New Owner at Human Proof Designs - Bryon Brewer #Best Education Page #Online Earning

hey what's going on it's Doug Huntington

here and welcome to the Doug show in

this episode I talked to Brian Brewer of

human proof designs brian is a very

interesting guy for a few reasons so

number one he bought human proof designs

which is cool all on its own right so if

you're not aware Tom Wells friend of

mine he sold human proof designs he

created and he's the founder of human

proof Brian's a new you know sheriff in

town here the cool thing one of the many

cool things is Brian and I have a very

similar background in like consulting

and just IT and the whole corporate

world that we escaped in very different

ways so this discussion was pretty

awesome

we talked about like Brian's history in

IT we talked about how he figured out

that you like maybe wanted to buy an

online business like human proof designs

and kind of new things that are coming

up for HPD so it's a great discussion

I'm gonna probably have Brian on and

other folks from the crew at HPD on a

few more times

great great folks over there and they do

good work if you're unfamiliar you

should check out the site in general

there's a lot of good information they

have a podcast and they have a bunch of

services and stuff so we talk about

those sort of things and I'm gonna pause

for a second because I want to let you

know if you're new to the channel you

should have a look at some of the other

videos if you like what you see please

do subscribe without further adieu we're

gonna get to the interview with Brian

brewer of human proof designs hey what's

going on it's Doug Pennington here and

I'm with Brian Brewer of human proof

designs how are you today Brian I'm

doing great and you and I met probably

like a month or so ago and it was a

little unexpected I was you know pinging

some of my friends over a 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

Nine's back in April this year so I am

the new owner of human print designs I

started talking with Dom whales that

many of your viewers I'm sure know or

I've heard of back last year and became

very interested in the business so I

said took that on a big project kind of

started an april's have been there right

at three 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 four kids and

wife and then we spend a lot of time

here in Dallas soon and 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

under the state 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 it's a busy 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

it's been 13 years ago but it was very

warned 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 as it 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

comm RV trader comm ATV trader comm 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 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 sites 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

then 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 on my PMP certification and did

that for quite a number of years which I

love doing is that a lot of the

challenge but I decided I was 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 I know 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 could have

tried to go out there and be an

Accenture and like focus on any kind of

general consulting business IT

consulting you want but what I did was I

had a lot of expertise in a tool called

TFS team foundation server which is a

Microsoft 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 are like I can't

find anybody is this something you do

you know I saw your clicked on your ad

on Google and sorry 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 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 hover men are

there are now and it's like we know like

we're being billed out at 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 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 the big

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 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

called just through a contact I got a

call from a colleague who said hey

there's somebody need 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 you know

freelancer and so they offered me this

position to help them up in Indianapolis

or 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 goood bad

words out there and do all that well I I

put in my notice and quit my job and

then like a day later the guy who gave

me that gift 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 it was 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 they didn't call 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 a 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 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 to help 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 I'm

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

custom woodwork furniture he's like

builds you know these

innocent 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 singing me on my own was so

nervous about doing that he did it and

three months in 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 it'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

it's very interesting and do you

remember like how it felt I know it's

going back 12 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

course 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

I'll sell it

I'm 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 can

go teach the classes and do all this

work but I can also I worked out a deal

with them kind of an affiliate model

mission 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 are 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 ten 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'd 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

fifteen thousand dollars in a week

and I didn't even have to teach the

class 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 I have a training

website and then I would build out a

like a local sub domain you know Denver

dot project consults comm Houston so

forth and I offer the classes there have

to sign up I'd market 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 always did programming and

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 did you when did you get your

MBA and the finance specialization and

stuff was at all 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 and got my MBA so it 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 ok 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

thousand more dollars or something like

that so yeah interesting so ok 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 we ought oh 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 again 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 NBA's 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

company said 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 cannot working with the

client and 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 hiring contractors

and things but you know then it gets

then you you know what happens is your

margins start getting heat 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's

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 your software

or something on your own when you're

teaching you're a hundred percent on

that whole day is standing in front of a

class and working with those students

and so it's it you know you feel drained

at the end of the day and so but when

you're marketing 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 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

probably 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 got it 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 naive you are

like when you're getting into something

new and then you learn more and then

things are good again so 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 you 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

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 other challenge of

how to do virtual classes and keep

people engaged and so there's a lot

there's a learning curve to try 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 at the end 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 I mean it turns into

like a machine you just you've 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 may be a 40% bounce rate on an email

list of a hundred thousand people and

when your email provider sees that there

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 it

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 that's just

what we do so yeah yeah it's it's funny

because human proof designs and 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

I spam and you know 90% of the email

ball you might get is sitting in spam so

it's really hard to get in someone's

inbox you've got to have a relationship

with them 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 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 it 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 you know I'm gonna 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've got to 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 a 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 from there okay cool and

I'm pretty sure you can't answer me much

of this so I'll ask it in a general way

so you can bow out very gracefully so

for people that are interested because I

know there's some folks there like how

much was the selling price I won't ask

you that by the way and just in general

I'm not gonna ask anything around that

but can you talk about some of the the

general aspects of like a deal like that

so like what were some of the things you

were concerned about and then I know you

worked with Dom like what do you think

some of the things maybe that he was

concerned about so that you can make the

transaction happen yeah yeah and so

something like this is you know when

we're looking at especially with human

first designs we're buying and selling

businesses and working with folks every

day and mostly in the affiliate

marketing model there it's a little bit

easier because you you usually don't

have a large expense recurring expenses

staff and overhead and all of those

things that need to be accounted for as

well as income verification is typically

easier and some of those types of

businesses so if there's a due diligence

period that you go through to kind of

understand what the business is doing

from a revenue standpoint how the

operations are being run you know every

aspect of the company really and so we

we spent quite a depth

honestly it took I think five months

from the time I submitted an offer for a

company to when we closed so it was a

lot of work and I'm you know I'm sure

Dom was glad to reach that that closing

day and I was too but you know you

really have to spend a lot of time in

due diligence going through everything

and you know there's some lessons

learned I think for both Dom and eyes we

went through that process and you know I

think one of those is and if if you know

people know Dom he started I believe in

2013 and then kind of grew the company

over a number of years and you know he

didn't come from a background of running

big company so it was a learning

experience for him as well

but if you're out there looking to sell

business one thing that makes it much

easier I would have you know doesn't

take five months to get through good

diligence is make sure your

record-keeping is really really good

because a lot of entrepreneurs and folks

like me we just a lot like I love

technology

but I hate the accounting part you know

but if you've got a business today

you're thinking about selling it a year

or two from now like you you've got to

have your accounting in place you've got

to have documentation of your processes

operationally all those things you need

to start thinking about today because

that's what it was a real challenge with

human birth designs really was it was a

great company and a great people but we

you know when you're buying a company

you know of course you're you're you're

buying that revenue and so you've got to

document it you've got to have good

documentation of it and so that was

certainly a big challenge in that

process um but but yeah it's it took

probably five months and I've learned a

lot through that process very

interesting yeah it's a big I imagine a

big transaction to say the least so

congratulations on the acquisition of

course and as we're we're starting to

wrap up here

funny thing quick digression right I

told you or

you're Brian that we go in tangent

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