025: How Jeff Rose Created A 6 Figure Blog To Drive Clients To His Offline Business

Steve: You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, where I bring in successful bootstrapped business owners to teach us what strategies are working, and what strategies are not. Now this isn’t one of those podcasts where we bring on famous entrepreneurs simply to celebrate their success. Instead, I have them take us back to the beginning and delve deeply into the exact strategies they used early on to gain traction for their businesses. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave me a review on iTunes, and enter my podcast contest where I’m giving away free one-on-one business consultations every single month. For more information go to www.mywifequitherjob.com/contest. And if you’re interested in starting your own online business, be sure to sign up for my free six day mini-course where I show you how my wife and I managed to make over a 100k in profit in our first year of business. Go to www.mywifequitherjob.com for more information. Now, on to the show.

Welcome to the my My Wife Quit Her Job podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here’s your host Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have a good friend of mine on the show Jeff Rose. Now if you don’t know who Jeff is, he blogs at GoodFinnancialCents.com, DollarsAndRoses.com. He’s got like three podcasts, his own financial planning practice and he actually makes a bunch of You Tube videos as well. And out of all the bloggers that I know, I would say that Jeff is probably one of the most charismatic personalities out there, and he’s actually built quite a brand for himself. Not to mention the fact that he also makes a good deal of money with his various businesses, and in fact he puts out all of his income online for everyone to see and I’ll go ahead and link that up with the show notes because it’s quite interesting where all the income sources come from.

Now Jeff is actually a hard man to track down. First of all you have to get past his virtual assistant, but fortunately I know all of his weak points, in and out burger, juicing and crossfits. So, step number one if you want to get a hold Jeff Rose, include in and out burger in the subject line of your email, and I may have also led him to believe that this podcast was about eating burgers. So sorry man no burgers here. Jeff is actually one of the reasons why I started this podcast in the first place. So welcome to the show Jeff. How are you doing man?

Jeff: You’re saying there is no in and out burger with this like– I’m sorry dude I got to go man.

Steve: I got you here, it’s too late, it’s too late we’re already recording.

Jeff : Cool man, thanks for having me on.

Steve : So you got a really interesting story, and I don’t know if a lot of people know about your back story. You kind of came from a poor upbringing. You joined the marines. What kind of made you decide to start your own business online?

Jeff : You know I mean my father struggled with that. I don’t want to make it sound like I was poor, poor but, let’s just say that both my parents they separated when I was a young age. My mom you know she has my step dad– he was pretty successful but, they just– both of them, mom stepdad and dad really did not know how to manage money at all. My dad filed for bankruptcy twice, my mom filed for bankruptcy once. At times, they had– my mom had five mortgages at one time.

Steve: Wow!

Jeff: And which like that’s what the [Inaudible] [00:03:37] but, they actually ended up losing like three of those like five properties because they just didn’t know what they were doing.

Steve: Was that during the craze with the real estate?

Jeff : No, no they– that was well before that. They actually– its funny you mention that because they finally like started doing better, sold their house in LA, moved to Las Vegas before the boom, and then they had cash left over that they actually were sitting pretty but, instead of sitting pretty, they invested it to a Vespa property in Las Vegas. Prior to that, they ended up losing two more houses to foreclosure. So yeah like that’s what I’ve been having to work through growing up, seeing some of those financial shortfalls along the way.

Steve : Man, okay. So you know what’s ironic about all of this, is that my parents, they kind of made their money through real estate, and you know at least that generation– they’ve always advised my brother and I to always buy real estate because that’s something that can never really go down. So it’s just interesting that your parents actually lost money during the boom with real estate so.

Jeff : Yeah, so like and you know my dad dropped out of college. You know when he was younger, he joined the army and after that he just kind of I don’t know he was like a car salesman, just kind of bounced around a lot of end jobs, and he always told me like you know he always wanted me to be– to do better than he is. So he really wanted me to go to college, you know do the whole degree thing, and I ended up dropping out my first semester of college, and started working a dead end job basically. And then I joined the army national guard, not the marines that you mentioned.

Steve: Oh my bad.

Jeff: It’s okay, it’s all good and you know joining the national guard for me was– that was my life savior I mean that, that’s what basically got my butt in gear, got me back on track just career wise and just getting focused again. And– but even still even getting my career back on track I still like knew nothing about investing or financial planning or really even how to manage money, and I end up becoming a finance major. Actually my dad suggested I be a Finance major, and you know I always listen to him so I went that path and ended up getting internship with a brokerage firm that ended up me becoming a financial planner and as they say the rest is history.

Steve: So.

Jeff: Go ahead.

Steve: You broke off from that to start your own practice eventually right?

Jeff: Yeah, so I did I was working for ‘the man’ for about five years building my book of business and probably one of the best things that happened was my old firm got bought out by a bigger firm and had that never happened I don’t know if I would have left, because I really enjoyed the company. That was the only coolade that I had drunk at that time and I liked the coolade I didn’t know any other, I didn’t want to try any other coolade, because I liked it. But, when they got bought out it forced me to kind of look at what other options existed and that’s when I ended up leaving with three others and co-founded our own investment firm, and we’re independent in our space is a common way of hearing that.

And when I went independent that allowed me to market myself a little bit more differently than others. I had a little bit more freedom and that’s really where the blog ended up. That’s where it all came from. With that ability to market myself and just looking for other unique ways to get myself out there and stumbled upon blogging and registered domain GoodFinnancialCents.com and it’s been a blast ever since then. That was back in July– I left December of 07, launched the blog in July of 2008.

Steve: So you actually started good financial cents to help promote your practice is that right or?

Jeff: Yeah, no that was that was basically the only reason. I mean I did have a passion for educating others, that was kind of the other underlying thing to it. But you know it was what it was. It was to market myself being an independent financial planner, and to hopefully get new clients. And along the way I learned more about blogging, about key words, and driving traffic and the fact that you can actually monetize the blog. First I started with Adsense, then eventually grew to using affiliates and other means. So it all– once I started blogging and networking with other bloggers, I just was opened up to an entirely new world that I was completely oblivious to at the time.

Steve: So let’s go in a little bit more depth. So how does JFC make money today?

Jeff: A combination, you know right now I still get the occasional new clients. Actually kind of a cool story I– this is three years in the making, I but I had a guy who I kind of knew here locally and he had seen some of my posts on Facebook where I share some of my blog comments or some of my blog articles and he emailed me. This was three years ago and said “Hey, I really appreciate your willingness to educate people on personal finance and investing. I have a friend that I want to introduce you to.” That was three years ago. Long story short that person just now finally got the money that they’d been waiting on to settle and brought in like 1.5 million dollars all because of my blogging efforts. But, that was like three years in the making, and at this point in time that is not the biggest client that I’ve got from my blog.

Steve: That’s awesome so I’ve been on your blog obviously many times. Is there– there doesn’t seem to be like a funnel that goes directly to your practice and at least as far as I could tell?

Jeff: Yeah, and that– its funny you mention that because we’re going to talk about a pivot here in a little bit, correct?

Steve: That’s correct at the very end. I said it out too early, didn’t I.

Jeff: You did that’s okay. You had an original question I forgot what that was?

Steve: How does it make money and yeah.

Jeff: Oh yeah. That is that is one way getting you know getting new clients that feed in to the practice. The the first way that I used to make money was using just using Google Adsense. Just because I really didn’t know any other way to make money. That was the easiest way, just slap some Adsense code on there, and let the money roll in. From there I started doing affiliates. My– probably my top revenue producers are like brokerage firms, Scottrade, TDAmeritrade, E-trade etcetera. I also do pretty good with the pure and pure lenders like lending club and Prosper and savings accounts like Capital One 360 and a few others. So affiliates are another revenue source and then banner advertising. I got a pretty good ad network where I get a fairly competitive CPM which you know is based on impressions. And those are basically the three ways I guess that bring in revenue.

Steve: So let me ask you this. So you said that you started Good Financial Cents to actually get more clients to you your practice, that was the initial intention. So doesn’t adding ads and you know Adsense and that sort of thing kind of– isn’t that kind of contrary to the kind of goal so to speak because you’re clicking on a banner that takes you off the site, so how does it all work together.

Jeff: That’s a great question. That’s something I had someone ask me the very beginning when I put ads on there, and what I– the logic that I went through to come to the conclusion why I left the ads on there was I cannot be a financial advisor for everybody. People are going to come to my site, they are going to– they’re maybe want to work with me maybe not, but if I can at least monetize that and get a few dollars from all the effort that I put into it, I’m okay with that. And the amount of clients I‘ve been able to get even with having advertising on there I think kind of speaks to that. So I feel like it’s just a nice secondary income that you know comes in and it’s a decent secondary income but…

Steve: Right, yeah, yeah, I’m definitely going to link up you’re your income reports in the show notes because it’s pretty impressive.

Jeff: Yeah, it’s just something that I wrestled with for a long time, but the final concluding factor or the thing I came to was Jeff you cannot be a financial advisor for everybody, and not everybody is going to want to hire you. The people who really want to hire you, they are going to look past the ads, they are going to contact you, ask a question. I get questions all the time, and I think that’s where, that’s where I guess that connection really builds. They contact me via email or contact form and really just share their entire financial history, and if I’m able to provide value you know that’s where there’s going to be– going to build that trust even having ads on the side.

Steve: So are all your clients kind of local to where you live or do you get people from all over the country?

Jeff: Actually majority are local, I do have a few that were not. I’ve got several that are out of state, but not huge. I think the furthest one I ever got which– this still amazes me was I have a client that is in the air force, and at the time of us starting our working relationship, she was stationed in Japan. And she found my blog for whatever reason, and like she wanted to work with me. And we– we’ve never met face-to-face, we’ve chatted on Skype a few times, and that’s it. She’s actually in the states now. I think she’s in Virginia, but she’ll be going to Japan I think in the next year. So that’s like my first international client per se, but I’ve got several on the west coast, and you know several scattered but I mean I’m not in every single state. I think maybe we have clients in about ten different states right now.

Steve: That’s actually really cool that you have clients that you’ve gotten from all over the country through your blog. Just curious, do they ever tell you why they decide to go with you?

Jeff: Yeah, you know there is one lady who recently, this is actually another lady. She is in my state, but she lives five hours from me and she called me, which happens every so often. And she told me she’s like her husband was in a situation where they were in their early 50s, and they were I guess something came up where they thought they needed a financial advisor, and the husband said to the wife “Hey do you know anyone that you feel that you trust.” And she is like, you know she’s like the only guy I know is this guy that I’ve been on his email list for about a year and he’s got a blog FinnancialCents.com, and she told me this when she called me.

She’s like I’ve been on your email list for a year and she’s like either you are super trustworthy or you have the biggest scam going but you know just the content you put out, I feel like that I know you. And I just thought that was funny that she was very candid about contacting me, because I love when people do contact me and want to work with me. I love just finding out how did you find me, and you know and just like with the lady in Japan like you know what was it about me that– because I told her, if I were you, I don’t know I could trust somebody to transfer all of my retirement assets even though I’ve never met that person face to face. I mean that is a huge leap of faith you know I would think, I couldn’t do it but I’ve had people do it.

Steve: It probably has something to do with your dance in You Tube videos. So for everyone listening, Jeff has all these You Tube videos where he’s actually dancing and acting kind of silly on the videos, but it somehow ties that in with personal finance in a very– in a very well done way. I can’t I can’t really describe it, I’ll just have to link up one of these You tube videos in the show notes for you guys to see. So okay, so you’re getting these clients through your blog. How do you actually get traffic to your site?

Jeff: You know, initially it was all just key words, it was– so kind of like my journey of really understanding how a blog works. The first key word that I ever wanted to target was financial planner Illinois. Actually, no correction, the first keyword that I ever wanted to target was my name Jeff Rose because before I started the blog if you goggled Jeff Rose like you didn’t see me. You found Jeff Rose the actor, Jeff Rose the golf polo maker, and Jeff Rose the superintendant in Oregon and you know that was it. So I wanted to own my name you know people wanted to do research on Jeff Rose they would find me, and that wasn’t that hard. After setting up the blog, setting up my LinkedIn profile and all that good stuff. But then I realized you know what, if people needed a financial planner they know, they don’t know Jeff Rose, they are not going to Google Jeff Rose. So I thought okay I’m want to target financial planner Illinois. So I went on this like campaign of guest posting and linking back to a landing page I created you know focusing on those key words, and I was able to do it. And I think it was two or three short months for the most part. And it’s pretty good considering the fact that I live in Illinois which you know I’ve got Chicago which is a pretty big city you know competing with all the financial advisors up there, and I was able to get at the time three listings on the top ten for financial planner Illinois.

Steve: Nice.

Jeff: I think it’s only two but I think I’ve got like three in the top twelve. So for a guy that really knew nothing about blogging, I was pretty impressed with that fete. So when I got that– when I was able to rank for that, then the thought was okay how do I rank for search terms for people that might need my services? Like 401k rollover, how much life insurance do I need to buy, how to do a Roth IRA conversion you know. Just figured basic thinking of key words or relevant search terms that people would need my services. So that’s when I started to write articles that were trying to target those certain key words. And this was all pre panda, pre Google panda which if people don’t know what that was, that was an algorithm update that Google did that just basically wiped out a lot of sites searching new traffic. So I was doing really good pre panda, and then Google for whatever reason didn’t like me, and I promise I wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t legal in Google’s eyes, but I got spanked pretty hard, I lost 70% of my traffic.

Steve: Wow, I didn’t realize it was 70%.

Jeff: 70% over night. April 11 2011[laughter] I actually just thought I looked at the date and I’m like you know what, that was like three years ago.

Steve: 2nd anniversary.

Jeff: Yeah exactly. It was horrible man, I mean I spent two and a half, three years building up this blog that was getting at the time a 100, a 150 unique visitors per month and lost it poo over night. And I just cried and you know kind of looked at myself but… So that was how I initially got traffic and you know since panda you know I’ve done more You tube videos like you’ve mentioned. Just focused on doing You Tube videos good content you know, just really putting out better content and doing like guest posting. I started writing for other major sites just to get more back links back to Good Financial Cents, and here recently here it’s the podcast. Launched the Good Financial Cents podcast earlier this year I think or last year I forget exactly, but you know but just basically doing things outside the box to drive traffic back to the blog. I guess the other major thing I shouldn’t have probably forgot about was my book…

Steve: Oh, yes.

Jeff: That came out last fall soldier sort of finance I released that got published in fall so you know all these different things I was doing all to get people back to my main hub which was my blog.

Steve: So are you still trying to get back in the rankings or is this just kind of your way of driving outside traffic and kind of Google proofing your site?

Jeff: You know, honestly, now like I used to do a lot of keyword research. And occasionally like I’ll start doing keyword research again, and like then I realized I’m never going to write the article to rank that term anyway. So now it’s like I don’t even– I don’t care as much as I used to. Like I think for example a recent post that I did was six things– I forgot things like title you know ‘six ways that retirees screw up their retirement’. That’s actually the worst title ever but, there is nothing about it that was targeting SEO. You know it was just six tips that I just felt that I’ve seen people continually screw up, with a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with. I took that article, I made the six tips, I’ve turned it into a podcast, I had my new assistant create a prezi which is kind of like a really sexy– like PowerPoint 2.0 presentation. So we created a nice prezi which I uploaded to You Tube, and I did a– when I recorded the podcast I also did a presentation with it as well, and I’ve got a nice image that I’ve created for Pinterest, and I’ll pin it on Pinterest. So just what I really want to focus on especially like my really good midi content is just to make it available, and as may [Inaudible] [00:20:19] as possible.

Steve: So out of all your referring traffic sources outside of Google, which ones do the best for you?

Jeff: Right now it’s actually Pinterest that’s actually driving the most referral traffic other than Google.

Steve: Really?

Jeff: Yeah, it’s my wife– she’s helped me a lot with the Pinterest pics and just making me knowledgeable with Pinterest and actually if I could check, let’s see. I mean Pinterest and then I think Facebook would be the next as far as social media referral.

Steve: So I’ve actually never gotten anything really hot on Pinterest and I was just thinking it was because the topic that I write about isn’t really geared towards that audience. Are you trying– are you kind of adjusting your content to appeal more to the Pinterest audience in any way?

Jeff: You know it’s something I go back and forth with, but the I just rebranded Good Financial Cents you know I just came out of doing site design not too long ago, and I started focusing more on the younger investor which is actually totally different than the actual clientele I work with. Most of my clientele probably 85% are of baby boomer age. But I– my wife who also has a blog and she gets a lot of young families to her blog which is kind of her residence because you know we’re a young family, we’ve got three young boys, so it’s just natural that those people kind of are the readers of her blog. And you know she always mentions me in her blog, so I’ve got like carry over traffic. So I just have a lot of people that come over from her blog that are all you know that are all younger they are all you know young families getting started financially. So it just kind of made sense to start devoting more content to that. And that’s kind of what’s been in our focus.

Steve: So I’d be curious, do any of those Pinterest people– have any of them become your clients?

Jeff : I’ve had a few people that we started on that path, but its– I– to protect my time, I don’t have like a minimum of clients like I formally announce you know like on my practice, from my blog anywhere, but I have you know have a mental minimum that I just know like to make it worth my time you know I have to have a minimum as far as working with people especially virtually. So I actually just more enjoy if they contact me, I like to give them the information you know they need, and it’s just kind of like point them in the right direction.

Steve: Okay. So let’s talk about some of your other web properties. So you got Good Financial Cents, you got Dollars and Roses, and you have a secret niche site which we I guess won’t go into too much depth about. But how does everything come together? So what is Dollars and Roses about?

Jeff: So Dollars and Roses was one of my– one of my many brain childs I came up with, but when my wife quit her job back in the fall of 2008…

Steve: Hey that’s already taken man, you can’t use that URL.

Jeff: What’s that?

Steve: You just said my wife quit her job. That’s…

Jeff: Wow, that was like totally, I’m going to actually register mywifequitherjobHq.com. It’s funny I just said that. So when she did quit her job and started helping me with my blog you know her– she didn’t have more time to focus on her blog, and that’s when she became more passionate about it. And I just thought it’d be really cool if we started a blog together that showcased our blogging efforts. And the initial intention of that, I mean it was basically a mirrored kind of a pathlin {phonetic] model, you know smart passive income, but to be more like the couple version.

And in the time, I really had no desire to be another you know Pat Flynn [phonetic] or you know another male in the internet marketing world. But my big vision was I thought you know if Mandy could really become more of a voice of this blog because in her niche I mean in the mommy blogger or lifestyle or whatever you want to call it. There just aren’t many mom bloggers that are very open and transparent with how much traffic they get, how much money they make from their blogs, you know it’s just kind of more of a taboo thing. They all want to pretend like they make money but they are never really open to share what that really is.

So that’s where I kind of– that’s where it all came to be. It was something we could do together, kind of a fun project and from that we started the podcast. But you know we don’t spend a lot of time on it because we’ve got so much other stuff going on that it’s not our main revenue maker so you got to kind of spend the time where you make money. But the same token I think that blog has done– it’s been good for us as far as like social proof like with the online space. You know her and I actually– we got asked to be a– to do a key note talk in San Diego this summer at a conference that you know that wouldn’t have came about if it wasn’t for the Dollars and Rose’s blog.

Steve: Let’s see so the purpose of Dollars and Roses in a way then is to just kind of strengthen your online presence, not necessarily tied to your practice or anything like that?

Jeff: Yeah, I have like this secret I think obsession of– I love being seen as an entrepreneur and you know one day if I ever want to sell the practice and then focus more on the online space you know this is kind of like setting those kind of like those steps to get there. So that’s kind of what the intent is I think.

Steve: I see, that makes sense I mean, I started my blog at the time as my retirement plan as well. So you know even though I’m still working the blog actually makes more than my salary so I could in theory I guess quit at any time. So since were on that topic. I often get asked actually on my blog what the best business model is in terms of making money online. You’ve tried a bunch of things including niche sites, blogging, writing a book, podcasts, You Tube videos. What would you say is you know for someone just starting out at least what should they be focusing on?

Jeff: Yeah, I think when people that are just starting their online business, starting blogging for the first time and they see someone like myself or even like yourself you know that has like the course and all these sites and now a podcast, and it’s very overwhelming. It’s like where do you start, and I think maybe what they realize like for me– for me it was just a blog. I started the blog, I did that for my goodness, I want to say at least a year before I did anything major like with doing any You Tube videos. And I actually think it was longer, I think it was like two years. So I mean it was just like finding that groove and just figure out one if like they even like blogging.

A lot of people– they’ll read the income reports or they’ll see myself like a Pat Flynn and everyone else that is like killing it online, like I want to do that, I can do that, and they’ve never even written a blog post before. And you know it’s like you start that and you realize crap I don’t like to write. And I’ve kind of had that epiphany a few times myself, so probably I’ll do a few more videos. So I think it is just starting, I think it’s just putting it out there, and trying to launch the blog and just seeing if you’ve got the mental fortitude to persevere because there are so many little hang ups that can frustrate you. And you know for me, my hang up like I didn’t even like want to go to word press because I didn’t even know how to install word press, which is kind of funny now, reflecting back for me that was like a big thing for me like I just didn’t know how to do it.

So I didn’t, I was using Jumbo because I was too afraid to go to word press but– and I remember one time the first time I installed my own theme, you know my first thesis theme on word press like I didn’t install right, and didn’t know where to go, had no one to talk to, and it was just frustrating. I spent like a whole freaking weekend trying to figure out how to reinstall a theme, like I’m not exaggerating, like an entire weekend. My mom was actually visiting at the time and so she had our– we just had one son at the time, and I was seriously behind the computer for like 48 hours trying to figure that stupid thing out. And most people don’t do that, like that’s weird.

Steve: It’s not weird. It’s fair to say that you don’t have a technical background is that right, Jeff?

Jeff: Oh my goodness absolutely not. No, I still laugh to this day like how I even have an online business, like how I ever blog because there was like the red button that you press to blow my blog up, like I’m surprised I haven’t pressed it like two, three times.

Steve: But say you got. I’m sorry go on.

Jeff: No, it’s like I think that’s it, I think most people– they have all these big pictures, they get overwhelmed and it’s like just start from beginning, start a blog if that’s what you want to do, and just see if you like it you know try it out for 90 days, and if you realize man this isn’t my thing you know delete and move on.

Steve: What about, you know podcasting? What about You Tube videos? Have you actually monetized any of your podcasts yet?

Jeff: You know actually just– I got my first sponsor that was the route I went. I just tried it, it was just actually more of a test to see if I could actually get somebody to do it. And you know I got a sponsor that is paying 7000 dollars for like a 90 days spot. I don’t know if I’ll continue that route. I don’t know if I like the idea of having sponsors. I guess this was the right fit. This is– I actually approached I think it was three different potential sponsors. So these ones I felt comfortable partnering with. You know one of the said yes, so I may go to the other two and see if they are interested for the nest quarter, but I don’t know, like it wasn’t always about making money. I just wanted to see if I could do it and I did it so.

Steve: So the podcast is again just one of those things just getting your name out there right?

Jeff: Yeah, it is you know and so you know for me and I slightly mentioned this but like with my blog and I know you and I talk about this several times. Writing for me– that’s not my strong point. Yeah I’ve got a blog, got over a thousand articles. Yeah I wrote a book but, [Inaudible] [00:30:11].

Steve: Yeah, and I was just about to say you just wrote a book.

Jeff: It’s like writing still it takes the most like– writing takes more energy than doing a crossfit workout. Like it literally just takes– there are times that I enjoy it but like I have to be in that perfect Zen state, where I’m heavily caffeinated, and it’s like fresh in the morning, I don’t have any kids and I’m not tempted to watch walking dead. I mean I have to be in this perfect state to write. But, you put me in front of a camera or if you put a microphone in front of me like that– those are my unique abilities where I can just do it, and I get jazzed to do it. Like it doesn’t take– it doesn’t require as much brain juice from me.

Steve: I see, so do you still write articles on JSC or?

Jeff: Yeah, and like the strategy that I do now is I use– I have a– what do I call it transcription service that I pay for, its called mobile assistant and I pay its like 50 bucks a month. Where it’s on my cell phone so I can call, and I can talk for how long and right now, I’ve figured out that if I talk for about 12 minutes that’s about a thousand word post .

Steve: Wow, okay.

Jeff: So I’ve got it down to a t man. And actually an article I’ve just written if people want to check it out it’s– it’s kind of boring but it’s how to cash out an annuity. And I– it’s probably not relevant to this podcast, but why I’m so excited about this post is that I’ve got my new headset. Illinois just passed law and now we’re finally hands free if you’re driving finally after I don’t know how California has been like after they applied for it.

Steve: It’s been like that for a long time yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, you feel like it just passed like two months ago. So I’m on my headset driving to crossfit mind you, and I’m on the phone for 12 minutes to mobile assistant talking out this post. I get the email later on that evening, I forward it to my new office manager who has an English background and she edits the post for me, to make sure I’ve got no comma surprises and everything reads properly and I copy and paste what she’s done, and it was ready to go the next morning. And so I was able to write a 12 minute post or a one thousand word post in approximately about 15 minutes.

Steve: That’s awesome dude.

Jeff: And that was like the fastest turn around post I’ve ever been able to do, and so that’s how I’ve been able to now crank out content so much faster you know I– having an editor you know that’s something that I was trying to find somebody. I tested out a few other people but this one here was by far like amazing.

Steve: So this is a human on the other end right?

Jeff: This is a human yes, with mobile assistant it is. Yes so these are all real people, they are all US based so it’s a phenomenal service that I freaking, I recommend all the time because I use it a lot for client meetings too. I use it for client meetings, detailing client notes, sending letters to clients. I also use it for emails, like any time I want to email somebody, I’m in the car and I want to email somebody, I just call in an email so that when I get that I can just quickly do a scan over an email. One thing I hear– I’ve used lately, how many times have you had to do text interviews Steve?

Steve: I did a bunch of them but they just became too much work, so I started declining them.

Jeff: Yeah, because like they take a lot of time right?

Steve: It’s like writing a blog post.

Jeff: It is, and like then some so this is how I answer like I just had a 12 question text interview that I did via mobile assistant. Had It done in 12 minutes, got it to my assistant just to make sure, and actually lots of times I even tell him hey I used my mobile transcription service you might want to check it for edit, you know when you get a chance to look it over. And so that way I can knock out these interviews and get– because I’m getting links from all these sites and doing all these interviews. I hate to decline them but you know they are, it would take me three hours to answer this interview via text but I can do it now in less than 15 minutes.

Steve: So instantly I would like to let the audience know that Jeff has actually been one of the big proponents in kind of influencing me to start outsourcing some of my activities. Those of you guys who follow my blog know that I pretty much do everything in my business. It’s just recently that I started outsourcing stuff and it’s because of Jeff’s success in kind of outsourcing and making his activities much more efficient so.

Jeff: I tell you what man, if you get Chris Tucker on– if he was here on your show like I think I’m doing pretty good. I have interviewed Chris for my podcast and after talking to him like offline for like 12 minutes like I realized I wasn’t even close.

Steve: Is that right?

Jeff: Yeah I mean he just– he like just he opened my eyes just all these other little things that I’m still doing that I shouldn’t be doing. And it’s just kind of like wow, okay it just opened up the door like how much more I could be outsourcing. I mean I’m doing a pretty big a job, but it can always be improved.

Steve: Well, I’m just glad that you didn’t outsource this interview because if I got your VA, I would have been a little pissed off. All right, so let’s talk about this major pivot that we mentioned earlier on. So what is this major pivot that is going to take your business to the next level?

Jeff: Yeah so you know the funny thing so with me was like– I’ve talked a little bit about the growing a practice, and what not and I really became a little bit more disenchanted from growing the practice. I don’t know what happened I think I just got so infatuated with building this online persona and this online business, and you wind up become more– I didn’t want to be tied to the office. You know I love it when I can go work in a coffee shop, and just be out of the office. I just like I thrive more or even when I work at home, like I’m now actually in my down stairs studio which is basically an unfinished spare bedroom in our basement that is in our recording studio. But I really didn’t want to grow the practice as much so I mean I was growing it just because you know people were referring clients to me. But I think you alluded to it at the beginning of this call where I didn’t really have a clear call to action on how to work with me.

And when I first rebranded Good Financial Cents, like that was actually intentional. I didn’t want people like if people really want to work with me like I always going to make them work for it. So they would have to like figure out how they are going to contact me, or find my contact form or really just like seek me out, and which is kind of cool because those that did really did want to work with me. I was able to talk to another advisor that has grown his practice exponentially, I mean he’s killing it. It’s like ten times the size of my practice, which once again like that has never really been a goal of mine but was really– what I was really impressed with this guy was his practice is like 90% virtual.

You know he actually relocated from Michigan out to the southern California and most of his clients are all virtual, they work basically via Skype or email and that’s it. And he showed me the process he has done to do so, and it really just got me fired up because my– the traffic that I get on my blogs and my online properties dwarf what he’s been able– what he gets. But he’s been able to grow it substantially just because you know clear call to action, and he has a really good process to kind of to streamline it.

So I now have embraced the fact that Jeff I have this digital asset with the blog, I have the financial planning practice. I haven’t really done a good job of processing, building processes it’s something I’ve been wanting to work on, I just haven’t been focused on it because I wanted to build more of a process on the online business. But here recently I finally launched my own unique process for the financial planning practice which is called the financial success blueprint, and it’s just the six step process that people walk through if they want to work with me.

And so now if you go to the blog its fairly prominent, you’ll see they work with me you know and the top navigational bar, and I have other call to actions that I’ will be implementing here soon as soon as my developer can get those going. And just going to have more of a clear hey you want to work with me, here is what it is, here is the type of clients that I work with, you know if you’re the type of person that needs contact from me like needs to talk once a week, like we’re not a good fit. Yes I’m really doing a good job of actually showing people the exact kind I want to work with, and to keep myself honest and fair to myself like I’m going to hold true to that.

Steve: So are the clients that you bring in– is this whole thing kind of scalable? Like can you handle like thousands and thousands of clients?

Jeff: It is, I mean thousands and thousands actually not. Could I handle 5-10 new clients a month? That would be a lot of work for me. My– what I want to do is I want to perfect the process, if we’ve had a few people go through it, they’ve been kind of like our guinea pigs. So just to see what are some of the pinpoints on our end, like what are some of the things that could be– like the stuff that I was doing that my new office manager can be doing, or maybe some of the stuff that the client could be doing more on their end like more home work or filling out more of the spreadsheets and stuff. So we’ve had a few people going through where we’re just trying to streamline it even more. Big picture would be bringing on a junior advisor that could facilitate you know some of the dialogue between going through the process. So, absolutely I think it could be could be streamlined even more. I could bring on other people to kind of walk you through that process once we have it perfected.

Steve: So it could be in many respects kind of almost as scalable as your online income in a way?

Jeff: I firmly believe so, and the guy– and I have my the guy who’s done it already that shown me how he’s done it and like he doesn’t work for people now. He has his initial clients that he’s built up and anybody new that comes in they all get funneled to his team.

Steve: That’s really interesting.

Jeff: So that’s what I’m jazzed about. You know it’s basically, it’s something I’ve been running from for like the last almost two or three years, and now I’ve just finally embraced it. And I’m just kind of excited to see how it can grow.

Steve: Yeah, so let’s talk about this change. So, was it due to any books that you’ve read? Or how do you network? How do you meet these people?

Jeff: You know it’s funny because– so this guy that I’m mentioning I, he’s somebody that I’ve seen online. You know like that’s the beauty of like seeing people online and just kind like social stalk people, but he’s been mentioned in a few trade journals you know that I read, and then I actually got like a sales call for to join some internet marketing company or specific towards financial advisors and once again his name was mentioned. And I thought his name came up like three times over the course of like four weeks and I’m like okay I got to reach out to this guy and see what’s going on. You know Like so I just emailed him like kind of a cold email and he responded immediately, and was like hey its actually funny because I’ve actually kind of like been following you for the last like three or four years.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Jeff: So that’s kind of how that came to be but I think it’s just monitoring your space like my space is financial planning, so anything I– anytime I read anything about anybody that’s marketing online or blogging or using You tube, I mean that immediately catches my interest so I’m always going to read up on it and kind of stay up on it so. I love seeing what other advisors are doing on our space.

Steve: So your blog actually probably got your foot in the door with this guy in a way?

Jeff: Yeah it did, I mean I said that, I mean yeah, I mean he always calls me his blogging superstar you know like he always looks at me like– but you know like I might be the blogging superstar, but he’s been able to grow his practice you know more than I have because you know he’s been more focused on it.

Steve: So any books that have influenced you in any way?

Jeff: Oh, my goodness. You know I think, I mean the usual you know Tim Ferriss’s “4-Hour Work week” you know that’s actually what inspired me to hire my first virtual assistant. You know it’s like that book, no question. I think another book that I love is “built to sell”.

Steve: Built to sell is that John Warrillow?

Jeff: Yes, yes and if your into audio books, I say that is actually probably the worst audio book. Did you– are you– do you do audio books?

Steve: No you know I actually have a copy. He actually sent me a copy for free a while back when he was launching it. I don’t know why he reached out to me. So I kind of wrote a little thing for him to help him promote it.

Jeff: The guy I wish he would have self like read it but he hired another writer and this guy man it’s just, it’s horrible. I mean, but it was good content so I mean I got through it, but I just love that book because it really talks about streamlining your business and having that clear process. And a coaching program that I’m in, they really talk about having a unique process and I’ve never done it. I’ve always wanted to do it you know so for me the financial success blueprint is that and you know kind of like I know this is a big picture, but if I can actually streamline this business to where– I guess I’m never doing it anything with it, I’m just like following lead that’s a good thing, but you know ultimately one day this is an asset I would like to sell, and if I have a streamlined unique process that you know I’ll basically just hand it over to the next person. I mean that makes the practice that much more valuable. Now the multiple becomes much more. I kind of have like a secret, see I’m 36 now, I have like a secret four year exit strategy. So if I can actually build this thing and sell it by the time I’m 40. Not if I want to sell, but if I could sell it I want to see like what I can do over the next four years to build it to make it potentially sellable.

Steve: Yeah I was going to ask you about that because you know for Good Financial Cents at least, your personality is a big part of that blog and likewise with my blog my personality is a big part of it as well. So how do you kind of divorce that to make it sellable?

Jeff: Yeah, so I mean I think that building up the process to where you know eventually I want to– I don’t mind being the face, but I think it’s a matter at that point in time you know I guess having to bring on a co-face, in especially the practice. But if I’m not the main guy dealing with people, that it’s my team that’s working with people, then I don’t think it will be much of an issue with the practice. With the blog, that’s something that I’ve wrestled with, but you know I think if I sell the practice, I don’t know if I could ever sell the blog. It be easier– it be easier actually to sell the practice than the blog even though the practice brings in more revenue. But I don’t know, I just love the blog and I think there is always going to be potential to monetize the online persona. You know I mean there is so many different angles I could go if I really needed to monetize it.

Steve: Right, absolutely.

Jeff: So I think that’s something that would be hard for me to let it go.

Steve: Cool, well Jeff I don’t want to take up too much of your time. If anyone wants to contact you, or give you their money to manage, how can they reach you?

Jeff: Yeah, you know GoodFinnancialCents.com that’s my main hub. You can also track me down on twitter, twitter I go by jjeffrose. There is two j’s cause Jeff Rose in Canada took it. But I’m active twitter, Facebook but also the hub is Good Financial Cents.

Steve: Okay, incidentally, what does that extra J stand for Jeff?

Jeff: You had to bring that up didn’t you dude?

Steve: I can [Inaudible] [00:45:37] this out if you want but.

Jeff: All right if people really want to know, my middle name is Jeff and then for some reason my parents named me Jan. Jan is my legal name, so Jan Jeffery Rose is what I go by, but I never really told anybody, but now your whole podcast community knows.

Steve: Nice, nice maybe I’ll leave this out and use it against you later.

Jeff: How sweet.

Steve: All right man well thanks a lot for your time. This was a really good talk.

Jeff: Yeah man, I appreciate having me on.

Steve: All right man, take care.

You might not have been able to tell from the podcast but the reason why I admire Jeff, is because he always has an open mind. And he is basically willing to try anything. And it’s because of his open mind that he’s constantly finding new and innovative ways to increase his brand and grow his business. And like I mentioned in the interview, Jeff is one of the main reasons why I started this podcast in the first place and for that I’m thankful.

For more information about this episode go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode25 and if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please go to iTunes and leave me a review. When you write me a review it not only makes me feel proud, but it also helps keep this podcast up in the ranks so other people can use this information, and find the show more easily and get awesome business advice. It’s also the best way to support the show and please tell your friends because the greatest compliment you can give me is to provide a referral to someone else either in person or to share it on the web.

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Thanks for listening to the my wife quit her job podcast, where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitherjob.com