Chris Ducker began his career in the sales and marketing industry back in his hometown of London, England. In 2000 he up-rooted himself and moved to the Philippines, where he has resided ever since. In 2010 he started an outsourcing-based company, Virtual Staff Finder, which focuses on match-making busy Entrepreneurs with high-quality, home-based Virtual Assistants in the Philippines.
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Resource Mentioned:
- Your Big Idea: Successful Entrepreneurs have One Big Idea. Follow JLD’s FREE training & you’ll discover Your Big Idea in less than an hour!
Success Quote
- “The way to be nothing is to do nothing.” – unknown.
Business Failure
- Chris was two payrolls away from being out of money. His drastic step of firing his ONLY client and putting his staff on hold produced interesting results… you’ll have to listen!
Entrepreneurial AHA Moment
- Chris was 35,000 feet high when his AHA moment slapped him in the face. The very next day, he was busy putting his plan in action.
Current Business
- Chris is running Virtual Staff Finder and now has over 300 employees. Listen to his awesome vision for the future!
Small Business Resource
- BaseCamp: Project management software, online collaboration.
- Huddle: The Enterprise Content Collaboration Platform.
Best Business Book
- Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump.
- The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau.
Interview Links
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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Full Transcript
John Lee Dumas: Hire Fire Nation and thank you for joining me for another episode of EntrepreneurOnFire.com, your daily dose of inspiration. If you enjoy this free podcast, please show your support by leaving a rating and review here at iTunes. I will make sure to give you a shout out on an upcoming showing to thank you!
John Lee Dumas: Okay. Let’s get started. I am simply exhilarated to introduce my guest today, Chris Ducker. Chris, are you prepared to ignite?
Chris Ducker: I am ready, my man! In fact, I’m already 50% ignited already.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] I love it! Chris began his career in the sales and marketing industry back in his hometown of London, England. In 2000, he uprooted himself and moved to the Philippines where he has resided ever since. In 2010, he started another outsourcing-based company, Virtual Staff Finder, which focuses on matchmaking busy entrepreneurs with high quality home-based virtual assistants in the Philippines.
I’ve given Fire Nation a little overview, Chris, but why don’t you take it from here? Tell us a little bit about you personally. We want to get to know you. And then launch into what you do with your business.
Chris Ducker: Sure. Rock and roll! Well, okay. I mean you gave a pretty good background there in terms of how I sort of came to be where I am now here in the Philippines. It’s twelve-and-a-half years, and yes, I’m a sales and marketing guy, man. That’s what it is. I don’t try and sugarcoat it. I’m a sales guy. It is what it is. But for me personally, it’s really been the last 6 years where I have really kind of put my foot down on the gas and gone big time on the entrepreneurial side of things. I guess we’ll get into more of the story behind that, but ultimately, I’m all about leveraging time and helping people with outsourcing and things like that. But at the end of the day, man, I’m just a hardcore hustler and entrepreneur, just like all of us out there, and that’s really what it comes down to.
John Lee Dumas: I love that, Chris. We’re definitely going to delve more into that later, so a little teaser for the rest of the audience that are listening closely right now. We’ll use that to transition to our first real topic, which is our success quote because EntrepreneurOnFire, we’re all about getting the motivational ball rolling and we want to get people pumped up for this awesome content that you’re going to be sharing with us, Chris. So what do you have for us, Fire Nation?
Chris Ducker: Okay. So this is something that was left on the back of a business card by my father and scotch-taped to my bedroom wall. Well, bedroom door rather when I was 16 and failing my exams terribly by not studying and spending too much time playing basketball and flirting with girls. I came back one day and there was one of his business cards taped onto my door, and on the back of it he had written, “The way to being nothing is to do nothing.” To this day, I have no idea where he got that from. I’m sure it wasn’t from him personally. He was a smart guy, but I don’t think he’s that smart to come up with something that’s poetic.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Chris Ducker: It certainly got me off my backside. That’s for damn sure. From that moment onwards, I really kind of knuckled down. I did have to retake some of my exams that I’d already taken and failed horribly in the next year, but everything that I already kind of put my mindset to and really focused on, studying for the rest of the exams that were out there. So that really is my big success quote. If you think about it logically, if you do do nothing, if you do just sit around waiting for something to drop into your lap, the chances of that actually happening are pretty damn slim. So that’s really what it comes down to, is the way to be nothing is to do nothing.
John Lee Dumas: I love that quote, and you obviously applied that back in the year 2000, which before we delve into the next topic, let’s just sit here and talk for one second, Chris, about your decision to move from London, England to the Philippines. Give us a little bit of the background, then the actual move, and then the reasoning behind it.
Chris Ducker: Well, I had gone through a couple of personal changes in my life. My first marriage had broken down, my mother had passed away in the late ‘90s and I was at a place I guess personally where I was just wanting a little bit of a change of scenery, above and beyond everything else. I got offered an opportunity to come work over here in the Philippines, training a very large telemarketing section for one of the banks here. I kind of just took the opportunity by the horns, so to speak, and came over. It was a one year contract, which then got renewed, and then I ended up getting poached by a rival bank locally to do exactly the same thing for them. I went from one sort of consultation role to another for the first sort of 4, 5 years of being in the country, but it really came about more than anything else, John, it came about from a personal circumstance and wanting to sort of I guess kind of start again a little bit. I’m glad I made the move because I wouldn’t be where I am now today if I had not done so.
John Lee Dumas: Absolutely! Most of us find ourselves in that situation at some point in our lives, and I really just commend you for one, taking the action, and two, for being able to, because sometimes for whatever reason, we’re not always able to pull that trigger. So you made the move. The results show themselves. So congratulations on that, Chris. I love to see that kind of entrepreneurial spirit. We’ll use that as we continue on and talk about your journey as an entrepreneur. At EntrepreneurOnFire, we really like to talk about the failures or the obstacles or the challenges that all entrepreneurs face every single day. But again, this is about your journey. So let’s go back to a time when you really faced a major challenge or had a real tough obstacle that you had to overcome and take us through that and how you actually did overcome that obstacle.
Chris Ducker: Sure. I started my company in early 2008 and we had been in business for about three months or so. We were just working with one client at the time. It was on a performance basis, but I figured that we could do the job really, really well, and we did do the job really, really well. But that client ended up kind of screwing us over by not paying us on all of the work on a biweekly basis that we had done for them. So we [were short] on all these money, we weren’t getting paid back on it properly, we knew they were screwing us over, we were recalling a lot of the work and checking it out and things like that. And so after what? Three-and-a-half or four months or so of starting the company, investing close to about US$80,000 into starting the company and getting it up and running, we were almost bankrupt. We had enough money for like two more payrolls with our 15 odd staff at the time. I didn’t sleep that night and stayed up in front of a whiteboard, trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this. The only way to really be able to do it was to fundamentally fire the client – my only client – put all of my staff on hold for a couple of weeks and to do kind of what I did best all those years ago back in London, and that was to pick up the telephone and call [and call].
That’s exactly what I did. I was calling small to medium-sized businesses all over the US and the UK, offering our outsourced calling services. In a couple of weeks, I’d already closed sort of 5 to 10 seats’ worth of business. I continued to do that pretty regularly for the next sort of 4 to 5 months or so until we were at a nice number again, and then those accounts obviously started growing quite naturally. Here we are, 5 odd years almost later and we’ve got almost 300 staff. So it was an interesting time. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of sleepless nights, but ultimately, it led us to still stay in business. But it was a tough one, and like I said, the only way to really get over it was to fire the client, which was our one and only client at the time. So it was really grabbing the bull by the horns and just saying, “You know what? If I don’t do this now, we’re not going to be in business anyway.” So it was a complete pivot in regards to the way that we charged for our businesses, looked for our clients and everything. So it was a scary time, but we got through it.
John Lee Dumas: You definitely got through it, Chris. If you could just pull out one clear lesson that you experienced from that that you could really walk away from that you’ve applied to the rest of your entrepreneurial journey, what would that be?
Chris Ducker: Without a doubt, the biggest lesson I learned in that whole situation was not to put all my eggs in one basket and to try and diversify my income as much as possible.
John Lee Dumas: I love it! Chris, let’s go to the other end of the spectrum now. You’ve been very generous. You’ve shared with us a challenge, a failure that you encountered and how you overcame that and you pivoted and you just created what you have today and it’s very inspiring to behold. But we also have that other end of the spectrum, which is the aha moment, which is when that light bulb just comes on and you just have this moment when you just realize, “Wow! This is going to resonate so well with such a large audience or customer base out there.” Tell us about that aha moment and how you’ve actually utilized that mentality in your business career.
Chris Ducker: Okay. So the aha moment was at 35,000 feet coming back from Miami, Florida to the Philippines. I had been working pretty much exclusively as a consultant for a supplement company based over in Florida. I’ve been with them for about a year-and-a-half or so and was making a hell of a lot of money with them and for them. I had spent an entire month in Miami, working directly with the owner of the business, who happened to also be the most micromanaging pain in the butt you could potentially ever think about working for, to the point where he had to receive a copy of all of my emails. He had to be BCCed into all my emails. He would set up meetings face-to-face when I was in town, and then control the entire meetings and have me sitting there like a complete lemon. So really, I was on my way back on that flight and I said to myself, “Why the hell am I doing this? Why am I helping this guy make all this money to be treated literally like a second rate employee?” because that’s not what I was in my mind anyway.
That was the aha moment. That was the moment when I said, halfway back to Asia, I said to myself, “I’m not going to work for anybody anymore. I’m going to start my own thing.” So that was the aha moment of me wanting to become and knowing that I should have become an entrepreneur already in my life, but I hadn’t done so. That was the real light bulb moment for me, and the moment I touched down, my wife picked me up from the airport. I said to her, “I’m done. I’m quitting. I’m going to send my resignation letter to this guy tomorrow and you and I are going to start looking for an office,” which is exactly what happened. I think what I got out of that more than anything else, not just in terms of the entrepreneurial lifestyle that I’ve been able to obviously create for myself and my family, but I think what I got out of that is a little bit of Richard Branson’s kind of screw it, let’s do it mentality.
John Lee Dumas: Yes!
Chris Ducker: You have that idea and you feel it and you just know that it’s going to work and you just know you have to do it and you can’t sit on your hands any longer, and it’s still something that I follow right now. I mean everything else that I’ve done since then, I’ve done with that kind of screw it, let’s do it mentality, and so far, so good [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: Love it! It’s obviously been so far, so good. Chris, I’m still just not quite done here though. Take us 0n an abbreviated journey of after you touched down, you made this declaration to your wife, you sent in your resignation letter, you got your office space or just sat down and you started game planning with your wife. Take us through that process.
Chris Ducker: I had been in the Philippines a long time up until that point. Almost eight years. In fact, yes, just over eight years. I had seen the outsourcing industry and the call center industry boom quite heavily within that time, particularly sort of 2003 upwards. I had been employed as a consultant or hired as a consultant by a number of small to medium-sized call centers within that time as well to help them set up and start from recruit and train and do all those sort of types of things as well. So it was a natural idea for me, it was a natural progression for me that I needed to take because I knew what was needed, I had the contacts locally, it was a business that I could get up and running relatively quickly in regards to operations and that sort of type of thing. Logistics and all that. The toughest part for me was finding the right kind of clients, and we struggled, like I said, at first with that, but after a while you start to gain some momentum and it just becomes a little bit easier.
John Lee Dumas: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that ground level with us. That is what’s so valuable to the listeners, is to actually hear how you go through these processes. On that note, Chris, have you had an I’ve made it moment?
Chris Ducker: I’ve been really blessed the last 4, 5 years or so and it’s got to the point where I’ve been able to have many whims, if you want to call it that. I think there’s really been one moment that I’ve really cherished above and beyond everything else, and that was hitting my 100th employee. The day I hired my 100th employee, I went out and bought my dream watch to celebrate and kind of give myself a pat on the back, not because I was getting my dream watch, but because I got to the point of hiring 100 people. I don’t look at them just as employees. I also look at them and I tend to look at things as if I’m supporting 100 families by getting that opportunity in their way as well. So yes, that was my kind of big I’ve made it moment, I think, in terms of my entrepreneurial career thus far.
John Lee Dumas: That’s a great I’ve made it moment, Chris, and I’m really just glad that you gave yourself that because it’s so important as entrepreneurs that we’re enjoying the journey because it’s so easy to get caught up in setting a goal and reaching that goal and then setting that next goal even higher and just continuing to drive forward and really lose focus of what’s important, and that is that this is a journey that we’re on. We need to enjoy our lives because this is the life that we’ve chosen.
Chris Ducker: Absolutely.
John Lee Dumas: So you’re giving yourself these milestones, you’re reaching them, you’re rewarding yourself, you’re patting yourself on the back. That is so good. That’s such a good lesson for all of us to take away from that. I really do commend you, Chris, for enjoying the journey. So Chris, you have so many exciting things going on right now in your business and your multitude of businesses. If you could just pick out one thing that’s really exciting you about what you’re doing right now, what would that be?
Chris Ducker: It’s the spice in general. My cooperation with Live2Sell, it kind of almost looks after itself nowadays. I don’t really have a lot to do with the day-to-day operations of that business anymore. So my major focus is now Virtual Staff Finder, which is the second business that I started in 2010. It’s my blog, ChrisDucker.com. I love that. That’s new to me and I thoroughly enjoy everything that I’m doing there. I’m also starting a new business which is the first co-working space here in Cebu. So I’m bringing a little bit of Silicon Valley to the Philippines as well, providing a space for entrepreneurs and startups to sort of get together and collaborate together and stuff like that, but for me, I think it’s just the space. It’s that overall space. We positioned ourselves so well. So just more and more people are just turning themselves on to the idea of working with VAs as well. You’ve got books like “The 4-Hour Workweek” and stuff which certainly help that as well. But I think just in general, entrepreneurs in general, we’re just at this time in our existence. It’s the 21st century now. I mean this is where everything is going to happen, and I think what happens in the next 20, 30 years is going to spearhead Western civilization for the next 200, 300 years probably. So it’s just an exciting time. The space in general is just awesome. I’m so excited about it.
John Lee Dumas: I couldn’t agree more, Chris. Speaking of exciting times, I did hear a rumor, speaking of ChrisDucker.com, your blog, that you’re starting a podcast?
Chris Ducker: I am. I’m getting back behind the mic or I’m getting back in the saddle, whatever you want to say! [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Chris Ducker: It’s been a while, man! When I closed down Virtual Business Lifestyle, which was my first blog which I started at the beginning of 2010, I never anticipated actually when I started that thing that I was even going to develop a podcast, and then I did it. We ran 50 episodes. It was very successful. I had some great guests on the show. I learned a lot. To be very frank with you, I started it purely for selfish reasons because I wanted to speak to all these people that I wanted to learn from and I didn’t want to have to pay them for consulting fees and stuff like that.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Chris Ducker: So it was a great way to play on people’s egos and get some free business chops out of it as well. So it was great and I thoroughly enjoyed podcast. I think it was just such a great avenue. I know you’re experiencing a bucket load of success yourself with EntrepreneurOnFire as well, so it’s very humbling for me to be part of that guest list that you’re building as well. I think the podcast for me is something I’m really, really, really excited about doing. I also have plans to potentially set up some sort of a web TV show going in the next year as well, but for me right now, the focus is going to be on the podcast for the remainder of the year and really just trying to [Unintelligible] as many great guests as I can, just like yourself.
John Lee Dumas: Well I’m excited for you, Chris. I have no doubt that you’re going to be wildly successful in your podcasting venture. It’s just even such a different landscape than what you were experiencing back when you had yours in the 2010 era because of the explosion of smartphones, everybody has one in their hands right now.
Chris Ducker: Oh yes.
John Lee Dumas: You have iTunes, who have just made a separate podcasting app. So now podcasting is out on its own, exposed, right there for everybody to grasp onto. Stitcher Radio came out of nowhere, and now they’re going to be in the dash of every single 2013 car that rolls off the lot. So pretty soon you’re going to be able to turn to your Chris Ducker podcast station and just hear yourself that easily without having to download and sync up. I mean this is where the future is going. It’s going to be everybody’s on demand, free, amazing, targeted content for that niche that you choose. As you can see, I’m super passionate about it. I can’t wait for people like yourself, with the quality experience and knowledge that you have, to join us in this, and I just have a great personal vision for the future. On that note, Chris, share with us a little bit of a vision that you have for your future.
Chris Ducker: Well, I think really what I want to sort of try and focus on now going forward is just on creating a bit of a one stop shop for entrepreneurs, for business owners that want to learn how to market and grow their businesses in today’s economy because I do a lot of speaking, particularly in the last couple of years. My speaking career has really done very well internationally. The one thing that I’ve seen, that there’s two very unique groups of entrepreneurs out there. On one hand you’ve got the kind of younger, very tech savvy. They know what a tweet is. They get the idea of podcasts and blogging and social media and all that stuff, but they have no real business shops. They’ve got no real business experience under their belt.
And then on the other hand, you’ve got some very, very successful business owners. Some, millionaires that are maybe borderline baby boomer type of age group. They want to continue growing their businesses, they’re still very active with what they’re doing in the growth and the marketing of their business, but they’ve hit this brick wall because times have changed over the last 10 years, particularly, and the way that we market and grow our businesses has changed along with those times as well. So they’ve hit this brick wall where they’re successful. They’ve done a great deal of business in their life already, but nowadays they’re struggling with learning how to market and manage and grow these businesses in the 21st century.
So that really is my plan of attack now going forward. Everything from working with virtual staff, obviously, right [away] through the marketing and building of support networks and automation and all that sort of stuff. For me, that’s really the passion going forward, is to just try and help as many people as I can with all that stuff.
John Lee Dumas: That’s an exciting vision, Chris. I am totally onboard with you. I just look forward to the melding of the two age groups and understanding of everything technology-wise and a lot of good things are coming out. You’re right. The next 20 to 30 years are pivotal. On that note, Chris, we’ve now reached my favorite part of the show, which is the Lightning Round. This is where I get to ask you a series of amazing questions and you come back with mind-blowing answers. Does that sound like a plan?
Chris Ducker: You didn’t tell me about anything that needed to be mind-blowing, right? [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] I’m putting you on the spot!
Chris Ducker: [Unintelligible] you sneaky so and so! I’ll do my best. I promise.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] Oh, I love the so and so part. You’re keeping this clean for me. Thank you.
Chris Ducker: [Laughs] Well it’s your podcast. On mine, I wouldn’t be doing it [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] I love it! I’m going to remember that when I’m on.
Chris Ducker: Right.
John Lee Dumas: So Chris, what was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?
Chris Ducker: Easy. Fear of failure. I was a young dad. I was worried about my making the money to be able to provide for my family. Plain and simple. As simple as that.
John Lee Dumas: What is the best business advice you ever received?
Chris Ducker: It was a 55 year old friend of mine who’s a multimillionaire. He’s very successful. He owns 5 or 6 businesses still now. He works [not more than an hour to a day] [Unintelligible], but he said to me, “Work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year for 5 years and you’ll be a millionaire.” I said, “Well that’s great. I’m all out for the millionaire thing, but I’m not working like that!” [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Chris Ducker: That’s incredible! But we joked at the time because that’s what he needed to do back in his 30s when he started his businesses. I said, “Well time to change, man. We’ve got these guys that are called virtual assistants who can help us out with that stuff now.” So yes, that was really the best part. It really comes down to it doesn’t matter exactly how many hours you put in, but it’s the hustle. You got to hustle, man. You got to hustle. You got to go after it. Every day I go after it. I wake up and I go after it immediately and I don’t stop until I’m done every day.
John Lee Dumas: I’m with you, Chris. I’m all about the hustle.
Chris Ducker: Yes. You got to be!
John Lee Dumas: What’s something that’s working for you or your business right now?
Chris Ducker: Content marketing. Times have changed. We used to do a lot of SEO. We don’t do any SEO at all now. We’re all about creating original content, repurposing it, marketing it, and then the flipside of that coin is then building relationships with our prospective and our existing client bases instead of trying to pitch them or to sell products or services to them. They’re the two things that we’re really enjoying right now and we’re going to continue to focus on.
John Lee Dumas: So Chris, I’m actually going to craft this next question specifically to you because I get emailed quite often, “How do you it all as just one person?” and of course then, I bring up virtual assistants and I talk about Virtual Staff Finder and my great experience with it. The continuous question that comes right back to me is, “Well how do I know if and when they’re working?” Which is just an obvious question that everybody just seems to have. For me, I just have an amazing relationship with my virtual assistants. We just stay in great touch throughout the course of every single day. But for people that really, that that’s stopping them from moving forward, do you have an Internet resource or a tool that you recommend like a TimeDoctor or something along those lines that you found has been very effective in managing virtual assistants/employer relationships?
Chris Ducker: No. I don’t, actually. My stance on those kind of time-tracking, screenshots-taking type of software is they’re detrimental to a virtual working relationship, particularly between a boss and a VA. Nobody likes to be spied on, and by doing things like that, you’re fundamentally becoming a virtual vulture. You know what I mean? I think in terms of working with virtual assistants and making sure that they’re remaining productive and that they’re on the [boar], I don’t think that’s the way to do it. And I know for a fact that they bloody hate it. They really, really, really hate it, and I’ve met, trained and worked with hundreds of VAs over the last few years alone, and I know they really, really dislike it. But there is one type of tool that I think every person should be working with when it comes to day-to-day operations or day-to-day interactions with their VAs, and that’s some kind of project management system. Whether it be something like Basecamp or Huddle or whatever the case may be. Something that is going to take you away from the inbox, going to take you away from the Skype chats, because that just slows down productivity for both parties throughout the course of the day.
I don’t know about you. I hate email. I do have to spend a certain amount of time every day in email. I think we all do, right, in this day and age, but if there’s anything I can do to break my email down and to get less of it, I’ll do it, and working with a project management system really does allow everything to be sort of kept in one place in terms of messages and tasks and deadlines and all that sort of stuff. I would say one of the worst things to do with your inbox is to use it as a to do list. So you get all that stuff out and you use a project management system with your VAs, and that will cause a massive amount of productivity between the two parties.
John Lee Dumas: I couldn’t agree more. I’m so glad to have gotten this answer from the Virtual Staff Finder master himself, Chris Ducker, because that is the advice that I always give, and I even take it kind of one step further and just really tell people that, “Listen, I make my VAs feel like they’re part of my team. It’s not myself, the founder of EntrepreneurOnFire. It’s us. We are EntrepreneurOnFire. This is our brand. Together, we’re going to grow this company.” I give them a lot of responsibility. I was a military officer for eight years so I really realize how important how people react to responsibilities that’s being given to them and how they’ve reacted to that added responsibility has just been phenomenal and it’s really just made them take ownership for what they do, and they take pride in it now. That is always my suggestion and I’m really glad to hear that I’m not doing something pretty wrong here.
Chris Ducker: No, no. You’re right. I can tell you something right now, you’re doing something that a lot of people don’t do in regards to fermenting and growing and taking that relationship so important and so seriously because Filipinos particularly – and obviously with Virtual Staff Finder, we focus on the Philippine market – but with Filipinos particularly, they’re very,
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very family-orientated. If you can create that family environment or that family feeling within that working environment, then you’re really off to the races with your Filipino VAs. So you’re doing some good things, John. I don’t think you have too much to worry about.
John Lee Dumas: Awesome! Chris, I could keep talking about this, but we’ll move on to the next question. What is your favorite business book?
Chris Ducker: Good God, that’s a tough one! The most favorite of all time business book? I think “The Art of the Deal” by Donald Trump. That’s what business is. Business is just one long never ending deal and never ending negotiation [Unintelligible] way you look at it. It’s an old book. I’m sure he could probably come up with something way better now if he was to sit down and actually really write a book properly instead of just dictating, which is obviously what he’s been doing for the last 10 years or whatever.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Chris Ducker: But I think The Art of the Deal for me from a real true blue entrepreneurial standpoint is just a great, great, great book. Another book actually more recently that I read that I really thoroughly enjoyed was “The $100 Startup” by Chris Guillebeau. What I enjoyed about that was there’s great stories, great people, real life stories, very inspiring, and just the book in general is brilliantly crafted and put together from one chapter to another. So yes, those are a couple of books you can put on your reading list if you haven’t already read them.
John Lee Dumas: Awesome, Chris! Thank you for that. This is the last question, and it’s my favorite, Chris. So you can take your time and digest it because it is kind of tricky. If you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world, identical to earth, but you knew nobody. You still have all the experience and knowledge that you currently have right now, but only $500, a laptop with Internet access and your food and shelter has been taken care of. What would you do in the next seven days?
Chris Ducker: Start a blog and start creating content to help people solve a problem for people. I think that’s the way we’re going. I think we’re back in the ‘50s, the ‘40s, the ‘30s already. I think people don’t want to do business with brands anymore. I think people want to do business with people and I think that we’re more likely to walk three blocks and pay Bob the baker more money because we know Bob and his family and we know what he’s all about rather than walk another couple of blocks and get that loaf of bread from a large supermarket chain at 25% less. I think we’re at that time now where it’s all about the P2P. Not B2B or B2C.
John Lee Dumas: I love that, Chris. That’s just a phenomenal insight, and you’ve just given us incredible insights throughout this entire interview. You’ve been so generous with your time with Fire Nation, with our listeners, and we salute you for that. Give us one parting piece of guidance, then give yourself a plug, and then we’ll say goodbye.
Chris Ducker: A lot of people ask me, particularly [Unintelligible], if you could go back and do one thing differently, what would you do? For me, as more of a traditional kind of brick and mortar kind of business owner before, I would have got active online a lot sooner. It didn’t happen for me until 2010, even though I’ve been running my own business and I’ve been active in terms of using the Internet for years and years and years. But I definitely would have built up my personal brand. I would have gotten more active online, networked more online and just become known a little bit more in the online space a lot sooner. So that’s really my one real kind of closing tip, is to go ahead and just – even if you’re just thinking about it, you’ve got to just do it. Just start a blog, start a podcast, start a YouTube channel. Whatever it is, just get active online and get your name out there a little bit because it’s becoming more and more important for us to be in that kind of realm nowadays as entrepreneurs. That’s really kind of like my closing tip there, to be honest with you, John.
In terms of a plug, it’s all about ChrisDucker.com and VirtualStaffFinder.com. As simple as that.
John Lee Dumas: Chris, thank you again. Keep that fire burning, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.
Chris Ducker: It’s burning, baby. Yes!
