How To Simplify Your Social Media Strategy for Business Growth and Work-Life Balance with Dan Peterson

Navigating the complexities of social media marketing and personal branding can be challenging for many entrepreneurs.  Join Dr. William Attaway as he delves into the world of entrepreneurship and leadership with Dan Peterson, the multifaceted founder of Flip Switch. In this episode, Dan shares invaluable insights gathered from his mentors, offering a unique perspective on success that blends harmoniously with his roles as a business leader and musician.

Dan and the team at Flip Switch confront these challenges head-on, discussing how the evolving landscape of social platforms, including the impact of TikTok, shapes strategies for both business growth and personal fulfillment. They also address the current business environment, altered by the effects of COVID-19, providing actionable advice on crafting authentic and valuable content.

For parents, the conversation offers a relatable outlook on guiding children through the nuances of an increasingly digital world. They explore the delicate balance between inclusion and protection, providing insights that resonate with anyone aiming to navigate these complexities with grace.

As artificial intelligence continues to redefine workforce dynamics, the art of leadership extends beyond traditional office boundaries. Through Dan's experiences, they dissect the critical components of empathetic and adaptable leadership, highlighting the importance of personal growth in fostering meaningful connections in today's digital age.

Whether you're a digital agency owner. budding entrepreneur or a seasoned CEO, this episode offers a symphony of strategies to help you lead with purpose and self-awareness, both in business and in life. Tune in for expert advice on social media strategy, entrepreneurship, leadership, business growth, personal branding, and more.

Connect with Dan Peterson
Connect with Dan Peterson (@DanPetersonOfficial) on social media and Flip Switch or more valuable insights on social media strategy and entrepreneurship.

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited today to have Dan Peterson on the podcast. Dan has over 25 years of experience in small business management and ownership. Most recently in 2012, he founded Flip Switch Social Media, a nationally recognized, award-winning social media agency that helps small to mid-sized businesses grow using the power of social media. Dan is also a singer-songwriter acoustic guitarist, who performs throughout Chicagoland on a regular basis. In 2008, he married his amazing wife, amy, and he's the proud father of three daughters Kylie, taylor and Brooklyn. Dan speaks and shares on topics ranging from gratitude and perspective to business and entrepreneurship. His goal in life is to spread positivity and education to others whenever he gets the chance. Dan, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Dan Peterson: 0:59

Thanks for having me, William. I'm really excited to be here.

Intro/Outro: 1:04

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:21

Dan, you have such a fascinating story and I would love for you to share some of that with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Dan Peterson: 1:32

Well, I have to give a lot of credit to some of the previous business people that I worked with back when I'm almost 45 now 45 now.

Dan Peterson: 1:47

So back when I was in my late teens and early 20s, I had the privilege of working in various businesses with various leaders and soaking in a lot of that from them, as well as working with people at a sales position that I had prior to when I started Flip Switch. So going back to like 2006 through 2008 or 2009, I guess it would be in that area. I worked with a sales company and some of the people that I worked underneath were just exceptional in the leadership realm and in teaching and training and all of that, and I absorbed a lot of that. So I think it's just a combination of the people that I've been around my entire life, as well as just things that I picked up along the way from being put into the position of leadership. So when you've had enough people underneath you over time that you have no choice but to lead, then you kind of either sink or swim. So I feel like I swam pretty well, but I'm still developing. Everybody is right.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:45

That's it. There's never a finish line. That's right. You say that you just kind of got thrown in and you learned to do it.

Dan Peterson: 2:58

I got to tell you. I see a lot of people who get thrown in, who don't learn to do it Well, and I think that you're right about that, and I think there's a lot of people that how do I put it nicely? I think that there's a lot of people in leadership positions that are not good at it and the people that are underneath them absorb you know the bad end of the deal. And then you have people like myself that got lucky and I was with you know some good people and I took that upon myself to learn that method. So I think it's kind of wherever you're at when you're developing depends on how you end up. So I'm just fortunate to have those people over me over that period of time in my life.

Dr. William Attaway: 3:36

I would love to get your perspective on the success. You know you're a business owner, an agency owner, and you have been in a lot of different contexts. What do you believe makes a business owner successful?

Dan Peterson: 3:53

You know there's two sides to it. To me there's the business side I mean whatever you want to call success on that side, and then there's like your personal side of success, and however you want to define that. So I think, looking at it, you know how do you define a business as being successful? I think that's fairly obvious to most people. I mean, if you're you know you're growing, you're making money and you're supporting your people and you've got good staff and good customers and whatever that looks like for your business, I think that that kind of works itself out. I think.

Dan Peterson: 4:24

From a personal success standpoint, I think that the world has it quite wrong and quite upside down in a lot of cases and there's a lot of people that need to redefine what success means to them, and I think this is really prevalent in the Western world.

Dan Peterson: 4:41

You know, I think we, especially Americans, have a lot of uh, I'm trying to tread thinly here so I don't offend everybody, cause it's it's literally everybody's, myself included.

Dan Peterson: 4:53

I think that we're all very much trying to live up to other people's expectations and what society puts on us. As you know, being success or whatever being successful means, I mean whether it's money or houses or cars or you know, status, and and I just think that that's just the wrong way to look at it and it took me a long time I mean, I'm still working on it myself, you know cause, as an entrepreneur, of course, I want the financial side that comes with it, but I think there's a lot of people that have really gone the route of trying to be something that they're not and trying to define success as financial or status or whatever. So I define it personally as happy. If you're happy every day you wake up and you love what you do or love the people you do it for, then I think that you have a level of success that it supersedes the financial side of things.

Dr. William Attaway: 5:53

I love that. I particularly like your phrase there when you love the people that you do it for.

Dan Peterson: 5:59

Yeah, I think that there's, you know, always days at work when you don't love what you do. I mean, I like what I do, but there's days when I'm like man, this is rough. So I think that, you know, keeping keeping things in perspective is one thing, you know. I mean, every day you wake up and the people around you are healthy and you're healthy. That says a lot, you know that. That makes it pretty easy to not be in a bad mood or be stressed about work.

Dan Peterson: 6:27

But uh, but everybody's human and we all have those stressors and and things that you know cause us to have bad days. So when you can put things in perspective, from that, you know, from that mindset, I think that it helps a lot. But yeah, doing things for the people that you love and that you want to do it for makes anything palatable. You know, the worst days aren't so bad when you're not doing it all for yourself. So I got, like you said, three kids and a wife, and that's that's who I'm doing it for, way more than myself. So it makes it a lot easier.

Dr. William Attaway: 7:01

You specialize in social media. This is your agency's sweet spot. You help small businesses and midsize businesses to find success in that arena. That's a very complicated arena where things seem to change, it feels like, on a daily basis. It may not be quite that often, but it certainly does feel like that from the outside Pretty close. I mean looking at that field. Is this a passion area for you? Is this something that you just were drawn toward or drawn into?

Dan Peterson: 7:29

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I tell this story almost probably on almost every podcast. I'm on that.

Dan Peterson: 7:36

I grew up in a small town with the full family I mean parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all running businesses. So I had that small business background and when I started Flip Switch it was out of two things One, seeing a need. They always say like if you fill a need, then you have a viable business. So one thing was seeing the need. There were small businesses. This is going back now almost 12 years to the early days of social media and early days of web design.

Dan Peterson: 8:07

Still, I mean, you know, there were still a lot of websites. I mean, even to this day a lot of websites aren't good, but back then they were really bad. So it was seeing that need that small businesses needed help in that area and filling it. But it was also a passion point from having a family that was small business owners and I know what goes into that and I know how hard it is to market and grow a business with limited budgets. So when I started Flip Switch it was done out of a need but also doing it at a price point, and to this day doing it at a price point that and, to this day, doing it at a price point that almost every business can afford, versus a lot of agencies where it's thousands of dollars a month and they can't even come close to affording that. So yeah, it's a two-part thing for me.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:57

So, when you're talking to a potential customer or potential client, where do you start? Because, I mean, social media is a very large landscape, right, and they're all so different. I mean, tiktok users are different than LinkedIn users, for instance. I mean, where do you start when you're talking with someone about hey, you know, I really jumped into this pool, yet when do I begin?

Dan Peterson: 9:21

Yeah, for the ones that are really early in it, still that haven't. You know, I mean, we still come across businesses that have haven't even created a Facebook page or an Instagram profile. You know it's. It blows my mind a little bit that we're at that point, but that's still the way it is. And so for those that either don't have it or they're just starting, or they've had it for years and they're not tapping into it like they should, For those businesses I simplify everything, I really dumb it down.

Dan Peterson: 9:48

I say, look, we're not going to all of a sudden blow up and put you on every platform under the sun because you haven't conquered the first two that are the most important. And in most cases I would say that that's either Facebook and Instagram or Facebook and LinkedIn, depending on which type of business it is. But so many businesses, even the ones that have been on these platforms for years, just don't do nearly enough. I mean, even my agency doesn't do enough. We don't post nearly enough because of course we're doing it for everybody else. It's Shoemaker whose kids have no shoes, that's right, that's right. But you know, the businesses that we do help, we take it from a one to a 10 pretty quickly where they're not doing something and we start doing it for them. And if they are doing a lot, we start doing more of it and we just we grow it exponentially. And, to answer your question, I think it's just coming at it from not overcomplicating it and being more of just a simplified hey, here's what we're going to do first, rolling out the steps for that, and then second, and then third, and then, you know, maybe a year or two down the line, if they're really rolling, then we'll start adding second, third, fourth, fifth things like TikTok or Snapchat or something to hit a different type of audience, but most of them aren't doing what they should be on the basic platforms, like the core platforms, as we call it, which is Facebook, instagram, linkedin and TikTok.

Dan Peterson: 11:16

I mean, I will say TikTok is the core platform now for most businesses. I mean, the largest growth sector segment on there is like 35 to 55 year olds. So really, oh yeah, it's huge. Wow, in fact it's. It's so important for most businesses to be on that I have to remind myself to go back to it and not treat it like it's the redheaded stepchild of the bunch, and treat it like it is one of the core platforms, because it really is, and it changed everything the short form video that we call the TikTokification of social media. When they started that, everybody did it. You saw Facebook get reels and Instagram got reels and YouTube has shorts, so everybody's doing it. But yeah, it's. It's just something that I think each business has their own what I want to say, like their own target demographic, and they have to play within that first and get good at that before they try to do everything all at once. Yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:23

Yeah, one of the things in coaching entrepreneurs and founders and agency owners. I find that there's a little bit of a fear. Like you said, they do this for everybody else, but when it comes to their own company, their own business, there's a little bit of reticence, and part of that is because they feel like it's going to completely tip over any sort of balance they have between their work and their personal life and all of a sudden, you know, everything's going to be going to be out of kilter. Do you see that?

Dan Peterson: 12:57

I don't know if I would think of it in that term, in that way. I think that it's more of just not having at least in our case I'll just speak for Flip Switch we are bringing on. We're growing at such an exponential rate Even in I mean, we always have grown well, but like in the last couple of years I'd almost say since, like COVID, really Like since that timeframe we just took off. I don't know what the difference was or what happened right around there, but we just blew up. And so I started being kind of the face of the business back around that same time and instead of trying to make everything this polished, perfect content you know, because we don't tell our clients to do that, so why would we do it? But that's what we were doing. Our clients to do that, so why would we do it? But that's what we were doing and instead I stepped in front of the camera and just started shooting videos left and right and doing a bunch of stuff that was just trying to educate people and talk on the topics that I know something about, which, in this case we're talking about social media and marketing, and that. So when I did that, then things really took off exponentially.

Dan Peterson: 14:02

So I think that the problem is for us as an agency to create that kind of content. It's more of it's a time suck for us that we, because we've grown so fast and we're continually bringing on clients I mean almost every day we bring on somebody. So it's such a fast rate that I don't want to screw that up and and tell anybody, you know, delegate anything for flip switch specifically. Now, I mean, I am at a point right now where I think I'm going to probably have to just bring somebody on just for flip switches content, so that we can actually grow that side, cause we're, you know, like I said we don't do enough of it, but I certainly can't task any of our people with it and I'm running, you know, running this and two other companies I'm involved with and stuff.

Dan Peterson: 14:51

So it's a lot. So I'm not really doing a good job myself either and I always tell you know, like to your previous point about what do you tell businesses and how do you help them, I can really relate because not only am I an agency owner, but I do have my hands in other businesses and I grew up in it as well, and I know the struggle. So I know what it takes to do it right. And if we're not doing it well for ourselves, then I darn well know that the businesses we're helping aren't doing a good job. So I can, I can speak to that fairly clearly and say, look, I get it, but yeah, it's tough, it's a lot of time to do it right.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:33

Yeah, we talked earlier about the. You know, you have three daughters and I have two daughters myself, and that's you know, being a parent, being a father is a very specific and unique role that we have, in addition to being business owners. When you're talking about social media, it feels like this is an area that is rife with landmines when it comes to our kids. You specialize in this and I would love to hear your thoughts on this. You know, how do parents handle this? How do they handle the good and the bad of social media when, again, it seems to change all the time?

Dan Peterson: 16:15

yeah, it's, um, I don't even know if I have a good answer for you. I mean, I'll give you my answer, um, because I get asked this all the time, of course, being in this industry, but it is. It's something that I think you have to regulate fairly well. Like, I'm not gonna well, and I didn't let my kids on most social media even to this day. You know, right now they're 14, 12 and five, and the 14 and 12 year olds have some limited stuff. Uh, like, the 14 year old has Instagram and Snapchat, but really only Snapchat, because that's the only way that her and her friends and the groups that she's a part of communicate. They don't text, so she was being left out and literally didn't know what was going on in certain cases and and was missing things. So we had to pull the trigger and say, all right, you can have it, but that's the one that I hate the most, because the stuff disappears, you know, and it just makes it that much harder to monitor it.

Dan Peterson: 17:14

But I think that you do have to stay on top of it from that standpoint, and part B of that same standpoint is that I think parents need to be using some of these platforms themselves and educating themselves on it. And I don't think we me, you know, being in my forties, I don't think people that didn't grow up with it, like my generation and older especially, even, you know, mid thirties something's parents. I mean, we didn't really grow up with it. So I think that you have to step into it and and start and start doing it and educating yourself from an actual user standpoint.

Dan Peterson: 17:50

That's the first part. The second part is, and probably more importantly, you just have to cry to raise your kids with a good head on their shoulders and be honest with them too and not try to act like it's something. It's not. I mean they're. You know, I, especially with my 14 year old. We we've talked many times about some of the stuff that is going on and what she's probably going to see and be exposed to. She'll always come back to me and be like dad it's way worse than school, like the stuff I'm seeing and hearing at school is 10 times worse than anything I'm seeing online and I'm like, yeah, you're probably right, but but the thing is is like in school you're, it's real life type of stuff.

Dan Peterson: 18:35

The social media side of it is is fake or has the potential to be to be fake and be predatory or be, you know, like all these different things that it could be. So just making sure that they understand that there's a lot of bad actors out there that would be happy to get the attention of some 12, 13, 14 year old girls and just making sure that they understand that and don't hide behind anything that's really good advice and I, you know my, my girls are the.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:09

my older one will be 20 this year and my younger one will be 17.

Intro/Outro: 19:15

And now you're almost through it.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:16

Well, in a different phase about that, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:20

You're on the back end of it In a different phase and and the you're you're spot on like. Hopping on it forced me to get on Instagram, which You're spot on Like. Hopping on it forced me to get on Instagram, which is something I had really not done, but I thought, no way I'm sending you into the Wild West and not, at least you know, hopping up on a horse myself and starting to walk through the town, like I've got to figure out how this works. So much of what I do, my business, is on LinkedIn, which they have no interest in, right, but I've got to go where they are and help at least be somewhat of an informed guide. So I love that advice. I think that's brilliant.

Dan Peterson: 19:54

Well, I think a lot of people are a lot of parents, I mean are very naive and don't really know the kind of stuff that somebody like myself knows, who lives in this world. I mean, I'm on social media so much when I tell people like my brother-in-law, uh, who's very you know, I I'm trying to push him to get on it more because his business, um, what he does, uh, would be, you know, is perfect for social media and he needs to be using, and he is starting to use it a lot more. Um, so, chad, if you're listening, keep it up. But, uh, the um, but the how do I say it? Like just the lack of use by a lot of parents, and then the naivete that comes with that, with people not not thinking that it's going to affect their kid or not going to enter their life or their sphere. You know, somehow it's just, it's stupid because it absolutely is going to. Yes, at some point, if you're on social media, you're going to see, hear, think, do something that is going to be probably not ideal. So so you might as well just be in it and and learn the best you can instead of trying to hide behind it.

Dan Peterson: 21:08

I mean, I haven't. I don't use Snapchat, but I have an account so that I can get in there and see and do things and probably don't do it enough, but you know I try and when Be Real came out, I got an account. Part of it's to learn Me too. I mean I, you know, for for business purposes. I want to see if it's something that our clients are going to use or I could use. And then the other part of it is also just parenting aspect. But yeah, there's no good answer, though I don't have like a magic wand or a crystal ball. I wish I, I wish I did, but you just have to do the best you can.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:43

Well, I love the transparency there and the honesty, because I think sometimes you know, just like in anything else online, somebody comes along and says I've got the magic ball, this is what you need. You do this and everything will be fine all the time. Okay, that's cute, it's just not real.

Dan Peterson: 21:58

Right, it goes back to like. So when my kids were a little bit younger, we got them one of those Gab phones G-A-B-B, so it's an introductory phone no-transcript Right.

Dan Peterson: 22:19

Yeah, we did not. A lot of parents do. Yeah, a lot of parents, like I would say the vast majority, and that's fine. You know, I don't judge, that's the other thing. I don't judge other parents on what they do really. I mean to to them a small percentage I do.

Dan Peterson: 22:33

I guess you would say, like I look at it, knowing what I know, it's hard not to. I guess, so like when I'm seeing stuff knew like how bad it is for your nine-year-old or 10-year-old to have an iPhone and it's just like you just don't get it, cause that, anyway, that's a different subject. But going back to what I was saying, like the gab phone and those types of things, you know we started with that, um, but you know it's not a magic wand, it's not something that ended up working out because they needed the extra functionality and capabilities that a regular phone has. So you end up having to take the leap and get them something else. So now you've got, now you've got a different conversation to have.

Dan Peterson: 23:21

Now you've got to tell them, like you can't download all these apps, you can't be on it, you can't create accounts, you can't shop on Amazon. I mean, my 12 year old loves to get in my wife's Amazon account and load up the shopping cart. I don't think she's cashed too much out yet, but it's like man, I didn't know anything about that stuff, you know. So you just got to kind of take it one step at a time, I think, and just understand that there's going to be mistakes made on both sides you and the kids and just be honest with them and try to build a relationship that supersedes the digital relationship that they're going to be a part of meaning, like their relationship with social media.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:04

Today, Flip Switch needs you to lead at a different level than it did two, three, four, five years ago. And two, three, four, five years from now, Flip Switch is going to need you to lead at a completely different level. What are you doing to up your leadership game? What are you doing to develop the skills that you're going to need in the days and years ahead?

Dan Peterson: 24:31

develop the skills that you're going to need in the days and years ahead. My biggest struggle has always been delegation, and I'm not I don't know, I probably am. I shouldn't say I'm not, I probably am a bit of a control freak when it comes to that kind of stuff. A lot of times it's harder for me to teach somebody to do something than for me to just do it myself. But of course that's not scalable. Right the scale. You have to be able to delegate. You have to be able to rely on other people to do it, even if it's some of the minutia and some of the little things that are on a day to day basis.

Dan Peterson: 25:03

I think that that's one thing that I really struggle with. I mean, even like going back to the early days when I tried to get my wife involved and I'm like, hey, you could help me, you could do this administrative stuff, you could do this or that, and we just don't work well together because I am bad at delegating. And then by the time I'm done talking to her, I'm already doing half of it myself, and then she gets frustrated and it's like, all right, so that wasn't good for our relationship. So we never. We never did that, which is fine, yeah, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably can relate to what I'm saying in that regard, where spousal stuff is just not sometimes great for working environments, but yeah, but delegation is.

Dan Peterson: 25:47

One thing I think is that I've really actually it's funny we're talking about this I'm really looking into as we speak is looking into getting a virtual assistant or somebody that can offload that minutiae. You know that's all the day to day mundane crap that I have to do. That takes up time. I think that that is something that will probably come to fruition this year and something that I think will help me out a lot come to fruition this year and something that I think will help me out a lot just to be able to have more time to run the company and not be doing some of this fiddly stuff that I'm doing.

Dan Peterson: 26:17

So I don't know if that really answers the question from a leadership perspective, but I guess one third thing that I could add to that that might help is trying to is trying to generate a better layered, a better tiered environment within Flip Switch, and I started this last year with my video guy, so he's got his own control over his entire video portion of what he does and he basically gives the quotes to the client, runs it by me first for feedback, but like I'm not doing that, whereas before it was hey, can you look this over and give me a price that you think we should charge? And it's like you're the one running the show. You've got the drone guy that you've got to talk to, you've got the other guy you know. Like you come up, come up with pricing, just double check with me if you want, and sometimes I'd rather you just do it, like I trust you enough to just run it, like just go, and that's something that you know.

Dan Peterson: 27:21

I guess the second part of number three would be the trust factor within that organizational type of setup where you know, letting people take it, run with it, and if, uh, something happens and you know we got to change it down the road, then so you know, so be it. But I'd rather fail my way up that ladder than and try to control everything and, uh, you know, have you see what I'm saying? Like, yeah, instead of trying to control it all myself, let let people do what they're they're supposed to do and what they do best.

Dr. William Attaway: 27:55

I think what you just said reveals a level of self-awareness that a whole lot of founders struggle with. You know, when I'm, when I'm coaching founders, typically I'll say hey, what are some areas that you really want to focus on during our engagement? And one of the things that's almost invariable is delegation. But then they will tell me the same type of things that you just shared. You know, but it takes me longer to teach them than I just do it myself, and it's frustrating and it just increases my stress level and it's just better if I just take care of myself.

Intro/Outro: 28:26

But you're exactly right that doesn't scale.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:31

And if all you want to do is stay the same size you are now, or smaller, going forward, hey, go for it, go for it. But if you want to grow, growth requires change. Growth and comfort never coexist, and so I love the self-awareness you have there that say, hey, this is something that I want to develop, I want to grow in this. That's not just going to happen. You have to be intentional about it. You're not going to wake up one day. Neither am I saying, oh, I developed this skill. I didn't. I didn't mean for that to happen, but here it is. Never works like that. So I applaud that. I applaud that and I'll say, wow, what's that thing?

Dan Peterson: 29:07

I need to be focused on.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:08

What's that thing I need to be intentional about?

Dan Peterson: 29:11

Well, I appreciate that, and it goes back to the very first thing you brought up on this conversation, which is you know where did I learn some of the leadership stuff that I have, that I've acquired over the years? And the people that I talked about in the first part of this call had those same traits of knowing what they were good at, what they were not good at, and being able to trustfully delegate things to people and then forgive people when mistakes were made and and take that ownership upon themselves. I think that's a big thing. That, uh, that helps me out a lot as being not so so much of a perfectionist, that mistakes can't be made or you know things. I mean I talk about this a lot at the end of the day, at the end of a lifetime rather at the end of a lifetime nobody lays on their deathbed wishing they had worked more or wishing that they had more meetings or any of that, which really just shows you how little any of this stuff matters, because it's just work, and I don't care what your job is, I don't care how stressful it is.

Dan Peterson: 30:21

You know, one of my neighbors manages some of the technology for a hedge fund and I mean it's super stressful and it's, you know, billions in dollars that he's managing and it just, I mean, he handles it well, but he talks you know how stressful this is and it's like at the end of a lifetime, even though that's billions of dollars, it's.

Dan Peterson: 30:44

I mean, what is it? You know you can't take it with you, so what does it matter anyway? And I know that we have responsibilities. You know, like, obviously, the guys in charge of people's money, like you know, I get it and I take the responsibility of being in charge of our company that's trying to help our clients grow. So our small business clients and any size client that we have, they have expectations and that's their livelihood and that's their livelihood. So it would be selfish of me to not give 110% to them because they're trusting my company to do the best we can to help them provide for their family. So I get that there's an importance to everything, but I think that in the grand scheme of things, we make it a little more important than it should be. I'll put it that way.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:32

I think that's so true. You know, I'll often say you know, one day somebody else is going to sit in the chair, you sit in, no matter what you do. Yeah that's right. I've spent time with people at the end of their lives for the last 25 plus years and I have never once heard anybody say I wish I had spent more time at the office. But I do hear a lot of regrets around relationships. Yeah, and I think you're keying right into the center of that.

Dan Peterson: 31:59

Yep, and I think that that's when you can kind of keep that in the center, in the forefront of everything. It goes back to the perspective side of things. My kids get tired of hearing that word, you know, I'm like what's our word?

Dan Peterson: 32:11

They're like perspective, but it goes hand in hand with gratitude. Yeah, and I'm trying to teach them like, just put things in perspective, it doesn't matter Everybody. You know we have another saying that I use around here that everybody has their own pimples or everybody's got their own zits. Right, you know, like when, when you're literally going to school worried about a pimple on your face and that controls your mind for that day, that controls your mind for that day, and you pass 50 kids in the hallway that are all worried about their own zit or their own thing in their family or that test coming up or whatever's going on. The only people that are going to affect you in that relationship, I guess you would say, is people that are miserable themselves and who demonstrate that through whatever it is bullying or just being rude or dismissive or whatever it comes down to.

Dan Peterson: 33:02

But that's where we you know I talk a lot about empathy to go, you know. So there's three things. It's perspective, gratitude and empathy. That's like the three things that I really touch on in my family or try to, and I don't know if it's getting through to them or not. You know it's too soon to tell, I think, but I'm hoping that someday when they look back on it they'll be like oh yeah, I get it. That's really good, you know. But I don't think it's going to hit until they're a little older at least. And maybe, maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's hitting now, I don't know, but I hope someday it registers with them.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:35

I hope so too, for mine.

Dan Peterson: 33:37

Yeah Well, yeah, I'm sure I can just tell by talking to you I'm sure you did a good job, because you, you know, I just get that vibe from you. But yeah, we'll see.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:48

See what happens. The proof's in the tasting as they say right, that's right.

Dan Peterson: 33:51

We will see.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:52

We will see. You know, I think some of the people listening to him might be looking at you or listening to you and saying, wow, like he's just success all the way. Like his, his journey has just been up into the right. All yeah. He's never dealt with the challenges I deal with. He's never struggled like I struggle. Is there anything you'd?

Dan Peterson: 34:12

like to say to that.

Dan Peterson: 34:14

Yeah, that is, that is 100 percent incorrect. You'd like to say to that, yeah, that is, uh, that is 100 incorrect. Look, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and lie and say that I haven't lived a very blessed life. I mean I, you know, I got great family, great parents, great everybody and, uh, haven't had a lot of, um, bad things happen in my life, haven't had a lot of bad things happen in my life. I haven't had a lot of loss, a lot of sickness. I mean there's a billion people out there, probably several billion people out there in this world right now, that have every one of those things going on. They just lost somebody and somebody has cancer and somebody is this. So I have nothing to complain about when it comes to that and so I don't really have an excuse to or anything I can say to your point to say it's not all up to the right. But for the sake of this conversation and for the sake of the listener, no, I mean there's always struggles.

Dan Peterson: 35:18

I, you know the financial side going up and down, and up and down, and I always joked hold my headphones up I always joked with my wife and said you know, it seems like every time Flip Switch starts bringing out a bunch of clients, we lose a bunch of clients. And we don't lose a lot of clients Like for an agency from an agency standpoint. We have't lose a lot of clients like for an agency from an agency standpoint. We have less than a 10 attrition rate, wow, annually, which is insane. That's amazing. It never happens. I mean, it's like more. Like most people are like 100 or 200. Like you turn everybody over once or twice a year as an agency. Yeah, or at least every couple years. We don't turn over more than 10 in any given year. Our first client from 12 years ago is still a client, so yeah, so the joke in that conversation that I have is that when I bring on, let's say, five new clients, I almost guarantee that that's right when I'm going to lose like three, four or five clients, and it's the weirdest thing, and so that really haunted me and bugged me for many years.

Dan Peterson: 36:20

I've gotten to a point you know, and the company's doing well enough now that it doesn't bother me anymore, but it used to really get to me because I'm like all right, I just brought on a bunch, who are we going to lose? And that mindset was yeah, I don't want to say crippling, because that's pretty dramatic sounding but it was very disturbing to have to always feel like, no matter what I did, I was never going to get over that hump or never going to bring on more than I was going to lose. Yeah, and so that's the biggest thing that really bothered me and I think that's something that maybe your listeners could take away is that what I learned from that is to look at things from a bigger picture standpoint and this isn't, you know, hippy dippy life perspective, gratitude stuff. I'm saying literally from a business standpoint, looking at things from a six month period or an annual period and saying, okay, so we went up down, up down. But if you're going up down and then up higher than down, a little up down, but if you're going up down and then up higher than down a little bit, you know like if you're watching this video, you'll see my hand making these movements. You can't hear me doing it, but you know you're, you're, you're going up the whole time. Even while you're going up and down a little bit, you're still trending.

Dan Peterson: 37:30

I think that that's right, right, and I think that's something that helped me get through those times of looking at things from. You know, I was trying to look at it on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and it's just too short of a timeframe. So picking out a three, six month, whatever segment, allowed me to see the bigger picture, which took away that fear that we weren't growing, because it always felt like we were taking two steps forward, two steps back all the time. In reality, we were taking two or three steps forward, one step back, repeat, repeat, repeat. And here we are now, all these years later, and we're, like I said, we're blowing up. I mean, I can't explain it. I don't know what the difference is in the last couple of years, but I don't know. I difference is in the last couple years, but I don't know. I like it a good problem to have, as they say, and honestly, like that's the thing is staffing and making sure that we're equipped to bring on, and I never understood why agencies wouldn't um, why some of them turned away clients.

Dan Peterson: 38:31

I'm always like man like you make it work, you know, but now I get it. I'm always like man, like you make it work, you know, but now I get it. One, because they might not be the best fit for the company, for us, and two, if I can't have enough time investment for them, then I don't want to take their money.

Intro/Outro: 38:48

Yeah.

Dan Peterson: 38:49

If I know that it's not going to work out, I'd rather just not start in the first place. Absolutely that's wisdom Well, yeah, I suppose. Or making enough mistakes to learn. Which I guess is Absolutely that's wisdom that I've probably learned and need to still continually improve on from a leadership standpoint is understanding where FlipSwitch, in this case for this discussion, where it stands as a company, and understanding that we're going to do what we need to do for the clients that need to help.

Dan Peterson: 39:39

And it's okay to not bring on every client. It's okay to fire clients occasionally, which I just had to do Uh, I do a few times a year. I don't like doing it, but it's better for them and better for us in the long run. Um, and just having the wisdom, I guess you would say, to know what to do in those situations and from that leadership perspective, I think I have really grown in the last four or five years. It took me, at least the first five, six years of running this company, to get to a point, mentally and financially, where I didn't feel like I needed all the clients and I could get rid of them if I didn't need them or they weren't cooperating or didn't you know, like some, some business owners are not good business owners, you know, and they're not good clients for us if they're not a good business owner.

Intro/Outro: 40:25

Yeah.

Dan Peterson: 40:26

I used to have hanging on my wall. I used to have a thing that said we can't care more than our clients. Oh, that's good and that is something as an agency I think any agency owner especially can relate to that. I think it's you know, when we're begging people to help us with content or we're begging people to do this or that, and they don't get back to us and it's like all right, it's your business If you don't care. We can't care more than you. So just those little wisdom infused moments where it's you know, something that we can look back or I can look back on and say, hey, that's where I really grew in ownership, leadership and so on, I think that's kind of something that I started to realize in the last couple of years that that first five years, compared to the last five, six years, is totally different.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:15

So much wisdom there, Dan. I love that.

Dan Peterson: 41:18

Well, thank you, I'm trying my best and I don't claim to be good at anything, but I just try to speak truth to my situation and hope that it helps somebody else.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:28

And that's the point of this show so that we can all learn from other people's experiences and maybe avoid some of the ditches they've driven into, so we don't have to drive into them too 100%.

Dan Peterson: 41:39

I like that.

Dr. William Attaway: 41:40

You know you're a continual learner and you've alluded to that a number of times in this conversation. I'm curious is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to other leaders that they put on their to-read list?

Dan Peterson: 41:53

Oh man, you know I got asked this a couple of weeks ago on the show and I don't really have a great answer for it. Um, I don't read nearly as much as I used to. I'll put it that way. I, I uh, watch a lot of stuff on YouTube and I just try to absorb things from every angle I can and and try to pull 10% of each thing and and add it to my list of of my own journey and growth. But yeah, like you know, I don't, I don't know.

Dan Peterson: 42:27

You know I've started reading atomic habits, um, just getting into it. Yeah, everybody's bragged about it for so long and I and again, like I don't read enough, so I just started getting into that Um, and I watched stuff from everybody from um, like the diary of a CEO. I love that Um, that show. Um, I, I watched stuff from, like Alex Ramosi and stuff, for you know, the sales kind of, but he's very financial sales driven and I'm much now in my quote unquote older years. I am much more happiness driven and I think he is too. It's just different presentation, but, like, I just absorb as much as I can from every angle. So I don't really have a good answer for a book for you, though. Sorry, william.

Dr. William Attaway: 43:13

That's okay. You know, I think this is a great illustration that not everybody learns through a written word. You know there's so many ways to learn. I listen to podcasts, I watch YouTube videos, I go to conferences, I read books. There's so many different ways to absorb and, like you, what I call it is I eat the fish and I leave the bones right. There's always fish. You just got to be teachable, you got to be open to it and listen. And if you, if you learn to absorb what you can take away from maybe it is just 10% of what you, what you hear, but that's 10% more than you had 10 minutes ago.

Dan Peterson: 43:47

Right and it adds up quickly. Yes, it does. I mean, over time, the more you can absorb from people that you whether you respect them, admire them, envy their level of success or you know whatever it is that drives you. I think there's a lot of good shows out there, good podcasts and things like that that can really help a lot of people.

Dan Peterson: 44:10

And you know, I I don't want to say that we're getting away from books as a society, because I don't. I think there's a resurgence actually, and I actually think I read something about there being a resurgence in that area of people reading books. But I mean, my sister-in-law reads a book every couple of days. All year long. I should read a couple of hundred books and I'm like I don't even know how you have the time to do like work. I wouldn't. I can barely read one book. You know what I mean. Mean, and my attention span because of social media, because I'm so digitized, um, which is a whole nother conversation about kids in that area too, but yeah, um, I'm so instant gratification be able to look at my phone, see something you know, get that a really hard time sitting down and reading like I used to.

Dan Peterson: 44:53

So, for better or worse, I guess I can absorb a lot more information quickly through digital, but I sure have lost a lot of my capacity for attention to things like the written word, which is kind of sad, but it is just again. I'm just being honest. That's what it is. That's it.

Dr. William Attaway: 45:13

You know, people are often going to walk away from an episode like this with one big idea. If you could define what you want the one big idea to be that people walk away with, what would you say?

Dan Peterson: 45:26

I'm going to split this in two parts. So if it's a person that doesn't own a business or is not in a leadership role maybe they're an employee at their job or whatever it could be they're not leadership, which I would argue. Everybody has a leadership role right, like I mean, whether it's your family, your friends, your business, whatever. Everybody has people that look up to them or have the potential to look up to them. But I would say the big idea for that is to find whatever that passion is, find whatever that driver is and move your life in that direction. Because if you're not a business owner, for example, if you don't have a management role at work or an actual defined leadership position, you need to find where you are a leader in your life and who you are technically leading, without maybe knowing it. Yeah, whether it again your kids, your wife, your family, whatever, find those people and work to develop yourself in that area. So, again, become the leader that you might not realize that you already are, and it could be that you're not a good leader either, like you might be having a negative impact on those people that are looking up to you or following you, and I mean, heaven knows, I've, you know, got a lot of room to work on that in my own life and I think we all do, when you really, you know, when you drill down. But so that's one thing. And then for the people that are business owners our leaders, our managers have teams, whatever you want to call it Um I think that they, my advice to them, my big point, would be to not, um, not be so business driven that you forget about the people that you're leading, because I know from my years of working with people and for people, back in the day, that was the biggest thing that I think that I think the world's changing in that area now. But back, you know, just 15, 20, 30 years ago, it was not at all. It was very much the crack the whip business style mentality where, hey, you know, I'm the manager, I'm the owner, you're going to listen to me, you can't call in sick, you can't have a day off and you know, like that kind of just ridiculous mentality.

Dan Peterson: 47:54

Looking back at it, and I think that now people need to really leaders need to really be more empathetic to employees and give them a better reason to work for you than because they're scared of losing their job, and this is coming at a time when artificial intelligence is going to disrupt, you know, potentially they're saying 100 million jobs in the next three to five years and that you know there's going to be leaders that are not going to have people to lead because it's going to be AI that takes that, and or the other way around, they're going to be handling the AI side of it and not have physical humans under them or nearly as many. You maybe had a team of 10 or 20 people. Now you got one or two because AI is going to disrupt and replace so many people. So I think that there's now more than ever, a reason for leaders and managers and owners to start evaluating themselves and start evaluating their company and where they're at, because the changes and the shifts that are coming in the next few years thanks to all this technology is going to be like nothing we've ever seen or experienced. It's going to make the internet look like nothing, like as a change, you know, as a module of change. The internet was huge, of course, right, social media was huge when it really came up.

Dan Peterson: 49:17

Ai AI is going to make all that look like nothing in the grand scheme of things, and I learned a lot about this. I know a lot about this and I don't try to scare people with it, but I'm telling the listeners right now that one you better make sure you're in a position to not be one of the replaced ones, you know, because that's coming. I hate to tell everybody, but it's going to change a lot of stuff. But then, from a leadership standpoint, to the point of this podcast, I think that there's just a lot of room for people to implement their own personal growth and change into their company. Um, yeah, I don't know, that's the only way I can put it. I guess so, but things are changing quickly and hopefully people change with it. That's all I. That's all I can really say about that.

Dan Peterson: 50:07

As thomas edgley once said change or die yeah, and we're there as a you know, maybe not the die, the die part, but definitely the business.

Intro/Outro: 50:17

The business.

Dan Peterson: 50:18

Yeah, yeah, like you'll, people are going to see and I and I have these conversations every day and I feel like I'm the naysayer, like bringer of doom sometimes to people and they're like, well, you know you're never going to replace this or that, and I'm like, yeah, you, a hundred percent will, or you're going to replace 80% of it. Yeah, you know, like, and people just don't realize what's coming down the pipeline, but anyway, I get that.

Dr. William Attaway: 50:44

Dan, this has been a fascinating conversation, and I could talk to you for another hour.

Dan Peterson: 50:48

Likewise, William. I so appreciate your time.

Dr. William Attaway: 50:51

I know people are going to want to stay connected with you and continue to learn from you. What is the best way for them to do that?

Dan Peterson: 50:58

My personal pages are pretty much Dan Peterson official. I had to add the official because all the other Danny Petersons were taken, so you can find me pretty much everywhere under that. And then, of course, my company is Flip Switch like you, flip a light switch, flip Switch Social Media or Flip Switch Consulting Group Both of those names are circulating out there. So all the social channels and our website is flipswitchsocialmediacom. So I'd be happy to connect with somebody if they have any questions.

Dr. William Attaway: 51:27

Awesome, Dan. Thanks for your generosity today and the humility and the kindness that you've shown in sharing so much of your story.

Dan Peterson: 51:35

Well, thanks for having me, William. This has been a really, really fun conversation. I can't wait to listen back to this myself when it comes out. So thanks for having me on.

Dr. William Attaway: 51:44

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 52:21

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. Business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 53:04

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.