For business owners, uncertainty can make even a good plan feel temporary.
Economic conditions change. Customer behavior shifts. New demands emerge. For firms focused on business growth, the challenge is knowing what needs to move with them and what should remain constant.
Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, has spent years looking at how entrepreneurs respond to those moments.
In this conversation with Derrick Kinney, he makes the case for understanding the value of a business beyond the product it sells or the service it provides. Feifer describes it as finding the “but really” behind what you do: the capabilities, knowledge and value that competitors may not immediately see.
That distinction becomes especially important when conditions change. A product can become less relevant. A business model can evolve. The way customers want to buy can shift. But the underlying value a business has built may be much more durable.
Kinney and Feifer also discuss how that value is communicated, why unfamiliar ideas often need a bridge to something customers already understand and how business owners can begin to see change as an opening rather than simply a loss.
For advisors building businesses of their own, it raises a useful question: When the environment changes, what is your business really built on?
Key Takeaways
- Know your core value. Understand what your business provides beyond a specific product, service or role.
- Find your “but really.” Look beneath what customers see to identify the capabilities and knowledge that set the business apart.
- Build a bridge of familiarity. New ideas are easier to understand when they connect to something customers already know.
- See change as more than loss. Skills and experience can carry forward and create opportunities as conditions change.
- Lead with the problem you solve. Communicating your value can be more powerful than simply describing what you do.
Listen to the Conversation
Transcript
Derrick Kinney
Welcome to the Derrick Kinney Podcast on Modern American Advisor. Each week we revisit one of my most valuable conversations to bring advisors practical ideas to grow their businesses, serve their clients, and make more money to do more good. What’s one thing I wish all business owners and entrepreneurs knew? Great change equals great opportunity. So when change occurs, like right now in the middle of this recession, How do you stand out as a business owner and dominate your market?
When listeners like you are asking questions like this, one of my favorite people to turn to is Jason Feifer. As the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, Jason always has a finger on the pulse on the biggest issues facing entrepreneurs and wants them to see change as a big opportunity. Today, Jason breaks down the different moments of opportunity you have right now to become the go-to product or service in your market, and why you must take action now, because these opportunities won’t last forever.
Plus, Jason reveals how to stay focused on your bottom line when facing more stress. And finally, what you must know to answer this common dinner party question. For real, it could make or break your business. Change can feel scary, But after this episode, I have a feeling you’ll see it in a whole new light. Jason, welcome to the podcast.
Jason Feifer
It’s great to be here.
Derrick Kinney
Now you are the editor of Entrepreneur magazine and your finger is on the pulse of business owners and entrepreneurs. And I’m curious, what are the top 2 hot button concerns your readers are most worried about right now?
Jason Feifer
Number one would be the unpredictability of the economy. There’s no way to avoid that. And the wild thing that we’ve learned from the past couple years is that sometimes when things are really bad, they’re really good in some weird other area.
Derrick Kinney
Right.
Jason Feifer
I mean, it’s been, it’s been crazy to see how, for example, inflation is squeezing people in so many ways. But then for a long time also, it was a hell of a seller’s market for real estate. And it’s just, it’s just been impossible to predict. And I think people are very frustrated by that and they’re looking for insights and ways to just begin to understand what’s next so that they can start to prepare and plan for it. People keep telling me that they just keep having to scrap their plan every 6 months and come up with something else.
And that’s very frustrating. People want to get on with the business of their business. So that’s number one. And then number two, I would say, is pretty similar, which is that people feel like new things are needed of them all the time, whether they’re a leader who now has to lead their company through different modes. They’re in sudden growth mode now, they’re in sudden, preparing for the worst mode. And, you know, now they’re – they have to lead a, you know, a team of people that are all brand new, and now they have to try to kind of shift corporate culture as work changes.
And anyway, people are – I think that they’re excited by the opportunity, but frustrated that they can’t just dedicate themselves to one direction and be able to stick to it for a while.
Derrick Kinney
I think you said it well there. I think so many people just want to just go to work. Just let me do the job I was hired for or managed for. But like you said, it’s almost like they’re reinventing their job and their company every single day. How do you find business owners cope with that heightened level of stress and still stay focused on the bottom line?
Jason Feifer
Well, so I think that the most focused ones have done an important thing for themselves that is enabling them to navigate through this time. And to set that up, I’ll just tell you a quick story. So back in the earlier days in the pandemic, I was talking to this guy, Greg Fleischman. He’s the CEO of a baking mix company called Foodstirs, which, at the time, was a baking mix company. So Foodstirs, they have, 3 co-founders, and they make these baking mixes that are wonderful.
You can find them at Whole Foods and wherever. And they had been preparing for quite a while to roll out a brand new line of ready-to-eat baked goods. And this was, this was a big thing for this company. It was going to radically expand who they were reaching and the kinds of products they offered. The pandemic came along and just like rocked all that in a weird way, right? Because of course, the way that things were impacted were just totally unpredictable.
So in this case, what had happened was that ready-to-eat baked goods, you know, like cookies in a bag, demand for those just dropped during the pandemic. But baking mixes demand spiked, because of course, people were stuck at home, they wanted something to do with their kids.
So here was this company ready to shift resources, ready to roll out this whole other line. And now they were seeing that actually demand for that line was shrinking and that they really needed to double down on the thing that they were already doing, basically put their change plans on hold.
And that’s what ultimately they decided to do. And I asked Greg, was this a bummer for you? And he said, you know, no. And the reason is because – and these were his words – he says, the reason is because you go back to, well, why are we in business to begin with? And we’re in business to bring joy to people through sweet baked goods. That’s what it’s all about, he said.
Derrick Kinney
Right.
Jason Feifer
And, you know, there’s something really powerful in what he said that I think you really have to pause to appreciate because he just threw that line off. But what he was doing was he was identifying the core value of the brand that is deeper than any single product that they put out or any single way in which they express that value. And by having that clarity of purpose, he understood that no matter what changes, there is something about this brand and about the thing that he wakes up every day doing that will not change.
And the better you understand that for yourself and for your brand, the better you’ll feel like you can cope with and navigate major changes because you know the difference between the flagpole and the flag that’s flapping in the breeze. And you know what is never going to change, even when other things do.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah, that’s a great story. I think so many people can relate to that because there’s such flux happening right now. You know, and tying into that, Jason, as a business owner listening right now, how can a person go about building their business during times of economic uncertainty?
Jason Feifer
Okay, well, look, there are specific financial tactics that you can take, and then there are things that I think that you should just be thinking a lot about and a way to understand. Let’s start, if we can, by just continuing with this thing that Greg said, which was the, you know, what’s the reason we’re in business? It’s to bring joy to people. So I found that most people don’t really have something that is so core to them that they have defined in a few words.
Like what he had there is so powerful. It is one of his greatest tools, which is the ability to distill down the vision and the mission of this company into just a handful of words. I know that sounds trite, but when times get tough, you need something like that to orient you. And, I came up with this little trick to do it. I ran myself through it. Let me run you through it, please. So I want you to imagine that you’re at a dinner party.
Someone comes up to you at a dinner party and they ask what you do. Well, I will tell you, for me, what I would have said at the very beginning of my career when I was – I was a newspaper – I started as a newspaper reporter. And at the time, I really identified with being a newspaper reporter. And it was – didn’t really seem like a problem to me until I realized that the newspaper industry wasn’t something that I wanted to stay in.
And then it was a problem because if I’m not a newspaper reporter, then what am I? I’ve spent all this time defining myself as a newspaper reporter, right? So, this is, I think, the challenge that we all have. We define ourselves by the output of our work. So, okay, Derrick, somebody comes up to you at a party and they ask what you do.
I think that the first thing that you’re going to do is you’re going to talk about your tasks. If I was a newspaper reporter, I would say, well, what do I do? What I do is I go out and I report the news and I write it in this newspaper. What would, what would you have said?
Derrick Kinney
Well, you know, prior to selling my financial planning practice, this is something I grappled with. And it was the question I least wanted people to ask because I could see the eyes roll back in people’s heads. Well, I’m a financial advisor. And at that moment, Jason, oh, you sell mutual funds, stocks, you sell insurance, and you’re categorized in this box, and then you’re stuck there. So hold on, let me stop there, then I’ll tell you the rest in a second.
Jason Feifer
Okay, great. All right, so, that was, that was good. Now we’re going to run the scenario three times. That was number one. Number two, someone comes up to you at a party and they ask what you do. You can’t say anything that you just said, so you can’t talk about your tasks.
So what are you going to talk about? I think that what you’re going to talk about next is you’re going to talk about your skills. These are naturally the things that enable you to do the tasks. So you’re going to say, or I would have said, well, okay, what I do is I’m – I go out and I am very good at gathering information and then distilling that information so that it is useful to other people. That’s, that’s, that’s what I do. What would you have said?
Derrick Kinney
Well, in that case there, I mean, helping people invest, plan for the future. And again, it goes back to just this pat answer that people probably expected that didn’t make you stand out at all.
Jason Feifer
Mm-hmm. Okay, great. One more time. Someone comes up to you at a party and asks what you do. You cannot talk about your tasks and you cannot talk about your skills. For, folks playing, at home, playing along at home, I think, you know, what we’re doing here is we’re kind of peeling back the layers. We’re trying to identify the things that we generally say we are or that we do, that when we wake up in the morning the things that are at the surface of our understanding of ourselves and our – and what we need to do throughout the day.
And we want to be able to name them and then set them aside so that we give ourselves the space to go deeper and identify the thing that is ultimately driving everything. Because that’s what we’re now going to say, because we can’t talk about our tasks, we can’t talk about our skills.
So what do we talk about? We talk about our core. We talk about the thing that is so deep inside of us that it drove us to develop the skills that enabled us to do the tasks. That’s the thing that I think that you need to be able to speak to in just a few words. And look, it’s not necessarily – Derrick, I think what you’re going to tell me is how you figured out how to communicate that to others, which is really useful. But you also just need to be able to communicate it to yourself.
I have this sentence, and I advise people come up with a single sentence, just a few words, and no, no part of this should be easily changeable. Right? So, you know, I’m a financial advisor in Southern California. I don’t know where you live, but “in Southern California” is not very useful because you could stop being a financial advisor and you could move from Southern California. So bad line, right? So instead, here’s what I have.
I tell stories in my own voice. Two distinct parts to that. I tell stories, not magazine stories, not newspaper stories, not podcasts, not books. I tell stories. So take one away from me and it does not matter because I have the ability to do it in many other ways. In my own voice, I’m defining the terms in which I’m going to act. I’m not working for somebody else in telling their stories in their voice. I’m not interested in just kind of showing up somewhere and carrying the ball.
I’m going to establish something and speak with my own voice. That’s what I do. That’s how I understand myself. So how did you come to your understanding?
Derrick Kinney
Well, now that I have a different type of practice and helping business owners, now I would engage people and say, you know how many small business owners want to stand out, but they don’t know how? And they agree, yeah, that’s a problem. Well, I help local business owners dominate their market.
Jason Feifer
Hmm.
Derrick Kinney
So my angle there is how do I invite them into a story where they understand a common problem they can relate to? And here’s a solution to that engages them where they want to say, well, now tell me more about that. I mean, that I always think about the “tell me more about that” phase where it then enters that person into a discussion with you about your business.
Jason Feifer
Right. I think that’s, that’s great. And that goes beyond just identifying the core value to you, but you’ve actually, you’ve found the way in which to communicate your value to others. In a way in which it’s very clear immediately. And this is, I mean, this is kind of different from identifying your core so that you understand what is not changeable in a changeable environment.
But what you’re talking about is also equally important, which is you have to be for something for somebody. And, you know, I, what I really like about the way that you describe what you do is that when you say that to somebody, people will either say, Oh yes, this is for me, or oh no, this is not for me.
And that either is fine, right? What you don’t want is you don’t want someone who’s just like, oh, all right, very good. Right, exactly, exactly. Their eyes fall back in their heads again. Yeah, right. Because you are, you are not only, not only are you telling people what you do, but you’re telling them what they can expect. So if they work with you, here’s what they can expect, and you’re defining the terms. It’s a really nice way of articulating it, and it’s something that you can now Use, you can stand upon no matter what is changing in the environment.
And to go back to your original question, I think that this is really key for people because if you have not gone through this, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to experience every change as a loss. So you’re going to see this new change is going to come along and therefore it is going to interrupt or, or, or, or displace the way that I used to do X, Y or Z. And because of that, I am experiencing a loss. I had something and I have lost it.
And once you’re focused on the loss, I tell you what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna extrapolate the loss because you’re desperate to know what’s next. And so now all you see is loss, and therefore you’re going to say what comes next is going to be even greater loss because I lose this, then I’m gonna lose that. Because I lose that, I’m gonna lose that.
And so that’s how people get into a tailspin of panic because we start to see every single part of ourselves and how we could be relevant to people as absolutely crumbling. When of course, that’s not the case. If you’ve gone through any kind of pivot, what you see is that – What you see is that there is really great value that you’re able to transfer from what you used to do to what you’re going to do next. And in fact, you are often on the front lines of seeing that change yourself.
So you see the opportunity, you see the things that people need from you before other people do, because you’re experiencing that change. And that’s how you start to see gains and extrapolate the gain. But boy, if you’re focused on loss, you’re going to feel really lost.
Derrick Kinney
Oh, I like what you said there because what it made me think about, Jason, was you need to be confident and have an anchor point in your own skills. So whatever wave crashes against you, your boat is still secure in the water where there’s going to be days where you might make phone calls and everybody says no, no, no. And it just feels like a week of adversity. But as you said, I tell stories in my own voice. That’s a confidence you have in your own skill set and your abilities that nobody can take away from you as long as you continue to believe that you can keep adding value to people. Did I hear you correctly?
Jason Feifer
Yeah, that’s right. You know, the way that you just phrased it there with anchor made me think of this thing that Jim McKelvey told me. So Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, he gave us just really interesting insight. He said that when – so Square, when the Square Reader came out, of course, as any of your small business listeners know, was revolutionary for small businesses and enabled a lot of people to take credit cards that they hadn’t been able to before.
And so for the – for small businesses, for consumers, people – you all saw that, we all saw that, and we said, wow, that’s amazing. Competitors of Square said, wow, we can knock that off. And so they started to come out with all of these Square reader knockoffs. And they didn’t work.
And the reason, Jim said, is because people thought – and this is almost word for word of what he said, although I’m sure my memory is a little, a little faulty – but he said, he said, people thought that the real innovation of the Square Reader was the hardware, but really it was the 14 other things in our innovation stack that enabled it to work, right? Because to make that thing work, they had to negotiate totally new deals with credit card processors and lower fees and the whole thing. And people didn’t see that.
What they saw was a little square that you plug into a device and it can scan a card. And Jim said, if you want to, and this is the reason why I’m telling you this is because of the word anchor that you used. If you wanna, if you wanna find that anchor, basically how do you drop something down past the surface and into the thing that only you understand? Well, it’s in the words, but really, Jim said, people thought the innovation was the hardware, but really it was the 14 other things in our innovation stack.
And anybody in business, Jim said, and he’s right, anybody better understand what their “but really” is. What is the thing that people see that you understand better? I am a newspaper reporter, but really I tell stories that matter to people, or whatever it is, right? I am a financial planner, but really what I do is I help people navigate difficult situations. But the more that you can understand – and those are surface level, right?
Of course. But when you get into Square, the “but really” was 14 different things that they had done. The more that you understand what your “but really” is – and he said, he said, he said, it’s, it’s when he’s interviewing, when he was interviewing, founders that he was considering investing in, one of the things that he would do is he’d basically push people to define those “but really” statements for him to make sure that they understood their business in a way that nobody else did, because that’s where the real advantage is.
And I think it’s worth you listening right now stepping back and saying, you know, if I had to draw – if I had to write out three “but really” statements for what I do, you know, this is my business, but really, if you write 3 down, I’ll tell you’re going to start shifting your mind towards being able to write 20. And those are the things that anchor you. Those are the things that really you have built that are going to be valuable no matter what kind of change comes.
Because, because look, maybe, maybe the Square reader, device could have been improved, or maybe there was some other way to process credit cards. But like, once they understood what they had done to enable this whole new system to work, they understood something that no competitor did, and they were more prepared for change than anybody else.
Derrick Kinney
Well, you’ve described just a depth of a business owner understanding their own value. And Jason, let me throw this at you.
Jason Feifer
Yeah.
Derrick Kinney
Because one of the things that I’m a big fan of is a “so that” statement. So in other words, if you were to take that and say, well, you know, the Square Reader does this so that, and then the “so that” to me is always, how does it impact and better me personally? You know, how does, how does it actually improve my life? How would you, How would you incorporate that? Because the “but really” is like, man, now I understand my business and what these features mean, which so many people harp on all these features and benefits and nobody really buys that. They buy what does it mean to me? How would you tie those 2 pieces together?
Jason Feifer
Hmm. So I really love the “so that” because that’s taking the same idea, but it’s going in a different direction, right? You said the “but really” is going very internal. The so that is going very external. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of, as a way to answer this question.
So what I have found as I watch both businesses struggle to connect with consumers, and also as I watch consumers struggle to connect with or misunderstand or dislike something new, I find that What’s missing is a bridge of familiarity, and I’ll explain the bridge of familiarity. So let me tell you a fun little story from history. Turn of the century, the automobile is introduced. Originally, it’s called the “devil’s wagon”, which I’ll tell you in a second.
But it’s called the horseless carriage, and the horseless carriage, you know, obviously a transformative invention. And when we think of who was the person or what was the thing responsible for bringing the car to the masses, what we generally think of is, of course, you want to say it?
Derrick Kinney
Henry Ford.
Jason Feifer
The answer is Henry Ford.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah.
Jason Feifer
And so, Henry Ford. So, because people say, oh, Henry Ford, he revolutionized manufacturing and automobiles, and that’s right, and that’s true, but there was actually something that came before Henry Ford that is not often talked about in the history books that came to me from an auto historian who had written this very fascinating academic book And she told me that years and years before Henry Ford, the automobile industry had a big problem. And the problem was that people hated cars.
So they, like I said, they call – they called it the devil’s wagon. The devil’s wagon. They would, throw rocks at cars as they drove by. They would yell on the side of streets and they would yell, get a horse, at the car. They hated these things. And the auto manufacturers were trying to understand why. There were all sorts of reasons, but, a big one was that they were talking about the horse all wrong. I mean, the car all wrong.
They were, they were saying the car is a replacement for the horse. The advertisements were saying, this car is much better than your horse. Get rid of your horse and get a car. But you know what? People don’t like to be told that the thing that they’re comfortable with is bad.
Derrick Kinney
Right.
Jason Feifer
People like their horse. They – the horse is a member of the family. Generations upon generations had owned horses. And now you’re going to come along like, you know, some tone-deaf, Silicon Valley bro, you know, and say, this way that you’re doing things is all wrong, you bunch of idiots. Here’s a better way to do it. I built it. People don’t like that.
And the reason why people don’t like that is because people don’t like new things. What they like are better versions of old things. And so you can’t come along and tell people that here’s this new way of doing something, get rid of your old way. You have to build, like I said, a bridge of familiarity.
So what the car industry did, the nascent car industry did, is that they stopped talking about the car as a replacement for the horse, and they started talking about the car as a better horse.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah.
Jason Feifer
And so they started to, for example, name cars after horses, which is a tradition we still have, the Bronco and the Mustang. And the advertisements then all became about how the car is like a horse. They even started putting fake horse heads on the front of cars. And this ultimately warmed people up. And I’ve seen versions of this throughout history.
And I also see it in the way in which people either do successfully or do not successfully introduce new things to people now, innovators, entrepreneurs, are so clear-eyed about the value of the thing that they have created that they forget that sometimes the thing that they’ve created is completely foreign to their consumer. And you can’t just assume that people will understand the value and be ready to ditch whatever they’re already doing.
So, you know, to your question about the “so that”, you know, the “so that” is really making sure that you have clarity, not just on the value that you’re bringing people, but on the way that you’re going to communicate that value. Because if you cannot make the case for the thing that you are bringing to people, well, then they don’t want it. It doesn’t matter how good it is. So you can’t – you have to not only understand the “but really” for yourself and understand how you have built this in a way that nobody else has, but you have to understand how to build the bridge from yourself to the people who you want to reach. And that bridge has to be built upon what they are already familiar with.
Derrick Kinney
That is good. So all of our listeners, you need to re-listen to that part right there. Jason has just deposited money into your account. So Jason, thank you for that. That was really good. And because so many people think that the currency is the freshness of my idea, what you just said is the currency is the familiarity of my idea presented in a way that adds value to them, but it connects to an existing idea they understand.
Jason Feifer
Yes.
Derrick Kinney
That’s beautiful. Beautiful. Well, boy, we’re almost out of time. Okay. This is why, for just so you know, why Jason is only the second guest I’ve ever brought on the show twice, because his stuff is good. This is a great interview. Good conversation.
Jason Feifer
Oh, I’m so honored.
Derrick Kinney
So as the saying goes, Jason, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And in your new book, which I’m excited to endorse, Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, it hits this issue head-on. Why is it so hard for people to change?
Jason Feifer
Ah, well, I have to go back to – and then we can, we can build upon it – but I have to go back to this thing that I had said earlier, which is that I think that people experience change as loss, and then they extrapolate the loss. It is so easy for us to feel like the things that we do are simply the best and only way to do them. And what we forget is that we are actually the product of constant evolution, right? You know, it’s funny.
Here’s a way to think about it. You come from the future. Did you know that? You come from the future, which is to say that everything that you do Everything that you like, everything that you enjoy on a daily basis was once terrifying to other people. You know, I told you –
Derrick Kinney
Right.
Jason Feifer
About – I told you about the car. And, but, you know, it goes on and on and on. I mean, people have tried to ban coffee for 500 years. There was a national moral panic about teddy bears in 1907. Scientific American used to write about how terrible chess was for the mind. I mean, it’s really funny. And the thing is that like, those are people who were seeing something new come along and they were saying, oh no, this is, this is bad.
But you grew up with the things that people thought were bad and now you think that they’re good, which you should. And that should empower you to recognize that once change comes to you and you get this gut instinct, this gut, this gut feeling that, oh no, these new things that are coming along that are going to replace the ways that I’m comfortable with, you know, maybe they’re not so bad.
Maybe in fact they are opportunities. They’re opportunities for growth, for insight, for innovation, and that we really – we either can be a part of that or we can opt out of it. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me to opt out.
Derrick Kinney
Well, Jason, we’ve talked about how our listeners can build their business all throughout this conversation. Now I want to ask you how our listeners can build their wealth. I call these our kind of our Fast Five questions. All of our guests answer them. So here we go. Number one, what advice would you give your 18-year-old self about money?
Jason Feifer
Oh, well, I guess what I would, I, my, I would, I would, I’m trying to think through what I’ve actually done in my life, and I will tell you that the answer is that didn’t proactively, invest my money. I spent way too much time with my money either sitting in a bank account or not being invested wisely. And I would say that you need to think of your money not simply as savings but as an asset, and to take that very seriously.
Derrick Kinney
That’s good. That’s good. What is the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made?
Jason Feifer
I’ll tell you what, my wife and I are in the process of buying a house right now that we bid on before interest rates started to really cool the market. So hopefully this is not the largest financial mistake we’ve ever made. But I would say the biggest financial mistake that I’ve ever made was that, I did not think about how I could build upon the skills that I learned to maximize my earnings. I – that is a realization that I didn’t have until much later.
I used to just take jobs, because they felt like they were the right fit for me, rather than being more aggressive about thinking, what is my market value, and how can I make the case for myself and increase both my standing and my earnings.
Derrick Kinney
That’s good. What financial decision are you most proud of?
Jason Feifer
Well, when Dogecoin was at its height, I would’ve said investing. No, I’m kidding. But I did, I did, I did almost make and then lose a bunch of money on Dogecoin. What financial decision am I most proud of? Well, you know, I guess the answer is that I turned around the challenge that I described. I buckled down. I surrounded myself with smart people. I started to invest my money properly and started to budget so that I was bringing in enough money so that I was kind of regularly moving some of it over into investment accounts and then thinking of it as an investment and not watching it.
And just, knowing that, I wasn’t going to get panicked by the ups and downs of a market. And as a result, we had a good amount of savings to play with when we were buying this house at the top of the market. And, we couldn’t have done that had my wife and I not been thinking really smart about our money early.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah, proactive thinking pays off. Next question: what’s your favorite investment right now?
Jason Feifer
Hmm, well, what is my favorite investment right now? I, it’s funny, I don’t actively invest. I will tell you, what I do is I – we have a, we have a financial advisor, who, is managing our money, and we take their advice because we trust them. But I will tell you, I am putting a lot of money into this house that we’re buying, and I know that house is going to go down in value for some period of time based on the forecasts of the economy.
And I – it is still my favorite investment, and the reason is because I know that this is not an investment in a short-term gain, but this is an investment in my and my family’s future. And I think that you need to sometimes separate what is an investment that you’re making solely for the purposes of money and an investment that you’re making in your wellbeing and your family’s health, and to know the difference between the two. You know, our financial advisor, said to us, look, this is an emotional purchase, and that’s okay as long as you can financially afford it, which you can.
And you need to not think of this as an asset that is going to go up and down, but rather as an investment in your family’s future. And as long as you think of it like that and you are committed to it for a long time, then this is a great investment. And that’s the way I’m choosing to see it.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah, that is well said. And I liked how you described this, the emotional disconnect because some people might have a big purchase like that, but then it really bothers them and causes them to make less money because of the worry about what they spent. And I think you compartmentalize that really well to say, this is a different way to characterize it, but I’m going to focus over here. So thank you for going deeper on that. Last question for you, Jason.
In my book, Good Money Revolution, I write about a concept called the generosity purpose. And it’s a cause that a person is passionate about that a business owner really cares about. And I’m curious, for our listeners to get some insight into you. What’s the cause or causes that you care deeply about and why?
Jason Feifer
Great question. Well, look, let me answer in two different ways. One, because I think this is how I answered when I was on the show last. We were talking about this just before we started recording, which is that I told you that whenever I am partnering in a, in a, with an organization in a way that’s going to drive money towards a donation, what I always choose is City Harvest in New York City. Which just feeds people who don’t have enough to eat.
And I have no connection to the organization. I don’t have – I don’t even have a relationship with anybody at the organization, although they’ve sent me a lot of thank you notes over the years. But simply because I like to think, well, what is simply the most foundational thing that people need? And the answer is food. And it’s heartbreaking to live in a city where you pass people by and they don’t have enough to eat.
Derrick Kinney
Yeah.
Jason Feifer
So that’s that. But I said that last time. So I’ll tell you the other thing that I’m really mindful of, and it’s not scalable, but I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with, with entrepreneurs and investors and people about how everybody has this ecosystem of people, of people who they have met through some way or another, who they believe in, who they, just want to help.
And I, it was recently I was having drinks with an investor in Boulder, Colorado, and she was telling me about all these people that she’s just met like through social media and they impressed her and now she kind of mentors them and she suggests them for openings and things. And anyway, and I have those people too in my life and I just, I have to say, I just love being in a position where I can be someone who is important and useful to someone else. I, it’s not scalable.
I realize, like, I wish I was able to do this for more people, but I think everybody should have that group and be mindful of the unbelievable importance that they can have on other people. And then to take that very seriously.
Derrick Kinney
Well, and what I take away from what you just said, I talk about a similar concept called the people portfolio. Who do you choose to invest in? But Based on what you just described, Jason, I would venture that in the future that somebody 20 years from now who you may have forgotten about will say, you know what, Jason Feifer 20 years ago gave me some advice and really cared about me when he was busy, didn’t really have to. So I think for all of our listeners, you’re modeling for them. Everybody remembers a story and they remember the story about the people who improved and made their life better.
Jason Feifer
So. Yeah.
Derrick Kinney
Jason Feifer is the author of the new book. I’m super excited about this, Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change. And let me just say this, if the first part of your year hasn’t gone how you wanted it, buy this book to help it become the better second half of your year. So Jason Feifer, thank you for being with me. I’ve enjoyed this conversation.
Jason Feifer
Hey, I, it’s always great talking to you and thanks for having me back. It’s such an honor.
Derrick Kinney
Amen. All right, now it’s time for me to talk about some of the takeaways from my conversation with Jason. First of all, I want you to think back to the exercise Jason and I did during the interview. If someone asked you, what do you do at a dinner party? What would you say if you couldn’t talk about the skills you have? Here’s the framework for answering that question. Start with the problem your customers face, And then answer how you help solve it.
For example, if I was at a dinner party, I might say, you know how many small business owners want to stand out and increase their revenue, but they don’t know how? I help local business owners dominate their market. You see, when you invite people into a story, they want to know more about the way your business helps people, and that can potentially help them. And here’s the magic of all this. When you talk about a story people can connect to, if they have a business, they’re thinking, yes, I want to make more revenue.
I want to stand out. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Or they might know someone who also has that same pain point. It will help you stand out from all the other people at the dinner party. And the key thing here is you want to be memorable. The people who are most memorable make the most money. Thanks for listening to the Derrick Kinney Podcast on Modern American Advisor. Do you want to attract more $3 million to $10 million clients and grow your business?
Then check out SuccessForAdvisors.com. That’s SuccessForAdvisors.com. And remember, if you want a business that’s booming, focus on the human. We’ll see you next time.
About Jason Feifer
Jason Feifer is the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine and the author of Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, Adapting Fast, and Future-Proofing Your Career. His work examines how entrepreneurs and business leaders respond to change, identify new opportunities and build for what comes next.
Feifer is also a podcast host, keynote speaker and advisor to startups. Through his writing, speaking and conversations with business leaders, he explores the ways people and organizations adapt when familiar approaches no longer work.
Continue Listening
More conversations from the Derrick Kinney Podcast on Modern American Advisor, exploring the ideas, decisions and experiences shaping how business owners and advisors grow.
- Dre Baldwin — Turning Discipline Into A Competitive Advantage
- Brian Feroldi — How To Invest Through Market Volatility
- Rich Redmond — Fear, Preparation, and Lasting Success
