Ari Meisel, Nick Sonnenberg on Productivity and their Overnight Startup

In this episode, Dave shares the mic with Ari Meisel and Nick Sonnenberg. Ari and Nick began with their Less Doing Podcast, now Leverage, which focuses on giving productivity tips. With over 7 years of experience in their respective spaces, Ari and Nick now have a virtual assistance service business that they were able to build overnight. There is no doubt that they provide value to their listeners and clients as their business has grown significantly since their launch. Tune in as Ari and Nick share how they have built their business and why they ascribe to the philosophy that less is more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:33 – Introducing Ari and Nick 00:50 – Ari has launched his virtual assistance service with Nick 01:03 – Ari is the encyclopedia and Nick is the developer and aesthetician 03:06 – Ari developed The 9 Fundamentals of Productivity framework for Less Doing 03:32 – Less Doing is about how to be a more efficient person 03:40 – Optimize, automate, and outsource explained 04:13 – "It's about coming up with this system so you can focus on the highest value thing for yourself" 05:08 – Ari tells their clients to work on their unique abilities 05:37 – Allowing yourself the time to be bored enables you to remove what you don't really need to do 06:20 – When you empty that space or allow yourself to be bored for a bit of time, your brain starts to wake up and will find ways to fill that space 06:38 – Some entrepreneurs spend time on unnecessary things without knowing it 07:05 – Ari and Nick don't usually work on Thursdays 07:30 – Dandapani, a hindu priest and one of Dave's guests, shares the same philosophy as Ari and Nick 08:14 – Meditation is loving yourself 08:30 – Ari and Nick share the books they're reading for their 2-person book club 08:32 – Dan Ariely's Payoff 08:40 – The Relationship book by Neil Strauss 08:45 – Persuasion by Robert Cialdini 08:50 – Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss 09:05 – Leverage Podcast and Optimize, Automate, Outsource are the main podcasts 09:21 – One is tip-oriented and the other is to get to know more interesting people 09:33 – How did the book Getting Things Done by David Allen incentivized you to create Leverage? 10:00 – The main takeaway from the book is "your brain is for having ideas and not for holding ideas and you have to create a system to enable that" 10:16 – "The key philosophy of getting the things out of your head is an important one" 10:37 – The times are now different from when the book was written book, but the key principle stays relevant 11:41 – Dave's idea of taking notes off the desk and putting them into Evernote is a huge breakthrough for Dave 12:06 – Monday is "clean off the desk day" for Ari 12:30 – Ari and Nick don't allow ideas to stay in their heads 13:00 – Dave mentions how unique Ari and Nick's business is and how they made it overnight 13:42 – It took years of experience to build something overnight 13:53 – There are free tools that Ari and Nick are extensively using 14:57 – Ari and Nick use Trello in a way that it hasn't been used before 15:41 – Ari and Nick's new book, Idea to Execution 17:17 – Dave still uses Leverage primarily for his podcast 17:43 – The standard and the less common uses of a VA service 17:51 – The pricing of Leverage's VA service 20:13 – Ari's target customers are businesses with 1-10 employees in the field of marketing, manufacturing, and other SMBs 20:50 – Outsource your work to other people to leverage time 21:28 – Ari and Nick are helping individuals and businesses 22:45 – How 2 companies can use Ari's business differently 23:23 – There are tons of businesses that are doing well, but the teams are stressed out and not utilizing technology to their benefit 23:53 – The legal version of Trello is Clio which is suitable for lawyers 25:00 – How Ari and Nick address the mentalities of people who are too busy to try new things: 26:00 – It is more difficult for someone who is already overwhelmed to take on more 26:12 – Sometimes, things have to get worse before people take action 26:54 – People respond more to a loss 27:00 – Some also have their own way of doing their work processes 28:00 – Ari has helped Dave with Inbox Zero 28:30 – Ari and Nick's space is in Lowry, Manhattan 28:50 – Ari uses Croissant to find their work spaces and their VAs are remote 29:20 – The future of Leverage is having tens of thousands of clients 29:27 – Leverage is in the process of creating a unique to-do list which will be free to the public 30:05 – Ari and Nick do not believe in business cards 30:50 – Ari and Nick do not have titles but do have a different distribution of work 31:57 – Go to Leverage to learn about the Ari and Nick's VA service 32:22 – Ari is speaking at Arch Angel Academy and EO Arizona in February 33:04 – Dave closes the podcast 3 Key Points: Allow yourself to be bored sometimes – your brain will start to wake up and will find ways to fill out the space. The amount of time that you can save by outsourcing a VA service is worth its price. Utilize the things around you and be open-minded to try new things – specifically new technologies.  Resources Mentioned: Entrepreneur's Organization – The EO Network Leverage – Ari and Nick's business Payoff, The Relationship book, Persuasion,Tools of Titans – Ari and Nick's book club books Getting Things Done – Contributed to the beginnings of Leverage Clio – Trello for Lawyers Croissant – Shows where you can find local, shared, work spaces