77: Wantrepreneurs vs Entrepreneurs with Mickeli Bedore of Closers Media

Mickeli Bedore, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Closers Media, joins the show to talk about sales-informed marketing and how to incorporate user feedback into your product. Then Mickeli and Tim dive into why they have heat with pitch decks and the entrepreneur lifestyle before getting personal about how they deal with the roller coaster of emotions that comes with running your own business.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How becoming an expert in the problem you’re trying to solve can save you money
• Why speaking to your customers is the first step to building a digital product and where to begin with identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP)
• What to do with conflicting user feedback
• Why Mickeli and Tim have heat with pitch decks
• What the entrepreneur lifestyle is actually like
• How to balance the ups and downs of building a business
• Why Tim’s frustrated with the Space Jam remake

This episode is brought to you by The Jed Mahonis Group, where we make sense of mobile app development with our non-technical approach to building custom mobile software solutions. Learn more at https://jmg.mn.

Recorded April 16, 2021 | Edited by Jordan Daoust | Produced by Jenny Karkowski

Show Notes:

Mickeli Bedore on LinkedIn

Closers Media on LinkedIn

Closers Media website

Coffee and Closers podcast

Josh Fedie on LinkedIn

Episode Transcript:

Tim Bornholdt 0:00
Welcome to Constant Variables, a podcast where we take a non-technical look at what it takes to build and grow digital products. I'm Tim Bornholdt. Let's get nerdy.

A quick note before we get into this week's episode, we at The Jed Mahonis Group have a lot of fun projects coming in the door. And as a result, we're looking to expand our team. We're looking to hire an Android developer. So we at JMG place an emphasis on hiring for fit as opposed to skills. Skills are something that can be taught and fostered through mentorship and experience. Fit on the other hand, it's a lot harder to define. But we've outlined some of the traits we're looking for on our careers page. It's over at jmg.mn/careers. So whether you have 1 year of experience or 20 years of experience, it doesn't really matter. If you're interested in talking and or working with us, please reach out at careers@jmg.mn. We'll put that email address and a link to our careers page in the show notes as well.

Today, we are chatting with Mickeli Bedore, co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Closers Media, a community of top performers in love with teaching founders, teams, and those new to sales how to close more business. We at JMG have been working with Mickeli and his team for the last six months or so to help us define our outbound sales process. And I thought it would be interesting to have him on the show to discuss sales informed marketing and how to incorporate user feedback into your product. Now as it goes with me and Mickeli, sometimes we go a little bit off the rails. And we spent actually a pretty good chunk of time talking about the entrepreneur lifestyle, and how to deal with the roller coaster of emotions that one feels when running their own business. This is a really fun interview. So without further ado, here is my interview with Mickeli Bedore.

Mickeli, welcome to the show.

Mickeli Bedore 2:06
Thanks for having me, man. It's a true honor.

Tim Bornholdt 2:09
Right. I'm so glad you're here. We've been working together for the past few months on improving our sales process. And I'm sure like most people listening to this are going to be driven by your insane audience from Coffee & Closers. But why don't you take a second for those of you who haven't heard of the great Mickeli Bedore to just tell us about yourself and everything you're doing at Closers.

Mickeli Bedore 2:33
I'd love to. And one of the things I love about being on these shows is people say stuff like that, because my kids certainly don't. So I'm just gonna keep that on podcast. Because when I walk out of this office door, then that's when it hits the fan.

Tim Bornholdt 2:45
Reality sinks in for you.

Mickeli Bedore 2:47
Yeah, well, so, first and foremost, by my how I spend most of my days, I'm the number one fan of The Jed Mahonis. Group. And when I'm not tied up with that responsibility, I double as a host of Coffee & Closers, like you said, and I'm a Chief Revenue Officer of Closers Media.

Tim Bornholdt 3:01
And what does that mean? What do you do? Like how do you help people?

Mickeli Bedore 3:04
So we're in the business, Closers is in the conversion business. So we help b2b companies develop relationships with their ideal prospects, and then turn them into happy to pay customers.

Tim Bornholdt 3:15
Right on. That seems difficult.

Mickeli Bedore 3:18
Well, you know, it isn't actually. So I'll just tell you a little bit, I mean, you know, but for the audience, that for us, our big thing is everyone's ICP, ideal client profile, right? But we want to develop that for our clients is to not just find who's ideal, but find where we've had previous success, and then really whittle that down into just what we call pockets. And those pockets, we want to become experts in the pains and the challenges that are going on in that pocket of our ideal client profile. What's going on in their state, what's going on in, you know, their world, what new regulation's going on in their business, so on and so forth. And preparation is a big one when it comes to prospecting.

And then we focus on invitation based prospecting. So that would be some sort of reason to connect, that skips kind of those, you know, cold sales touches that we're all huge fans of, right. But kind of skip those to go right to the relationship developing. And there's a number of different things, because we are a media company, so we produce, we've got a bunch of different things that we're able to offer folks to make prospecting, not really comfortable, but effective. And then we have a conversion to close package, kind of a mix between a course and training. But basically, it's really focused on expectation setting. As you guys know, you've been a part of it. There is not a, you know, nothing's getting through the cracks of our sales system. But it's based around setting expectations upfront. It's based around establishing a firm agenda and follow up cadence and protocol and getting buy in from the other side. And what happens is that our prospects, or sorry, our clients close more disclose more deals faster, because we're big on closing in or closing one or closing out, and just removing all surprises and expectations, surprises and, you know, snafus. And so when the prospect goes through the sales cycle, they tend to buy, because if they're thinking, Man, if the sales process was this clean, I'm guessing the delivery will equally be as clean. And they're usually right.

Tim Bornholdt 5:24
Yeah, and I won't, I promise this won't be a commercial podcast about Closers. But I more highly recommend Mickeli if any of that resonated with you of issues you're having with your own business of getting sales in the door early and closing them quickly. I could not recommend Closers any highly, any more highly.

Mickeli Bedore 5:47
Thanks, man.

Tim Bornholdt 5:47
So yeah, Jenny, who you've been working with her as well. She does our marketing at JMG. And she helps me out with the podcast. She gives me an outline of notes to cover and she wrote down sales informative marketing slash frontline informed product development. And as somebody that is technical and does just app development all day, I don't know what any of that means, so.

Mickeli Bedore 6:13
Neither do. No, I'm kidding.

Tim Bornholdt 6:16
I hope you do otherwise me and Jenny have to have a conversation after this. But sales informed marketing, I can infer based off of that what that means. But why don't you explain kind of how you see sales and marketing kind of working together to drive your business forward?

Mickeli Bedore 6:33
Totally man. Well it's something that, I mean, Jenny and I have had conversations at length about it. And it's something that I tend to speak on a lot, because I'm passionate about it in regards to sales informed marketing and sales informed product development, right? I mean, you guys saw firsthand during our partnership, you know, my advice has always been, Become an expert in the pain you solve. Right? Dig deep, get to know what you're trying to solve. Why are you building this in the first place? Or why are you going on your own to start a service? What is the pain or the challenge that you uniquely solve? And then get out and explain this concept, especially in your world, in app development. Get out and explain, you know, this concept to fix this pain with as many people that you think that may have this pain as you possibly can get in front of and do this before you spend a dime building the damn thing. Because, you know, firsthand, I can say it's expensive, but it's easier to sit behind a keyboard, and code, right? Like it's expensive. But it's easier to have marketing do a bunch of work, Google searches, building assets, based on assumption of what your ICP wants and needs. And that's the reason why, in my opinion, there's so many products and startups that fail is because you're building marketing, and you're building a product around what you want, and what you know, not what your prospects. Here's the thing, man, getting out and having conversations with your ICP is free. I mean, outside of time, it's free, it costs nothing. And it's the most to date accurate feedback that you're ever going to get. So why don't people start there? The only thing I can think of is because they don't know where to start in regards to sales. And that's what we're here for.

Tim Bornholdt 8:13
Well, and a lot of times, you know, tying in mobile app development, it is so easy to build software. It's so easy to build an app. And I think a lot of people want to build an app for themselves and pat themselves on the back of, Look at how great my app is. And it solves my problem, whatever. But it's like as soon as they try to put it in the App Store, they don't talk to people beforehand. So it just becomes a market flop. And they could have spent six figures and even up to seven figures building the software out and they haven't talked to a single person that's going to buy it.

Mickeli Bedore 8:42
And maybe maybe I should say this, it's not easy for an idiot like me to make an app. It's easy for you because you're awesome at it. For most of us, it isn't, but it is easy to spend money. And that's I guess what my point was. Anyone can blow through cash. I mean, hello, look at our economy, you know, like anyone can blow through cash. That is easy. And it's what people do. They're like, Well, I don't want to get out and have conversations with something that I'm wildly passionate about and educated in. I would rather spend money for someone else to do it. Or I'd rather sit back and spend money, you know, having our developers code it. That concept doesn't make sense to me. But we've been doing this for seven years now. So it's starting to make more sense of why people do it. It's because getting out in front of customers is not your natural habitat. That's okay. Neither is the development room. I mean, I would be fired in 60 seconds if JMG hired me to do what you do. You'd be like, Oh, you don't even know how to this thing on. Yeah, nah.

Tim Bornholdt 9:41
We could train ya. But it's more of like the point of that is like, a lot of times when you're going out and wanting to build custom software, your first thought is not what do people actually want. Your first thought is, Oh, cool. I have an app, and like Oh, cool. I I've gone and done this. And like you said, it's really cool to go out and spend a lot of money, but it's not really cool when then you don't return the investment that you put into that app that you had built.

Mickeli Bedore 10:08
Not cool at all. Nor is it cool that you have to go back and get a corporate job because you burn through all your savings. You know what I mean, that's not cool either. And that's the thing, man, free. Even if you get out there, and you sound like a over caffeinated buffoon. It's free. And even if nobody says yes to you, you're still getting feedback to say, Oh, you know, like, okay, this is what they want. This is what they're saying. And then just ranking those features, ranking those things, you know, in regards to, Here's what people said the most. This feature showed up more than anything else. Like a bit like a survey, right? But then what are my resources? If it's just me coding, well I can't. Or I only have X amount of budget that I can burn, well, then that limits me. You know what I mean? Well that limits what I can do. But just build that, and keep selling the concept. And the more cash that you get through the door that can fund your thing.

I know that that's not popular, you know, opinion. I've always bootstrapped everything. We work with more PE firms and VC firms. So I love all those guys. I just, in my opinion, I'm really cheap. And so I'd rather get out there and do it. But also, that's how I learned. I mean, we've iterated our products and platforms here at Closers 1000 times, to our team's dismay. I mean, Garrio has about had it, you know. But it's because I sell. I am our frontline guy. That's purposeful. We have not hired a salesperson because I need to hear what are you saying no to. And then qualify that no. Right? And they go, Oh, so if we were to fix that, if we were to build it this way, would it be a no brainer to buy this platform from us? You know, they'll either say, yes. So guess who's calling in three months? Me? Or they're gonna say, no, which means they weren't a fan. Anyway, they were never gonna buy. So their feedback doesn't really matter to me now. You know.

Tim Bornholdt 12:09
With that, like, identifying your ideal customer profile, and figuring out who your customers are, where do you use tell people to begin with figuring out who these people are? Because it's like, it is easy to call up, once you know who they are, it is easy to go on LinkedIn and find 1000 whoever's that match your profile, but like, just formulating that profile from the beginning. Putting it in the context of our listeners, like if I'm building an app, and you're telling me I need to go out and talk to people that are going to use the app, like how do you go about thinking through who's going to use that app?

Mickeli Bedore 12:45
So we always joke that we're the laziest sales organization ever. And the joke is because we sell with our ears, so we listen, we confirm, we apply, we mirror. Chris Voss calls it mirroring. And all that does is when you present each stage, you're just repeating back to them what they told you, because you don't want to be wrong. But most importantly, we don't want to assume, you know what I mean. So the same applies with trying to find out who's your ICP, then who's your pockets within that? If you're building out, okay, so I hope we're not just speaking to one audience member who's the only startup, you know, I'm sure there's other people who will see this, but for those people, right? If you're building an app that does this, the chances are you've identified a pain and a challenge that this app is going to fix. I mean, maybe I'm crazy, but I don't anyone who's just blowing 100, you know, six figures on some magazine article they read and have no experience. That's got to be pretty rare. Right? Or no?

Tim Bornholdt 13:47
I would think so.

Mickeli Bedore 13:49
Okay, I hope so. So you have some experience. You have a familiarity. Where did that come from? Maybe it was a company you started before, or a company that you worked for. Heck, Target, 3M, they all count. You've had experience in that. So you've probably helped a customer or someone navigate through that. And that's where you begin. When we say lazy, it's because the obvious answers are right in front of your face, right? It's just hard when you're in your own zone, and you're in your own mind, because you're not seeing what we can see. Because we're not emotionally attached to any of this. We're only emotionally attached to you kicking ass. So that you tell your friends about Closers Media.

But what we'll do is, we'll take these, okay, so let's say you worked at, let's say you worked at UHD, UnitedHealth Group. So you have experience building applications for UHG. Right? But there's other UHGs out there. And what we want to do is we want to find those UHGs. What was the title of the person that you worked with on these projects? Oh, we find those types of titles right, then we want to learn a little bit more about what's going on in their industry and their market, and we come together with a mutual pain and challenge that's irrefutable. But you know, when I talk to folks in your industry, Tim, you know, there's a couple things that people are facing right now, because of this, that, and t he other thing, specifically in Florida where this rule and that rule. Are you guys facing that? And now I'm not a seller. I'm not hocking a product. I'm a doctor, I'm a consultant, I'm a partner, you know what I mean. And I didn't know that that new law just took place. Why? Because I'm in my own zone. So you come in, not as a seller, but you come in as a partner, and you have the experience, so you can speak as an authority. That's what we implement for our clients. Because to me, any other way, which is done many times, and I'm not just saying our clients. I'm saying even when I was in corporate, you'd see sellers just go at it with a shotgun. And you're like, What the hell. Think about how stressful it is to try and call into six different industries in a week or three different states. Like I had eight states when I was at NetSuite. I don't know what's going on Oklahoma and North Dakota at the same breath. How could I? It's impossible. So it's so much easier to put everything in a concise little pocket. And then, you know, prospect into that. And oh, by the way, you're an expert in their pain and challenges. You're teaching them something. Of course, I'm going to take that call, right? It's easy if you think about it. It's just people don't think about it, and they don't want to do the work. And once you do the work, selling is, I mean, I don't want to say easy, because again, just like you, coding is easy for you, the opposite for me. But like it becomes easy, because it's common sense, if you think about it, right? So our system kind of holds people accountable to do that. It allows them to leverage that. And then once they start reaching out, they're like, Man, this is kind of fun. Your words. So I'm kind of repeating what you told me like, This prospecting's kind of fun.

Tim Bornholdt 16:46
You mirroring me?

Mickeli Bedore 16:47
I am. I am.

Tim Bornholdt 16:52
So it's great., like, once you've identified your pocket, and you've identified who you want to sell to, then you actually go out and begin soliciting that feedback and kind of amassing all of this information. And we talk about this a lot on the show about how important it is to use user feedback and and use that to propel your development forward. How do you become an expert in knowing what to do with user feedback, though?

Mickeli Bedore 17:15
Well, that's good, because you're gonna get some conflicting stuff. I mean, you know, because here's what happens is when you when you go through it, so the reason why we even have these platforms, the conversion to close thing, and our, well, see, I'm not in marketing. So I don't know what we named, what the names are. But anyway, the prospecting thing platform. The reason why we launched those is because to get a ticket to Coffee and Closers, you just fill out a quick, and it's free, so you just fill out a quick thing. We started doing it, because we want to make sure that the content and the guests we had were connecting, but what we found when COVID kind of slowed us down a bit, is we're like, Man, people, they love Coffee & Closers, but it ends, and then they have 29 days in between to figure it out, you know. And so they were missing these two things. And there's two buckets, our clients fall into, some, they just need more conversations. They need conversations with the right people. So that they can, you know, turn those, close them. And then the other bucket is they got all the leads, they've got the conversations, but they just can't turn those relationships, those conversations into paying customers, like, so we have two offerings for those. I'm not smart enough to come up with that myself. Our audience told us what they wanted. And we built it around that. And then when I'm out selling it and delivering it, our team is anyway, I'm always asking what we can improve on, what we can do better. Okay. But you see how we have two offerings? Because we had confliction. People were like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm all good. If I had more leads, well, then I could close more deals, which we both have is not true. Because then you see the other side where people are like, No, no, no, no, no, that's not true at all. I've got tons of leads over here. I can't convert them. That was conflicting feedback, if we were to try and select what's one product we should build, so we built two based on that feedback.

So when it comes to what to do with user feedback, to me is, find a rhythmic pattern of what they're actually saying. Because you and I might say tomato, you might say tomato, it's the same thing, right? People are gonna be probably coming up with the same thing, if they understand the pains and challenges of the industry that they're in that your product or tool service or whatever could fix. And so just filtering that out to say, All right, I'm hearing prospecting. A lot of people need help with prospecting. I'm hearing that a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. Okay, okay, we got a few over here with conversion and then so we focus on this and then, Oh, you know, we've got a lot of people that are now they're getting all these leads in and they're getting these conversations, but they can't convert. Well guess what they want now. They want to know how to close them. So now we build that, but I don't anything based on what I want. Because I've done that two or three other startups, two startups for sure that didn't work out, because I thought I was going to build it for what I thought they wanted, without doing any research. And the best form of research, like we said, is getting feedback from your customers.

So I don't know if that answered your question, but basically, to me is I rank the feedback that I'm getting that seems to seems to be the biggest volume of that exact feedback. And then I look at that feedback and say, Can I afford to make this pivot? Can I afford to make this update to the app? Can it afford to do it? Because, you know, you can have all the feedback in the world. But if you don't have the resources to make that pivot, then you know, you should probably stay where you're at, and just explain the value that your current product offers, until you have the money to, you know, fix it. Right?

Tim Bornholdt 20:46
Yeah. It's tough sometimes. Because if you go out and ask, you know, 20 different people in your audience, What should Closers be creating as their product? You're gonna get 20 different pieces of feedback. But I think you you really nailed it with finding the rhythms in it and trying to, you get a lot of noise when you go out and ask people of what you should do with your product. And what you're looking for are those little signals and those little pieces that you can see more people are talking to than not. And like you said, it's not even tomato, tomato, like, that's too close. It'd be more like tomato and apple, and you're like, Okay, well, they want some kind of reddish looking fruit. What do we do now? And trying to find a way to like, because yeah, customers rarely come right out and tell you, in my experience, like you have to do a lot of that footwork. When you're asking people for feedback is you have to do some inferring and figure out like, What are they not saying? And what are their, like, actual pain points? And that was what you had said earlier, too, about thinking about pain and being an expert in other people's pain. It's like, you have to not necessarily come out and say, Do you want a tomato? You have to come out and say like, Well, are you hungry? Are you making a BLT? Are you like, you know, growing crops? Like there's, there's so many different things that lead to the tomato, but you have to figure out all the back story and kind of understand their issues before you can really diagnose the solution as tomato.

Mickeli Bedore 22:22
Oh, totally. Man. That's the other thing, right? It's, What is the desired outcome that they want to achieve? Like you said with the BLT, and the tomato, you know, what is the desired outcome? Because how many times, I just had a guy the other day, it was actually a great conversation, he was pitching me on something. And he's like, Well, you know, you're going to need this for that. But these things over here, at this point, you know, maybe later, but not, you don't what I mean, like coming at it like that to say, Well, here's what I want to accomplish with this app, this tool, this whatever, like,as a prospect, or as a client, you know, so when I get feedback, challenges, I'm gonna say, Well, what will that do for your business? What will that do for this app? What will that do for the user experience? Sometimes you're like, I don't know, man, I just read it somewhere. And I just thought I'd throw a buzzword out, you know what I mean, by someone else, because they'll admit it and be like, I actually don't even know what that means. And you can be, Well, I think, what you're meaning is this, right? And the product does that, or it doesn't, or whatever, but you don't really need it today, because of this workaround, or whatever. I just don't code but like, again, man, we're not selling here. We're having conversations and building relationships and coming in as a trusted advisor who's their equal at the thing, at building apps, whereas they're equal at whatever skill set they have, and coming in that way.

Tim Bornholdt 23:47
What do you do, like, I think it's interesting when you were saying with the issues that you were seeing, hearing, from your customers with Closers how you decided, you know, some people were saying prospect, prospect prospect, and some people were saying close, close, close. And you're just hearing all sorts of conflicting feedback. And you took the tact and went the path of having two separate solutions that you could tailor towards those individual problems. But like, if I'm building a mobile app, for example, and I have just one platform, and you hear some people say, like, this button needs to be green, and some people say this button needs to be orange, like that's conflicting feedback. And you can't really, like, solve that as a problem. And you know, that's like a terrible example, obviously, but I think, when you're talking about business problems and listening to user feedback, inevitably, you're going to hear one person say, like, we need to do X and one person say we need to do y, and you can't do both. And you can't satisfy both customers. Like what do you do in those cases with conflicting feedback?

Mickeli Bedore 24:52
That's a good one. Here's the thing. You know, I call it shear laziness, or really brilliance, I don't know, really. But I'm not here to stress. So I don't guess. I mean, I'm asking, I'm qualifying, like, I don't have the energy to try and pontificate or assume, right, what someone's, where they're at. I want to work to better understand, like, both sides, right, like of the feedback pendulum. Both opinions, if we're on opposite ends of the world, or of the the world, that's not true, of, you know, of the decision making for us, ike, we can't both be right. You know what I mean? If we're polar opposites of the spectrum, we can't both be right. So for me, it's, I just want to know, the let's use the red and the green button, that's probably the hardest example I've ever been asked. But let's see if we can do this together. I think we can. I think we can, you know, to me, so red and green, like, okay, you seem wildly passionate about red, you seem wildly passionate about green, what's most important? Like, why is this color like, so important to you? And then, if you were to rank this, as far as all the other things that we could focus on making this tool, product, whatever better, is having a green button, the make or break? Because if it is we can focus on that. And you'll find out, actually, you know what, I don't really give, I don't know why, I just don't like this person. I don't like them. So they said red, I say green, they say, you know, blue sky, I say gray. You can kind of get down to and be like, Okay, so the red button is not, you're not like wildly passionate about it. Or maybe it is, maybe it's grandma's favorite color or whatever. But you know what I mean? Like so getting into that, and then just always qualifying and say, Okay, so if we were to fix this, so it sounds like you're not as passionate on green as we thought you were, and your grandmother loved red. So this is important to you. Can we agree that this is okay? Right? So if we were to fix this and make this red, right, then we can either move on or this is something that you would purchase, because you love the color red, and this does all the stuff, right? Same thing. I'm just always qualifying. And for this person, I'm like, Okay, so they got the red button. Let's talk about it so this doesn't happen again. Like this is why I do it. I just don't like surprises. So you know, it's like, alright, before we move on, they got the red button. You didn't get the green. You weren't very passionate about that. But what are you passionate about in regards to functionality and flow, UX, whatever. So you're constantly getting, because in our, I don't want to keep selling our conversion system, but in our system, especially on the conversion side is, we do all of these things as as we go to save surprises like this. Right? They didn't tell us these things because we didn't ask, then everyone gets pissed off at their customers to be like, Well, I didn't know. Well, are you selling them something? Or are they selling you something? Because if you are the provider of the service, it's your job to ask that, not theirs, right?

Tim Bornholdt 27:50
Yeah. And I think in that case of the button collars, that's an actual thing that's happened in our past and the person was passionate about color a because it matched the colors of the brand. And Person B was passionate about their color because they were colorblind, and they couldn't see the color in color A. And it's like things like that, where it's like, all of a sudden, if you just would, again, dig a little deeper and get people to justify their positions, then you start to understand like, Oh, okay, so it's an accessibility issue. Why don't we find something that is on brand for our, you know, marketing company, that satisfies the marketing people, but then as a color that people can actually see and use in the app. And I think that's like, you kind of hit it on the head with just constantly qualifying. And it makes me think of, I can't remember what car company it was. But there's some CEO that always they had the five why's, where you're always, if you keep asking, you know, like this button has to be green. Why? Because that's the color of our marketing. Well, why does it matter that it matches the color of our marketing? Well, because that's my job is marketing. And I need to make sure that you know, you just keep asking why until you get to the actual, and you don't have to go five, like, I've heard people just say like, you get to three, and you kind of figure it out. But that's been my trick that I've tried to use when somebody is like digging their heels in on something or you're getting those conflicting feedback, because you want to figure out why, you know, people are feeling passionately one way or the other. If you can just get them to explain themselves a little bit further than that, it lets you be empathetic to that and figure out how once you understand the why then it's your job as the app owner or the entrepreneur, whoever's in charge of the product, to synthesize all of those needs that your customers have, and then give them a solution that's actually going to solve the problem. Because yeah, if your grandma's favorite color is red, I don't care, like is that the right color for the button? Probably not like but why, why, why, and then you figure it out.

Mickeli Bedore 29:55
That's a tough scenario, man. And then you found out that the other person was colorblind and then you're like, that makes so much sense. That's crazy.

Tim Bornholdt 30:07
Collecting feedback, you're gonna get some heated exchanges between people. And it doesn't necessarily have to get that way. But like, there's nothing like more like, I don't know, like, satisfying of when you're in a room when someone's just being a jerk to somebody else. And then they're like, Why? And it's like, well, because I have a disability, and then you just see like the color of their skin just completely turn pale. And you see that they feel so bad because people don't listen to each other and ask questions. And that's like, with the time we've been together, it seems like that's all sales really is, is getting to know the other person and understand their problems. And if you can solve them, then continue to push forward with the solution that's going to actually solve those problems.

Mickeli Bedore 30:51
Well, and you know this, I mean, we work with bigger companies and we work with startups, so everywhere in between, but it just sucks to see startups come up with an idea and spend more time building an investor pitch deck, than talking to real prospects that would not only buy their product for them, but help you build it right, build it for what the market actually wants it. It bums me out when it happens. But, you know.

Tim Bornholdt 31:16
Let's talk decks. So Mickeli and I, again, we met like several times over the last six months. And there was one point where we literally talked for an hour about how frustrated we both were about the world of pitch decks and just how, I don't want to say useless because there's clearly a use, but like you said, spending way more time presenting this image of your company in one very specific light as opposed to like, you know, solving actual problems. And I wish we could recreate that magic here, but I want to open the floodgates on that one. Like what are your thoughts on decks, Mickeli?

Mickeli Bedore 31:56
Well, okay, so you know, again, we work with people, and everyone knows my opinions like Gener8tor, Beta, I tell them. Because nobody networks like a pitch deck. Right? Nobody networks like that. Can you imagine if they did? It'd be terrible.

Tim Bornholdt 32:17
That is the problem though. People do network like pitch decks and it's awful.

Mickeli Bedore 32:21
Yeah, you're right. Okay, let me clarify. When you see awful networking, it's because they're networking like a pitch deck. But like nobody, you know, the school, you know, whatever, like, you're involved in clubs, whatever, nobody introduces themselves like that. Nobody does that. The other thing I don't like about it is, in my opinion, we're spending a lot of time figuring out how to, you know, how to convince someone else to give us money when hell, you know, it's pretty easy to fill out a credit card application, or, you know, why not do that? Like, I guess that's kind of my thing, cause I'm all about VCs and PE partners. I love them. They've made Closers a national name, so I'm not crapping on them. I'm just saying, we should be teaching ourselves, we should be teaching financial education in high school. Okay, there's that one. In business, we shouldn't be teaching our folks how to sell. And selling is not what we're talking about. right now, like selling isn't what we just talked about. In fact, bad selling is more like a pitch deck than it is real sales. Selling is just discovering and aligning. Right? And when you propose, you've already kind of got the icky stuff out of the way. We've talked about price range, we've talked about implementation time, what resources will be required, we've already done that. So there's no surprises. We know who's gonna be involved, we know who's gonna be a stickler, we know what the internal and external competition looks like. And we know how to navigate all of that, because we built a partnership with our champion, the person who got us in the door, and we run, you know, clean, smooth. People should be learning that, because I think if they learned that, they could make money without taking investment until they want to, not because they need to. And now they have the leverage. And I think in my opinion, as an investor myself, I would way more invest in a company that has their sales process down so I can look at actuals, I can look at MRR, I can look at ARR. I mean, I don't know of any, I mean, I've never met an investor that doesn't want to make more money on their money. And that's all sales is good for is making more money. You know what I mean?

Tim Bornholdt 34:28
Yeah.

Mickeli Bedore 34:29
That's my opinion. I help people with their pitch decks. I get it. But that's my opinion is, it's not the value of a pitch deck. It's the order of the pitch deck. We should be learning this skill set first, because it'll aid in our pitch deck and the investors will be psyched because there's actual revenue invested. And there's a process so there's proof. That's just my opinion, and, you know, I'll shut up now.

Tim Bornholdt 34:56
I agree completely with that. As somebody that works with a lot of startups as well, I see a lot of pitch decks. And they all, I try to, I'm not a venture capitalist, and I don't have, you know, millions to invest myself. So I'm not the target audience for these materials, but I feel like as a human, somebody that's reading these decks, it's just full of like, just gibberish to me. Even things where like, people will put like, you know, their industry that they're trying to go into it's a $7 trillion industry or something. And it's like, Who wants to know that? Like, I mean, I guess like venture capitalists want to, especially VCs, their whole point is, can you grow and capture that large amount of market? But it doesn't, I don't know, maybe that's just a institutional thing, or I don't know what issue I have with it necessarily, but it's like, I would rather invest in a company like you, like, I'd rather see like, How much money are you bringing in every year? How much are you projecting to bring in every year? Am I going to see my money come back to me in a meaningful, you know, return? Or is it going to just be gone with the wind? Those are the things that I care about? But maybe I'm just a fuddy duddy, and in 10 years, I'll listen back on this episode and think I'm a complete idiot. I don't know.

Mickeli Bedore 36:15
Oh, I regret, I don't ever regret, but I always come back, and be like, ugh. But in this case, I'm not trying to dissuade. Okay, so on this pitch deck, when it's like, PhD, CPA, whatever, you know, all these titles, and I'm like, Okay, so you're smart, and in a lot of debt. You know, I mean, that's all I see. Like, clearly you're smart. But the thing is, is that, I mean, if you were to walk in a bank and get an SBA loan, right, and the bank comes at you and goes, Oh, by the way, we've been around for 50 years, and this guy is really good at club hockey. And I got sweet hair and look at my desk. It's made of mahogany, and like, right, and we got lots of my the bank, like, you'd be like, Okay, that's good. Now, I'd just like to get an SBA loan, please. Do you don't mean? Like, I want to invest in somebody that says, I don't have a pitch deck. Oh, here, I got a spreadsheet, though. Check this out. This is our month over. I don't care as long as it's legal, what they're selling. If I can look at them, and I look at their team, and I go, These are a bunch of hustlers. And this is proof that they've sold. They know what their ICP is because they got their butts kicked. I don't care what the product is. I don't care how good the app looks. I don't care. Right? I know that they've proven this with whatever the app looks like. I'm a believer in that. I'm a believer in them. And that's me. But we don't get a lot of that. We don't get a lot of that. So maybe someone listening goes, I might switch my, you know, method up.

Tim Bornholdt 37:54
Maybe this is like a weird leading question. But it seems like there's the kind of entrepreneurs where it's kind of the Derek Seavers hell yes or no thing. Where you've got some companies and some products where you just look at it, and you're like, yes, yes. 100% Yes. And then you get other products and things where you're just like, you know, it's not even like a, it's not for me kind of a thing. It's like, because there's plenty of apps that we've worked on, where I'm like, this isn't for me. But I clearly see that there's a market for this. There's an audience that needs this. They're paying for it. It just makes total sense versus people that are, again, it kind of goes back to what we're talking about before of like, Well, this would be a really cool business. It's like, that would be a really cool business. But a business requires people to give you money in exchange for whatever it is you're selling. Otherwise, it's just a hobby or something else. That's not a business. It's this wish to be an entrepreneur without having an actual business behind it. It just kind of gets frustrating after a while, I guess.

Mickeli Bedore 38:58
I'm with you. And you know, there's schools of thought on the wantrepreneur thing, where, you know, people are getting pressed for an idea they have, but they don't even have an MVP out. There's a school of thought that's negative on that. I don't agree. I don't agree with it. Like I think in my mind, if you have an idea, and you're willing to even share that idea, and you're willing to put forth some effort on getting this thing off the ground, kudos to you because 99% of the world isn't brave enough to do even that. You know what I mean?

Good point.

Tim Bornholdt 39:29
You know, I mean, like so I'm not here to conflict, so I guess that's where I get wildly passionate about how these ideas come to fruition. You know what I mean? That's why I'm always going to be an advocate for, get out there and get your butt kicked. Learn what your market is trying to tell you, accelerate your knowledge on the pain and challenges that they're facing. Serve them. Don't sell them. Don't show me your stupid app. And don't show me your pitch deck. Like who are you serving? Why do you believe in this? What's the proof that the market needs it? Right? Show me some dollars that you've made. Oh, you haven't made any? That's fine. No, I've talked to 100 people. You know what, that's more valuable to me than 3K MRR, the fact that you're out there taking 100 punches. Because then my response to that would be like, What are you learning? I'm learning I probably shouldn't build this app. I'm learning that nobody wants it. But have you thought of asking this? Asking that? Yeah, I did that. And you get to the point where you're like, So literally, no one wants a this? Nobody wants us. Okay, well, now we didn't just waste five, four years of our lives and our kids don't even know our names. Because that unfortunately can be the truth, you know, in startup land, hopefully not for everybody, but it is for some. Because I've been a seller and a startup founder, and I know how it can negatively negatively affect families, if you start up wrong. And the way people start up wrong is they work too hard at something that they're not doing the hard work up front, which is just verifying. And then they put their families at financial risk and all these things. And that's just unnecessary stress. Because everyone looks at sales as stressful, but the way we're talking about it's not stressful. So if sales are stressful, you know what's way more stressful, going into bankruptcy. That's way, way more stressful than picking up the phone or getting, you know, beating the streets or getting on zoom or whatever, and having conversations with people.

Right. And maybe my anger was misplaced at the the entrepreneurs who are just trying as opposed to, it's more of like, the institutions, the way things are kind of structured. It's you see, you know, things like Shark Tank, and not like, you know, specifically Shark Tank, but there's like, you know, subreddits, and you see so many people out there that they're selling the lifestyle of an entrepreneur, and people are buying that lifestyle. But they're not buying the actual, like, the reason why entrepreneurs exist and are successful is because the entrepreneurs who are actually out there doing stuff and providing value are busy talking to people and going out and selling their products and doing the actual work instead of just living the Instagram lifestyle of an entrepreneur, which then leads to bankruptcy and those things. Yeah, like I i issue an apology of my earlier misplaced anger. That's more of what what I'm upset about is people getting fleeced, which was again, kind of the whole reason I started this podcast in the first place is I deal with so many, like, I hear so many app development, like entrepreneurs that are non technical that just keep coming to me getting fleeced by sharks that are out there selling apps as the end all, be all of all your business problems. And if you have an app in the App Store, you'll be a millionaire. Like that was the case for about a week back when the App Store launched in 2008. If you were there, it's just like Dogecoin, or Bitcoin or any other like GameStop, all that stuff. It's like, yes, if you are on the ground floor with this stuff, yes. Like, please go out and be a millionaire speculative, whatever. But if you're three years after into the App Store, it's no longer a novelty or a place where you can just show up and strike gold. It's just like with striking gold. Like the people who got rich, were the ones selling Levi's and axe picking tools. Like it's not the ones that are out there going out and doing the mining, like there's nothing out there, like go out and make an app.

Mickeli Bedore 43:38
Is that how Levi's, because that's how Wells Fargo came to be was the gold rush, is that how Levi jeans came to be?

Tim Bornholdt 43:44
It's either either Levi's or Lee's. It's one of the two, like that's where they got started was they sold the jean material was used, because it like held up better when you were mining all day, like so that's how they they went out and sold like overalls and stuff.

Mickeli Bedore 44:00
Yeah, so and to go back to this, okay, because I want to be very clear for you and for listeners, like I am a bootstrapper because of the way I was raised. Okay. If you can get someone to give you a ton of money and the terms are fair, good. We're big fans, because a lot of the companies that we work with, but one of the questions we ask, and I learned this from my old agency, the BBG days was, I was asked, there's two types of founders, right. There is a founder that is going to go, they're going to go down with the ship, they're going to ride the same to IPO or whatever. And then there's the other founder that has a number, has a number in the back of their head. There is a number that if someone were to offer that number, some PE firm or whatever, and it was good terms and they trusted this group, then they would sell. And so we tend to really, like we help both, but where we kind of made our name is helping companies get acquired, inspire them with enough revenue to get acquired. So I'm all for that. I'm all for people fulfilling their dreams. I guess what I'm saying is that we've been doing this now for seven years. And prior to that I was, you know, corporate. Corporate had its toll on families. I didn't choose for it to get in between mine. So those are part of the terms that we negotiated is my travel schedule had to be light, because I'm really tight with my wife and kids. But with startups, you know, even for us, like, there was some years when my daughter, thank God, was really young, like under three, where Daddy was working around the clock. And so when people have an idea or a dream, I hope other people are too. And the people that are fleecing, these people are probably not. But before anyone takes on, our thing, we'll help you accomplish this, or we'll help you get acquired, or whatever you want. But you got to know what you're in for. This is not for everybody, and you got to love it. Because it will be your best friend, your drinking buddies, your club, it'll become your hobby, your best friend, it'll be your worst friend, it'll be all those things, right. But as long as we have an end goal, or we have a game that we're going to get to, then we can at least see that light.

Tim Bornholdt 46:02
100%.

Mickeli Bedore 46:03
There's entrepreneurs I talk to and I'm like, If you want to fake it and be an entrepreneur, like, I'm all for it. Just don't get your family involved if you're not serious. You know what I mean? If you want to look like one, I don't have any problem with that. Because that's a lot of work to stay up on that on the socials. I mean, we've got Ellen doing that for us, and I know how much she works at it. Or, you know what, Hey, I just kind of want a lifestyle company. I just want to be a solo consultant or a branding expert or whatever. What's wrong with that? People shit all over those people, and it's like, they're living the life they want, and they're making enough money to do that. Who are they hurting? There's so much hate in that world. It's like, I think it's awesome. We have grand aspirations. I mean, we kind of waffle between lifestyle company, because we can do remote, so we can live wherever we want. So there's that but it's definitely is not a lifestyle, like we work, we work all day, every day. You know, we don't take a lot of time off. But that's our choice. You know, I mean, so there's at least nothing wrong with people that can pull off a lucrative lifestyle company, in fact, more power to him. Probably going to live a lot longer than both of us combined.

Tim Bornholdt 47:12
Because they're getting pampered all day while we're out here toiling away on these businesses of ours.

Mickeli Bedore 47:18
Ain't that the truth?

Tim Bornholdt 47:20
I mean, where do you take it from there? it? I think there's a lot of hate out there for that, those lifestyle brands. But I think, again, my whole thing is, I really like that people have ideas for apps, and I really want to help people get their apps into the App Store and get things up and running. And even if it's not an entrepreneur, like take somebody that's in a large business, and they're just a cog in the wheel, but they have a vision of, you know, if we can get the company to invest in this little piece of technology, it's going to increase our productivity or whatever. It's like, I love those ideas. And that's the stuff that I love working on is when you get somebody that is passionate about what they're doing.

But the thing that bothers me the most are people that just make it seem like it's so easy and never talk about the pitfalls, because yeah, we were a bootstrapped business as well. We've never taken any investment in The Jed Mahonis Group. It's just me and Rob started right out of college with 250 bucks that we both put into a bank account and just let it go. And building a company like ours is a lot different. You have to be realistic too, like, if you're going to go build like a widget, you need to have funding to go build the widget. If you're going to build a farm or like, you know, work on a pig farm or something, like you need to go and buy pigs and buy like land and barns and food. And so you know, it's easy for me to start up a digital technology app, you know, for that cheap. But it's just knowing again, like what you're getting into and how you can do it the quote unquote right way, or at least like a way that's going to be compatible with the trade offs. Because every entrepreneur that I know, there's that whole like, what do they call it like, the trough of sorrow, or the pit of despair or whatever, like when you're trying to build a company and it's like, your morale is super high, and then you get, you know, three or four months into the hard work and if you're looking at it on a line chart, it just plummets, until you get to the point where you release it and then you're on a high again. There's so many ups and downs in this space. Like maybe that's a good question to ask you, being an entrepreneur for so long. Like how do you deal with those ups and downs of some days you come in and you close like 40 deals and you're like, Hell yeah, like things are going real good. And then there's some weeks where it's like, Oh, this isn't going well. We've got a lot of issues we got to deal with and it's just this grind. How how do you balance out your emotional state as an entrepreneur?

Mickeli Bedore 50:00
Scotch. No, I'm kidding. I wish I liked scotch more, so I could be cool.

Tim Bornholdt 50:04
We can't all be Josh Fedie.

Mickeli Bedore 50:08
No, no, we can't. There's only one.

Honestly, it's a little bit of prayer, a little bit of taking a step outside. I mean, like, I'm not gonna tell you, especially with the pivots we've done and what I've learned, this is hands down the most involved that I've been with our product development ever. Because before it was either CBD, which Zack was expert in that or it was Gray Duck, which I was not an expert in that or it was, you know, or Odium, which Connor was an expert in that one. I've always had that in house expert. And so now I'm the in house expert, but we have a dream team. And so I don't want to disappoint that dream team. And so I'm constantly iterating, which pisses everybody off. But at the same time, I'm trying to whittle down to that. There's no such thing as a perfect product. But like an offering, where you can't say no to it. You know, we've got kind of our bucket. I think our pitch, like how we communicate our offerings, that's working. Our delivery's working, but it's the ebb and flows is how I'm communicating to people and not confusing them. So that has been a challenge. And I think that's for any, when the product is you or you're the person behind the product building it. I think I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen before. So I know I'm not alone. I don't know if it's the norm or not. But for me, that's been the hardest struggle is the ebb and flow of, Am I communicating this well today? Or do I sound, am I confusing everybody? And that is hit or miss. And as a professional seller, bothers me the most. Because that is my job is to communicate things, but it's so much easier to sell your service, or something that I'm not emotionally attached to. It's so much easier to sell that, because the thing is, if I hear a no, which I do, okay. So the Closer guy, guess what, here's no's. I'm a real person. And I'm imperfect some days or I'm off, I'm distracted, or I don't follow my own script that I teach. Which happens. You know, that hurts. That hits me. Because I feel like they're saying no to me. So Garrio and the team is like, No, they're not saying no to you. They don't understand it. Which then comes back to me not communicating. So I'm like, Well, then okay, then they're still saying no to me. But how I get over that is having like every now and then getting a text from you guys, or text from one of our clients, we're they're just killing it. They're have the best year ever. And things are working out, whatever. I keep a praise portfolio for that reason. I don't have it here today. But I usually have it right here. On those days, you know, where I look at those things. I look at those things and be like, Okay, cool. Right. Okay, good. I got this, because I know what we're able to do. I know that we deliver. We've got 50 logos to back us up, right. But I'm such a perfectionist and a perfectionist at this craft and this craft being this product in this company that I do take it, like I do feel it. Like if I hear a no, you know, it's not like selling Oracle. It's not like selling widgets. You know what I mean? Because if they don't want it, I've done everything in my power to make it available to them. I know at least I did everything that I could have. With this, though, I'm always questioning, did I? Did I do everything I could have? And that's always the lurking Little Red Devil on your shoulder going, You're not good enough. You can't pull this off. Look and see how many other ones that you didn't do. Well you go, No, just gotta flick it off. So about that time I pull up my praise portfolio, I go switch my wife, I go walk outside by the lake. I just take a breather. I organize it. I come back, and I fulfill my day. And that's the other thing, without a schedule, I don't know how people do it. The organization, Honest to God, I would be a mess. You know?

Tim Bornholdt 54:11
Yeah, I think there's a few things in there that I kind of pulled out. The first one was the team and not letting the team down. I think there's there's a lot of things about being an entrepreneur that have surprised me. But the thing that has surprised me the most and continues to surprise me is that I've just kind of started walking in a direction with JMG, like we're not trying to be any of our competitors. We're not trying to be anything other than we build really great apps and this is the way we do it. And what surprised me is as we started walking in a direction, people have just started following us. And we've been able to, like, people have seen what we've been able to build and it's like we just keep bringing in more people that are just, like, Yeah, I like the direction you're going, and I want to help you. And it's like we had a project that we've been working on. And we're going to launch it real soon with one of our clients. And to get this thing off the ground, we were already under a tight deadline. And then events have happened where now it's like that deadline has accelerated. And they're like, We don't want to push you, but we're going to push you, like, can you get this app done faster? And our team has as one like stood up and been like, Yes, we'll work around the clock, through nights, weekends, we'll get this thing done. And it's like, They didn't have to do that, you know. And seeing their inspiration and their drive to get things out the door is like, whenever I'm feeling down about where things are and where I want to be and just when you start feeling that way, it's like, just look around at who you've surrounded yourself with. I would put our team up against any team anywhere for building mobile software, like we've got just a rock star all the way around great group of people that are working with us. And we've been able to supplement that here and there with like what you've helped us out with sales. It's like we didn't have a good sales team. Now I feel like we've got at least some competency in that world. I feel way more confident about being able to go out and talk about what we do and help people solve their problems. And so like, if you are an entrepreneur yourself, or you're starting to feel like you're, you know, why am I doing this, it's like that's one thing that's really helped me out is just seeing the people that I've been lucky enough to surround myself with have all kind of stepped up and it's the rising tide lifts all boats in that regard.

Mickeli Bedore 56:36
Totally. It can be a lonely place if you let it but not in this community, man. And not in this community. I have never felt alone. That's the one thing I never have felt. Have I felt despair and disbelief that I'm gonna be able to pull this one off? Absolutely. I have never felt alone, though. Like, that's one thing about this community. So if you're listening to this, from wherever else you are, there is a group somewhere. You got to find them because they exist because entrepreneurship is, like I said, your best friend, it's your hobby. It's your least favorite friend. It's your distraction. It's your joy. It's all those things. And, yeah, no, I wouldn't still be doing this if I didn't have the committee that we have here. You know?

Tim Bornholdt 57:16
I was gonna say, if you got nobody, you got the two of us at least. Hit us up on LinkedIn. You saw my post on LinkedIn a week ago or so I was just like, you know, I want to build a sales team. And I have, like, really no, I have like an idea of where to start. But I don't know what I don't know. And I want to talk to people that have been there before me. And so I was just like, I'm just gonna post this on and see what happens. And it's like, people have been reaching out where it's like, one guy reached out and was like, Yeah, I've been following your journey. And I can help out. So let me see if I can help out. And it's like, holy crap, like people are listening and care. And all it takes is just having like, I mean, it takes a lot of gumption to just be an entrepreneur in and of itself to be like, I know how to do this better, because I have an idea. And I'm going to go see it through, it's like, that takes a lot of like, just, you know, gonads, for lack of a better term. But then to to then take that, like, the gumption to go and do it, and then have the like, also awareness to be vulnerable, and put yourself out there and say, Hey, I need help. Like, so many people are like dying to be asked for help, that if you just ask people for help, they'll be like, Yeah, how can I help? Who can I connect you to? How can I, you know, get you whatever you need, like, what knowledge do you need and help, like, push it forward? Those are the couple of like, just being vulnerable and putting yourself out there and then surrounding yourself with other people like those are the things I've found have been really helpful with being an entrepreneur.

Mickeli Bedore 58:44
Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, I actually have a question for you after this about a deal that we're working on on Monday, like I was gonna call you anyway. So that's good.

Tim Bornholdt 58:54
Well, on that note, I mean, we've hit about an hour, and I don't want to take up more of your day. So Mickeli, how can people get in touch with you and Closers and how can they keep this awesome conversation going?

Mickeli Bedore 59:07
Well, this has been awesome, man, I really appreciate it. Like you're great at this. And this has been a joy. So I would give you our website, which is ClosersMedia.com, but we are in the middle of rebuilding it. So I don't even know what's on their. LinkedIn, our Closers Media page, and me, which is Mickeli Bedore. You know, hit me up there. And definitely connect there. And we'll start a conversation. I'd love to tell you more about what we're doing. I'd love to learn about what you're doing. Because every day I get to meet somebody way more interesting than the most interesting person I met the day before. And this business like is mind blowing that the people that we get to interact with and just what they're up to, it's really cool.

Tim Bornholdt 59:47
So yeah, and I'd also throw out, if you're not going to plug it I'm going to plug your Clubhouse because you've been killing it over there on lCubhouse with your, it's Wednesdays, right that you have like a recurring event where people kind of talk sales?

Mickeli Bedore 1:00:00
Oh yeah, sorry about that. See, I'm so bad at self-promoting. So we do Coffee and Closers once a month, Tuesday at 9am. But then we do a Clubhouse after that. So about 10 o'clock or so we'll do a clubhouse just to kind of recap. And then every Wednesday, most Wednesdays, I should say, most Wednesdays we do a Clubhouse, where we just pick a topic, and riff. And sometimes it's about sales, sometimes it's the future of Clubhouse. I mean, it's been where we've had, Here's the subject with multilevel marketing, like one of my friends has made millions, arguably, in multilevel marketing. And I used to hang out with her and her husband out in Denver when I lived there. And we had a ski counter together. Like I got to know these guys really well. And she's always on multi level marketing. And I think we were all just kind of fascinated, like, okay, because there's a stigma to sales, there's stigma to that like, you know, so she went off and we're all like, I never knew any of those things. Like just, it's a good conversation, man, cuz you never know where it's gonna go.

Tim Bornholdt 1:01:04
That medium is so fascinating. And I've been trying to put together a crew to do a Clubhouse room on the new Space Jam and how awful and offensive it is to me that anyone would want to remake Space Jam with LeBron James. Like nothing against LeBron James. But like, why would you just take something that was so perfect and unabashedly just whimsical and lighthearted, and then just throw a bunch of corporate crap in and try to make a bastardized sequel? I'm so upset about it that I'm gonna make a Clubhouse room with that at some point.

Mickeli Bedore 1:01:38
Well, I will join that because all right, I am with you. Now, it could be my age. It could be that I don't watch the NBA anymore. But that's true. I watch it sometimes. But there is only one GOAT. I'm sorry for all the Lebron fans. And it goes beyond the intangible or the tangibles. He doesn't have enough rings. That's tangible, right? He's always had superstars srround him. That is tangible in effect. But he's just not Jordan. Do what I mean? There's just a swagger to Jordan. Like Brett Farve, Brett Farve was not the best quarterback ever. Clearly, Tom Brady is, and Tom Brady's got his own kind of swagger. But you watch Brett Farve play in the snow, you're like, that's kick ass. Like, you can't replicate that. I feel like Jordan should get some style points, where just watching him play was fun. He made basketball fun to watch. Like he arguably is why people are still addicted to the NBA today is because I remember back in the day, we'dn watch the World Series at my grandparents cabin. Shitbox cabin at Pelican Lake, all these Italians. It didn't matter. There was like 20 of us would show up at this tiny little cabin and it didn't even had insulation. I think it had maybe insulation, but didn't have running water, so you know the whole deal, but had a big deck right over big Pelican Lakes. It had that. That was awesome. But we've all come in and watch the Bulls. And Oj, we actually saw the OJ there too. Remember when he got? But anyway, but the Bulls would always watch the Bulls. And I'll never forget that. And that probably could be why when this argument flares up about who's the GOAT and I'm like, Oh, seriously, like, there is only one. The term GOAT was invented around Michael Jordan, that term was like, you know, I mean, anyway, I don't want to go off. I don't want to piss off your audience.

Tim Bornholdt 1:03:23
No, yeah, just turn this off if you're a Lebron fan, and again it's not that I'm not even a LeBron fan. Like, there's so much about LeBron James that it's fascinating to watch. And it's entertaining. Like, I'm not gonna lie about that. But like, there's something about why like that era, that timeframe, everything about Michael Jordan, I've always been drawn to when you see somebody who is good at what they do. And I think everybody has something that they're good at. And when you find somebody that's like in the flow of what they're good at, there's nothing more mesmerizing to me. And I think with Michael Jordan, it was like, not only was he in the flow with what he was doing, like you could you almost infer by watching Michael Jordan that he would take a shot and then look up at the board where it would show like the opposing teams like scores, and he was like watching like every game all at the same time. Like he wasn't just playing the game of basketball. He was the entire universe of basketball. Like you could just see in his head. He was containing all of that. He had nothing else and it wasn't even like he had like an option, like his life was going to be like this driving force. And it's just like, there's nobody like that, like really that we have today that I can see where it's like just these, I don't know, maybe there are. I mean, there's obviously like Elan Musk, you could talk about all these different people with like these different visionary tactics, but just leave Space Jam alone. That's all I'm trying to say. Why are you remaking it? Oh, my God.

Mickeli Bedore 1:04:55
I'm with you, brother. I did not know that you were as passionate about this topic as you are but I will join you, but probably for different reasons. To me, it's just like, just don't compare Michael Jordan to anyone else. How about that? Like, Space Jam or whatever. Just don't compare any other basketballer to him because there isn't gonna be another Jordan. Now will someone win 55 rings, maybe. But that's not the point. You know. I mean, the point was he was basketball. How many kids got into basketball because of Michael Jordan? I mean, come on. Right? Many.

Tim Bornholdt 1:05:25
Yeah. Like I would say anyone that's playing in the NBA today had to have had Michael Jordan and like,yeah, the entire surrounding crew, everybody in that era. Mickeli, thank you so much for joining me today. This was awesome.

Mickeli Bedore 1:05:40
Yeah, this was a ton of fun. And I'm really glad. I don't know if you're going to keep that last bit. But I sure enjoyed that part too. I see passion, man. It's passion. And it's fun to have other passions other than just work and Space Jam is a passion of yours and I dig it.

Tim Bornholdt 1:05:54
It's not getting cut. I'll tell you that.

Mickeli Bedore 1:05:57
Good.

Tim Bornholdt 1:05:59
Thanks, Mickeli.

Mickeli Bedore 1:05:59
You bet.

Tim Bornholdt 1:06:00
I'd like to say thanks to Mickeli Bedore for joining me on the podcast today. You can learn more about him and Closers Media at closersmedia.com.

Show notes for this episode can be found at constantvariables.co. You can get in touch with us by emailing Hello@constantvariables.co. I'm @TimBornholdt on Twitter and the show is @CV_podcast. Today's episode was produced by Jenny Karkowski and edited by the quirky Jordan Daoust.

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