Rafi Arbel 3:29
So Market JD does Internet Marketing for lawyers, which is websites SEO and pay per click. But I like to think that we’re more than just what we do. It’s how we do it and who we are as a company that really differentiates us and makes us a different experience than just your standard digital marketing agency. So we had to come up with the name and at the time I was working with viva Cuyler from what was the name for a company I can’t even remember the name of it, but it had a JD at the end of it as well. And before I started market, JD, I was actually thinking of working with her. We had a really good relationship. And then I started Market JD and I couldn’t think of a name and I just tried to say to myself, what do we really do and who do we really serve? And we serve lawyers, and we do their marketing. So I thought lawyers understand what JD means even if the rest of the public doesn’t. And lawyers will also understand that we’re doing their marketing, and it was a domain name that was available. No small consideration when you’re starting a start up. So that was the genesis of Market JD. JD Supra. That’s the name of the company. Sorry about that. That’s the view of this company. A lot of people have heard of JD Supra. Go ahead.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 5:00
No talk about deciding to go out and start this company, right? Because as I said, you were a lawyer, right. And you spent a lot of time, energy and money doing that. So talk about the decision to start an agency.
Rafi Arbel 5:19
So I had, I have the legal experience I was I was a practicing lawyer. And then I worked for Thomson Reuters, the largest provider to law firms. And I learned a lot from them. And I really, am thankful for my time and experience there, I learned a lot about operations, sales. And really all parts of of a law firm, they exposed me to so many different law firms, and showed me the sort of problems and solutions that were out there. And so I really became a consultant of sorts, simply by having gone through that experience, taught me more more so than the practice of law, because I got to see the problems of so many other firms. So when I finished my MBA, I was really at a crossroads. And I had to decide what I wanted to do with my future. And I thought I would, I thought that I was too entrepreneurial, and I had my own ideas and my own vision on how I can help lawyers better market themselves. I think Thomson Reuters is a great place or was a great place anyway, when I was there. But it didn’t quite satisfy my urge to sort of chart my own path. And every large corporation has its limitations and restrictions. And I was very much sort of pigeon holed there into the role I was playing, I thought at market JD, I could create a company that was much more responsive to the needs of our clients. And I wouldn’t have to satisfy 10,000 clients, I could satisfy 100 clients. And that’s a lot easier to do at a at a small number. Because this isn’t a business that’s easily scaled. That’s one of its limitations. But one of its beauties were like custom home builders, it’s really hard to scale. A custom home builder, being a custom home builder, you’re really working on a handful of clients at a time, and you’re really trying to deliver the best possible product and make that that client the happiest they can be starting a business is not easy.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 7:17
Do you remember, a first milestone as far as a client goes?
Rafi Arbel 7:30
Probably the first milestone was, I know, my first year, I think I made $30,000. And my second year wasn’t so much more maybe 50, or 60,000. But I think by the time I got to my third year, and I finally made six figures, I felt like I had finally figured out what it took to succeed in this business, and what I needed to deliver to make the clients happy.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 7:57
What talk about that, you know, because you could have been like, wow, I was making good money at Thomson Reuters. Right? I could just go back. What was I thinking? How did you talk? What do you do with the self talk? In those first few years.
Rafi Arbel 8:13
That was hard, because the grass always looks greener on the other side. And the longer you’re not making as much money as you were making, the greener the grass looks. But what I focused on wasn’t the gap. But the game, I focused on what I had accomplished, not what I was left to accomplish, or what other people were accomplishing. And I was very proud of myself, that I was able to learn and master some of the fundamentals of running a small business. Most small businesses don’t survive five years, we’re going on 14. So I it was important to also to focus on the success of our clients. It wasn’t it wasn’t about me, it was about watching our clients grow. And that’s something that you don’t get necessarily working for a corporation where they forced you to go from client to client, and there’s a lot of turnover in terms of who you’re supposed to serve. But with market JD, I could have 510, or, in my case, 14 year relationships. And what I found is that the people that stick around the longest, oftentimes get the greatest benefits. Because of our long standing relationship. I learned certain things about the firm that I don’t need to ask about. We’re not starting from scratch in year one. We’re building on a solid foundation that we created together based on the vision of our clients. Yeah, I love that. That’s so when you ask how we got through those initial years. It was really with the help of our clients.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 9:47
Yeah, no, I love that focusing on the success of clients. I was in a conversation with a couple other founders, you know, several weeks ago, one of them really, I mean, both of them are really successful. One of them You know, I think took two companies public. And they were talking about and one of them’s, like, just frustrated that day. And the other guy goes, Listen, if you don’t think about quitting once a day, you’re not a founder. And I was like, once a day, well, once an hour, like, what do you? What do you mean? So I get it. What was your life? Like, at the time? Were you married? When you decided to venture out and do your own thing? What was what was your personal life? Like?
Rafi Arbel 10:29
Yeah, no one could understand it. It was 2008 2009, at the height of the recession, probably the worst possible time to start a business. I have a wife. And at that time, I had three young boys, all in private day school. And, and as no joke right there. No, that’s our joke, it was far more each one of those was the cost of a mortgage. And I had some money saved. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t easy. And there were a lot of doubters out there. And I’d never created a website before. And I’d never run an SEO campaign before. So there were a lot of variables out there, and there was a lot going against me, I’m still not sure why I thought I can do that. I’m sorry about the lights that we get those lights to turn back on, there we go. So there was a lot going, there was a lot against me, stacked against me. But I did it anyway, I don’t know why I just was driven not as driven to do this. And I knew if I persisted, I didn’t know if I was gonna get rich, but I knew I’d be able to earn a living. And more importantly, I’d be able to do what I want with the people who I want to do do it with and help real people and form long relationships. And that’s been the most satisfying part, are the people that I’m working with? You know, some of those people are former clients from Thomson, I still have clients that came with me from Thomson 14 years later still with me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 11:52
Amazing. Yeah, talk about let’s talk about a few examples. Um, you had a, you have a criminal lawyer that you work with, talk about what you do with them.
Rafi Arbel 12:04
Yes. So for example, Max Keller, is in Minnesota, Minneapolis. And Max is a criminal lawyer who is he was a solo practitioner. But over time he hired associates. And we started probably about a decade ago. And we helped him build his practice. And, and over the years, as he increased his marketing, the size of his practice grew. And now he’s at the point like some of my other clients, where he has more business than he can handle. So the constraint is no longer than marketing. It’s the employees, he needs to find more employees to take on the work. And so, you know, I really consider myself part of his firm, we talk regularly, and he relies on us. And it’s just one of those relationships that make coming to work every day. So satisfying.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 13:05
It’s got to be really cool, you know, from, from a business owner perspective, to have control of your destiny, right to really be able to because it’s hard enough, in itself to just run a business and have all the moving pieces, but you control your destiny to turn things on when you want to turn things on. So talk about some of the things that you do with him or any of the clients as far as you know, like you said, he didn’t have to worry about the client necessarily anymore. What are some of the things that you do?
Rafi Arbel 13:35
What are some of the things we do to do it to generate to generate clients? Oh, so like, what are the campaigns that we run for them? Right, so we largely do search engine optimization, and pay per click, and both of them help our clients show up on the search results page when somebody runs a search. And I think it’s really important in running these campaigns to set the clients expectations properly. You know, no one’s going to, no one’s going to spend $3,000 a month on a personal injury campaign and get 10 Pie cases, they’re not going to get 25 times their return. And, and that’s important to be honest with the client. Because it’s so easy to promise the client something or the prospect to get the business and then not deliver. And so I don’t want that because that doesn’t foster long term relationships. If they’re not happy with the with the kind of return that they can expect from online advertising. I’d rather have them not be a customer and use their money somewhere else. But for the people that understand the realities of the marketplace, and who are realistic in their expectations and have other sources of business, then we’re probably the right fit. So for search engine optimization, that’s the longer The longer that you’re investing in the content on your website, and the reason you’re investing in the content on your website, is to be a service to your prospective clients, because they’re on the web because they’ve got questions. And they, they’re looking for the best answers, and so as Google, so when we create websites, and when we run a search engine optimization campaign, we’re spending a tremendous amount of time trying to figure out what questions people are answering and generating answers that are substantive, that read well, and that best satisfy our clients questions. And when we do that, Google acknowledges that and that’s when they begin to rank very strongly in Google.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:47
I want to talk about websites for a second, and some of the mistakes you see people making with websites, because you could do your job amazing. drive tons of traffic, have great SEO, and then they hit someone’s website. All could fall apart at that moment, possibly, or not. So what are some of them is and oftentimes, you probably go in to these law firm sites, and you have your years of expertise, what works, what doesn’t work. So what are some of those things that you find, by the way, I asked you because it applies probably to all of us, including myself. So I’m sure I, there’s stuff that I need to be doing on my site. But what are some mistakes people make with their website.
Rafi Arbel 16:33
So a firm in Indiana, a personal injury firm in Indiana called us and they asked us to audit their website. And we did, it was made by one of the major providers out of Florida. And it was a very expensive site. And we came back to them. And we said, take a look at your homepage. And on the homepage, at the top was a large red button. And it said contact us. And it was the major focus of the hero section, the top section of the website, they said click on the button, they clicked on the button. And that led them to a 404 page. If like the whole point of the website is to get them to click on it, if that buttons not working, all of your marketing is failing, you’re not going to get a second bite at that apple. So it’s, you know, just having a q&a process where somebody doesn’t even have to be a highly paid employee goes through and make sure all the basic functions are working at a minimum is probably step one. And you would be surprised at how often they’re not because it requires an investment. So when people say, Oh, why do you charge what you charge for your website, I say because you’re getting a lot of labor, your mate, we’re making sure things like your Contact Us button are working. But it goes much deeper than that. But that really illustrates the point is somebody has to care about your site, somebody has to look at it. And probably from a market JT perspective, the thing that we focus on is the people that create the site or not the people that do the q&a. And so we always have a second at least at least one other, usually two or three other people reviewing different parts of the site. And that ensures quality and consistency.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 18:32
What are their mistakes? I’m sure you’ve seen a bunch of crazy stories throughout the years, what’s another so one, you go Contact Us page lead to a 404? And who knows how much they were spending on traffic and SEO and everything? What’s another big mistake you’ve seen people make?
Rafi Arbel 18:50
I think that you see this a little less often now people are getting a bit more sophisticated. But the writing on sites and sites where they don’t spend enough on the writing, you can really tell it’s very thin. It sounds like it was written in in a developing country, or, you know, even worse by Well, AI is not necessarily even worse, but but but poorly written. And it’s a poor user experience. At the end of the day, what we’re focusing on, on all elements is what is the user experience like? And also there are other technical parts of a website that need to be done, right? If you want to be found, it needs to be fast enough. The pages need to be substantive enough. And that doesn’t necessarily mean long enough, but oftentimes it does. And then a lot of times, you know if we want to take this up up a bit in terms of competition, like those are the easy things to do. But the more challenging things are, you know, everybody wants to write a page on car accidents, which are the pages that rank on page one, and why are they ranking on page one Well, the only way you figure that out is if you go through all of the pages on page one, and look at all of the elements that they’re using on their page to succeed, and then look at your page and see if you have those elements. That’s really a labor intensive job. But that’s what we do. Because we know it’s a highly competitive space. And we want to make sure that our pages have everything that our competitors have. And that we’re not falling behind in any any part of the substance that needs to be on the page.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 20:32
Every, you know, every company has some funnel, whether they know it or not, right? So it’s like, okay, let’s say you are doing SEO, you’re doing, you know, pay per click ads, doing paid ads, they go to the website, it’s functioning as it should. They click on the Contact, someone picks up the phone, right. So now I know that you actually will listen to calls and give suggestions. Because everything could also fall apart there. Absolutely. So what are some of the mistakes that people are making when answering the phones that you’ve that you’ve seen that you’ve coached them?
Rafi Arbel 21:20
Great question. So for the consumer market, personal injury lawyers, divorce lawyers, criminal lawyers, immigration lawyers, the sort of lawyers that we have market, your prospective client is looking for help. They’re looking for a firm to solve their problem. They’re not necessarily looking for your firm, and they don’t really care necessarily who you are, as long as you can solve the problem. So we suggest that when people answer the phone, they identify the type of law they practice. So picking up the phone and say an injury lawyer, excuse me, it’s far better than saying this is Dewey Cheatham and Howe law firm in Chicago or whatever the the long name is, that just adds noise. They’re not listening to the name. They’re just they just want to know that they’re talking to an injury lawyer. And when you don’t answer the phone injury lawyer and you give the full firm name, especially if it’s a long one. You often hear prospective clients, the caller say, Wait, did I did I reach the law firm? Because they’re not sure where they reached. So just save themselves? The Save the prospect, the pain and just tell them what you do immigration lawyer? How can I help you. And they’ll go right into it. And then later, you can tell them who exactly you are. I’d say another major mistake is putting the client on hold right after you say hello, without getting their name and number. There are times that every intake department is overwhelmed with calls and no one puts a caller on hold voluntarily, it’s only because you have too many calls coming in. But if you put them on hold, and you don’t take their name and number and they get tired of waiting, you have no way of calling them back. So a best practice is absolutely take down their name and number. And even if you can, at least their legal issue, how were you injured, you might not have enough time for that, but at least their full name and number. A third suggestion if you want more. A third suggestion is don’t act like this conversation is to benefit you. It’s to benefit the caller. And if you don’t adapt or adopt that philosophy, then you’re likely to get bad Google reviews. If you do adopt it, you’ll get good Google reviews. And I’ve heard both sides of this. There are some firms that as soon as they realize that there’s not a prospective client on the other end of the line, that they’re not qualified. They get off the phone as soon as possible. There are other clients who treat the caller like they would want to be treated themselves. They listen well. They they are genuinely concerned. And even if they can’t help them, they direct them to where they could get help. And they explain to them patiently, lovingly, why they can’t accept the case, and what their options are. And those lawyers are always a pleasure to deal with. And their Google reviews reflect that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 24:29
I love that. No, thank you because there’s so many parts of this process that can drop off. Right a lot has to happen for something to be successful. So it’s pretty amazing. You actually listen to the calls and give a good feedback on that. But that’s some great advice to I’d love to talk about. You know, we mentioned the criminal lawyer and I know you can do a lot of different types of lawyers too. Mmm, there was a divorce lawyer too. What did you do with them?
Rafi Arbel 25:03
Denise Erlich in DuPage County, one of my favorite clients, she started her practice, oh, maybe six or eight years ago, she came to me and she was on a shoestring budget. She just left one firm and she was going off on our own. We met at the Starbucks. And she was trying to decide between market JD and another agency, and she decided to go with us, we were very happy. And she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to compete and survive. And we worked very closely together. And I created a website for her. I think we’re now on our second or third that we just released. She is so busy now that we’ve removed free consultation at the top and remove the word free. And we remove the live chat because she just can’t take any more business. She’s so busy, that she’s turning away new new clients for the moment.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 25:58
What is your thought on live chat? For a law firm or for anyone? I’m curious, your perspective. I’ve heard some people go Yes, we love it. And some people say it’s it’s a lot to manage if if we have it.
Rafi Arbel 26:15
The great thing about live chat is that you don’t have to manage it. We have a team of people that responds to the chats. And they just send you the results. So they do have self managed live chat. And that’s that’s more than you probably want to take on because you’re not in the business of live chat. You’re in the business of practicing law. Let us do the chat and bring you the client and just send you the transcript. So I get some lawyers that say to me, Rafi, I never use live, I would never use live chat. Well, they wouldn’t use live chat on their own sites. But when you ask them if they went to Northwestern University, or Northwestern hospitals, or rush hospital, or any of the people that they use as a vendor in their personal lives, if you saw a live chat there, have you ever used that? I’d say 80% of them have. And then I tell them while your prospective client is viewing their experience with you, much like your experience with Northwestern hospital. And some people like to talk on the phone. Some people like to fill out a contact form. And some people like to fill out the live chat. So don’t paint your prospects picture. Let them paint their own picture. Let them communicate with you in a way that reduces their friction and the transaction cost. If it’s easiest for them to do the live chat, well give them that option. It’s a low cost option for you. And you may capture many leads that you might not otherwise capture.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 27:51
I’m also curious so you know, I know you help criminal lawyers, divorce lawyers, another category is PI. Why PI? It seems like just ultra competitive.
Rafi Arbel 28:03
It is ultra competitive. And perhaps they need us the most. You know, my biggest client is Ankin Law in Chicago, Howard and I were vendors at Wrigley Field together. And when I was just starting my agency out, I was going door to door trying to get anybody who would listen to me to do business with us. And Howard was one of our first customers. And he’s been with me ever since. And since that time, he’s probably increased his budget by about 20 fold. And the number of lawyers has increased in the staff has increased and everything has gotten pretty big over there. And we’ve just grown with them. I certainly can’t take all the credit. Howard is a marketing genius in his own right. He’s really, he’s really an excellent marketer. I think I learned as much from him as he learns from me, but we make a great pair. And what I like about working with people like Howard is that they’re genuinely interested in their own marketing. It’s not just about writing a check. But it’s really about becoming a partner together, and trying to solve these marketing problems together. And what I like about a lot of my relationships, like my one with Howard, is that not everything we do is a success. But everything we do, we put in 100%, and we’re transparent with the client. And so once you understand that as a as our client, then you realize that you have a partner who’s going to tell you the good things and the bad things. And when we fail, we fail fast. And we move on to the next opportunity. Because if you don’t experiment and you don’t try, you’ll never know what works and what doesn’t. And that’s really is the sort of client that I enjoy working with the most.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 30:03
Yeah, I want to also say Rafi did introduce Howard as a guest on the podcast that that’s a great episode as well. And we talked about how he built his brand and authority in that competitive space. And he’s also he’s just a force to be reckoned with in Chicago. I mean, I think he’s talked to every when I was doing research for his talk to every moment, every but many, many Chicago sports celebrities, you know, you could be seen with, with Howard on commercials and other things. So it’s pretty, pretty remarkable what he did. You know, I do want to talk about the business a little bit, and you talked about their stuff that succeeds. The stuff that doesn’t succeed, not everything can succeed. I’m talking about culture of experimentation.
Rafi Arbel 31:00
So I would say the thing that most differentiates Market JD from other agencies is this culture of experimentation. What I realized long ago, is that the secrets of SEO, and the secrets of pay per click, cannot be found in books cannot be found on the online websites, and they can’t be found in conferences. The only way to really learn what works is to experiment. Obviously, you can learn a lot from those other sources. But those are available to everybody. And not everybody is showing up on page one. And so we are we incentivize our people to experiment and see what works, you know, maybe we, maybe we add more internal links to a page and see what happens, maybe we reduce them, maybe we change the anchor text, maybe we increase the keyword density, or maybe we increase the length of the page, or maybe we reduced certain things. The point is, unless you try, you don’t know what works. And so sometimes it succeeds. And sometimes it fails, but where it’s failed, I can always unwind it. And now I’ve learned that this doesn’t work. And by the way, just because it works on one side, doesn’t mean it works on the next one. So we never take anything as gospel. We’re constantly trying to find new ways of doing things. And, and that’s the only way we really learn.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 32:38
What are some ways you incentivize staff to experiment and not be afraid to fail? Because then they have to answer to Rafi.
Rafi Arbel 32:50
So we have, we have an experiment sheet for SEO, and we have an experiment sheet for pay per click. And we review that. So they have to have enough experiments every week. Because every week, I meet with them for about two or three hours, and we review one quarter of our clients campaigns together. And so there they are directly accountable to me to fill out enough experiments and report back to me. And if they don’t, then it’s not a good relationship. So they know they need to have the experiments. And over time, they’ve understood that when the experiments fail, that’s just that’s just as good as a success. Because it’s one step closer to a successful experiment. We won’t get to the successful water till We’ve kissed a couple of frogs.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 33:41
Yeah, no, I love how your experimentation there’s accountability built into it. And there’s a process there. Talk about systems, like for a business systems are really important. Obviously, you have a system for experimentation. Talk about some of the other systems you’ve set up.
Rafi Arbel 34:05
So as I’m sure you’ve read James Clear, his book, Atomic Habits, one of his his concepts is no one rises to the level of their goals. They fall to the level of their systems. And today, I was at a team meeting, and we’re building a portal. And I was looking at some of the deliverables that my team came up with. And I was thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, if I had to keep track of all this stuff myself, we would have never come up with this. And I thought in the back of my mind how thankful I was that we’ve put together a system to follow to ensure that we get the best result so that somebody like me or someone like them, doesn’t have to remember everything all the time. In fact, it’s very hard to remember much at all you’re you’re generally think In about one thing, so having those systems in place in an industry that is so detail oriented, and so process oriented, really helps guarantee that we do things the right way. So we use ClickUp as our task management system. And every department is responsible for coming up with a breakdown of all the tasks that they do, and the sub tasks that make up that task. And then we incorporate those into templates. And every time we need to do a certain thing, we drop that template, assign those tasks, and then make sure that those tasks are done. And I just don’t know how you could run an agency without having those sorts of systems in place. And we also use Microsoft Teams. And it’s a very built out system of communication. So for example, I think this is true for every business. We don’t allow people to have conversations between individuals that are tied to a client. So if you’re going to have a texting conversation that needs to be done in that section of teams, so that everybody can benefit from it. Everybody can read it, everybody can see its history. If that conversation is done separately between Joe and Mike, then only Joe and Mike are privy to the conversation when it might be relevant to anyone who’s working on that client.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 36:27
So it’s kind of like the Microsoft version of Slack. So it’s, it’s a public channel, essentially. And so there’s a collective knowledge of gained in that in that particular clients channel, I guess you could say. Exactly, exactly. Right. So systems talk about, I don’t know if there’s other tech stack stuff. So you mentioned ClickUp, you mentioned you like using Microsoft Teams. What other tech what other texts in your arsenal?
Rafi Arbel 37:01
Well, you know, I do use HubSpot for CRM, we try to keep our tech stack relatively short. Because we don’t want too many platforms for people who are writers have gone off the range. And they’re using Trello. Because they don’t like clique up as much. They’re sort of self sufficient. So I’m allowing it, and I close my eyes to it. But I’m not very happy about it, because it could spiral out of control of every single department had their own way of keeping track of things and communicating then that it sort of breaks down over time.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 37:41
What about culture? In general? I know he talked about, you know, the culture of experimentation. But what about culture in general? What are the things you do for staff retention?
Rafi Arbel 37:53
That’s a That’s a great question, Jeremy. I’ve thought about this a lot. And every agency now has remote workers, there’s no reason not to. And our team is around the United States and really around the world. So the only way we can communicate around the watercooler is the virtual watercooler and we have meetings every single day at Market JD, some are as long as four hours. Some have even been longer than that. But every Monday is our SEO meeting, every Tuesdays are admin meeting every Wednesday is our PPC meeting every Thursday is our website meeting. It’s very defined. And during those meetings, we get a lot of work done. And we go through every client and every project. And in doing so we get to know each other very well. And it develops an understanding that you don’t get working individually. The other benefit is people get to know each other, trust each other, they get to know each other’s families, it really feels even closer than in person office. Because oftentimes an in person office, you’re not really getting to know your colleagues because you’re behind your door and not working with them. And so one other benefit I found in this is that new people get trained very quickly. Because when they sit in on the meetings, and they see the structure of the meetings, and they they learn from all of the dialogue that happens and and people feel a sense of belonging, and they generally love participating in the meetings, they talk about it. They feel a sense of camaraderie, they feel a sense of connection. And they get a sense of accomplishment because people are working on things collaboratively and they have an incentive to get along. So everyone that we hire has to get along with everybody else because we’re working together so intensely, and it’s really a great thing. It keeps people together. I think it’s more rewarding for people than making a little bit more money per hour per year. because your work environment is everything, it’s, it’s where you spend most of your time.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 40:05
That sounds like the key to for your retention is the camaraderie and the camaraderie, and learning and mentorship comes from the meetings. How do you structure meetings?
Rafi Arbel 40:18
So we loosely use EOS, which is the entrepreneurs operating system. And we don’t have an implementer, or sort of self implementing. But the the foundation of EOS is an L 10 meeting. And an L 10. Meeting is a very structured meeting. And it’s structured so that a business, the small business can prioritize those objectives and campaigns that are most impactful and most significant for the business. And we break that down by department. So our SEO team has their most important objectives are called rocks. The PPC team has their rocks, every team has their own rocks, and those rocks have to be completed within 90 days. And you know, every part of that meeting is very structured. And it really is a well thought out plan to ensure that you operate most efficiently. You address the urgent, but you don’t ignore the most important.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 41:25
Yeah, I want to encourage you that there is a gene, I did have Gino Wickman. On the podcast, he wrote traction and was creator of EOS. So check out that interview. And also, if you want to learn more, you can go to the book, the book Traction is great. What are some of your favorite books? Rafi I know you mentioned Atomic Habits, obviously tractions. You know, Wickman? What are some of your favorites that people should check on?
Rafi Arbel 41:51
I did love good to great. I commonly even though I read it a long time ago, I think about it a lot. Because some of the principles principles, there are so fundamental to doing well, that it’s important to keep those in mind like getting the right people in the right seats on the bus is critical. So I was interviewing today for a client success manager. And I wasn’t so concerned about how, how many years experience they had I was more concerned with are they curious? Are they pleasant? Are they conscientious and detail oriented? They have some of those skills that are going to be a bigger success than people with five years experience without those skills. So I like some of those those books. I do read a lot of newspapers every day, I read the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. So for me, it’s a little bit more of a fight to read through books than it is the journals. But yeah, I like it some balance of the two.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 43:03
Rafi I have one last question. Before I ask it, I just want to thank you. Thanks for sharing your journey. With us your lessons everyone can check out marketjd.com to learn more. My last question is, you mentioned you were a vendor at Wrigley Field and dates back to you did this with with Howard Inc. and what were some of the lessons you learned from being a vendor at Wrigley Field?
Rafi Arbel 43:30
That is a great question. It was one of my favorite jobs. You know, I think that probably was the genesis of my desire to be an entrepreneur. Because working as a vendor has a lot in common with entrepreneurship. Your effort is the thing that gets rewarded the most we were fully commissioned. And the earlier you got to Wrigley Field, the better product you got. So if it was a 120 game, we would sometimes get there by 10 o’clock. Wait outside Wrigley Field on the cement prevents the union had to arrive around 1130 to hand out your product for the day. And the people that were in the front of the line are the people that got the best thing. So when we got there in time, I wasn’t old enough to sell beer, but I could sell Pepsi and that sold well on a hot day. And that was far better than selling cotton candy or any of the products that the guys at the end of the line sold. So the hustle back then and even now gets rewarded. Treating people kindly thinking on your feet doing what you love. I loved it. So it was a pleasure to be out there. I loved listening to Carry, carry, sing the national I would always stop. Other vendors would keep going, I would stop and belt out the national anthem and Take Me Out to the Ballgame. And almost every game after the seventh thing, I said, I’m done, I put away my, my product and I’ve watched the rest of the game. And so it was, it was really a labor of love. I made great money for a college student and I worked hard. And I felt great at the end of the day, and I liked I’d like to think that a lot of those same things are true today. I still do what I love. And I feel great at the end of the day, working at Market JD, a different experience but similar in some regards.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz 45:44
Rafi I want to be the first one to thank you everyone. Check out more episodes of the podcast check out marketjd.com And we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks.
Rafi Arbel 45:53
Thanks, Jeremy. Have a great day.
Outro 45:55
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