Stephan Spencer on His Biochemistry Background, TV Appearances, and GTD
Welcome to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins. On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry. So you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing. After all, affiliate marketing is about the people, not the companies. Enjoy the show. Hey, this is Shawn Collins, and this is affiliate marketing. Today I’m here with Stephan Spencer. How are you doing today?
I’m doing great.
Excellent. So I was digging through some of your social media that I could find and just got a handful of questions for you. One is that I saw on Wikipedia that you have an MS in biochemistry. I was curious if you see yourself ever returning to any work in biochem.
Oh, heck no. I was actually studying for a PhD, and I dropped out to start my agency back in 1995. Back then, Mosaic was still the browser everybody was using. And I just saw that this was a hot area. So, I met one of the guys from Netscape, Rob McCool, and I got starstruck and realized I could make a lot of money on the internet, so I dropped out of school.
So, do you have any regrets about studying that in school?
You know, I don’t. It was all for a purpose, and where I’m at now is there’s a purpose for that too, so I’m good.
Nice. So, in those days with Netscape, when were they still charging for it?
Well, they were in this in 1994. I had never even heard of Netscape, and I attended the second international web conference. Tim Berners-Lee was one of them. He was the keynoter, and I had no idea who Rob McCool was, but before Netscape, I met him and he was the guy who ended up inventing Apache. Before that, he created the NCSA server, the HTTP server and at Netscape, he created a Netscape server. So I was really enamored by all this web stuff. And so, within three months, I dropped out of my PhD after that.
That’s so wild. Yeah, I remember I was so into Netscape in the early days there, and I got started on Usenet, I guess, when it was still just command-driven during the World Cup in 94. But Netscape, I think that’s the first place that I had any kind of pop mail in their Netscape mail product.
Yeah. Good times.
Yeah, a long time ago. So, a couple of years ago, you introduced me to The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up from Marie Kondo, and I was curious if you followed through on that whole process with the book.
You know, I didn’t get to what she calls the click point yet, where you just never go back to clutter. And I’m hoping I will get there. And I know I’ll get there. I’m going to get it; I’m committed. However, I do make progress all the time. For example, I just did a big book cleanse not even a month ago. And I’d already done a huge book cleanse and got rid of, like, donated, hundreds of books.
But there’s this process that Marie says, where you hold it in your hand, you don’t start reading through the book to determine if you’re going to keep it or not. And if it sparks joy, that is the question you have to ask yourself. And just by holding it, touching the cover, looking at it, feeling it, just kind of being intuitive about it and not paging through it, trying to figure out like, oh, should I read it?
Because actually what I found is a lot of my books, I felt guilty about that, how I really should read this, it’s been so long. And you know what, if it’s got that kind of energy associated with it of should and guilt, you just get rid of it. It’s got a spark of joy, and so I love that process, and I use it all the time. Right now, I have too much clutter still, but my books are pretty well in order. I’ve got, like, decluttered an extra hundred books, donated those, so always more to declutter.
That’s impressive. I feel guilty because I was a dropout of the book. I read about half of it and never really applied anything, so I should probably start from scratch and get into that because I have too much clutter going on.
Yeah, it’s really freeing, and once you declutter, you’ll find that you’re more productive, you make better decisions in business, and you’re more focused, you’re more in the flow. So yeah, definitely revisit that.
Yeah, and as you were talking, I was just peeking over at my bookshelf. I have decluttered it from time to time, but there are so many on there that I just need to go. So maybe that’s a project this afternoon before I even get back to reading her. And first I have to find her book and all my mess of books.
Yeah. Okay.
So, your first tweet was way back on February 24th, 2008. And you wrote about investing in OmniFocus as a potential replacement for IGTD. And, so what does that mean? And was it a replacement?
You know, that’s a great question. I can’t even remember what my first tweet was. So thank you. Thank you for the reminder. So IGTD was based on GTD, Getting Things Done, by David Allen. It’s a life-changing productivity methodology. I love it. I have spoken about it at conferences and written articles about it. This is something that all of your listeners need to check out. Start with the book, Getting Things Done by David Allen. And the software that I ended up going with after trying OmniFocus, which is a great program.
And it’s still around, and they’ve invested heavily in it. There’s a great iPhone app as well as the desktop Mac app. Great. And yet, I found that the cultured codes Things app is better for me. It’s very GTD-friendly. So I can put stuff in my next actions buckets and assign contacts to it like at home or at errand or at the office, at the phone, those sorts of things, and then filter by context. I can put stuff in the someday maybe bucket and not lose track of stuff because this is a trusted system where everything goes, and I don’t put stuff on backs of post-it notes, I mean, backs of envelopes or on post-it notes anymore like I used to, or in a bunch of different word documents anything like that. So it all goes into one trusted system, and for me, that’s Things, but OmniFocus is great, too. So both are Mac applications with mobile apps as well.
So then with the GTD, are you inbox zero?
Yes, I am, and it’s not because of my efforts. It’s because I hired somebody who I trust. Yeah, I just can’t imagine not having a virtual assistant who is manning my email inbox all the time. So she’s in there. I actually have multiple virtual assistants. You want to have redundancy, but I have one primary virtual assistant manning my email inbox, and she’ll put stuff in the action folder or the read folder, read review, or into archives, and I won’t even look in the archives.
If it’s a read review, then it’s just an FYI.
I don’t need to take any action. I only focus on the action folder. So, a lot of people will check their email inboxes. First thing, they’ll check it throughout the day. They’ll have it notify them and interrupt them. And there’s this thing called attention residue. If you get interrupted by a text message or an email and you just quickly check your phone, you quickly check your inbox, and you’ve lost about 25 minutes of productivity, according to research, that’s really, really bad. So close out of all those distractions, don’t let them bother you, only check email twice a day and find somebody that you can trust. They earn your trust over time enough that they have access to all of your email, and they can man your email inbox and keep you at inbox zero. It’s incredible. And that includes your personal email. So she has access to all my emails, and she has credit cards of mine. So she can place orders and things. Having that kind of person you can trust like that is so freeing, it’s amazing.
It does sound nice. So did it take a while to sort of train those virtual assistants so you felt comfortable that they knew what they were doing with all of your contacts and types of emails?
Oh, for sure, but what you do that helps to facilitate an easy transition if the person leaves, which eventually they will, right? Everybody moves on. And nobody is irreplaceable, so that’s important to remember, too. Every time I train somebody on some aspect of my organization, my file folders, or my different business processes, I always record the call. I’m using Skype and I’m screen sharing. I use an app for Skype called Call Recorder, and I just record it and drop it into a Dropbox training library. And so I don’t have to retrain somebody. They just watch that recording of somebody else getting trained in the past on whatever, how to sort stuff and file it properly in my email inbox or how to reply to prospects who have inquired for consulting, SEO consulting services, or what have you.
Every neat. On Facebook, I saw that you liked the movie Hunger Games. Speaking of your books, did you read those books back when they came out?
I didn’t. No, I don’t really read any. I only read nonfiction. I rarely read fiction. The only notable exceptions in recent years have been Dan Brown’s novels, Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Diamond Age, which is an amazing book, just incredible. If there’s one book that you must read that’s fiction, it’s The Diamond Age, and also Snow Crash is another great one by the same author, amazing book. So if you’re into kind of like the dystopian future sort of thing and thinking about what the technology is gonna offer us in just a few year’s time with nanotechnology. And with the evolution of the internet and AIs and computers and franchises and everything, it’s just pretty fascinating, both of those books are.
You have to take a look at those on Amazon because I’m like you. I just really read nonfiction, and it’s pretty rare that I ever look at any fiction books. So I’ll take a look there.
Cool.
So, on Instagram, I saw that you were on TV back in April 2016. What was that that you were talking about?
Yeah. So, I did 11 TV appearances last year. I don’t remember which one that one might’ve been. I actually.
Maybe Albuquerque?
Okay. So, I did Albuquerque and Tucson that month. And, what I spoke on in April, was, are you a geek? Take the quiz. It is tied to my podcast, Get Yourself Optimized, which is not an SEO podcast; even though I’m an SEO, it is an optimization of your life and your biology and productivity podcast. So it’s a life-hacking biohacking podcast, and I was on TV talking about that and how to optimize your inner geek, the benefits of being a geek, quiz on whether you are a geek, and I brought all these geeky gadgets to outfit my host and explain to the viewers what they were and I also brought an Iron Man costume that I wore at Comic-Con. So I’m just talking about that too, and just imagine the host and all this get-up of all these different gadgets like a sleep tracking headband and The Muse Meditation Helper also goes on your head.
And what else? The Gobe be a tracker that you put on your wrist, and it tells you not only your heart rate but also your intake of carbs, protein, and fats. That’s pretty darn cool, right? So not only do you get your total calorie intake and your heart rates, but other trackers do, and this breaks it down by fat, protein, and carbs. So if you’re tracking your macros, whether you’re trying to lose weight or gain weight, it’s really, really cool. So I was geeking out on TV, and then I made a bunch of those TV appearances over the course of the year to promote my podcast. And then the book that will be coming out this year called Geek Revolution, which is not anything to do with SEO again, or because I’m most famous for my book, The Art of SEO, I have several other books, but this one is a self-help book, Geek Revolution.
Very neat, so when’s that coming out?
It should be in another month, a month and a half. Yep, so we’re just wrapping up with the illustrator and getting those illustrations incorporated into the book and then doing a final edit. It’ll be self-published and available on Amazon.
Cool. Good luck with that.
Thanks.
And so on LinkedIn, I saw that you were endorsed for awesomeness. What would you say was the thing that you’re most awesome at?
That’s funny. Okay. I’m kind of an interesting mix of creative genius, like an ad agency creative director sort of genius. And a real techy uber-geek kind of person. So I can distinguish things going on with really technical stuff with your SEO, diagnose issues with rewrite rules, maybe overly greedy regular expressions, you have an asterisk instead of a plus sign in the regular real geeks, they’ll know what I’m talking about. So I get really geeky like that, and yet I also am very creative, coming up with crazy brilliant campaign ideas that will get lots of links for my client, whether they’re infographics or viral videos or, personality tests, listicles, cheat sheets, worksheets, e-books. All sorts of crazy stuff, scavenger hunts.
Neat, so there’s some awesomeness there.
Yeah, it’s pretty fun and it’s a very unique combination. You don’t normally get that in one person.
Cool. So then, where’s the best place for people to follow you or reach you online?
Yeah, so you can follow me on Twitter. SSpencer is my username. On Facebook, Stephen Spencer SEO. Facebook.com/stephanspenserseo. Probably the best place to learn SEO, though, is my website, stefanspenser.com. Also, check out my two podcasts. I mentioned Get Yourself Optimized, which is GetYourselfOptimized.com, and MarketingSpeak.com, which you’ve been using as a guest. That was a great episode, and I have about 90 more episodes of awesomeness that folks should check out. So that’s MarketingSpeak.com.
Great, well, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I really appreciate it.
Of course, it’s a pleasure, and you’re awesome.
Well, thank you. Well, have a fantastic day.
Thanks.
Great, thank you. Bye. Okay, bye. Thank you for listening to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins. Sponsored by Affiliate Summit, the premier affiliate marketing trade show and conference since 2003.
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