E73: Kevin Rizer

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One. Welcome to our 73rd episode. In this episode, I speak with Kevin Rizer, author of Always Wear Pants: And 99 Other Tips for Surviving and Thriving While You Work from Home, and CEO of Emmy's Best Pet Products. Jumping on the pod this week all the way from Dallas, Kevin is a veteran in the work from home space, having done it now for over seven years whilst running his eCommerce store and writing his latest book all about the experiences. In this episode, we talk working from home permanently and how to split the day and routine up, some of the biggest mistakes people make while working from home, and how to overcome the main one, how to make working from home more enjoyable when you prefer that office environment, tips for working alone, but not feeling lonely, productivity, how to maintain that output and also keeping your mental health in check. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now, let's head over to this fantastic episode. How're you doing?

Kevin Rizer:
I'm great, Richard. Thanks so much for having me.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for being on the show. We were just having a chat just before we came on. Kevin, I'm about 10 miles from the South Fort Ranch, I believe.

Kevin Rizer:
That's right, North Texas, the Ewing family.

Richard Hill:
Wow. That's amazing. Right, let's get straight into it then, Kevin. I think it would be great for you to introduce yourself. Tell us about yourself. There's a couple of things I know you've got going on, so tell all. Tell us what you're up to.

Kevin Rizer:
Great. Thanks so much, Richard. Yeah. I'm an entrepreneur. I've known that since I was a little kid. I was the kid hawking sodas in the lunch room, or finding anything that I could sell to turn a buck. But I didn't become an entrepreneur as an adult until about seven years ago when I founded an eCommerce pet brand. We launched on Amazon, and have since expanded to other channels, and are sold throughout Europe and the United States and Australia now, including in retail more recently. But prior to that, I was in the corporate field and working for someone else and just dreaming about the day when I could strike out and start my own thing. So, it's been awhile now, but I've enjoyed every second of it.

Kevin Rizer:
I'm really passionate about entrepreneurs and about eCommerce and about helping people to realize their full potential and realize the freedom and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that can come from being your own boss and working for yourself. Most recently, I have written a book called Always Wear Pants, and it's designed to help those of us that work location independently to get more done and be happier in the process. It's been a fun journey.

Richard Hill:
Wow. A couple of things there. I think we'll definitely dive into both. Emmy's Best Pet Products then, tell us a bit more about that.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. We're a pet products company that solves problems. We call ourselves pet products with purpose. What that means is both the literal sense of purpose, meaning these are products that solve a problem that pet parents often have. So, the dog's chewing on the rug or the cat's scratching the sofa, or the family pet is having accidents or has bad breath. They're common problems that everyday pet parents experience on a routine basis. We develop products to help them solve those problems so that they and their pets can live a more healthy, fulfilled life. We started, again, seven years ago. I had no experience with eCommerce. I literally got an email from a friend who had been successful in starting his own brand in the sports and wellness category, and I thought, "Wow, there's something about that that's pretty cool."

Kevin Rizer:
I'm not sure if it's because I was a early adopter to Amazon myself. I loved ordering packages on Amazon. So, the idea that you could, with a fairly low investment, create a brand of physical products and sell those to people online without a lot of the headaches that would have existed trying to do that 20 or 30 years ago was really appealing to me. To be honest, Richard, I never thought it would be a full-time gig. I really thought it would just be dipping my toe in, and it might be a nice side hustle. But within a few months, I was hooked, and I went all in and haven't looked back.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. You've been pulled in seven years later, still pushing it through. Brilliant. What would you say then, so the listeners think that obviously your story is fantastic, I think it will resonate with a lot of people listening in, but what would you say, obviously you're quite a few years into this now running a very successful business, what would you say some of the standout marketing things that you're doing at the moment, or maybe you've done in the past, but the things that are working now for you that have given you the best results?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Great question. I think most of us that have been in the space for any length of time have some great success stories when it comes to marketing, and probably some big failures too. What's working for us right now, Richard, is finding ways to connect directly with our customers. There's so many things happening in the space, whether it's Facebook ads that are not being delivered because of technology, or it's spam filters, or it's the rising cost of advertising on platforms that most of us eCommerce professionals utilize and need to get traffic to our sites. So, we're spending a lot of time focusing on how can we make more of the relationships that we already have with our existing customer base?

Kevin Rizer:
There's that old saying that it's 10 times cheaper to keep a customer you already have than it is to go find a new one. That's true with eCommerce too. Once you have a customer, you've essentially already paid for them. That can be things like text marketing, it can be handwritten notes that we're sending to first-time customers, it can be loyalty incentives for our VIP customer lists to get them to come back and spend more, or to help us spread the word about our products that they already know and love. We're putting a lot of emphasis right now on how can we develop a better direct relationship with our customers?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I like the handwritten notes. I've heard a few people talk about this, and I think there's nothing better, is there? I think the amount of things we get in our inbox. Obviously emails got its place. I'm not saying it hasn't. Absolutely, It's a massive channel, but writing a handwritten note to somebody or something, like what we refer to as lumpy mail, actually sending something in the mail, it's like, "Wow, it's like the old days."

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. You get excited. Right? You get to the mailbox and pull out that card, and especially that it's personalized and customized. That's something that we've seen a lot of response. It's not always something that's easy to quantify the success of a program like that. Right? It's harder than tracking the conversion of a Google ad or of a Facebook pixel. But it's that human to human connection that can really, really play volumes when it comes to the longevity of a customer.

Richard Hill:
I have to admit, before the first lockdown, March last year, we implemented and sent out about 100 lumpy mails, if you like, just over 100. Literally, it was like three days before lockdown. We sent them all out and then we went into lock down. It's like, "Oh, man." We sent them all to the business addresses, and it actually had a chocolate bar on it, which I don't know if you have a chocolate bar in the US called a boost. I don't know if that's a thing there or not.

Kevin Rizer:
No, it's not.

Richard Hill:
We sent a Boost bar, and then we had a bit of fun with the word boosting your profits and boosting your ads, we have a couple of ad agencies here, and we sent them out, it was like, "Oh, great, lockdown." Anyway, first lockdown ended, and obviously we've been in and out a lockdown, but we went back to the office six months later, got a phone call out of the blue, and this guy says to us, "Hi, I've just come back to the office for the first time in five months," and bright purple packaging we sent them in as well, he said, "You sent me a Boost bar." I'm like, "Oh, right. Brilliant." That person has become a client. You know?

Kevin Rizer:
Oh, amazing. Well done.

Richard Hill:
But we've held off doing it again, to be fair, until we know we're going to be back in the office on a bit more of a permanent basis. I think, yeah, we'll wait and see. But, yeah, I'm a big believer in traditional marketing, lumpy, mail and print. I think that's great. What I'm really interested in is the working from home. I know obviously you've written a book on it, literally. Why did you choose to work from home? What's the reasoning behind it?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Great question, Richard. I think like most people, I was drawn to the allure of freedom and flexibility. Right? I think there's something about most people, certainly most people that become entrepreneurs, especially where there's a desire to have more control or more freedom over your schedule and your tasks, and you're moving about, and maybe something as simple as your wardrobe and what you have to wear. Those are the same things that drew me to it. Like most people, when I began working remotely, I found out that it's not all good stuff. There's definitely some advantages, but if you're not careful, there can be some pitfalls as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. As we all know. Well, I think a lot of the listeners are in a similar boat. Couple of questions on that then. Let's people that are listening in are maybe working for an e-com store owner and they want to work from home, how would you say is a good way to broach and approach your manager or your employer to talk about working from home? I know a lot of people are still not working from home as much as maybe they could. I think obviously a lot of people have been forced into that, but a lot of people are still not working from home where maybe they could. What's a good strategy or a way to approach that conversation with your direct manager if you are listening to this and you're maybe in the marketing team of an e-com store or something like that?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. It's something I'm hearing a lot about right now, Richard, which is people that maybe they're hybrid and they've been hybrid for awhile, or their company is talking about coming back into the office this fall, this autumn, and they want to know how they can approach this with their boss, with their supervisor, the number one thing that you have to remember is don't make it about yourself. Don't expect to sit down with your boss and explain to them how working remotely benefits you, because it gives you more freedom, more flexibility. You need to make it about the company as well. For example, think about what the freedom that you have and the flexibility that you will have working remotely will do for the company.

Kevin Rizer:
An example of that, if you spend an hour commuting to the office, talk about how the lack of that commute is time that can devote to getting more things done. Talk about how the lack of distractions that are frequent in a traditional office setting, whether it's noises or people buzzing about and stopping by the cubicle to chat, the lack of those things will allow you to be more productive and to exceed at a higher level. The second thing is be prepared with data. If you've been working remotely for some time, as many of us have with COVID, look at your performance. Look at your metrics. Hopefully, you're either at roughly the same level of performance, or maybe even excelling and exceeding that level of performance since you began working remotely. That data is important, and can really be beneficial in your discussions with the company and helping to bring them along to your way of thinking.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. That's so true, isn't it? Obviously, there's so many benefits from working from home, but I think there seems to be this discussion around productivity, but then the mental health balance, because obviously working from home, you can be quite isolating at the same time. Obviously, you're not having the types of interactions, potentially. Obviously, there's the technology like we're on right now, but in terms of that little chat over the desk or that little chat by the water cooler or in the kitchen or over lunch and going out more socially, how do you find that? Obviously, you've been working from home for a long, long time. What would you say about that?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah, it's such an important topic, Richard, and it's one that I think many of us are guilty of not paying enough attention to. That is the mental health aspect. It's everything from taking care of yourself and eating right and making sure that you're standing. When you have a 10 step commute in the morning, it can be difficult to stay active. Right?

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rizer:
But that was one that really surprised me. I consider myself somewhat of an introvert. I'm somewhere on that spectrum between introvert and extrovert. So, it was about a year in to working remotely before I realized something really profound. I was single at the time and I just had my dog there at the house working with me, and one day I realized, "You know what? I'm actually really lonely?" There would be entire days, sometimes two, three, four days go by without seeing another person. You know? I'd find myself driving into town to go sit at a coffee shop for a couple of hours just to see other people and hear their voices. Many of us can relate to that. The thing about working remotely is that we have to be intentional about connecting with other people, because as you mentioned, you don't have those natural occurrences that would commonly happen at a traditional office. We have to be intentional.

Kevin Rizer:
That can mean making a decision to go work at a coffee shop or a co-working space if it's safe to do so, that can be arranging a happy hour either with colleagues or with friends after work. That can mean being intentional about the connections that we make through technology like this as well. I have friends that will sometimes have working parties, if you will. Really, what they do is they hop onto a video chat with four or five or 10 people, and everyone mutes themselves, but you kind of get the feeling that you're in a room with other people. Everyone's working and it can be really effective.

Richard Hill:
So, there's some options there, isn't there? To obviously lighten that potential loneliness, isolation. Obviously coworking space, it's had a huge leap, really, in the last... well, I think when we went into lockdown, it probably struggled a little bit because everyone was just permanently at home, but now things are easing and there's more of a hybrid, seems to be the word at the moment and what a lot of firms are doing. But obviously co-working spaces, one of our previous guests owns several coworking spaces, and they've really come into their own, especially in the last, really, this last three, six months. Obviously, great spaces.

Richard Hill:
I was looking at one yesterday myself. We're in one ourselves, but I'm planning on a few trips later in the year, and I think, "Right, that'll be good. I'll go there. I don't know anybody, so I'll go to the co-working space." Some of these spaces that are just so incredible, you know? just really, really inspirational spaces, and there's obviously a lot of other people in the same boat that are either freelancing, working remotely for firms across the globe and whatnot. Yeah. You obviously get to meet a lot of like-minded people at the same time. I think that's a good option. Yeah. Obviously, well, you've been working from home for a long while, a lot longer than I have. It feels like I've been doing work from home for a little while, but you've been doing it a lot longer. I think we're about 18 months in, and we've probably done about four months in the office, so I've probably done 14 months ish.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah, that's a veteran.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, I guess.

Kevin Rizer:
It's funny how in eCommerce, even just a few years makes you an old timer sometimes. Right?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I sort of love and hate it. I really do. I'm very productive at home, I'm teched up at home a lot more than I was in the office. I've gone to town on my tech, but obviously a bit more for the podcast and things like that, but it's like Battlestar Galactica in here at the moment. It's pretty intense. But I like it for productivity, but then I really do like that interaction piece. A lot of what I do is with people, and whether it's on the podcast, people coming in to do the podcast, obviously clients, business development, a lot of new relationship, partnerships. Quite often, we would meet face-to-face and go out for lunches and drinks and all that jazz. I do like that.

Richard Hill:
I do miss that, but we're slowly getting back into that at our end. Obviously, you've been doing it a lot longer than me, but what would you say are some of the mistakes that you see people doing? Because I think a lot of people go, "It didn't work for us. We tried work from home thing and it's not for us." It's like, "Well, what did you really do? What did you give your team?" So, what are some of the mistakes you see and the listeners should be looking to avoid, or they can implement things to make sure things go a bit smoother?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah, such an important topic. I think number one is have a dedicated workspace. I still see so many people sitting on the couch, the TV on in the background, and they've got their laptop propped up in front of them. Look, that's great for a day that maybe you're feeling under the weather or the occasional day where you have a little bit lighter schedule, but it's not a productive way to spend day in and day out. If you're lucky enough to have a space in your home that can be a dedicated home office, that's obviously ideal. I'd say the best case is a room with a door that actually closes and can keep out some of those distractions that are common when we work from home. But even if you're sharing a flat with a family and space is tight, you can carve out a nook or cranny or a corner or a basement or a spare bedroom and designate that as your home office, and spend some time being intentional about the way that you set that up.

Kevin Rizer:
It's clear you've got a beautiful setup there. It's important to make sure that you've got a comfortable chair that supports you, you've got a desk that's at the proper height, you have enough light, et cetera. So, spend some time and be intentional on making sure that you have everything that you need at your disposal. That counts when you're on the road, too, whether you're setting up shop in a coffee shop or a hotel, you can look at at some quick things that will allow you to be more comfortable and more productive when you're working remotely. That's thing number one. Thing number two is you almost have to trick yourself into thinking that you are going into the office.

Kevin Rizer:
I hear from so many people that they struggle to set up a routine, and they feel like it's an out of body experience every day waking up and working from home. A quick way to solve that is to pretend like you are going into the office. So, getting up, whether that's taking a shower, or eating a balanced breakfast, or going for a walk, whatever that morning routine is that you would normally do going into the office, and recreate that at home, and it will help you to find that balance and get into that groove so much more easily.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think I've heard, I can't remember the exact term, but I'll make my own up, but along the lines of a home commute. Obviously, for most people, it's 10 steps, isn't it? From the bed to the kitchen to the office sort of thing, or 20 steps, whatever.

Kevin Rizer:
Right.

Richard Hill:
But intentionally, and I think obviously you've used that word a lot, but I think intentionally getting up, you're getting dressed in your work stuff, obviously that can be whatever it can be, but then going for a walk out of your house, daylight, trees, trees and whatnot, going out, walking, and then coming back, that's your commute, if you like.

Kevin Rizer:
Absolutely.

Richard Hill:
You're just going out for a walk in the morning before... obviously you get in a bit of a stretch, a bit of a flex, if you like, and sucking up a few rays, depending on where you are in the world, or a bit of greenery, which I think always helps, and then starting your day, yeah.

Kevin Rizer:
Absolutely.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, and factoring that in, maybe getting up that extra 15 minutes or half an hour earlier, starting the day with a bit of sunshine or whatever.

Kevin Rizer:
It can really boost your mood. Another thing I encourage people, Richard, to do, is to find a way to invest the time that you would have otherwise been spending commuting. You mentioned exercising and getting out, getting some fresh air. That's a great way. Other people may develop a new hobby. They may want to learn a new skill or complete a course. Some people may choose to volunteer and spend that time helping others. But find a way, rather than just allowing the time that you otherwise would have spent commuting to just be absorbed by work, which is what most of us do, find a way to set aside some time and invest that into something else.

Richard Hill:
I think we touched on the mental health side, but I think it can be quite lonely work from home. Have you got any best practice tips, technology? Obviously, there's different...

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah.

Richard Hill:
What would you say? We have a few things that we do, but working from home can be lonely, I think, so how can we help people that are really finding it quite difficult?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. I think a couple of things, Richard, one being technical and the other not very technical. The technical first, utilize technology to your advantage. Little things like having the camera on during meetings when you're working virtually can give you a sense of at least seeing other people, as opposed to just hearing their voices, finding people that you can work with in person when it's possible and safe to do so, whether that's a colleague that's on your team, or maybe it's just a friend that has a completely different job, but you guys can meet up once or twice a month and work together.

Kevin Rizer:
Then the technology to meet other people, so if it's Facebook groups, if it's lunch meetings, go deeper than just hitting accept on Facebook or on LinkedIn and becoming a digital connection. Spend some time and set up a meeting, host a happy hour with people either virtually or in person, and utilize technology to your advantage to help you feel more connected. Now for the non techie answer, and that's get a pet. My Labrador retriever, Mika, is snoozing in the chair right behind me. Naturally, as a pet products company, we welcome all kinds of pets into the virtual workplaces. If you're not a pet person, they have pet rocks and they have plants, and so there's no excuse.

Richard Hill:
Pet rock.

Kevin Rizer:
A pet rock, but there's nothing like having something else that can pull you out of that work mindset a few times a day, whether it's taking the dog for a walk or refreshing the water bowl for your cat, whatever it is.

Richard Hill:
Stroking the rock.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah, stroking the rock, maybe decorating it for the holidays.

Richard Hill:
Different pictures of the rock. Here's the rock watching tele, here's the rock on the seat.

Kevin Rizer:
Yes, you got it. I love it. Exactly.

Richard Hill:
You could have an Insta page for your rock.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah, and then watch as the rock becomes more famous than you are on said social media. Right?

Richard Hill:
Yeah, that does happen, doesn't it? Yeah. Obviously, we said that it's quite common that people are a lot more productive working from home. Obviously, there's a whole gamut of that, really. But what would you say, what are some tips you would give to improve productivity working from home? Some days can be pretty tough, can't they? It's getting motivated, getting moving. That's the reality, I think. If anybody comes in this podcasts and says they're up at six every day and they're just smashing 14 hour days straight for the last 18 months, they're full of shit.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill:
Some days are tough, yeah? So, what would you say, in those moments when we've got a drive through, push the productivity up a notch or two, or a lot of notches, what would you say?

Kevin Rizer:
Absolutely. The reality, and this surprises most people, is that we are more productive and we actually do work more. I think the fear of a lot of managers prior to COVID sending everyone home from the office is that people would be lazy, right? They wouldn't get anything done, but the research shows us that people are actually working more from home and getting more done. So, I actually think there's an equal risk of overwork when you work at home.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Kevin Rizer:
I think as far as productivity, it's so important to do two things. One is to cut out the waste. The reality is if we're honest with ourselves, most of us waste a lot of time during our work day. That could be scrolling through social media, that could be debating how to do something or what to do next. That could be things on our to-do list that other people really should be doing, or that we should be outsourcing. That can also be spending time in meetings that we don't need to be in. Right? So, getting rid of the waste, taking a look. I'm big fan of doing a work journal for about two weeks, make some notes of where you're spending your time, and look for the opportunities to cut out the waste. The second thing is to utilize technology to automate tasks that are redundant, or they don't need to be done by you.

Kevin Rizer:
So, things like paying bills or responding to emails, or calendar management, there's nothing worse than going back and forth with a group of five people trying to find a time for a meeting and trying to do that across several times zones. There are so many things we're so blessed in the world that we live in today to have technology that's amazing and that allows us to automate things. Those are two big ones that I think will help people to be more productive.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, we've done a couple of episodes on automations and productivity. I think so much time is wasted, whether you're running a store, thinking of running a store, work for a store, e-com store, if we're doing something more than a couple of times a week on the computer, at least, it can be automated, pretty much. It's a bit of a bold, straight sentence, but if you think you're seeing that same email for the 14th time this week, well, it's a pretty straightforward one. If you're tasting that payment from that same customer for the 15th month in a row, obviously you can automate that.

Kevin Rizer:
Right.

Richard Hill:
You can very easily. They are obviously some very simple ones, but the power of automation, the tower power of tools and tech, it's quite often, "$100 for that? Hang on a minute." It's going to save you five hours a month, figure out what is your hourly rate worth to you?

Kevin Rizer:
Absolutely.

Richard Hill:
If you're spending, I know I've had a conversation recently with somebody, an e-com store owner doing multiple millions, about 10 million a year, and he's still very much involved paying routine invoices and things like that. It's like, "Man, you're spending about a day a month on your invoicing," it's really quite a mundane stuff, which is like three or four grands worth of bills a month i the scale of this big business, which you get a bookkeeper to do that, or you could automate, obviously. Either way, it's either going to cost you a couple of hundred dollars a month or not a lot, really, if you automate. Okay.

Kevin Rizer:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You're so right.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think obviously some great takeaways there from working from home, but I think still, Monday rolls around and it's like, "Right, we've got to get fired up. I've got to do my 10 step commute," obviously not after you listen to this episode, you're going to do your 15 minute walk, you're going to come back, you're at your desk, it's nine o'clock, or eight o'clock, or whatever, if you've got the flexi, getting fired up for that Monday morning, have you got any good tips, routines for starting the week strong?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Great question, Richard. I'm a big believer in spending at least the first hour of your day doing something other than work. It can sound kind of counter intuitive. So many of us, first thing we want to pull up our sales numbers and see how we did overnight, or we want to get a quick look at the email and get ahead of things. But what I find is that it takes our brains awhile, about an hour to really wake up. Some people need that second cup of coffee, or hopefully they do need to get their bodies moving a little bit, but spending the first hour, whether it's reading for pleasure or playing with your kids or taking the dog for a walk, doing something other than work. The second thing is to look at your own bio rhythm for your body and decide when the best time to work is. Many people have more flexibility now working remotely.

Kevin Rizer:
If your performance is based on productivity and results, and not on punching a time clock, and that's the case for many people today, especially in the eCommerce space, think about the times of day that you're at your prime, that you're really at the top of your game. For some people, that's early in the morning, for some people it's in the evening. For me, it's right smack in the middle of the day, right where we are right now from about 10 in the morning until about two in the afternoon. What I do is I try to schedule my important meetings during those times, I try to have planning sessions where I'm going to be required to be at the top of my game. Then I fill in other things that are less and less important. Paying bills, for example, or responding to emails can be done outside of those hours.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the thing I think I've noticed personally, just my sweet spots in the hours of the day. I'm now a big fan of getting on it when I get up, so slightly different to you, getting on it quite quickly after I get up. Not straight away, but I do almost like a 90 minute burst fairly early on, because I'm sort of, "Right, in." Then I'm not as productive till about three, and then three till six in an afternoon, that's my absolute crazy mode, absolute machine mode. Everyone's different.

Richard Hill:
We've got a lot of people in our team, and if I said to you some of the guys, "You can start at five in the morning, maybe six in the morning," they would start at six in the morning. They get up super early. I'm like, "What?" They'd finish that two hours. We have a couple of hour flex when you can start either end of the day, but I think if I pushed it three or four hours, which we may well do, I'm not one for say that my computer quarter past six, but I think we have got a couple of people that would do that. Yeah. Obviously, everyone's different.

Richard Hill:
Okay. Fantastic episode. I think there's so much there that is so relevant right now, so important. Working from home, I think obviously there's a lot of options, there's a lot of positives and things to work through when you work from home. I think that's absolutely great, a lot of takeaways. I think if you're listening still to the episode, which I'm sure you are, I would say, go back, listen to the last 15, 20 minutes there, because I think if you're thinking of letting your team work from home more, or you're thinking of ways to improve productivity, work on mental health aspects of working from home, there's been some great takeaways, Kevin. Now, I always like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book that you would recommend to our listeners? I'm sure you've got at least one.

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Yeah. I've got so many, right? It's hard to nail it down.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Kevin Rizer:
I think one of my favourites right now is called Fix This Next. I've actually got it behind me here. It's Mike Michalowicz's book, and it really helps business owners especially, but even just team members can apply this methodology. We all have so many things on our plate each day, and it can be hard to know where to focus. The framework in Fix This Next is really a great way to figure out which direction you need to go.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a book I've got, actually. It's an amazing book, and he's written quite a few books, hasn't he? I can't pronounce his surname, but Mike Michalowski, is that right?

Kevin Rizer:
Michalowicz. Yeah.

Richard Hill:
Michalowicz. Okay.

Kevin Rizer:
I'm sure I'm butchering it too.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think we need to get Mike on the podcast, actually. I think that would be great.

Kevin Rizer:
There you go, yes.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, we do. One of his books is Profit First, which is a book that I read probably [crosstalk 00:34:41].

Kevin Rizer:
Love that one too.

Richard Hill:
That's a heck of a book, yeah. Obviously, you've got your own book. Do you want to just tell us what that's called again?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. Thanks so much. It's called Always Wear Pants: And 99 Other Tips for Surviving and Thriving While You Work from Home, and it's being released in September. You can pre-order it now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, you can find out more at alwayswearpants.com.

Richard Hill:
Fantastic. Well, thanks, Kevin. The guys that are listening, obviously if they want to find out more about you, obviously we've got the reference there to the book, but what's the best way to reach out to you and find out more?

Kevin Rizer:
Yeah. All of my links to social and email and everything else are at my website, my personal website, kevinrizer, R-I-Z-E-R, or Z-E-R, as you guys like to say over there. So, kevinrizer.work, and reach out. I love hearing from people, and I'd love to meet as many of you as possible.

Richard Hill:
Well, thanks, Kevin. It's been a blast. Thanks for being on the eCom@One podcast.

Kevin Rizer:
Richard, it's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Take care.

Richard Hill:
No problem. Thank you.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for listening to the eCom@One eCommerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe, and don't forget to sign up to our eCommerce newsletter and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce marketing agency.