+ All Categories
Home > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

Date post: 08-May-2015
Category:
Upload: travis-lane-jenkins
View: 68 times
Download: 0 times
Share this document with a friend
Description:
The Entrepreneurs Radio Show http://www.theentrepreneursradioshow.com Tags : entrepreneurship, small business
28
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 1 of 28 EPISODE #57: JD ROTH In this episode, Travis and Sandra talk with successful entrepreneur and famous author JD Roth. JD is a knowledgeable personal finance expert, and the founder of Get Rich Slowly, originally a blog site which now grew into a huge community of readers from all over the world, attracting entrepreneurs as well as non-entrepreneurs alike. JD, on this podcast, shares his insights on the power of blogs and how it can be vital in using it as a tool to improve your business. Also on the show Travis, Sandra, and JD talked about and shared his insights on the 4 common mistakes that people neglect in building their own personal wealth which are basing your plans on reality, doing research, being patient, and finally avoiding the expectation that you have to be perfect in everything you do in your business. Entrepreneurs listening to this podcast will learn that these things are vital in establishing your business aside from all the other critical lessons that JD shares on utilizing podcast in improving your business. JD Roth Using your blog to increase your income and grow your business Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins. Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain. Travis: And welcome to the Entrepreneur's Radio Show Sandra, episode number 57. Sandra: Wow. Thank you Travis, happy to be here. Travis: Yes, me too. Hey, before we get started, I know we like to talk about what's coming in the episode, I want to remind everybody to be sure to stay with us until the very end of you can, we like to share a little inspiration with you and we'll also reveal who we're going to connect you within the next episode, right Sandra? Sandra: Right. Travis: One quick reminder, go ahead and tell them Sandra.
Transcript
Page 1: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 1 of 28

EPISODE #57: JD ROTH

In this episode, Travis and Sandra talk with successful entrepreneur and famous author JD Roth. JD is

a knowledgeable personal finance expert, and the founder of Get Rich Slowly, originally a blog site

which now grew into a huge community of readers from all over the world, attracting entrepreneurs as

well as non-entrepreneurs alike. JD, on this podcast, shares his insights on the power of blogs and how

it can be vital in using it as a tool to improve your business.

Also on the show Travis, Sandra, and JD talked about and shared his insights on the 4 common

mistakes that people neglect in building their own personal wealth which are basing your plans on

reality, doing research, being patient, and finally avoiding the expectation that you have to be perfect in

everything you do in your business. Entrepreneurs listening to this podcast will learn that these things

are vital in establishing your business aside from all the other critical lessons that JD shares on utilizing

podcast in improving your business.

JD Roth – Using your blog

to increase your income and grow your business

Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins.

Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain.

Travis: And welcome to the Entrepreneur's Radio Show Sandra, episode number 57.

Sandra: Wow. Thank you Travis, happy to be here.

Travis: Yes, me too. Hey, before we get started, I know we like to talk about what's coming in the

episode, I want to remind everybody to be sure to stay with us until the very end of you can, we like to

share a little inspiration with you and we'll also reveal who we're going to connect you within the next

episode, right Sandra?

Sandra: Right.

Travis: One quick reminder, go ahead and tell them Sandra.

Page 2: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 2 of 28

Sandra: What Travis?

Travis: If you enjoy these free podcast that we create for you, we'd really appreciate it if you'd go to

DIYOB.com, click on the iTunes icon and rate the show and post a comment. That would help us reach

and inspire more great entrepreneurs just like yourself with each and every new guest we bring on the

show, right?

Sandra: You crack me up, you have your part, I have mine, we meet in the middle and you just threw

me for a loop.

Travis: I know, I enjoy throwing you for a loop.

Sandra: I know you do.

Travis: It's the fun stuff.

Sandra: Okay.

Travis: Let me tell you about our guest today okay?

Sandra: Okay.

Travis: Today we have JD Roth. JD is an accidental personal finance expert, he is the founder of Get

Rich Slowly which grew into an active community with I think something like a 500,000 plus readers

each month. The guy is really brilliant. More importantly than just his bio is his kind of digging into

several of the things that we talked about today in this episode. So what are some of the things that

come to mind for you Sandra?

Sandra: Well, would just to hit me is he's also a contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine.

Travis: Yeah, he writes articles for Entrepreneur.

Sandra: Yes, and one thing that really struck me is he was someone who found himself deeply in debt,

and really did the leg work and hence the get rich slowly and what it takes to be a success. And he's

also the author of Your Money: The Missing Manual. He is so inspiring and I'm just left with what I know

about him. Everything's possible. There's actions to take, but wow, what a resource he is for wealth and

for transforming your life, and your business, and your finances.

Page 3: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 3 of 28

Travis: Yeah, and I put him on the spot with some surprise questions we like to do, other than the

lightning round we like to do this unscripted because we feel like it's just the most natural, organic way.

And so we talked about the 5 most common mistakes that people make in building personal wealth,

and so it really applies to entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. But he also has an affinity--we talked

why were fellow entrepreneurs are attracted to one another, why we see things from kind of the same

perspective. And so we go down several different directions which really just made an excellent

episode with lots of great information. So I'm super excited to connect you with JD.

Sandra: Yeah, he's great and also a little bit about blogging and the importance of that.

Travis: Right. We talked about how he built the blog and the transition into several things that helped

him build his business. So rather than telling them about the entire episode, let's just sum up the some

of the topics that we cover, there's a lot more. I think we need to go ahead and just transition to the

interview itself, what do you think?

Sandra: Let's do it. Ladies and gentlemen, here is JD Roth.

Travis: There you go. So without further ado welcome to the show JD.

JD: Hey, thanks for having me.

Travis: Thanks for showing up, we know you're super busy. Sandra, you want to jump in and say

hello?

Sandra: Yeah, just really great, really excited because you're just our perfect guest. How to Get Rich

Slowly, what you're up to now, how you got to be who you are, so thanks.

Travis: Yeah.

JD: You're welcome.

Travis: Hey JD, before we get into some of the stuff that you teach, what we like to do is kind of color

the background, let our guest tell, explain how they've gotten started in transition to where they're at

and reach this level of success. Do you mind giving us the back story on that?

JD: No, I'd love to.

Page 4: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 4 of 28

Travis: Great.

JD: So, in my case I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur. My father was a serial entrepreneur, I like to

say. He's always starting businesses and he had a couple of successful businesses. When I graduated

from college I didn't have any set plans so I went to work for him, I was his salesman at the box factory,

we manufactured corrugated boxes. But you know what, I hated it. As much as I love my family I didn't

enjoy working with them and I really hated cardboard boxes, this is not my thing. So I'd always wanted

to be a writer in the early 2000's when blogging began to blossom, I found that I really liked writing for

the web. And also around that time I was really struggling with debt, debt that I'd been carrying for 10 or

15 years. And at one point I started writing about my debt and my struggle to get out of debt, and for

whatever reason, whenever I wrote about trying to get out of debt that really resonated with readers

and it would spread around the young web and people would link to it. So I decided, "What the heck,

I'm going to start a blog specifically about money. I'll be the first personal finance blog on the internet",

or so I thought, and I just called that blog Get Rich Slowly because based on the things I've been

reading, there was no way to get rich quick but there was a way to get rich slowly.

I started that blog and again I had much greater success than I had anticipated because people for

whatever reason like my voice, they like the way I write about money. And over the next few years I

built get rich slowly into a thriving community where people shared their stories about money and

helped each other getting out of debt, building wealth. I built get rich slowly to the point where it was

making enough money that I thought, "You know what, I should see whether I can sell this business."

And I did, I sold the business and I was able to get a chunk of change for that and it's allowed me

pursue some other goals, and in the meanwhile I stuck on get rich slowly for another 3 years,

continuing to write about money, continuing to foster that community. And now I'm at a point where I'm

trying to decide what's next for me, what do I do next in my personal life and my business life.

Travis: How long did it take for you to start finding success in doing that? Was it 12 months, 3 months,

36 months, what?

JD: That's a good question. As far as building an audience, it took about 3 or 4 months. Based on how

most blogs operate nowadays, I almost instantaneously had an audience because I had readers that

were coming over from my personal site where I used to write about cats, and computers, and comic

books, and just things that were in my own life. And for whatever reason a lot of those readers came

over and readers from other forums on the web where I participated.

Page 5: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 5 of 28

So I had some readers right away but I really started growing the audience after about 3 or 6 months

when some larger blog started linking to some of my articles about earning, and saving, and getting out

of debt.

Sandra: Question for you. How big did you build your community and also, how do you monetize a blog

so that you could sell it, I'm not too familiar with that.

JD: Well, okay, those are two great questions. Well, I'll get back to the monetization, but how big did I

grow the community? At its peak, well, right now is actually its peak. The company that owns get rich

slowly, they've got over a hundred thousand subscribers on the site which is about where it was when

stopped writing for the site, stop editing.

Sandra: Wow.

JD: And at our peak, I don't have access to the stats anymore but we were receiving over a million

unique visitors a month. So we were reaching a very wide audience. As for the monetization, there a lot

of different ways to monetize a blog. So you asked how I monetized it so that I could sell it. That was

never my intention, I never intended to sell it, it didn't even occur to me that that kind of thing was

possible but there's all sorts of different ways to make money from a blog including display ads, in

which case you're offering the blog essentially like a magazine which had ads in with the articles. Some

people create eBooks or video courses. Others just use the blog as a way to advertise themselves and

then they make money through speaking gigs or other things like that. For example Seth Godin has a

very popular blog, and if I recall correctly he has no monetization at all and yet that starts as a vehicle

to advertise the other things that he does in life where he can make money.

Travis: Right. Yeah, I think maybe there's so many different ways to monetize a blog and I don't want

to speak for Sandra, and you can correct me Sandra if I'm wrong. I think maybe your bigger question

was is how did you build blog into a business that is saleable, is that what you were trying to ask

Sandra?

Sandra: Well, I think that's a good question too, but I think he answered the question for me. The thing

is I listened to this show both participate as a host and as an entrepreneur and business owner myself,

and so the whole world of blog is new to me and like it didn't even occur to me like, "What, you had a

blog and you sold it?" So I think for our listeners as well, Travis and I are constantly introducing our

listeners to new people with new ideas and new success stories and there's so many things that we

don't know, and I think just you speaking of that just highlight it, "Oh, there's another one." There's so

many different vehicles we can use to get ourselves out there and obviously blog's one of them.

Page 6: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 6 of 28

JD: And I think it's interesting because when you talk about building a blog into a saleable business. I

really have a problem advocating that as a have to financial success or any kind of success because

there's so much that goes into doing a blog and some of it is just unpredictable. I don't think you could

set out and say, "Oh, I'm going to build a blog into a business and it's going to brie in for my family and

be a path where I can sell this in the future. Now having said that I do know people who have done it,

they've set out, they said, "I'm going to make this my sole source of income" and they've made it work.

So it is possible but I have a real hard time recommending it because I think there's just too much

involved and people go into it with the idea that, "Oh, blogging is easy and it's going to be simple to

create this thing where I'm making money." It's almost like this „get rich quick‟ thing that they they think

is going to exist, that's not what it is, it's a lot of hard work and there's a lot of unpredictability to it.

Travis: Yeah. And I think it's--the way I view it is most people feel like it's an organic way to grow a

business which it is but it's very slow. And when I say organic you're not paying money to get it in

people's hands, your content is growing subscribers and readers in a natural, unpaid way, but you're

really paying with your time.

JD: Yeah.

Travis: And so I think that's one of the reasons why it's not a business model that you can ramp up

quickly and sustainable on a level that can provide for a whole family, is that kind of the backdrop of

why you say that?

JD: Yeah, exactly. And I feel as if there's a lot more work to blogging than meets the eye, and the

people who want to tell you that, "Oh yeah, you can get rich quick with a blog, they're just kind of

leaving that out. You've got to write constantly, you've got to provide quality content, you got to do

networking, you got to do marketing. It's the same as in any other business really if you want to make it

a business. I'm glad that I was dumb and didn't realize this going into it, because if I had realized it, it

would've seemed insurmountable. But as it was I just kind of made it up as I went along which is what I

guess many small business owners do. They just kind of make things up as they go along and before

they know it they've got a going concern and they're able to make money.

Travis: Right. So were you working anywhere else when you were building this, so did you had a

secondary income and this was something that you were building up to or were you all-in?

JD: That's a great question. Yes, I was working someplace else. So I had been working for my father's

box factory. I started at 1991 and I continued to do that clear up until 2008. I started the personal

Page 7: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 7 of 28

finance blog GetRichSlowly.org, I started that in 2006, and I continued to work there for 2 years, yeah,

about 2 years after I started the blog.

So after about a year of writing Get Rich Slowly, I was making as much from it as I was from my day job

selling boxes, and so I said, "Alright, if I can continue to do this for another year then I will quit my job at

the box factory," because there was friction going on there. I was spending too much time focusing on

the blog itself and not enough time on selling boxes and it was making my family members angry, and

justifiably so, there's no question that I deserve the anger. And so it was a good thing for the family

dynamics for me to leave and it was also a good thing for me to leave once I could see that I have

replacement income there.

Travis: What made you decide to sell?

JD: That's another great question. So after about two years, right around the time I quit, I started

getting email from people saying, "Hey, we're interested in buying the blog, do you want to sell it?" And

I would just laugh those off, I wouldn't even reply. I was like, "Yeah right, whose going to buy a blog,

that's crazy." And then about that time a friend of mine said, "You know what JD, you're not monetizing

the blog as well as you could be," and he gave me some tips on how I could be making a little bit more

money. And it turned out that it wasn't just a little bit more money that I could be making, it was a lot

more. And so I did some of the tips and my income increased by an order of magnitude, so ten times

what I've been making before. And I thought to myself, "Wow, that's a lot of money." And so all of a

sudden these people who were sending me email asking if they can buy the blog, I made a resolution

basically on January 1st, 2009. I said, "I'm going to reply to everybody who sends me an email." And

the first guy sent me an email, like on January 5th and I answered and I said, "Yeah, okay, I'm

interested. Tell me how much you'll give me for the blog?", and he said, "I'll give you five thousand

bucks." I said, "No, that's not even close." But then a couple of weeks later I got another email from a

company and they said, "Hey, we're interested in buying the blog." I said, "Alright, how much?" and

they said, "Well, you've got to give us your financial statements and stuff and we've got to look at it in

order to be able to make an offer." We went through it and they came back with a number and I was

like, "Oh, this is a serious business." And once I realized that we're talking money that would allow me

to pursue other goals and other dreams for a years, I said, "Alright, I'll consider this" and after that point

I talked to a couple of other places and eventually did sell the blog.

Travis: So, typically a formula like that is four times current earnings, right? Something like that...

JD: I think it varies from blog to blog. Or you mean in general for business?

Page 8: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 8 of 28

Travis: Yeah, just in business as general, I know that it does vary depending on back-end businesses,

opportunities, and other things like that. But some metrics similar to that, 2, 3, 4, 5 times earnings.

JD: Yeah, based on my own experience and the experience that... I've talked to several other blog

authors now who sold their blogs and based on what limited knowledge I have because of course we're

all under NDA's and all that.

Travis: Right.

JD: It does seem as if that's roughly what you're looking at.

Travis: Some businesses, and to add to that variable, there's some businesses that a blog could lead

to a back-end service that--we were talking about this before we started the show. Some back-end

services that are $60,000 a year, so of course, that's why it varies with the different business models,

the multiplier there. Some businesses, their back-end sales, something that could lead from the initial

blog is only $3,000 lifetime value and that's what affects that multiplier.

JD: Right. And I think for--it's important to note that a blog as a business is different than a business

that has a blog. And I think blogs can be very valuable for almost any business. Not every business,

like for the box factory, I'm not sure what their box factory would do with a blog, there's not much there.

But I do know that for example, my girlfriend is a dental hygienist, and I think it would be great if the

dentist that she worked for had a blog to do outreach to patients and to provide information about

dental hygiene and about modern dentistry to the patients, I think that would be fantastic and that would

be a way to use a blog to help enhance the existing business.

Travis: Well, and then just localize it to the area, because most dentist service an area that would then

say 5 miles, normally 5 to 10-minute drives where most people want to drive for a dentist. So are you

saying take the topics and then add the relevant location. So I live in Kingwood, so it's dental prac or

dental care in Kingwood, something like that?

JD: Well, I don't even think you need to make it localized because depending on the industry, I feel as if

there are probably not a lot of dental blogs out there. Now watch, you'll have all these listeners saying,

"Wait, I know about all these dental blogs, I have a dental..."

Travis: Right.

Page 9: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 9 of 28

JD: But in this case I think that if you just provide general information and then perhaps or perhaps not,

I feel like you could have an advertising on this dental blog for example, and create a little bit of

revenue from that, and if it's not localized and you can keep people from around the web who are

searching for, "How do I clean my teeth when I have braces? Or what's the best type of toothpaste to

buy?" and if you've got articles on in this on your blog then you're reaching a wider audience.

Travis: Right. Now you made a distinction just a minute ago, I wanted to go back. So you said there's a

difference between businesses that have a blog and blogs that drive business. Can you go deeper on

that, and did I say that right?

JD: Well, I think blogs as a business versus businesses that have a blog. So, in my mind blogs as a

business are things like Get Rich Slowly, or other blogs out there that are specifically designed to be

the business, this is what the business is. Now in my case I had other avenues for income other than

Get Rich Slowly itself, I wrote a book, I get some speaking gigs, and I had other ways that I was

bringing in money, but Get Rich Slowly was the lion share of that. And so if the blog itself is your

business, this is what you're spending 40 hours a week on, or in my case at one point I was up to 80

hours a week, and I was spending 80 hours a week for a year to an end working on the site. So it's just

like any other business. But if your business has a blog then it's an ancillary thing, its part of the whole

package, it's like additional outreach to your customers. In my mind it's a way to attract people on the

web, and as I'm saying this, earlier I said they wouldn't make sense for my family's box business to

have a blog, then I'm realizing, you know what, maybe it would. This would be a way to draw in people

who are searching and in that case we would want to localize it because we don't want to sell boxes to

people in Nevada, or in Massachusetts, or anywhere else. We want to sell to people in the Portland,

Oregon area, and so that would be a challenge.

Travis: So would it be this week end boxes?

JD: And then, oh that's awesome, I like it, this week end boxes. I can't think of a more boring blog but it

would be something like that...

Travis: Right. Now, take me down a path, I have a suspicion you're still passionate Get Rich Slowly,

the underlying thing. Is that correct, are you still on that path or have you changed directions?

JD: No, I'm still passionate about it. This is an interesting conversation. I'm still passionate about

helping other people pursue their financial goals. At some point along the way I became disenchanted

with the daily grind of producing content for the blog because it's difficult.

Page 10: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 10 of 28

Travis: With you on that, yeah.

JD: And part of the problem is, to be honest Travis is, I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and so I've

been having trouble focusing, and it's especially been a problem for the past couple of years. Now that

I'm actually being medicated for this I'm finding, "Oh, I can focus pretty well and I can get a lot work

done." And so I'm finding this pull to get back to writing about money on the web for people because I

feel as if people do appreciate my voice and I am able to help people and so it makes me want to do

this again, and whether that means going back to Get Rich Slowly or writing at new site, I don't know.

But it's something that I'm interested in pursuing, and I'm ready to start writing the second book. That's

something that will definitely happen.

Travis: And so is the personal wealth is that focus towards entrepreneurs, or just anybody that is focus

on building personal wealth?

JD: I address my message to anybody who is focused on building personal wealth. And as part of that,

what I say is there are two sides to building a wealth. First of all there's your income, and second of all

there's your expenses. So your wealth or the growth of your wealth is your income less your expenses.

And a lot of personal finance writing is focused on cutting your expenses, cutting your expenses, cutting

your expenses, and that's great because there are quick wins through cutting your expenses but what I

really try to do to set myself apart is to also emphasize the building your income and in doing that, that

includes things like getting raises at your current job, but it also involves starting side businesses,

creating hobby businesses, and finding other ways to make money. So at Get Rich Slowly I've written a

lot in the past about entrepreneurship and it's a pep topic for me, one that I feel passionate about and

primarily because my family has been so involved on entrepreneurship over the years.

Travis: So multiple streams of passive income...

JD: Yeah.

Travis: ... for a one type stuff or real estate or mini businesses or all of the above?

JD: I emphasize all of the above. I think that there are a number of ways that people can make more

money and--in the investing world, we talked about diversification. When you invest for retirement, you

don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, you don't want to just own Microsoft stock, instead you

want to own a mutual fund that might have a bunch of different technology companies, or better yet you

own an index fund which is a mutual fund that tracks a particular stock market index. And when you're

broadly diversified it reduces your risk. So I think the same thing is applicable to your personal income,

Page 11: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 11 of 28

and so you have your job, most who have jobs you don't want put all your eggs in one basket and make

that your sole source of income. You do want to look for other ways, so maybe you start a hobby

business on the side, and sell some of the things that you have. Most people has a lot of junk in their

garage.

Sandra: Yes.

JD: One way to generate quick income is to sell that. And there are a number of other ways to generate

income. So I, pre-diversification of income too.

Travis: Yeah, that's great advice. So my first business, I've built a multiple of businesses, and my first

business which I still own is a home improvement company, and I had a lot of clients that lived in very

big homes that worked for ENRON, and not only did they make a lot of money from ENRON, their

entire life savings was invested in stock of ENRON. And so when that crash came and they found that it

was really--the whole thing was a house of cards. Those guys went from living in a mansion to living in

the complete opposite of that situation.

JD: Right.

Travis: And many of these guys had dedicated 30 years of their life and so they've really had no other

safety net. And so that brings me around to number one, validating the point that you're talking about. I

had a friend call me recently and he had asked me, he'd got this incredible job to where he's making

double what he used to make and he asked me, "Should I invest in this, this, or that" and first I

recommended someone that specializes in this to give him advise, then I told him the answer is all of

the above. You're going to diversify it over several things so that you don't have all of your eggs in one

basket and you're not exposed like these people from ENRON, and that's what I hear you saying as

well.

JD: That's exactly right.

Travis: And so let's transition into what you feel like the--just off the top of your head, and I'm going to

say five, and if five don't come to you naturally, then the top three or whatever. What are the most five

common problems that you see people make when preparing for a good financial future?

JD: Okay, number one, they base their plans on dreams and ideal situations, instead of what actually

is. So I know that for myself, when I was trying to dig out of debt and trying to get everything right, I

would say, "Oh, you know, if I just spending on this and I stop doing that, and when I get this bonus at

Page 12: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 12 of 28

work, and if I get a raise, then all these things will fall into place." And so I would make my plans based

on some hypothetical future instead of on the reality of today. So I think that the number one thing

people need to do is base your plans, including your budget, on reality not on how you'd like things to

be.

Travis: Excellent advice.

JD: Another common problem when trying to prepare for a good financial future. I'd say not doing

enough preparation, not doing enough research. And by that--okay, so when I started, when I first

wanted to get out of debt, I just kind of flailed around, I didn't have any guidance, I just try to make

things up as they went along. And the only guidance I did have were get-rich-quick books. I was trying

to look for some magic bullet that would keep out of debt quickly, and so I was impatient. So this would

be the third one is to have patience. But these kind of tie together because eventually I realized, "You

know what, I need to do some research, I need to figure out what successful people actually do when

they're building wealth and getting out of debt. And so I took the time, I spent about a year reading a

bunch of different personal finance books, and that's where I realize that, "Oh, the common theme here

is yes it's possible to get rich but you can't do it quickly, you have to do it slowly. And if you're patient, it

can happen."

So number one base your plans on reality, number two, do research, number three, be patient. Let's

see if we can come up with a couple of others here.

Travis: You're doing great for me putting you on the spot.

JD: I think another one is there's this expectation that you have to be perfect. I know that when I tried to

get out of debt, it would really frustrate me, I was going along, I spent a couple of weeks or a couple of

months doing really well, not spending on things I shouldn't spend on, and I'd make some progress.

And then I make some sort of mistake, like I'd go out and buy a new computer or whatever, and then I'd

feel guilty and I'd go off the rail. And all of a sudden I'd be buying all sorts of other stuff that it just

defeated the purpose, and all of a sudden I was back to where I started. And this is a common story, I

hear it all the time that people, they have good intentions and they get started and they want to be

perfect, they expect it to be perfect, and then when something bad happened they fall of the rail. So it's

very much like dieting, I don't know whether either one of you have ever try to lose weight or to get

strong or anything. That's another I've done is I've lost 50 lbs. and I tried for years to lose the weight

and I'd often get derailed and I just go back to eating donuts again, and eventually I had to give myself

permission to make mistakes because by making the mistakes you learn and you can just move on.

You've got to say, "Okay, I've made the mistake, so what. I'm going to keep doing what's right."

Page 13: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 13 of 28

Travis: Yeah. So once you make the mistake you say, “I screw it" and just binge, right.

Sandra: Right.

Travis: That's what you're describing.

JD: Yeah.

Travis: And sometimes the binge is hours, days, can lead into weeks and longer and so that definitely

make sense. It's hitting home with me, I understand where you're coming from there.

JD: Yeah. And I'm not going to reach for number five there, we got four. Base your plans on reality, do

the research, be patient and don't expect to be perfect, give yourself permission to fail.

Sandra: That's great.

Travis: So what took you to--I know you're writing for Entrepreneur Magazine, what took you there?

JD: Well, you know what that came out of the blue. I was actually travelling in Paris, France and I got

an email from the editor who said, "You know, we need a columnist to write about personal finance and

if you can give me an article in the next 48 hours you got the job." And so I did that and it's been almost

3 years now that I've been writing for it. And I like it because it's a challenge Travis, it's a different thing

than what I do regularly. Normally my personal finance writing is just geared towards everyday people,

entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike but for Entrepreneur Magazine, especially over the past

year, they've been encouraging me to focus specifically on advise for entrepreneurs and sometimes

that's tough for me because even though I consider myself an entrepreneur I'm kind of a non-traditional

one, I'm writing on the web that's how I make my money. And so I don't experience some of the same

challenges. So it's a good challenge for me to write about this.

Travis: Well what do you mean you don't experience some of the same challenges, as a traditional

entrepreneur?

JD: Yeah, that's what I mean. I don't have...

Travis: Daily operations of the business, or...

Page 14: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 14 of 28

JD: Exactly. I don't have a store front, I don't have overhead, it's just a very different beast. In many

ways I'm almost like a freelancer is what I feel like and I don't mean to put down freelancers because I

consider them entrepreneurs also, it's a different thing than getting out there and actually having a

business where you need employees, you need equipment and so on. For example, recently one of my

columns was on whether or not you should lease equipment, and this is not a question that I'm ever

going to face in my own business, and yet I know many entrepreneurs do face that.

Travis: Well, you're in more of the newer, hybrid model, you're a laptop entrepreneur.

JD: Ooh, I like that term.

Travis: You don't have the normal cogs, cost of good sold that a traditional bricks and mortar type

business has, right.

JD: Right.

Travis: And although you're still faced with a lot of the other challenges that come with it, and so I don't

think you need to walk the same path as them to be able to come to it from an authentic place.

JD: Right.

Travis: Because there's so many different variations of business models, there's a lot of great, hybrid

models now that are coming in and we've talked about over several episodes to where even a lot of the

brick and mortar type businesses don't have to employ employees, or have them on the payroll 40

hours a week.

JD: Right.

Travis: More and more I'm bringing in experts to handle parts of my business and paying them for

results, so everyone's business is really changing, so it's interesting to get some perspective from a

couple of different angles in my opinion.

JD: Yeah.

Sandra: And also. Oh, sorry JD.

JD: Go ahead Sandra.

Page 15: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 15 of 28

Sandra: I just wanted to mention, Travis and I created the show with the entrepreneur in mind, and as

a resource for you we've got 50 plus episodes of way different kinds of entrepreneurs and challenges

and things they've overcome, so if you need to spur some ideas and brainstorm a little, you might want

to look at some of our past shows and we've got some really good connections that might be able to

help you with your future writings for the magazine.

JD: I like that idea. I was going to say that I think listening to both of you I realized that when I write,

and especially when I'm writing for entrepreneurs I actually think of--I don't want to call them kitchen

table entrepreneurs, I don't know what to call them. I guess the best way to explain this is, so I'm not

sure if you're familiar with Chris Guillebeau.

Travis: No, I'm not familiar with him.

JD: He's a good friend of mine and he recently had a bestselling book called The $100 Start-up.

Travis: Oh, I've heard of that book, yeah.

JD: And The $100 Start-up is specifically about people who want to start small businesses with a

minimum capital, a minimum of overhead and kind of do it in their spare time or do it with skills they

already have. And so I really identify with this kind of entrepreneur because that's where I'm

approaching it from. I was able to build a business using skills that I've had and with a very little

overhead, and so, it's not the same kind of thing as my father, all of my father's business have been

okay. I want to build this product, how do I go about getting the machinery, the factory, the employees.

It's a very different kind of thing.

Travis: Yeah and you bring up an interesting point and something that makes me think from another

angle and Sandra and I was talking about it, everything is about start-up, this week in start-up, start-up

this, start-up that. And really no one is speaking to the existing business owner. And so I love

entrepreneurs from beginning to end in any phase of it because entrepreneurs are the people that

move forward even in the face of fear and they drive the economy. If you drill in to the numbers it's

astounding, there's 27 million entrepreneurs, 21 million of those are solopreneurs like you're talking

about, that one man armies, and the rest are people that have a staff. And it just blows my mind that no

one's talking to, or very few people are talking to the business owners that have staff. And these are

such critical citizens, all of the entrepreneurs are critical citizens because we generate tax revenue, we

create jobs, and we do all of the things that makes this capitalism, this economy go around. And if you

really take a look at it there's 360 million people, now this show reaches all around the world but just for

Page 16: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 16 of 28

number's sake. There are 360 million people in the US, and so that means that 8% of the population

are entrepreneurs, right.

JD: Right.

Travis: And so 8% of the people are driving the entire economy, which is very powerful, right.

JD: That's interesting too. You're making me think of--I feel as if when I were younger, I didn't know as

many people who were entrepreneurs. Everyone I knew just had every day jobs, not that there's

anything wrong with that, but it's just what my friends did and who they were. Now that I'm in my mid

40's and maybe because of who I am and what I gravitate toward, but many of my friends are

entrepreneurs. Now naturally many of them are web entrepreneurs like me and I understand that we

gravitate toward each other, but even outside the web I know a lot of people who are professionals and

I count them as entrepreneurs too. I know a woman who owns a bakery; I know other people starting

manufacturing businesses. I feel as if I'm just drawn towards these people maybe because we have

similar mindsets or something, I don't know.

Travis: That's exactly what it is, they're not victims, entrepreneurs are not victims. We all encounter our

own level of trials and tribulations, many of them self-induced, but we still get up and go on. And so it's

hard not to like that type of person that is willing to shape their future. And so that's what the common

denominator, if you look, and I've owned several businesses and I served the public through the

majority of those businesses and always my best clients are businesses owners because they don't pull

a lot of the crafty stuff that non-businesses owners pull on us.

Sandra: Interesting.

Travis: And I'm just calling it as it is. There's really 3, I view it as 3 different types of prospects out

there, the value buyer, the price buyer, and then the one on the fence. And so price buyers--you don't

know this, but I was raised in a very poor neighbourhood and very, very tough, rough neighbourhood,

gunshots every night, so I did not come from money. And so I understand, I lived that the first 20 years

of my life and we were price buyers, my family were price buyers because we had no other choice. And

then over time I could see the impact of making our decisions based on price, and so I understand the

price buyer and also the value buyer, and value buyers are people that have purchased things on price

and then live to regret it, and then the in-between are people that can be converted to a value buyer if

they're given a reasonable argument for paying. So if there's 2 oranges and one cost a dollar, and the

other cost $2, the one in-between will pay $2 if you give him a valid argument on why he should pay for

that. But if you are not giving a compelling argument for that, of course price will win.

Page 17: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 17 of 28

JD: And what I think is interesting about this is I too grew up relatively poor, and so my family were

price buyers because they had no other option, and then as I was getting out of debt and learning to

build wealth, I naturally skewed towards the frugality side of things and I still do. Price buyer are many

things, but like you say I've learned with time that I needed to pick my battles and be a value buyer in

some circumstances, and I actually have a phrase for the mindset that I choose, and I call it conscious

spending. And by conscious spending I mean I look at the things that are important in my life and I say,

"Okay, this is important to me. This is something I use everyday, or this is something that I value, and

so I'm going to pay for this item and I'm going to pay for quality." And then everything else I just pay the

minimum for. I try to buy on price instead, and an example would be technology. I'm willing to pay a

premium to get computers that work the way I want to work and so I pay extra money for that. The kind

of thing, another example.

Travis: Probably even services, right.

JD: Services too, absolutely. Or when I cook, I like to cook, so I have good cookware, that's important

for me. Things that don't matter to me, for a long time clothing didn't matter for me, so I would I just go

to the thrift store and I would pay $3 or $5 for a shirt and that was fine. Eventually that changed, after I

divorced and began dating, well all of a sudden clothing did matter to me.

Travis: Right.

JD: That's an example of how values can shift, but I think you're absolutely right that there are these

different types of shoppers, and no one fits exclusively in one category or the other, but I think it's

important to practice this conscious spending and to say, "These are things that are important to me, I

am willing to spend money for them, but everything else, no way, I'm not going to spend money for it."

Travis: Right. And so commodities, I want the best price on a commodity item on my car, on my widget

or whatever it is, I want the best price on that. But the other thing, and over time I grew to see that value

buyers are buying the removal of risk. They want assurance, they want peace of mind that if something

goes south, no excuses, no nothing, it's fixed, and that's really what the value buyer is after, is no

excuses, just fix it.

JD: Yup.

Travis: Sandra, you want to jump in, I've been dominating.

Page 18: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 18 of 28

Sandra: Sure, no I am fascinated. Two questions, one is you have a book, the first part of the question

is could you tell us about your book and the second thing is what are your passions now that would be

in your second book?

JD: Awesome question. First though, you're going to have to edit this out because I'm going to cough.

Yeah, my allergy's here in Oregon, it's finally nice, but that means the trees are blossoming and the

allergies are out.

Sandra: Oh I've got it too here at Massachusetts and I just press the mute on my microphone and I've

been coughing this whole time, anyway...

JD: Oh, I got to figure out how to do that.

Sandra: Yes, technology,

JD: Yeah. So that's a great question. My book, the first book came out in 2009, the title is Your Money,

The Missing Manual, and it's very much just a straight ahead personal finance book, but I'm really

proud of it because what it does is it takes everything that I had learned in the 5 years that I had been

reading and writing about money, and it distills it down into--I think there's 300 pages, something like

that. And I take all these information that I've been accumulating and I just dump it down into this book.

And a lot of bloggers who write books, they just move their blog content into a book, and I didn't do that.

This is all written from scratch and it's not the best book it could be, I had a 3-month window to write it,

but given those parameters, I think it's great and it's helped a lot of people and I'm proud of it.

Sandra: Good.

JD: Now the second book you asked what that'll be about, it's going to be a personal finance book but

it's going to be--while the first book was very much practical stuff like, "Here's what you should do with

your 401k. Here's how to get out of debt, the second book is going to approach personal finance from a

psychological perspective, because that's really where my passion lies. I have a psychology degree

and I think that personal finance is a lot more about mindset than it is about math. We all understand

the math, if you spend more than you earn, you're going to get in debt. So, the math isn't the problem,

it's adjusting the mindset and dealing with the psychology that's important in improving your financial

situation. And so the second book will address that and I just started talking with my agent, it's going to

be a few months before we're ready to pitch the book because I've got other projects going on right now

but I'm excited to get started on it.

Page 19: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 19 of 28

Sandra: Do you have any tips you could give our listeners right now, just before your book comes out,

just something that might get them started today with maybe a little change of their mindset to move

them forward on something they're up to?

JD: Yeah. We covered a couple of things like, we've talked about perfection, you got to be okay with

failure. Let's see.

Travis: I think she means from like a psychological standpoint.

JD: Yeah. So, most of your listeners are already going to know that the road to wealth is paved with

goals because entrepreneurs are goal setters. So I talked a little bit about frugality and how saving is a

quick way to--we're going to scratch that and start over; I'm going to give you a different one.

Sandra: Okay.

JD: Okay. So the motto on my website, on getrichslowly.org has always been "Do what works for you"

and by that I mean there's no one right way to financial success. I think we get hung up when we go

and we read certain books. We read and advise and we're like, "Oh my gosh, this is the one right way

to do things." And financial authors often pitch their advise as the one right way to get things done, but

there is no one right formula, instead what you got to do is say, "This is my goal, my goal is to get out of

debt for instance. Okay, here's one way to do it, let me try this. Oh, that didn't work, let's find another

way. Oh here's a second way, let's try that" and you go until you find a method that works for you, and

then you make adjustments to it as you go along. So I've always said "Do what works for you." because

I don't believe there's some magic formula that leads to success. Another important one is that action

deeds inaction. And by that I mean a lot of people, myself included, we sit there and we read about

building wealth or starting businesses, or we read about how to get out of debt, and we listen to all this

advise but we never actually get started, instead we just sit there and--I guess it's like we hope that by

taking in more information we're actually begin to make changes, but the only way to make changes is

to make change, and to get started, and to risk the failure, and to learn from your mistakes. The

example I think of is my girlfriend wants to start a side business right now. And she recognizes that for

the past year she's just been in this information gathering mode and she's just come to realization that

you know what, I've got to start, it doesn't matter whether I'm going to be doing things right, I need to

learn from my mistakes as I get started, and we'll fix things as we go along. And just sitting here isn't

making me any money.

Travis: Yeah, it's not going to happen through osmosis, right.

Page 20: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 20 of 28

JD: Exactly.

Travis: You got to do the push-up to get the benefit.

JD: That's exactly right.

Travis: Yeah, thinking of push-ups will not get you in shape.

JD: And then I think the third thing I would say is--this is how I started my first book actually, it's the

very first chapter, it's more important to be happy than it is to be rich. I think the first sentence in my

book is, "You don't want to be rich, you want to be happy. And for most of us money is a means to buy

happiness, and there's a lot of stuff out there that says money doesn't lead to happiness but in general,

yes, the more money you have the happier you are. Now that's true up to a certain point. Once you get

past middle class income, income doesn't really buy that much more happiness. But for many people,

yes, increasing income is a great way to increase happiness and that's what all really want, is we want

to have lives that we enjoy, we want to be with people we love, we want to do things that bring us

meaning. I say true wealth is about relationships, good health, and ongoing self-improvement, and I

think that's what we're all really after.

Travis: Well said, I agree with you. You know to drive your point home I attended an event and we've

talked about this before, I attended a T. Harv Ecker event.

JD: Yeah.

Travis: And I really can't remember, the room was gigantic, 4-500, maybe even 800, I can't hardly tell

the difference between, 4, 5, 600 people, it's just a lot of people. And they were doing this test, and it

had a hundred questions, and they it was based on the psychology of success, right. And so, the higher

the score, the worse you were, right. And so it would say, "Answer each question, zero being this

exactly as me or 10..." and so maybe one question is--no, the zero is this does not reflect how I think,

and so maybe one question is money doesn't grow on trees. If you--wealthy people are difficult, are A-

holes, it's really a lot of crazy, negative things that people are taught around money that are tied to the

psychology of success and wealth and all these other things. And at first I didn't realize where this was

going. And so I breezed through this and I scored very low, it's something in the single digits, and

everyone around me was scoring a 130, 210, crazy, there was a gigantic difference. And long story

short, the guy putting on the event said, "Do we have anybody that has scored 10 or under?" and it was

me and one other guy out of this group of 4, 5, 6, 7, 800, however many people were there. And he

says, have you guys reached financial freedom, would you be considered a millionaire, and both of us

Page 21: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 21 of 28

had. And he said that's not surprising because you feel like you deserve it. And everybody else didn't

feel like they deserved it or they had negative baggage associated with wealth, success and all those

other things.

JD: Right.

Travis: And that speaks directly to what you're talking about because a lot of times we self-sabotage

our own goals, right.

JD: Exactly. And I think it's great that you brought up T. Harv Eker, because his book, Secrets of the

Millionaire Mind actually was very influential early on for me as I was developing my own personal

finance philosophy. The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind covers some of these preconceptions that we

have about wealthy people and how they act and how they behave, and it says, "Here's how they

actually are." And even though I feel like that book is ostensibly about wealth, it's actually about

happiness and success. It's a book about changing your psychological approach to money, and to

success, and happiness, and it's one of the books that I recommend actually.

Travis: Yeah, and that was the event, the Millionaire Mind event, and that's what gotten me on the path

of going to some of his shows or seminars, and so I highly recommend that book.

JD: It makes me want to read it again actually.

Travis: Right. Hey let me double back and ask you. Now your book that you wrote, who is that geared

towards, who's your target, who should read that book?

JD: When I was writing my book, and I feel safe saying this because he will never listen to the podcast,

I was actually thinking of my youngest brother, he struggles with money all the time. And so the book is

targeted towards people who are just beginning to get their financial lives under control. There's stuff in

there for everybody, but it's really for the people who, their finances are a mess and they want hope

and they want to find a way to get things under control. And so most of the messages in there are about

taking control of your finances, learning how to prioritize spending, learning how to budget, learning

how to get out of debt.

Travis: Right. Which is I think is about 80% of the public right.

JD: Well, it's a lot of people.

Page 22: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 22 of 28

Travis: Okay. Before we segue into the lightning round, Sandra what questions do you have?

Sandra: No that's it, I'm excited, this is great, so hit it.

Travis: Yeah. You know JD there's so many different things we could talk about that we could go on for

hours here.

JD: Yeah, it's kind of fun.

Travis: Yeah, I'm really enjoying it too. So let me ask you, what book or program made an impact on

you related to business that you'd recommend and why?

JD: You know, I thought a lot about this question and what I came up with is the one book that I feel

like really impacted me most as far as my business life is a book that nobody's ever heard of, it's called

50 Success Classics, by a guy name Tom Butler Bowdon, and what he does in this book is he kind of

choose up 50 different books about success and he boils them down into summaries of the content, he

provides background bios of the authors, quotes from the books, and he tries to convey the core

lessons from 50 different success books and then he says, "Hey, if you want to go read this, go read it."

And I actually listened to the audio version of this book, believe it or not, and I listened to it two or three

times in a row just because there were so many amazing lessons to be found in the book. And then one

of the great things was if I would read about a particular book or about a particular author I could then

go read his or her books and get even more lessons. So this one book alone, 50 Success Classics led

to a lot of growth on my part.

Sandra: Great.

Travis: So it's kind of like the root that led to other great books?

JD: Yeah, it's like this foundation. I feel like if you read 50 Success Classics, you got this fantastic

foundation for not just entrepreneurship which is personal development in general. You got the

foundation and then you can build more of the--I'm trying to do this labored metaphor. Again, build

more of your structure of success by reading the books that he talks about in there.

Travis: I'm going to add that to my must read list. Is Napoleon Hill on his list?

JD: Yeah, Napoleon Hill's on the list, Andrew Carnegie, Ben Franklin, Jack Welch, Steven Covey, just

all sorts of people. It's a wide, wide variety that he includes.

Page 23: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 23 of 28

Travis: I'm excited.

JD: And Butler Bowdon's actually done this 50 blank classics with a number of different things like 50

Spiritual Classics, and 50 Psychological Classics, and 50 Prosperity Classics. Not all of the books are

as successful as others but I really like what he does.

Travis: Thank you for that.

JD: Yeah.

Travis: What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, if any,

that you'd recommend to other business owners and why?

JD: The off switch. So for me because I write on the web, because my life is on the web, I spend a lot

of time connected to technology and when I first began to date my girlfriend about a year ago, she

noted, she said, "JD, you spend all of your time on the computer, you're always connected. I would

appreciate it if you were a little bit less connected." And so I made this vow that on the weekends I

would turn off all of my technology. And that was so successful in improving my mindset, my happiness,

and my well-being that I move that to the evenings, I try to turn off the technology too. So to me we all

know the off switch is there but a lot of us forget about it. And I go out with my friends who are

entrepreneurs and they're always checking emails to see what's going on with their business, and I feel

like most of us could just turn off the technology when we leave the business and we'd actually better

for it if we just focus on business during business hours.

Travis: So this is a tool?

JD: I think it's a tool, the off switch is a seldom use tool but it's an important one.

Sandra: We all know where it is even though we don't use it very often.

JD: Yeah, right.

Travis: Yeah. So it's maybe not a physical app but it's just an attitude, right.

JD: Yeah, exactly.

Page 24: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 24 of 28

Travis: An agreement with yourself if you will.

JD: Well, it's an agreement with yourself but it's also kind of an agreement with your family or with your

friend. I found my relationships have improved dramatically since I discovered the off switch because

I'm able to focus on the people I'm with instead of letting myself be distracted by business and there are

times even now that I forget about it. Just this last weekend, just out of sheer habit because I got years

that is built-in to me I was checking email on my phone and Kim said, "What are you doing?" and I said,

"Oh, checking some stuff about the book proposal," and she's like, "Do you really need to do that on a

Saturday?" I was like, "You know what, it can wait until Monday, I don't need to check it on a Saturday."

Sandra: That'd be a great blog post, or an article, or another book, discovering the off switch.

JD: I like it, I got to write that down.

Sandra: You take it, it's yours.

JD: Another tool that I use is note cards. I got them on my desk and during this conversation with you

guys I've already filled four of them.

Travis: Cool.

Sandra: I love it.

Travis: You techie you JD.

Sandra: State of the art. It's so much fun having you today, oh it's great.

JD: I've enjoyed it.

Travis: Hey, what quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business?

JD: So I thought about this one too, and I think the quote that best summarizes my attitude towards

business is also the quote that summarizes my attitude toward life, and I found this a couple of years

ago. Actually my friend my friend Chris Guillebeau whom I mentioned earlier, he's the one who

introduced me to it because it's philosophy in business and life also. And it's a quote from an old

Persian poet named Hafiz and I don't know much about Hafiz but one of the modern translations of one

of his short poems, it's about two sentences long, it says, "The small man builds cages for everyone he

Page 25: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 25 of 28

knows, while the sage who has to duck his head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night

long for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners." And so basically what that quote is saying is there are people

out there who are small-minded and they build cages for the people they know, they trapped in with

their--they try to come up with these limiting beleifs that they--they come up with reasons you can't do

things but the people who are really successful and the people who actually get a lot done are the

people who ignore these limiting beliefs and actually keep trying to provide value to other people that

they drop keys for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners. They show the other people the way they can

accomplish their goals and dreams too. And so I think that's what made Get Rich Slowly a success, is I

don't try to talk about things that you can't do or why it's impossible to get out of debt or the reasons

you can't get out of debt. I try to find ways to share with my readers the things that they can do to

achieve their financial goals, and I think this is important in the businesses that succeed are those that

help people achieve their goals and dreams.

Travis: You know I had immediate reaction to that, it's such a beautifully written quote that it also made

me snicker to myself because so many people live by some of those parameters of locking people in

cages and Sandra and I talked about people are either fountains or drains and so that's such a great

example. Brilliant quote, and I...

JD: I like that people are fountains or drains, that's nice.

Travis: Yeah. Who again, who's that quote from?

JD: It's a Persian poet name Hafiz, H-A-F-I-Z. And I like the quote so much when Chris Guillebeau

shared it that I asked his wife who's a painter if she could do a little water color for me and she did, I've

got that here. I just had it mounted yesterday in fact and it's a big work.

Travis: Hey, how do people connect with you?

JD: Right now the best way to connect with me is my website is JDRoth.com and that's where I've been

doing all my writing for the web. I may or may not be back at getrichslowly.org in the future, we're still

trying to hash that out but for now they can reach me at JDRoth.com and they can connect with me at

Twitter at @JDRoth.

Travis: Very cool, Sandra, do you want to say anything before I start wrapping things up? Sandra?

Sandra: Sandra was coughing.

Travis: Oh we lost her there for a minute.

Page 26: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 26 of 28

Sandra: You never quite lose me, I'm never far. No, just thank you JD, I get as much out of these

interviews as--I'm sure Travis does and our listener and I hope you got something out as well, so just a

great thank you.

JD: Well, I got ...

Sandra: Yeah.

JD: So, you guys did awesome.

Sandra: Yeah, we're here for you, and we got to do this together, we make a profound a difference and

we lock arms and help as many as we can, so it's great.

Travis: Yeah, lots of fun. Hey can you hangout for a couple more minutes JD?

JD: Yeah, you bet.

End of Interview

Travis: Alright, excellent. Listen I want to remind you guys to--all of the links to everything that JD have

talked about, the resources mentioned in the show are in the show notes section. And so just go to

DIYOB.com which stands for what Sandra?

Sandra: Diamonds in your own backyard.

Travis: Don't you forget it. Also, while you're there enter your name and we'll send you the 2013

Business Owner's Guide to a Profitable Million Dollar Business, it's a candid behind the scenes look at

what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success. What I'll tell you in the

guide's critical to your success and no one's really talking about many of these issues because it's not

in their best interest or they just don't know. They don't know what they don't know, so in the guide we

cover the five skills that will determine the success of your business over the next 18 months, 6

common misconceptions that are costing most businesses a fortune, and lots more information for

taking your business to that next level, and all of it's for you just for becoming a part of authentic

entrepreneur nation.

Page 27: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 27 of 28

Before we close the show today, I want to remind you that no matter where you're at as an

entrepreneur, you're an inspiration to those around you to go after their dreams too so I want to

encourage you to keep it up.

My inspirational quote for today comes from Evan Esser and the quote reads, "Success is the good

fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration, and inspiration.” This is Travis Lane

Jenkins signing off for now. JD you were a great guest. Sandra?

Sandra: And this is Sandra Champlain and I want to challenge you, our listener, and JD, and Travis,

and myself to all take an action today, think of new thought and go for it, take a new action that you

haven't already.

Travis: That's right. So to your incredible success, we'll see you on the next episode, take care.

Page 28: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 057 JD Roth

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show Page 28 of 28

How We Can Help You

We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called

gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly

why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at

a fraction of its normal cost.

Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive

deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!

We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities and Threats within your business.

This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons

are.

As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the

middle of a daily management.

And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.

This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or

an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"


Recommended