hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show my name is Doug
Pennington and in this episode i
interview brian brewer of human proof
designs i've been on human proof designs
the podcast i don't know something like
four or five times so niche site project
and human proof designs were all good
buddies so I talked to Brian who is the
new owner human proof designs now I knew
about HPD as we call it for quite some
time because the founder Dom Wells and I
like we started blogging and doing stuff
online around the same time followed
sort of the same
I guess trajectory although you know
maybe at different levels or so because
Dom actually sold the business to Brian
and that's what we talk about in this
conversation among other things one very
cool thing is Brian and I have a pretty
similar background with like IT and
management consulting and you know
having to work in the corporate world
for a little while in fact while we
didn't talk about it but I wonder if our
if our paths crossed a little bit over
the years just because of you know
similar companies that we worked with or
worked for or whatever
anyway Brian's a great guy very smart
and it'll be pretty cool to see what
human proof Designs has in store coming
up over the next several months and just
in the future in general so this was a
great conversation keep a listen out for
you know the way that Brian was able to
take his skills from his corporate gig
transfer it over into like his own
entrepreneurial type endeavors and then
you know just constantly wanting to
learn and do different and new things
stacking skills upon skills and taking
it from there so without further ado
let's talk to Brian brewer from human
proof designs
[Music]
here and I'm with Bryan Brewer of human
proof designs how are you today Bryan
I'm doing great thank you for having me
and you and I met probably like a month
or so ago and it was a little unexpected
I was you know pinging some my friends
over human proof designs and then I
found out there was this guy Brian doing
some stuff and I didn't know yeah so can
you just give a little intro on what
you're doing a human proof and just a
high level of your background a little
bit yeah sure so so yes I started with
human proof designs back in April this
year so I am the new owner of human
print designs I started talking with Dom
wells that many of your viewers I'm sure
know or occurred uh back last year and
became very interested in the business
so so too took that on a big project
kind of started in April so been there
right at 3 months now so a little bit
about me so I live outside of Dallas
Texas
and I have four kids so stay pretty busy
with them
but for kids and wife and then we spend
a lot of time here at Dallas doing all
kinds of activities with the kids there
in swim team right now and then we spend
most of our summers up at Lake Texoma
which is right around the Oklahoma
border we have a lake house up there so
we tend to stay up there in the summers
and then back down in Dallas for the
winners and let's say a couple of things
about me I went to school at LSU and
graduated from there and then went and
got my master's degree at the University
of Texas and have been involved in kind
of technology field consulting
development online marketing for about
20 years now very cool very cool and I I
worked in Dallas for maybe like six
months on a project
back when I was consulting as well great
town really good barbecue of course
after the state you know to be honest
with you but yeah yeah I really like
Dallas it was similar in a lot of ways
to Atlanta just you know better barbecue
I would say well down here and the
spring winter time so you come down here
and summer you're gonna bake quite a bit
yeah
funny thing well two funny things I talk
about the weather all the time people
make me aware of that but I was there in
like the summer of 2006 which you may
not remember since it's been 13 years
ago but it was very warm that summer and
it didn't rain much and I know you guys
have you know it's like droughts or
flooding
kind of yeah thing going on like up and
down so I was there during a very hot
hot summer and I was like hasn't rained
in like the whole time I've been here
it's crazy so anyway I found it very
interesting that you and I have a pretty
similar background so you you were doing
like IT kind of stuff and some
consulting can you talk a little bit
about that obviously some of its
confidential and you know that's how it
works but can you give us like a
background like how your trajectory took
you to where you are now
yeah sure so when I graduated college I
started out just as a developer writing
applications and several different
technologies
back then we were writing in something
called cold fusion for a while and
originally jobs that I started with was
up in Virginia and you may have heard
like autotrader.com and truck trader
calm RV trader calm ATV trader calm all
of those so they had magazines out there
at the 711s everywhere but they needed
an online presence and that's really
when the internet you know 20 years ago
I was really everybody's getting
websites and starting to do online
commerce so so we built those sites from
the ground up and got those up and
running which was really exciting back
then
it was a little scary because we would
have the different parts of the year
when those sites would get lots of
traffic and they would be six o'clock in
the evening and the sights would just
crash because of the load and so we were
frantic we would work and work and work
trying to figure out how do we reduce
the loads on that database how do we
cache pages all these techniques that we
hadn't really figured out very well back
then but that's how I got started really
was kind of developing software and
developing online applications for
companies mostly hands-on programming
back then and then I kind of moved into
project management I know you have your
PMP I kind of started running and
managing software development teams and
helping companies you know build out big
projects like back up my PMP
certification and did that for quite a
number of years which I love doing is
that a lot of a challenge but I just I
had gotten into consulting at that time
working for Accenture
and several of the big consulting firms
here in the United States and decided
you know what
the bill rate they billed me out and I
make a little sliver of that I could go
off and do that on my own
and so that's what I did I started up my
own company called project consults this
was about twelve years ago that I did
that and it's really interesting because
my work now with human print designs a
lot of where we see success is when
people focus on really specific niches
that they can target and gained a lot of
traction with and that's a very similar
approach that I took when I started that
project consults because I couldn't try
to go out there and be an extensor and
like focus on any kind of general
consulting business IT consulting you
one but what I did was I had a lot of
expertise in a tool called TFS team
foundation server which was in my
soft Application Lifecycle Management
tool and so I put google adwords out
there running for a unique TFS
consulting because there's not very many
people that do it at all as well as
ColdFusion so by the end eight nine
years later ColdFusion had kind of died
out like people were it didn't get
adopted as much but there was a lot of
companies who jumped on it when it was
popular and now they couldn't find
anybody to do it and so that was a niche
as well so I put Google AdWords out
there and I started getting calls and I
start getting emails on my contact form
on my website where people like I can't
find anybody is this something you do
you know I saw your clicked on your ad
on Google and so I we and you know with
with that the consulting gigs like that
I mean I was talking about you know
might go and work for somebody for a
month and that might be a ten thousand
dollar project and I just spent $100
that month on Google AdWords so the
return was huge on that and I got I got
way more work than I could handle
just by targeting real carefully a
couple of technologies that I knew well
and really got my start on my own twelve
years ago doing that wow that's pretty
cool yeah I was wondering about that
because I know a lot of other people
that are either that are consultants and
worked at one of the big five or
whatever like government there are now
and it's like we know like we're being
billed out and like some crazy amount
but and we imagine hey we can do that
but I I'm like I couldn't connect the
dots to like start my own consulting
company and then I have I mean I
honestly I didn't have a strong enough
network or reputation to do it but I
have some friends that maybe they've
been working at Accenture or some other
company for like a decade or more and
I'm like you toad like they could
totally go somewhere else they have
enough people that they know and they
can like get like one-on-one gigs cut
all the fat all the waste neurotic
companies so were there any like
portions or any times where you were
like oh I'm not sure if this is gonna
work
or was it pretty quick with AdWords
model there well it's a funny story
because the kind of the week that I
decided that I was gonna start up my
company and I was gonna leave is I got a
call just through a contact I got a call
from a colleague who said hey there's
somebody needs some TFS work I don't
know if you're available I was like well
actually I was thinking about quitting
my job and so yeah maybe I could do that
as an independent in a freelancer and so
they offered me this position to help
them up in Indianapolis for for like six
months you know doing TFS work I thought
that was great this would get me on my
start of starting my own company I could
get my gute bad words out there and do
all that well I started put in my notice
and quit my job and then like a day
later the guy who gave me that gig he
called and said we changed our mind so
now I had no job and nothing lined up so
I really doubted my decision to go out
on my own at that moment this is pretty
frantic moment there and so I said you
know what I'll just live with it I can I
can find something you know over the
next couple of months and and I'll make
it
but luckily Benny called me back with
like another day later and said hello
actually we do want you to come and so
that's what started started my my
independent career basically was was
that but it was it was scary it was you
know jumping out on your own and it's
you know you never know what's gonna
happen and you're kind of afraid if if
business is gonna come and so you don't
do it but I'm glad I did it because it's
the best thing I ever did you know I
have you know just it's financially like
what I was making as a consultant and
what I can do today especially once I
started to get more business and I was
able to hire some contractors
helped me on projects and then I'm
making the bill rate that Accenture was
making on those guys and I'm doing
nothing then it really started to
snowball and really started to get great
for me so so really you know glad I did
it I have a twin brother and he he's
been working at a company for many many
years and he just left his company about
three months ago and started on his own
and he is doing a custom woodwork
furniture he's like builds you know
these magnificent pieces of wood work
and for hotels and individuals residents
all over Dallas and he has got more work
than he can handle
and he was so nervous he been for ten
years thinking me on my own so nervous
about doing that he did it and three
months then he's got more work than he
can even handle so Wow and he's probably
making it all by hands like there's no
mass production right in this situation
oh yeah and that's all handmade he's got
a big workshop and yeah it does all that
that he basically custom very highly
custom wood furniture interesting very
interesting and do you remember like how
it felt I know it's going back twelve
years but like when you realize like
this is working and it's so much better
than what I was doing before how did
that feel oh yeah it's you know you just
number one you get to choose what you're
gonna do right so you don't like a
project or you don't want to do that
type of work and then you don't have to
you know and so it gives you a lot of
freedom and that's that's one thing that
I really liked just from the very start
is I got to kind of choose what I was
gonna do one thing that I always liked
doing was doing training and helping
people learn and so so I kind of built
kind of that niche around training and
and so what I did there was I start
advertising classes
you know and hearse it takes a lot of
time to write curriculum and build what
you know how long it takes to write good
curriculum in classes and so I decided
to partner with a training company
several training companies actually that
had curriculum and I said I'll go teach
it and I'll sell it I just need the
curriculum and that's what I did for a
while and then I kind of got smart and I
realized that I'm gonna teach the
classes and do all this work but I could
also I worked out a deal with them kind
of an affiliate model Commission model
where I said I can go out there and I
can sell the classes which I'm doing
anyway but I'll have somebody else teach
it or all that my training partner find
an instructor for it I'll just sell it
and so then I got online and started
doing a lot of email marketing so I
would find like conferences that have
happened in Dallas or in Philadelphia or
just wherever around the country of
people like in the industry like an
industry related conference and I would
go grab like their speaker list and
their attendee list and everything I
could get all these emails and all that
that industry and then I'd start
emailing these folks and advertising my
classes and before you know it I would
get 10 people in a class you have to
keep in mind IT classes tend to be
expensive so these would be like you
know $1,800 classes and I would make a
40% Commission for every student I sold
into those so I'd sell 10 people 15
people into a class and and really I
would build up a list of say in the
Dallas Market 20 thousand emails and I
blast that out and I only needed like
1/10 of 1% of 20,000 people to get 10 or
15 people as all I needed to into a
class and I would make a good 15
thousand dollars in a week and I need
have to teach the class I mean I just
sat at home and did it and and so I did
that you know I did my consulting for
quite a number of years and then I kind
of got into the training world and
started doing that and was selling
basically selling classes and then I
found that what I did in Dallas how many
more markets are there like that where I
could do that all across the country so
I I just basically replicated what I was
doing in Dallas and got a you know an
Austin email list going and a Houston
email list go and ana denver email list
going and then I would start selling
classes that were offered in those
markets and I would build out a like a
have a training website and then I would
build out a like a local sub domain you
know Denver dot project consoles comm
Houston so forth and I offer the classes
there have the sign up i've marketed the
email a little bit of adwords but it's
real competitive you know it's really
tricky like doing consulting and I could
do Adwords and make money out of it and
those are big ticket things you know but
then when I got into training it was a
lot more competitive and and so I
couldn't couldn't make us couldn't
really make a lot of profit there so the
email marketing was a really key thing
that I was able to do there and then
replicate that around the country into
all the different markets and be able to
sell those classes so so lots of
different ways you know I kind of was
able to kind of own what I did and what
I decided to do interesting and sounds
like similar to me you you didn't really
have much of a marketing or business
background from your university years is
that accurate yeah I have a finance
degree and then an MBA so I have kind of
the business side technology and
development program you think about
computer science but no I was I
did programming technology work but I
really had a business background okay
okay so you got you got a big leg up
okay got it
now that said that you when did you get
your MBA and the the finance
specialization and stuff was a tall but
actually I'll just leave it open-ended
when did that happen
yeah so I graduated originally from
Ella's shoe in 1999 and then and then I
I spent a couple of years out there
working started doing consulting for a
local consulting firm and then went got
my MBA so you know probably about five
years six years after my bachelor's I
got into getting then that took several
years to do but I think it's good to
have a couple of years of experience out
there in the field out there in the
industry you know so then I went back
and got the NBA but that was way before
I started my own company and working on
my own okay cool and that is 100% my
observation too because I remember when
I graduated and got a job there were a
handful of like wow yeah people that got
MBAs and they were right out of
undergrad got their MBA and then they
showed up with us and basically they
were the same as everyone else right
they had no additional experience they
were just like they took some more
classes and paid whatever 150,000 more
dollars or something like that so yeah
interesting so okay and then when you
got your MBA were you thinking
alright this is just what people do like
after you do some consulting a lot of
other people or doing that or did you
were you thinking entrepreneurship in
the long run well I don't know if I was
thinking about it then I felt probably
like a lot of folks do that an MBA is
kind of your ticket to higher pay
especially in consulting because when
you're on the bench and a company you
know your consulting firm wants to
present you to a potential client
it's great to have titles and
certifications and degrees behind your
name and so so that's probably one of
the big drivers at least in the
consulting industry is one of the
reasons I went back and got my MBA and
in the University of Texas is great but
they do have kind of a specialty degrees
in like entrepreneurship which if I had
to do it over in the end
that would have been more practical
probably save me a lot of headache over
the years and things that I learned on
my own but I didn't think about it then
but it certainly I think those
entrepreneur related business degrees or
MBAs have a lot of value sure for sure
now shifting gears a little bit I'm
interested why you were transitioning to
two different business models as you go
and you're continuing to do that I have
some theories you know like why I would
do it but I'm curious because it sounded
like you had a pretty successful
consulting gig and then your own
consulting gig and then successful
training and now you have you know human
proof design so right it's going on yes
so it's a good question I think it's a
mixture of a couple of things one is you
know consulting is great for a lot of
people it's challenging in every few
months you get to go work on a new
project so you're not kind of stuck
working on the same thing over and over
so I've always thrived on having new
challenges and so consulting was great
for me I did never really like kind of
the politics that go on inside of
companies that as a consultant you
didn't get involved in politics you were
jarred there to do a job and and so you
didn't have to worry about that but you
also only get paid when you're working
you know it's an hourly type thing and
so if you're not gonna do not working
with the client then you're not getting
paid so so there is kind of a limit to
your income potential there I mean
certainly you know you may look at
contractors and things but you know then
it gets then you you know what happens
is your margins start getting eat up
when you have someone sit on the bench
for two months while you're
transitioning to another project or
whatever so even even that can be a
challenge and so there was you know it's
a it's a hard business to necessarily
run so I really wanted to get into
something that had you know more you
know more potential as well as maybe
less work hopefully and so that's why I
got into you know transitioned more into
the marketing of training classes I
likes to do the training but training to
me was was even more difficult than
consulting because at least in
consulting like you know you can sit and
study a problem or work on software or
something on your own when you're
teaching you're 100% on that whole day
is standing in front of a class and
working with those students and so it's
you know you feel drained at the end of
the day and so but when you're marketing
and you're selling the classes like I
was doing I could make quite a bit of
money and I you know I mean it's nothing
is free in this world it still required
a lot of work but there was a lot of
income potential I didn't have to travel
as much doing consulting or training and
so that was good especially you know
starting a family and having kids that
was a big plus to me so that's that's
why I got into into that the other part
of part of the other reason is I just
like something different and I'm always
you know looking for another challenge
what's what's next and so that's that's
another reason I did that god yep and I
think probably a lot of people in the
audience can appreciate the fact of like
you know starting something new it's
very exciting to learn like a whole new
set of skills and like being that
beginners sort of mindset where you're
making some mistakes and you don't know
like how
ye've you are like when you're getting
into something new and then you learn
more and then things are good again so
that that's very very cool now did you
have any specific like challenges as you
were transitioning from one to the other
or it was like pretty easy like jump off
points well yeah it's it's not easy when
you start something new you know when
you move when I moved from consulting
into doing training you know one thing
that helped it was of course licensing
content from from other companies but
but eventually I you know started to
develop my own content and then there's
a huge amount of investment of time to
do that and there's just there's just a
lot to figure out as far as you know how
like in that industry you know how many
days do you sell something for do you do
a two-day class or a three-day class you
know back then we were kind of you know
everything was in classroom and then we
started doing virtual classes and so
then that's a whole nother challenge of
how to do virtual classes and keep
people engaged and so there's a lot
there's a learning curve to try to
anything new and then when you get into
online marketing especially email
marketing that's a whole nother
challenge you know this was you know
eight eight eight nine years ago or so
and so it was a little bit easier then
but still you had to be careful about
your email reputation you had to be
careful about how many bounce backs you
got how many spam reports you got you
know what your open rates were all of
those things cinder score is a real
popular site to go out and check your
your reputation and so just learning
everything about that because I mean I I
started out I didn't I got kicked off
more than one email email company trying
to learn this process and so and so you
feel like I you defeated and
you're not gonna figure this out but you
know you slowly get better at it and and
then it turns into like a machine you
just you got it down to a science
and that's where you eventually gets
easier gotcha and what you do if you
remember to get kicked off that like
email provider there yeah so you know
today we try to build lists organically
just by having great content that people
are signing up for an e-book or some
type of lead magnet that we do generally
just buying email lists is not a good
idea
scraping emails is probably not a good
idea either
but and certainly now I mean the
industry changes what we could do an
email marketing eight or nine years ago
we can't do today but back then I would
I would scrape sites and I would you
know find email lists all over the place
and of course when you email those lists
initially you have a huge bounce rate
you maybe a 40 percent bounce rate on an
email list of a hundred thousand people
and when your email provider sees that
they're they're gonna probably be in you
but you know the cool thing is you know
once you figure out how it works you
know I could say okay now I have the
email that's clean I've got those forty
percent bounces out of here I've got all
valid accounts now I just have to
nurture in a way that I get the
interested folks out of this list and
down into a manageable point you know so
so yeah you know I think starting out
with some of that scraping and email
list purchasing got me kicked off more
than once
okay that totally makes sense yeah it
was a different time back then and just
thinking of like how I do how I run my
email list where it's like you know
double opt-in you know a person has to
confirm and then I'm cleaning the list
like every month basically so yeah it's
it's much more precise these days
I mean marketers abused everything
mister
what we do so yeah yeah it is it's it's
funny because human proof designs if we
do the same thing we have you know
opt-ins and if we don't hear from you
after a certain amount of time we clean
you off you off the list and we just
want to keep people who are relevant and
interested and so our list may be
relatively small compared to when I was
blasting out huge volumes to a city to
sell training classes you know now that
you know it doesn't work it doesn't work
because this technology has gotten too
good you know the filtering is out there
now to filter out those types of emails
I mean I probably look in my spam and
you know 90% of the email volume idea is
sitting in spam so it's really hard to
get in someone's inbox you've got to
have a relationship with them and then
you have a lot better chance nowadays
for sure so take us to like how you met
DOM and we're introduced to human proof
designs and that sort of process very
interesting I've known Dom for a few
years we started around the same time so
yeah I'm just curious how that all this
took place yes I've been looking for
another opportunity I'm always looking
for an opportunity I was looking for an
opportunity for probably a year and a
half and so I had contacted Effie
International which is real popular
online business broker and let them know
what I was looking for and so they
started to send me leads on you know
businesses that were up for sale
different opportunities that would come
up and they you know gone like their
early bird list I know about some of
these things before the general public
did and that was great but you know you
really have to wait for the right
opportunity so it took me a year and a
half of every week probably looking at
two or three opportunities and and you
know some of them I knew right away this
was not for me and others you know did a
little bit of research and work into it
before you know decided wasn't for me so
you know it takes
takes time but I didn't want to just
jump on the first thing and I've seen
that happen with with some folks who
have gone out to FBI or Empire some of
the other and snatched up a business
because they you know they're looking
for something but I would just tell
people way take your time the right
opportunity will come up and so it took
me about a year and a half there were a
couple that came up that I was really
interested in during that year and a
half and I you know kind of took my time
oh you know I'm going to think about it
I spent a week or two by the time I got
back to Fe and said I want this business
I said sorry it's already gone it's
already sold so you gotta take your time
in and find the right business which is
what I did I spent a lot of time but you
also have to be ready to move if you
find the right opportunity for you so so
yeah human proof designs was actually
listed with the brokerage F
International that's how I came to know
Dom and human proof designs and so that
was last year
latter part of last year and so I spent
some time learning about the business
and working with DOM and just kind of
understanding what was going on with the
company and then you know we took it
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