how between business strategy

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and tech wizardry,

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we can stamp that out for you. I have

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a similar, ah, experience with

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handyman home service. gentlemen,

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I always have a honeyd do list this

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long. And my husband's an attorney. He's not really

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interested in doing it. He grew up on a farm as a farmer's

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kid. So anything that looks like manual labor, it

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kind of hearkens back to when it was 108 degrees and he

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was trimming fig trees. So he

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pretends like he doesn't know how to do anything even though he can fix a

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diesel tractor. And so anyway,

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I moved into a new house and I

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wanted this wi fi bird feeder

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installed. My husband's

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like, you're goingna have to wait till Josh comes home. That's my son who

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lives eight hours away, who also doesn't want to

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do my honeyd do list. So I saw this guy

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posting in the Facebook group for my town.

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I do chicken coops, I do this, I do that.

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You know, all the things he could do looking for work. So I

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messaged him, I'm like,

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could you do my wifi bird feeder? Like, you

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know, it's kind of weird asking for that.

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And he's like, yeah, I can be there, you

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know, Tuesday or whatever. He pours concrete in

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the hole, puts it on a thing, figures out the

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Wii.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Great.

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>> Lani Dickinson: You'got any bird feeder? I'm like, no. He says, I'm running to the hardware

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store. I could pick you up some bird feeder. I was just like,

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so this is what you do? I mean, I've

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been, you know, busy in corporate,

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for that whole career, 28 years. Like, I didn't do any

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of this kind of stuff in my house. It just was, you know,

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whatever, whatever was there stayed there.

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Then fast forward. I wanted a picture

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hung. And my husband was

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like, I gotta get the level, blah, blah, blah. I

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was like, I'll text Jason. So I

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text Jason, he's like, oh, yeah, he hangs the picture,

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you know. And so then as I've gotten to

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know HM him because he's done a lot of projects.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Yeah, I'm sure.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Got moss off the roof, he's cleaned the gutters.

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I can't even list all the things he's done, he's done all the

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things on all the lists. I've said you are the person

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who actually does all the honey do list and

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keeps women from nagging their

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husbands six months at a time. And he

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does bigger jobs too. You know, he does landscaping and

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concrete and gazebos and you know, all the things.

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And I said, we got a, you know, he's

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managing on text and I know what's possible and all

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those things. We got to get you, into this. So we talk about door

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hangers and QR codes. He gets the door

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hangers but didn't get the QR code,

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paid some guy to hang on the doors. He got busier. But it

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was another not using everything that's

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available, which is the episode you're talking about that we'll

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record here in a few.

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and so he's working twice and five times as

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hard as he needs to when really we

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could set up all these automations and

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have things just happening in the business

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growing. He's to the point where now he has

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one person, one helper. But

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he's about to, with our help, get to the place where he

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at. He has people who do the work and he leverages their

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time and he doesn't have to do all the physical work and can take

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on more jobs, which means.

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Can manage. Exactly.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Manage his business or not.

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>> Lani Dickinson: His wife doesn't have to get on the roof anymore.

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you think I'm kidding?

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She's tougher than the most men,

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so she doesn't have to get on the roof anymore. Family

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vacations, you know, all the

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things. He's an amazing provider for his family

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and that's to me, you know, like, let's help

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these people

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provide and not struggle

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through that.

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you mentioned you guys used to own stores.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Yes.

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>> Lani Dickinson: And you know how this stuff would have

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changed your struggle there.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Huband tells me all the time, if you don't know, if we didn't know and

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then what you know now and how to do it

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because I was not into this. It was tech business, but it

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wasn't this. We would have been, you

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know, I mean, we did well, but we would have been so much

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better off.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah.

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>> Gina de Shazer: And it wouldn't have been, as stressful on us because we were those

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people that had jobs, big jobs, and

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we'd go out and do them and we didn't have anyone looking

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forward for us. And so when that big job was over, we're like,

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okay, now what? What's going to bring in money

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now? Yeah. And so then we're got to go out and try to hustle

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and find that next job.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Y.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Whereas if we had this implemented, it would just been

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a continual flow of leads instead

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of going and finding them one at a

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time.

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>> Lani Dickinson: So that's what the Tool Belt empire is going to be all about.

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we have this hindsight is 2020 vision. Me

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from my corporate career and all the regret I

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had for how much time I work. Gina just talked about

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how this, what we know and do for other people

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now would have massively changed that

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business. And between us, I

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feel like we have comprehensive business

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strategy. Like you don't want to do that. Okay, great. We'll do this way

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you got to look at the whole thing, not just sell, you Facebook ads.

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We don't even do Facebook ads. There's a lot to do

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before you ever need to spend money on Facebook ads.

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And you talked about

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this last night. We listened differently. We're not like the

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bro culture. We're not your bro coach

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saying suck it up. But

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we listen.

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>> Gina de Shazer: We listen. Sorry men, but we're women and

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we listen to what you're saying and what your

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needs really are and not try to push on you. What,

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we think you need ye. So

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we're not building something that only. That's just going to be a

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cookie cutter.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Everyone's going to be different because we're gonna listen to your needs

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and tailor this to what you need.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Right. We also talked about last night.

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We've been through marriages. I'm 34 years.

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How far are you 40.

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We have sons. Well, we have daughters too, but we have

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sons. We've been through good

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businesses. We've been through the struggle with businesses. We, you

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know, we've owned, managed, grown other

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businesses besides this one. This is like, you know,

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yeah, five or six for me.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Me too.

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>> Lani Dickinson: But this is really all about

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becoming booked out.

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In a way that isn't about hustle. So we're

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building the Tool Belt Empire. And our podcast is going to

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be called Booked Out Radio. So you're

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starting to get to know what, you know me from Freedom to

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Exit. And some of you who are normal Freedom to

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Exit listeners might say, wait, what's happening to Freedom

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to Exit? we still got good stuff coming for you, but we're rolling

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this out here first. The content

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still applies. It's the same stuff. These

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people will just be a little earlier stage than

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somebody who's fully ready to exit. But.

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The people who listen to Booked Out Radio will

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definitely be building out all the things that

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lead to the ability to exit for

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more. So with that,

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anything else you want them to know about you? That's

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like. This is why Gina

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Deshaseer is the bomb diggity.

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she doesn't brag about herself. Nice.

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>> Gina de Shazer: No. I think just because of

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what I went through with the stores

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and then the brick and mortar and the. It was

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service based, but it was also brick and

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mortar. You talked about. You had the heart for that. That's why

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I have the heart for these people, because I know

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the struggle. I've been there. I can't just. I'm not just

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saying it, because I read about it. I struggled itah.

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I went through it.

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>> Lani Dickinson: And then you have a group of clients that aren't focused

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on this. A whole different group of clients that you, work with

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this. So they're in a similar.

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Similar boat.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Yeah. Service industry.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah. Who only use part of what's

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available and who are doing things on

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sticky.

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>> Gina de Shazer: Well. And who is busy doing their own.

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They're busy running their business. They can't keep up with

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tech.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Yeah.

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>> Gina de Shazer: As fast as it's changing. So that's what I

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do as I keep up with it.

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>> Lani Dickinson: Gina did the coolest thing for me. I didn't know this was possible. And

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I'm. I'm not your least

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educated client, right?

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>> Gina de Shazer: No.

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>> Lani Dickinson: I'm having her build a wedding site for my daughter.

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And I come home and, she says, oh, I put

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this stuff over here. And it just created a

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website for all the locations, the date

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details. She just fed it the information and it popped out a

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website that she made look a little prettier. But I was

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like, what?

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You did what? So the thing

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about that is we have to not know what we

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don't know. And it's something that can make our life

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so much easier. How much did we used to pay people to build

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websites?

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>> Gina de Shazer: I don't even want to tell how much you've paid for websites.

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>> Lani Dickinson: And now it was just like, let me put some.

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You had the website few hours and it looks

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good. So we are very excited

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about the tool, but Empire booked out

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radio and we are

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looking forward to you joining us for our next couple

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of episodes.

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And eventually this. We're going to do maybe

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five or six, and then we'll move it to its own space and then

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I'll be squarely focused back on, freedom to exit

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content. But we'd love to have you along with us.

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And, even better, if you use

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tools anything you want to say Nop

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all it. We will see you in the next episode

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called the Five Hidden Leaks Bleeding your business

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dry. Now if that doesn't get you back, I don't know what

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will. Thanks so much for joining and always

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if you know someone who needs this information, should get

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on board with this. Subscribe, Share the link,

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leave a comment all those things. Thanks so much.