Scott Reyes' Blog

The team behind the Top Restaurateurs podcast and I published the season one finale which consisted of moments we loved from the show. It’s got me thinking about a new format with more commentary for season two of the show.

I love hosting this podcast because I love interviewing people who run businesses, especially in the spaces my companies products serve. It’s opened up doors to speak to and get to know people who I never would have met had our team not decided to start a podcast.

Take a listen, and do yourself a favor: go back and listen to all of the season one interviews.

Prior to going to the moon, a computer took up an entire room. In order to land on the moon, a computer had to fit inside the cockpit of a rocket. In the end, they got it to fit inside a one square foot box.

If the goal was to make a small computer, I don’t think computers would have developed as fast as they did. But, the goal was beat Russia to put a man on the moon. Americans were scared of Russia having better technology and more power than the United States. As a result, the mission had purpose.

Now we have computers in our pockets that are more powerful than my first laptop.

Some of the best advancements, ideas, and achievements are the byproducts of working towards a goal.

So, pick a goal and work relentlessly towards it, and be sure to pay attention to the byproducts.

My approach to getting stuff done has always been to trust my intuition, move fast, and make adjustments.

Sometimes this creates a mess. Other times, I stumble upon something that I could have only discovered through taking action.

I would rather make errors of action than errors of apathy.

I was reading through Day One posts from the past and saw this one.

Two years later, this is not the case. Once iPadOS came out, I switched back to my iPad as my only computer. I have not touched my computer in over one month. The browser issue is fixed. I can edit videos in LumaFusion. I can edit podcasts in Ferrite. I could use Affinity Designer if I wanted to, but I found Fiver and 99 Designs, so I don’t mess around with design any more.

I find I am more productive on an iPad because I stay focused. It’s not as easy to switch between ten open applications. Windows cover the whole screen so I don’t get distracted by something else that’s open. I love Shortcuts. I love iOS apps like Ulysses, Day One, and Things.

Most of all I love how easy how little stuff I have to carry and how light my backpack is as a result.

Ultimately, my dream is to have one device for everything, and that dream keeps getting closer every year.

Efficiency is getting something done as quickly as possible.

Productivity is getting stuff done.

Too often these terms are confused. People say they want to be more productive, but what they are really saying is they want to get more done with less work.

The people I admire are people who produce. They produce good work, solid relationships, service to others. They are not worried about putting in less work. They are worried about making the biggest impact.

I want to be more productive.

My wife came home from a training our church was holding emotional and mental health and couldn’t stop telling me about all the stuff she learned in a session with Dr. Jerome Lubbe. She found a YouTube video of a smaller talk he did, and it’s worth a watch.

Starting a running a company is hard. I feel like I have spent the last 7 years in fight of flight mode, but as Dr. Lubbe says in this video, “It’s not a bear.”

Spend 30 minutes and watch. I will be digging into more of what this guy has to say.

Two of my team members and I recorded our season one recap episode for Top Restaurateurs this morning. It’s going to be a fun one to listen to.

Nate, our Director of Business Development, said something that jumped out at me during our conversation. He said one of our guests was very good at turning luck into lessons.

Too often we fail to look back at how we got to where we are. Often times, connecting the dots backwards shows us the things that happened while we were working. They are events that were critcal to our success, and if repeated, could continue to help us achieve our future goals.

We can’t assume it was just our hard work and continue on relying on more hard work. We have to take into account where we got lucky and then focus our future hard work towards repeating that luck.

I took my three youngest boys to a trampoline park today. They have a feature there where you try to knock an opponent off a balance beam using a padded pole. At one point I looked over and saw my 12 year up against an older kid who stood at least a foot taller and 70 pounds heavier. We will call him Big Guy.

Big Guy must have knocked my son off the beam over a dozen times, each time swinger harder than the last. My son just kept getting up and trying again, listening to the taunting and laughing from his opponent.

Then Big Guy took a giant swing towards my son’s head. My son ducked down and stood back up as he returned a blow in the direction Big Guy was leaning. Big Guy fell hard off the beam.

Then my son walked over to where Big Guy was laying, said something and threw his pole down at him before walking away towards a crown of cheering kids.

When we left, I told him I watched the whole thing and asked him what he was thinking when he kept getting up. He said, “I was thinking, he is either going to hurt me, or I am going to beat him.”

This is what grit looks like, and he inspired me to up my action this week.

I’ve spent most of the last 4 months chasing my tail. We got the MVP version of LineCheck running in June, and have had a a tough go at developing a lead generation model to hit the goals we were after.

Then a couple of weeks ago, something started clicking. I’ve spent this week studying our customers and their buying path. We are really close to a repeatable and scalable lead generation model.

We have not changed much when it comes to messaging or buyer persona. The product is improving weekly, but it’s not changing what it does. What’s working is the frequency of communication. We started emailing our list every Monday, Wednesday, Friday instead of once a week. All of our metrics are up: opens, clicks, demos scheduled, and yes, unsubscribes.

People are so busy it is unlikely they will notice you the first time.

The other area where we are doing more is our demo time. We used to qualify and demo on the same call. Now we are breaking it up over two calls. Call one is to qualify a lead’s problem can be solved with our software, selling the solution, and discussing price. The second call is the one where we actually show the product. Our close rates are up because of it.

I have always believed an increase in action leads to an increase in results. And, if you pay attention and improve, you get and exponential return on action over time. It’s really fun to see that principal work.

It’s November, the month of abstaining from certain activities to bring awareness to causes. Just Google “no November” to get a list.

It’s also National Novel Writing Month, and while I will not be writing a novel, I would like to practice my daily blogging habit again. This seems like the month to do it.

Looking back, most of my opportunities have come as a result of my writing. I have been accepted into summer academies, gained employment, raised money to start businesses, attracted early customers, convinced people to work for my companies, met cool people, started a podcast, and sold stuff…all because if being able to write well.

Currently, the best lead generation strategy we have for our products is sending a 3-times-per-week email to a ton of people telling them stories about how their jobs will be better with our products.

The leaders I follow and emulate are great writers and write often…people like Jason Fried, Derek Sivers, Bryan Miles, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, Seth Godin, and David Heinemeier Hansson.

I already write daily (privately) with the Day One app. It helps me clarify my thinking, get rid of negativity, and log my memories. I believe it will be a powerful collection of thoughts to leave behind to my kids and future generations.

So let this be my public commitment to hit publish every day on this blog. If you want to follow along, subscribe via email.