Jeremy Weisz 15:19
So some of those things baked into the study where it’s like you’re asking them, but then basically looking at what their actions are also.
Jim Jacobs 16:10
Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, we’ve might, and that’s one of the things we’ve moderated a few different studies where you’re, like, different drink delivery systems. And that’s what’s really neat is all these latest and greatest and newest inventions and different ways to do things. I mean, we would do studies about Uber all the time, Uber, or freight right before was kind of like a perfect service. You know, what do you like, what don’t you like, what, right? So it was very neat. And it’s really neat to see what we do is shaped every day, like, for example, we did a study on diabetes, right. And it was a special app for the phone and a special thing to check your blood sugar. And we did that study of the big study. And then two years later, a friend of mine the pharmaceutical rep, and we’re like, oh my god, it’s the coolest product I’m going to be rapping. And he told me all about it, but yet, and I’m telling them about the product. And they’re like, I just want training on this two days ago. And how do you know all about it? I said, well, because we did the study.
Jeremy Weisz 17:21
I love it. What were some of the key hires, and evolution right, it starts off you on your couch, making side cash. Right. So what were some of the key hires that you had to make to grow the business?
Jim Jacobs 17:35
Oh, wow, you know what? And if you ever read, you’re meet with a lot of young guys, but you got to tell the people, right? People strategy execution, cash are the four pillars of scale any business. And number one is the people, the people, the people, people. My number two, and command is Liana wood. And she was actually someone who I met through Upwork, during the initial stages of business, who had a little bit of a market research background, and was just meeting her.
Jeremy Weisz 18:06
What were you hiring for the time? What were you looking for?
Jim Jacobs 18:10
An assistant. Okay, so, now like, for example, last year, we did business with 102 clients, right? So, but yeah, so with, I was looking for an assistant. And I was really able to hone in on something. And this is pre-COVID. Right. So, but there was a number of people who had young kids with great job skills, college degrees, and they just wanted the flexibility to be able to work from home. So that’s what we created. We’re COVID made it prevalent. But we were on the cutting edge there of how do we have a work-from-home company? I mean, I go into an office, but it’s kind of like it’s a shared office facility is John Ratcliffe bones from the he’s big, and he’s part of scaling up with Bernie Harnish Vern Harnish, but another entrepreneur. But yeah, for sure. Liana was absolutely one of our key hires. I mean, she makes this place go every day. And then I got Christina Swanky had a background in finance. With hedge funds in New York, she was really able to help us scale the business accordingly and grow it and then we just kept adding so many great people along the way.
Jeremy Weisz 19:26
You were also, I think you want something that for best workplaces so what do you do to instill culture especially in a remote setting?
Jim Jacobs 19:38
Well, Liana is a big part of that right she’s very big into culture and she does a great job leading the way but we all do, right. So we look it if you’re gonna go to work every day, why can’t it be enjoyable? Why can’t you have fun with your co-workers, right? Like why can’t the workplace environment be somewhere where you want to be? All right. And that’s the whole way we always treated it like we have a, once a week 11:11, every Tuesday and all hands call, and we try to put a little bit of fun in it at the end of the day. And yes, it’s work. Yes. KPI, yes, measurements, but at the same point, it’s also a good way for everyone to get together to talk about different things. And we try to, and that’s the thing if we try to really train our people, right, so you can come in, and it’s always people first, and we’ll give you the skills, if you want, we’ll train you for whatever we need. And we’ve been very successful doing that.
Jeremy Weisz 20:41
Are your staff allowed to participate in the studies also? No. No, they’re not they’re now get people inquiring and work for you that have participated in the studies? Or do they?
Jim Jacobs 20:54
We’ve had people who have participated in studies who have come to work for us a year later or something. And they’re like, oh, my God, I’ve been in one of your studies. And a friend of mine told me about your this incredible business, and I want to be a recruiter. And so yeah, but we have a pretty, you know, you’ll be terminated if you participate in a study if you work for us. That’s not…
Jeremy Weisz 21:13
It’s just because they know too much or why is that? Correct? Yeah, it’s just biased. Right?
Jim Jacobs 21:21
Correct. We want unbiased opinions.
Jeremy Weisz 21:25
I would think that people doing the studies be like, oh, this is cool. This company, oh, maybe I should work for them.
Jim Jacobs 21:32
We’ve had that we have people reach out all the time about that.
Jeremy Weisz 21:35
You’re big on education and big in personal development. You taught a seminar in college. And can you talk about the power of ask?
Jim Jacobs 21:49
Yep. So it was actually from my friend, Paul Alfred, he owns or his company, he’s part of bloom planners, which is a phenomenal company, great culture. And I’ve gotten a lot of the idea of a culture from him. But they wanted a fellow entrepreneur to come in and speak. And it was really neat for the newspaper side of the business, or for the advertising side of the business where they would sell advertising on college campuses. So I went spoken, he’s like, hey, could you do a presentation? I’m like, okay, well, on what you have something interesting. They said, but we want the question would be, what would you tell your 25-year-old self? Like, oh, wow. Right? Or what would you tell your 20-year-old self? So I kept like, that bugged me all weekend. I’m like, what would I tell myself, and ultimately, what I came back to, is about the power of ask, right? That’s what I came up with. And it’s like, if you see where you are now, and you see where you started, like, well, how did I get on this crazy path? Right? And it was always, it was as well because I asked this guy about an internship and then I asked for this and then I asked here, then I asked this, then I asked her that right. So when you go down all the asks, it’s the whole power of ask like, if you don’t ask the answers always know right, Mr. Pat Croce call me that right there, Pat Croce used to own a, he was a trainer who became an owner to build up the 70 Sixers. And I remember become, you just buy, puts together to deal part owner to team, we go down and all of a sudden, at the time, the logos changed and black and everything like, I’m like, well, did you do any market research on this? No, you that was like, old Pasquale, my old man. He goes, if I asked him for the sneakers, he beat the crap out of me. So then the next time I just bought the sneakers, and beat the crap, I was buying the sneakers, but I still had the sneakers. So his whole point was just ask just ask do it. Figure it out. So that’s the power of ask like, always be asking, who can you ask? What can I do for you? Hey, Jeremy, I have a good introduction that might help you write things like that. And when you look over time in years, you see there’s a huge compound effect of that.
Jeremy Weisz 24:09
Who do you consider some of your mentors throughout the years when you speak of ask I’m sure that you reached out to people for advice or help or who were some of those mentors throughout the years?
Jim Jacobs 24:21
Now all the time. I mean, one of the big ones. I mean, there’s so many to list but one of the big ones is Michael Morris, who’s a good friend of mine, I met him at St. Joe’s and he started the company transport international pool and sold GE back in the day and I talked to him once a week, twice a week. And he’s amazing person, so many through Entrepreneurs Organization who I know mentor me on different things. Paul offers one who’s helped me through a lot of different things. You know, Bob Simpson is my co and he’s helped me through a lot. It’s funny. I’m a hockey guy. So, guys like Jeremy Roenick and Chris carrion and Jim Watson who I have the utmost respect for late pretty high-level NHL, I’m able to get those guys on the phone and ask them hockey advice.
Jeremy Weisz 25:11
Jeremy Roenick was used to be on the Blackhawks at one point. I don’t know whether teams he played for but you know him.
Jim Jacobs 25:19
That was kind of wild, right? He talked about the power of ask we, that’s a perfect, perfect example. We it was during 2004, the NHL was locked out. And so all the players were looking to get into just like, they will have like charity, golf outings and hockey games. So they keep crashing with each other because they couldn’t play for a year. Because the owner said, hey, you guys make too much money. We’re locking you out. And we’re really redoing the collective bargaining agreement. So all of a sudden, the paper got asked to the company, the paper, the Daily News saying, hey, Jeremy Roenick for the Philadelphia Flyers is having a charity golf outing for charity hockey toppling in Arizona. He goes if anyone wants to stay sharp on blades, and we played pretty high-level hockey, so I had sent the article to my entire play soccer team at the time. And one of the guys was like, hey, does anyone want to go on this, this would be pretty neat to go to. And someone, a friend of mine said, hey, I know him pretty well. We grew up playing with against each other, and personal friends. And then that’s how the connection was made. And we went out there. And we’ve been friends ever since. So that was pretty cool. So you’ve helped me through some hockey stuff and whatnot.
Jeremy Weisz 26:30
Describe gym for people can’t see maybe they’re listening. But there’s a picture behind you describe that scene in what’s in there.
Jim Jacobs 26:41
That’s a really neat, pristine video of it and everything. It’s great. So I played hockey at Malvern prep, and it was very much a defining experience. Because you go from getting cut to making the team to go into the JV, varsity. And now all of a sudden, you’re winning a flyer, scalping and winning triple A state championship and doesn’t like it more diversity champions in the history of the school. Well, fast forward. Now, that’s the 1990. And so my stuff, so I come back there needed a middle school coach, eight years ago, can’t we have been doing this for eight years, but they needed a middle school coach, and just had a vision and saw an opportunity to hey, build the middle school team and get our high school back to the championship level. And the team has not won for 17 years, right. So we’ve gone through a huge drought, with a lot of recruiting and selling guys on the vision and getting guys to hey, look, I know, the team is struggling now. But you got to look a few years down the road, what the thing is going to be. And I remember telling one of my guys, Maddie Harris and Maddie, you’re gonna be looking up in the stands, he stands, they’re gonna be packed. And you’re gonna be holding a cup over your head. I go if you come here, right, God honest truth. And three years later, that’s exactly what he was doing. It was unbelievable. I got chills right now thinking about that. But that game went into overtime. And like I said, we hadn’t won in 17 years. And my son ended up scoring the game-winning goal in overtime, wearing my jersey number. And the whole place went nuts. And it was all over social media. I mean, TSN and Canada had it on their social media page. I mean, every huge hockey channel on Instagram, like it just blew up. There was millions of views. It was really unbelievable story. And it all started with a vision. And not only the vision, but really having a vision fresh in your head and executing every day, day upon day, month upon month and year after year. And then we want it back to back so it was really amazing. The video on your phone?
Jeremy Weisz 28:54
What do you what is it up? Like? How did you get it? Or did someone send you the video? What’s the video of?
Jim Jacobs 29:02
Of the goal, it’s of the goal, of that goal? Yeah, someone shot that and yeah, it was unbelievable. Yeah, the Social Media Manager for the team Gracie at the time she shot it and upload it to that. Instead of that every hockey page who read blasted it all over the place, it was really wild how big of a story that became 24 hours.
Jeremy Weisz 29:26
Jim, talk about what you brought from your hockey, career and coaching into the business because I mean, it’s sounds like all of the similar things you had to give the vision, sell the vision, execute practice, what did you bring from hockey to your business?
Jim Jacobs 29:45
It is so similar. It is unbelievable. Okay, so no, I deal with 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds in high school and then some of the younger guys in middle school. All guys, and all of a sudden when I’m dealing at work with, it’s all females, right? So, but they’re all people. And it’s all the same thing, right? You have to get people to see a vision that doesn’t exist, you have to get people to believe something that is not there. Like, if I never told Liana, right, like, hey, Liana this is gonna be really neat. It could be me and you working 50 hours a week to 60 hours a week.
Jeremy Weisz 29:45
Don’t sell that vision.
Jim Jacobs 29:45
Right, like, what’s exciting about that, you know, and what else exciting, hey, you’re gonna come over here and play hockey. And we could try to win a few more games next year. I’m like, What’s exciting about that? Right? Like, now we’re gonna be the leader in this quality of space in market research will be one of the top companies in the industry. And you know what, it took a lot of big swings. And we struck out a lot. Okay, but you know what, like, we just hit the Inc. 5000 last year, top 25%, like you said, and hockey, that was very difficult. There was lots of scars and pain along the way. And tough moments, tough conversations with kids, tougher conversations with parents irate parents, but you know what, they all have championship rings now. And we hit the Inc. 5000. And we’re doing projects with some of the biggest consumer product companies in the world. I mean, the tech companies in the world, I mean, that was kind of our Stanley Cup. So they go absolutely hand in hand. But number one, it’s, I think the biggest job of the entrepreneur is to really help sell the vision, and then not only sell it, but work with the team to drive it every single day. And you got to be willing to roll your sleeves up and get dirty, because if you’re like, No one’s gonna lead if you’re not willing to do these things.
Jeremy Weisz 31:49
I’m curious, Jim, what you would say your superpower is, when I listen to you, you seem to be really good at the visual, like creating a visual for someone, you’re painting the picture for that vision, you’re not just sharing the vision, but you really, with that person, you pin the picture so they can see it. Imagine the people in the stands imagine holy up that cop, even with the ads, imagine our products, we’re watching the Superbowl, and we see a Superbowl commercial and the product that we helped, do the research for is on there, right? What would you say your superpower is in business?
Jim Jacobs 32:32
Developing people, developing people, right? Like, I believe very much in the equation, one plus one equals three. Okay? So that means if you come in, we’re gonna leave you a lot better than we found you, we have people who can come into our company, as an entry-level recruiter, and be promoted to a Assistant Project Manager or project manager or director within a short period of time, right? It’s really on that, it’s kind of one of the things I say, with hockey, right? We supply the opportunity you supply to rest, right, so that’s what I think that the key job of any coach or entrepreneur is, is number one is to people, right? It’s develop your people, show your people the way you can’t do it for them, right, but you need people who are driven and to show them the vision and show them I know this is where you are now. But this is where you can be and this is where we can be together if we accomplish this. Right. So and to the credit of a lot of the guys I’ve coached, they’ve achieved success that picture is that moment. Remember the guy the many people kind of guy jumping in the stands, right. But to me, that’s hours upon hours of practices and work and vision and whatnot. And like those jerseys, the original jerseys that came out were unwearable. So we had to order last minute jersey, right? Like everyone’s like, Oh my god, they had the best jerseys in the league, like, yeah, like, and no one has like, right, it’s like the dock, were piling super quick under and it’s all smooth, but you don’t see everything that’s happening underneath. And that’s the way life and business is, so everything goes super already and crazy. But no, by far Jeremy number one, developing people and making that one plus one equals three. Meaning when you get the people, the value of the hole is a lot more than the sum of the parts.
Jeremy Weisz 34:39
What Jim should others be doing to help develop their leaders? What have you found? Cause is baked into your process or how you train or what do you do that other people should be doing to help develop leaders?
Jim Jacobs 34:56
Yeah, for sure. So it’s kind of wild through EO I met Chris Brown. Do Chris Brown do owns a company called Triennial? So training will, is phenomenal. So we have everyone, we record different modules, different learnings, and we constantly train people through training will. And it’s like the old saying, like, what if we train them? And they leave? Like, well, if you don’t, and stay, right, so we really tried to have different weekly trainings and try to train people on different facets of the industry. And because a lot of them are, I mean, actually everyone is pretty much new to market research. So we trained them within the industry. And some of these people, some of some, some of the women have been out of the workforce for a little bit, maybe had some kids and they kept working a few years and they want to get back in, or they went started a part-time recruiter. So honestly, if you’re not training your people to be better than, I think you’re doing yourself a huge disservice as an entrepreneur because it’s really needed. Like, there was four sales calls today. Okay, and I hurt my back and I wasn’t on any of them. But
Jeremy Weisz 36:11
I wish I knew a good chiropractor for you, Jim. Sorry.
Jim Jacobs 36:14
Thank you. I knew one right around the corner. Thank goodness, that’s where I spent all morning. But having awesome people and developing them into awesome people is super, super, it’s the most rewarding thing about the business. And more rewarding any financial statement or any sales bigger?
Jeremy Weisz 36:36
Jim, I have one last question. Before I ask it, I just want to point people to focusinsite.com to check out more. That’s focusinsite.com to learn more about the business, whether you are a business who wants to get consumer insights or you want to make some side cash and actually see what other opportunities you can enter in their database. My last question, Jim, is I know you are a heavy learner. Personal Development, I’d love to know some of your favorite books, or resources that you love that you recommend people check out.
Jim Jacobs 37:19
YouTube, anything by Jim Rohn I think he’s phenomenal. Got my whole audible but Brian Tracy, Ella, Brian Tracy type of stuff. And God, Atomic Habits is a great one. Like, there’s so many. And I have one pep talk. I like looking at all my morning run in the morning, what is the app? It’s an app where you just curate motivational content, oh, really free all that you can get for free on YouTube and whatnot. But not only that, but just books are like, I think Elon Musk, apparently when he grew up in South Africa, he read his whole library. Like you read every book in the library that was that he grew up in or something or in a school or like that library, but like at school, he had written every book, so people had problems before you any of that bigger problem. And books are just the way to, there’s nothing I love better than getting away and just reading, so I’m a content consummate like I love listen to audiobooks and podcasts.
Jeremy Weisz 38:34
What are some of your favorite podcasts or audible I don’t know if you have your phone handy, but I love to hear some of your favorite podcasts and audible books too.
Jim Jacobs 38:45
Well, my favorite by far is Rise25 by Jeremy Weisz.
Jeremy Weisz 38:53
Now it is and your favorite episode is your own when it goes live.
Jim Jacobs 38:57
There you go. I like Andy Frisella. Noah Kagan is really, really neat. So Noah Kagan presents and he for Stella is phenomenal. There’s one called DealMakers which is really neat replete with actual entrepreneurs. Oh, I’m a hockey guy. So Spit and Chiclets is a great one just to hear from some of the most elite athletes in the world and crazy stories and how they got to where they got to Alex Hormozi is a guy who I really, really like he’s kind of newer past couple years into the social media content.
Jeremy Weisz 39:34
Got a $100M Offers I forgot his book is called.
Jim Jacobs 39:39
I have a book over there but you can tell he’s the guy who did it. You know what I mean, like he’s done all this because he can tell you very specifically all and that the credit card fee machine went down so we had to do it this way. And like I know the story so we’ve done all those crazy stories and things have happened. So yeah, those are ones i really like it A few a don’t like think I’m like I’m not gonna recommend them because they’re kind of like their whole thing is being a coach or something like that haven’t done it right.
Jeremy Weisz 40:11
You want people have been in the trenches who are have done it or are doing it. What about from Audible? Any favorite audible books?
Jim Jacobs 40:17
Oh sure audible, I think I have a couple of 100 here. So I’m looking him up right now Pink Goldfish is a good one. Play Bigger, Five Dysfunctions of a TeamGrit by Angela Duckworth. Her husband, Jason is a member of the Philadelphia chapter which is wild. The Magic of Thinking Big, The Power of Ambition by Jim Rohn. Tell Me More About That. My friend, Robert Volpe. The Thank You Room by Serenity Bowen is a great book about her dealing with cancer and she the friends and absolutely phenomenal Founders Mentality, which so many could Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss was one of my favorites. As a great one, isn’t it? Oh, here’s one of my absolute favorites. And it’s like, it’s not even a real book. It’s like a, it’s a Kindle book, How to Win at The Sport of Business by Mark Cuban. But to get inside his head is unbelievable. And I was on a Zoom call with him and just hearing how he approached it every day. It’s unbelievable, man. He is great. So yeah, hello, there’s something like, and also one that I suggest to all the staff, by The Travelers Gift by Andy Andrews. I quote a lot. It’s a really neat book, I highly suggest it’s a book about how people’s things have changed. But like based on real things that happen in history, it’s a great book, and you’ll read it in a couple hours. But it’s like I always say like, it’s a quote from the book. You don’t always have to make the right decision, but make the decision and make it right. So that’s how we’ve grown. Like, I’m like, hey, don’t stop fretting about making the right decision, make a decision. And if it’s wrong, we make it right. And we’ve had clients, you know, we did this and it was the wrong thing, but we fixed it or, you know what I mean? And it’s always one of our core philosophies, for sure.
Jeremy Weisz 40:38
Make it right, Jim, I want to be the first one to thank you. Thank you so much, everyone, check out focusinsite.com And we’ll see you next time. Thanks, Jim.
Jim Jacobs 42:24
Thank you.
