The Unexpected Entrepreneur: Stu Selbst’s Path to StuTech Success

Freddy D: 00:02:16

Stuart Selbst is the driving force Behind Stutek, an IT services company dedicated to empowering seniors and 55 communities with technology solutions tailored to their needs.

With over 30 years of experience in technology, customer success, operations and leadership, Stuart combines his expertise with a passion for helping others navigate the ever changing digital landscape.

At Stu Tech, Stuart provides hands on support and daily tech tips designed to simplify technology for older adults, ensuring they stay connected, confident and independent. Known for his approachable and patient style, Stuart is committed to making technology accessible and enjoyable for all.

Prior to founding Stu Tech, Stuart held executive roles in biotech, healthcare technology and finance where he led high performing teams, launched startups and solved complex operational challenges.

These experiences honed his skills in leadership, problem solving and building trust, qualities he now channels into helping seniors embrace technology with ease.

A lifelong learner and community advocate, Stuart is as passionate about making an impact as he is about his beloved LA Dodgers and perfecting his BBQ recipes.

Whether he's teaching a senior to master video calls with family or troubleshooting a tricky device setup, Stewart approaches every challenge with patience, humor and a solutions first mindset.

When he's not working, you'll find Stuart cheering on the Dodgers in his lucky green Dodger cap, traveling or sharing his smoked brisket at community gatherings. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change, Charles Darwin.

Working with Stuart guarantees smoother tech experiences, brighter smiles and possibly a tip on how to make the perfect BBQ rub.

Freddy D: 00:04:12

Welcome Stuart Seltz with Stu Tech to the Business Superfan podcast. How are you this morning Stu?

Stuart Selbst: 00:04:21

Good, I'm good Frederick. Thanks man for having me on here again.

Freddy D: 00:04:25

Yeah, we're excited.

You've got a very unique story that you've started this Stu Tech company just recently working with in 55 year old communities and helping people with their computer challenges and has came out of nowhere from last we talked. So share that story. How did this all come about?

Stuart Selbst: 00:04:43

All right, it really is a great story and I've shared this with you so I'm happy to share it with your listeners. So it came about 35 or 40 days ago. All honesty.

So we'll take a little trip back to August of this year where I left my job as Director of Client experience for IT company. I was making a really good living. I had to go and help my parents.

My father was very ill, my mom was exhausted from caregiving, they needed help and at the same time my sister in law had lost her partner in Nashville so my wife was Going to Nashville to help her sister. Perfect storm of family issues, right?

So I was helping my parents, my wife was helping my sister in law, my dad got better, everything came kind of full circle back to normal. So in, so I'd start, things were getting better. So I started looking for work in late September, early October.

And I knew it would take me a few months to find a job. And so my wife says to me, why don't you've been in it for 30 something years, why don't you advertise on our community?

We live in Fountain of the sun in Mesa, Arizona which is 55 plus community. Just advertise that you're available to do tech work for people. And I said no, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

The last thing I want to do, I don't want to do residential work.

I came from the business network side of it, from a network engineer in Los Angeles out here in Phoenix building great big huge monster big networks and whatnot. And then as a managed service provider early adopter, I got out of that because I just didn't want to do the tech work anymore.

I reluctantly threw an ad up there. Okay. There were no Stu tab. There was nothing. Right? Right. It was like, hey, I'm Stu, I live here in your community. I've been in it for 36 years.

I could probably pull up the initial post.

Freddy D: 00:06:32

I should probably save that.

Stuart Selbst: 00:06:34

It ends up there somewhere. I gotta, I just gotta go find it. Literally within three minutes, three minutes. And I was using my personal email address, my outlook.com address.

I got a phone call. Hey, I have a problem with my smart tv. Can you come over and take a look at it, Sheriff? No problem. Literally persons around the corner.

For me, it's not a very huge community. I think it's three miles in circumference, complete now.

As I drive down the street, I hop my golf cart, I cut down the street and literally whoever set up their smart TV clicked the wrong input for their audio come out. So I fit literally a two minute fix. They're like, how much do I owe you? I'm like, huh? I said nothing, don't worry about that.

Then things started piling up and within a week I needed to create an email address. So I actually bought the domain stutechaz. Com. It wasn't going to be a business, I swear to God, it was never going to be a business.

But within the first 30 days, I have serviced 26 households.

Freddy D: 00:07:33

Wow.

Stuart Selbst: 00:07:34

Yeah. I generated more revenue than I thought I would. So just recently, this week, I created Stu Tech llc.

Filed it, got it going, got my bank, got everything going. So now we have. It's a real business. Because it's gotta be. Because, like, tomorrow. Well, I'm sorry, tomorrow's Christmas, so.

Merry Christmas, everybody. By the way, this is your Christmas Eve podcast, Frederick. Yes, but on the 26th, I already have free appointments set up.

Freddy D: 00:08:00

That's crazy.

Stuart Selbst: 00:08:01

Yeah. And the more and more I talk to people in the community, the more and more people are hearing great things about the work that I do.

And I'll give you an example of the work that I do, because computer repair is not difficult. I just know where to go and fix stuff and how to get things done. I can fix something very quickly because I've been doing it so long.

Freddy D: 00:08:20

Yeah, you and I go back a long time.

Stuart Selbst: 00:08:23

Back to when I was running my msp.

Freddy D: 00:08:25

Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Selbst: 00:08:26

Way back, before I sold it. My career's kind of gone full circle, Right? And I'll give you an example of what Stutek is about. Okay. And this is how it really has developed.

So a few weeks in or a couple weeks in. So because we're in week five, a gentleman in the community calls me and says, there's something wrong with the battery in my HP laptop.

I said, okay, let's schedule a time. I'll come over and take a look at it and figure out what's going on. The battery's not charging. I get the battery modeled.

I tell them, hey, just order this battery on Amazon. When it's in, I'll come and replace it again. I have a little asterisk here is I haven't done hardware in a long time, right?

It's like taking apart laptops and whatnot. Haven't done it in years. So I'm like, okay, no problem. Things have changed a little bit since I sold my company in 07.

And then the hardware work, right? What are we, 17 years later now, Right? Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:09:17

Things changed just a bit.

Stuart Selbst: 00:09:18

My wife and I have been married, right? So things have changed. The new battery comes in, I go over, I start opening up the case.

d to be in the late two early: 2000

I look at the battery and the battery's supposed to be, I don't know, a quarter of an inch thick, right? Not very thick because it's a thin laptop. This thing's probably an inch and a half thick, right? This thing's blown up. These lithium batteries.

Put the new battery in, no video, okay? Try the old battery, no video. And I'm thinking, okay, what did I break? So I asked the guy, I'm like, hey, can I take your laptop for a couple days?

I have some diagnostic tools at my house. I like to run on this thing, make sure everything's working right. He said, he reluctantly agrees. I said, okay. So I work on it literally all night.

Now I'm charging this guy 99 bucks for this one time thing, right? I spend three and a half, four hours on this thing, all right? So I'm into this five or six hours right now.

So the next day I call him up, I'm like, listen, I need to talk to you about your laptop. Can I come by? Okay. So I said, I got good news and bad news. The good news is you're going to get a new laptop.

The bad news is you need to get a new laptop. And he's like, why? I said, I don't know if I broke something or the battery exploded and broke something.

It was holding it together, but I'm not getting any video. And I worked on this thing for hours. I said, I'll tell you what, here's a laptop I found at Costco, because they're just home users.

They're not pro users or other kids. $400. It's a really nice laptop. I will split the cost with you. And he said, okay. So I paid for half of it.

You know, the new laptop came in, I set it all up. I charged him for half of it. I charged him for my one hour of time, and he was happy to pay for it. Now he's telling everybody how great I am, right?

That Stu did this, because again, I can't prove that it was his. But when I brought the laptop over, he goes, stu, I should have told you that I've been having problems with this thing for a while.

And I said, that would have been nice to know. However, here's your laptop. It's all good. And the thing about doing that, and you've known me a long time, it's all about integrity for me, right?

I was over fixing somebody's machine the other day, that's actually their neighbor, and they said, oh, you fixed so and so's computer. I said, yeah. He says, he can't stop saying enough great things about you.

I thought the guy was pissed because he had to buy a new computer, but actually he was thrilled because he knew he needed A new computer.

Freddy D: 00:11:46

You made that happen.

Stuart Selbst: 00:11:47

I made it happen, but in a way where it was beneficial to him.

Freddy D: 00:11:51

Was it was the right thing for.

Stuart Selbst: 00:11:52

Him and it was the right thing for me to do as well. It cost me a couple hundred dollars out of my pocket, right?

I ordered a laptop, came to my house, I set it all up, and I got everything installed I had.

I even took his old hard drive, flash drive out of the old computer and I purchased a flash reader where you take the flash memory and insert it and it reads it and copied it over and gave him his old hard drive. Now he's got his old hard drive. If he ever needs anything off of there, he can call me up, I'll come over, we'll make sure it's copied over.

But I'm going to recycle his old computer. He's happy as a pig in mud.

Freddy D: 00:12:23

You've transformed him into your superfan because he's already promoting and telling everybody about it.

The cool thing that you did, which is in one of my chapters in my book, so what you did is you went and did something unexpected and an extra, and that's basically help him replace his laptop and paid half of it because like you said, you didn't know whether it was you or the machine. And most likely it wasn't you. Most likely it was the machine. But it's neither here or there because you can look at that as marketing investment.

And that investment got you goodwill. And that goodwill is a super fan that's telling everybody about your business.

And now as we Talked earlier, you've got 26 some customers and very little short amount of time, all because of super fans promoting your business. You haven't done really any marketing except for that one ad.

Stuart Selbst: 00:13:20

Well, you know, so here's what I do, and I'm going to share my. My secrets of my success. I do a daily tech tip. Okay? It's a Stu Tech tech tip on my Facebook page and on my Instagram.

So I do a tech tip a day and I schedule them out. I tell ChatGPT I use AI a lot because it saves me a tremendous amount of time, but I schedule them out.

So if you go to the Stutek Facebook page, which is facebook.com stutacaz, you will see all my tech tips. They're, they're daily. Then I share them with my 55 + community and I say, hey, here's today's Stu Tech tech tip. Check it out below.

And here's what I'm talking about. I get people thanking me for the tech tips, they're like, oh, my God, Stu, this is great.

My community at Fountain of the sun in Mesa has asked me to be the president of Computer Club here. Now, not am I going to be able to give classes because I feel like education helps bring in business.

But everybody is waiting for me to do the Ask Stew, where I do a Saturday morning, bagels or coffee or whatever, and come in and ask you your tech questions. I'm going to do a monthly electronics recycling once a month on Wednesday, because I go to the recycle once a month on Thursday.

Bring me your old computers, your TVs, your monitors and stuff that's been sitting in the closet, and I'm going to go and recycle it for you. I'm going to have you meet me, whether it's at the computer club or wherever.

If you need me to come to your house, I'm going to charge you five bucks because I need to go and drive around and whatnot. But I'm going to take all that old electronics, get it recycled, get it disposed of properly.

It's another added service or benefit to being engaged with me.

Freddy D: 00:15:03

No, absolutely. Because most people don't know where to take old electronics, right? So that's one, two. Is it just.

Well, just throw it in the garage and next thing you've got 47 different devices in the garage over the last 20 years.

Stuart Selbst: 00:15:21

Right?

Freddy D: 00:15:22

So that's important. What you've done is you've stumbled into a great business opportunity with a market that actually has a big need for what you're offering.

Stuart Selbst: 00:15:36

Not only do they have a big need, the seniors that live in a community like mine or like Leisure World or they have disposable income. It's typically their second home here in Mesa.

A lot of people I'm talking to are from Iowa and North Dakota or South Dakota or Illinois or Washington state, and this is their second home. They come here in the wintertime. Okay? I have two separate memberships, and one of my memberships offers unlimited remote support.

So when they're back home in North Dakota, they can call me. I can fix their stuff remotely. I've got the tools and they have. They pay whether it's monthly or annually. They've got a stew.

And everybody at some point needs a stew. So I can monitor their updates.

I'm calling it in a managed service, but I can monitor their updates, keep their computers clean, give them three hours a year on site, especially when they're here. I can give them unlimited remote support because really, I'm doing a lot of stuff in the back end where they don't even see it.

But again, it gives them that sense of security.

And as technology continues to change and as our seniors get older and get away from being in the workspace of using technology day to day, they're losing their skills.

Freddy D: 00:16:57

Yeah. They're not just losing their skills. They don't understand some of the new stuff.

We've both been in the computer industry for a decade, so for us it's a lot easier.

My wife, she doesn't get some of this stuff and she's on the computer all day long, but she uses her specific applications and her CRM and all the extra bells and whistles and things like that because we've got Apple products. So now Apple intelligence is there. I know how to utilize it. She has no idea how to utilize it, so I'm going to have to teach her.

So it's not just helping the seniors like us, because we're both seniors, end.

Stuart Selbst: 00:17:35

Of the day, she's live better than me, that's all.

Freddy D: 00:17:37

But the bottom line is technology changes. Every software update, there's new features, new capabilities. So it's really hard to keep up unless you're in it all the time.

Stuart Selbst: 00:17:48

Right.

Freddy D: 00:17:49

That's really the big difference. That with our background, that's one of the things that we bring to the table. Have you thought of marketing in Nextdoor?

Stuart Selbst: 00:17:57

We talked briefly about that and right now I haven't. Okay. I'm not spending any money on marketing right now, except for I've done a website, I've got the LLC going.

I want to start to recoup some of the money that's gone out.

There's a method to my madness for this because, remember, early on I didn't want to do this because I am doing some consulting, which I'm pulling away from because it's not the best for me because stewtech is really.

Freddy D: 00:18:22

I think you're having fun. Here's the difference.

Stuart Selbst: 00:18:25

Having fun.

Freddy D: 00:18:26

That's where I can tell. I've known you for a long time.

Stuart Selbst: 00:18:30

Right.

Freddy D: 00:18:30

And you're excited.

Stuart Selbst: 00:18:33

You're. I am.

Freddy D: 00:18:34

You're excited. People are happy with what you're doing.

You're not dealing with some of the corporate stuff where the sometimes cultures can be a challenge in some companies.

Stuart Selbst: 00:18:45

Let me tell you something, Freddie, my wife Lori said to me about this morning. So I'm doing this consulting for a business that helps with workplace dispute resolution, which is a fantastic company and a fantastic solution.

However. Okay. It reminds me of a lot when I was coaching when I was a business coach, when I was coaching IT companies on how to be better.

I've got this amazing CEO and founder that I'm consulting for, I'm contracting, who is brilliant and has a great business, knows exactly what they want, knows exactly what they want, has a really difficult time articulating it. So it's frustrating to me as a contractor to try to get things done. I try to do things my own way.

For example, I mentioned to the founder that we should probably do a LinkedIn newsletter. Okay, let's send it out to our LinkedIn people. Cause that's where her customers are. And I talked to our marketing person.

Oh Stu, that's a brilliant idea. That's exactly where your target market's at. They poo pooed on it. Oh, I've never seen that work.

I'm like, it's about information and it doesn't cost anything, it's free.

Freddy D: 00:19:56

Right?

Stuart Selbst: 00:19:56

Okay. You have information. Create a newsletter.

I throw out these ideas for member experience because again, my superpower is create super fans by providing the best experience they can have. That's something I've always been really good at. So I'm trying to create a member experience for the members that sign up for this service.

But if I'm getting poo poo on it every single day for the last three weeks, then what am I doing? So that takes the wind out of my sails and I come back to Stu Tac and I go do a job for a client. I sit there and I talk to them.

We talk about what they did in their career and what's going on and it's easy stuff, it's okay. I can't log into Amazon or I can't do. It's not rocket science. It's fixing someone's computers, it's giving them a sense of security.

And I gotta tell you Freddie, like you said, I'm thrilled about this, but it gives me such a sense of purpose.

Freddy D: 00:20:50

Right.

Stuart Selbst: 00:20:51

And the money's not bad, right? I'm doing pretty well with it.

Freddy D: 00:20:55

I think you keep this momentum going and I think you should look at some of the surrounding 55 year old communities and expand.

Stuart Selbst: 00:21:03

I already, I already am like Scott, you know, I've talked to some people I know in Scottsdale, things like that and I'm doing some. I'm going to branch out to home to home based businesses. Right. That wanted you computer but my focus will always be on 55 plus.

Okay, now I want to tell another story. Can I tell another story about.

Freddy D: 00:21:21

Absolutely yeah.

Stuart Selbst: 00:21:22

Okay. So I told you about this and I wanted to share, and that's what got us talking about doing this podcast.

So about a week or so into this thing, there's a little bar and grill in our community called Birdie's Bar and Grill. So big shout out to them. Great place. And they started doing a toy drive to help underprivileged kids for Christmas.

I'm like, oh, my God, this is brilliant. My wife and I, we donate a couple toys, a boy toy and a girl toy. And I said, I got the stew tech thing going.

I don't know if it's going to be a business or whatever, but what if I just did a free PC cleanup in exchange for an unwrapped toy or game or clothing? They're like, that'd be great. So I did that, and seven people have actually signed up and done it. It's over with now.

So I got seven toys and it was really great meeting these people. Some one PC was a Windows 8 machine. I walked and I look at it. I'm like, I can put my software on this thing. You need to buy a new computer.

And actually, that's one of my appointments. That's one of my appointments for Thursday is to go and do a data transfer for them. So something free turned into a paid.

Freddy D: 00:22:27

I'm going to throw this in is you look at Costco, they've got that chicken for five bucks for decades. Decades. It's five bucks. It hasn't changed at all. It's still 499. That's their mechanism to get people to come in.

And you don't leave spending five bucks.

Stuart Selbst: 00:22:47

No, you should never get out of Costco for less than a hundred bucks. So it was never a loss leader. Just let me set that straight. It was never a loss leader because I live in this community.

or: 2900

And then they could ask advice and pay for stuff. But that wasn't my intention. It was like, hey, I really wanted to just meet my neighbors. Okay? That's how it came about. So I got to meet seven people.

And one of the first person that signed up, he's actually a board member.

So he and I had been texting back and forth, and when I was working on his machine, we were having this great conversation about different things going on here and technology. So he sends me a text and I think that was Monday of last week, right? So today's Tuesday. So it was Monday last week. I, I work on his machine.

Tuesday or Wednesday the following day, right. I think it might have been a week ago now he sends me a text.

Hey, Stu, I just want to let you know I'm sitting here in Birdies and I overhear these guys. There's six of them sitting there talking, having coffee.

One of them is a customer of yours that was raving about you to six other people sitting around having coffee, just saying that, that he paid you X amount of dollars for something he's been trying to get fence. He's been paying annually for it. You came in, you fixed it and 15 minutes and boom, he was done.

And how great you are, how good you are, how nice you are and how much you care. And he was raving for an hour. That made me feel so good.

But the thing is, and you and I were talking about this over, over cigars with, with the guys the other day. This is free advertising, okay? And the way I feel that to create super fans is two words. Two words.

And these are the secret words that I've tried to live, live my life by. Be nice. Yep, be nice. If you're nice to someone, they will walk through Firefox. Yep, be nice.

I've always said the customer's not always right, but they're never wrong because the.

Freddy D: 00:24:46

Customer has a perception and their perception is their own reality. Right or wrong.

Stuart Selbst: 00:24:50

Right or wrong.

And I get a lot of this large electronic retailer that's blue and has the initials BB has always double charging me to come out and do this, even though I'm paying for this membership. I'm not going to mention Best Buy's name, but they come out and they charge double. I said, I took my pricing from their website. They're expensive.

I said, yeah, but I come out and I show up, I fix it and I charge a flat rate for most stuff. I don't care if it takes me an hour or three hours. You're paying that flat rate.

Freddy D: 00:25:20

Right?

Stuart Selbst: 00:25:21

End of discussion. There's no Hemming and ha. There's no negotiation. There's nothing. My dad was a salesperson hire. Don't publish a pricing on your website. I'm like, why?

Your competitor will steal it. I said, unfortunately, I don't have any competitors because nobody really wants to deal with the 55 + community.

Freddy D: 00:25:37

You're absolutely correct because I met somebody years ago. That was their target mark. They were helping the senior community utilizing their smartphones.

But I don't know of anybody that's really created a business providing IT services and beyond. Because you're doing more than just IT services. You're helping them with their televisions, their audio equipment and everything else.

Anything that has basically with electronics. And that opens up a big opportunity because someone gets a new TV at Costco or BB and et cetera. How do I hook this up?

Stuart Selbst: 00:26:10

That just happened just the other day. A guy bought a new TV isn't. I'm not hooked this thing up with DirecTV. Literally took me 25 minutes. Everything was done.

Surround sound, DVD player, DirecTV on, off smart TV. And I literally, in the whole 25 minutes, I taught him how to use his remotes and he was happy as a pig in mud.

Freddy D: 00:26:31

Yep.

Stuart Selbst: 00:26:31

And you know what, Frederick? This is the joy for me. The joy to see on these people's faces when I take the time with them to show them stuff again.

I don't care if it takes me 15 minutes or three hours. The joy is the reward. The joy for me makes me a super fan of them.

They're going and telling everybody on Facebook and in the community and they're playing cards with or having coffee. Oh, my God. You gotta call Stu. They're like, give me three or four more of your business cards. I made refrigerator. Refrigerator magnets.

What old person doesn't like refrigerator magnets? Where's my, where's that business card? Oh, my God. It's tech. It's up on the. It's up on the refrigerator.

Freddy D: 00:27:10

You're. You're creating your army of super fans which become, which has become your sales force and your marketing agency and everything else.

And it's costing you nada. Zero, zip.

Stuart Selbst: 00:27:25

Nah. I'll give you another thing, okay. This past Saturday, we had our golf cart Christmas parade through here.

All right, I'm telling you guys, I'm telling your, your listeners then. I live in an old folks home, basically. But we decorated our golf cart.

We have this slick little red golf cart and kind of looks like Santa's, Santa's sleigh. We decorate it up with lights and stuff like that. We're cruising through, driving around people like in our community.

I've been doing Stu tech for a month, five weeks.

Freddy D: 00:27:52

My kids are a super fan.

Stuart Selbst: 00:27:54

It's amazing.

Freddy D: 00:27:55

That's what I'm all about and that's why I wrote the book creating business super fans. I've got this podcast is really to help people understand that it's the little things that are the big things. It's be nice that's the big thing.

It's expressing recognition and gratitude. It's recognition, it's appreciation. All those things. It's saying thank you, it's saying happy birthday.

And it's doing the unexpected extra collectively. Those things you look at, what this is transforming into is you've got an army of sales agents promoting your business. Stu, text.

Stuart Selbst: 00:28:38

Even if you went to my website right now, again, I'm in business a month. I've got six testimonials that I publish and I've got much more. So I'm going to start swapping them through.

I've got a Google review page that people don't know how to get to. So when I work on their machine, would you be willing to give me a review? Would you be willing to give me a testimony?

And from my business side of things, right when I was working business, it. You don't really ask for that testimonial or the referral until you've got a relationship with them. But this is a completely different market.

This is a here and now market. Because even the lady said, I'll tell you a story about yesterday, but lady said to me, stu, I don't know if I'm going to be here.

She was 87 years old. She's, I don't know if I'm going to be here in a year. Okay, so here's something that came about yesterday. Again, it goes about creating super fans.

And you know me, Freddie, I'm all about giving from here, giving from my heart. This lady calls me up, she can't get on the Internet. I asked her, who's her Internet provider? She says, centurylink.

I go and look to see if CenturyLink's having an outage and they're not. I said, what's your address? Let me come by. Let me just take a look at it. I go to her house. I'm talking to her sweet, sweet lady.

I unplug her modem, plug it back in. I go look at her computer. Her computer's actually in airplane mode. I hit the button, there comes the Internet.

And I see that she's got an older machine. I said, you really do need a PC cleanup. She's like, how much is. I tell her, I said, can't afford that. So I got to thinking, I'm going to do.

Nominate your neighbor. Nominate your neighbor. And for all the nominations we get, we're going to do free, A free PC cleanup a month. I see the news doing stuff like this.

I see was the air conditioning and stuff like that. Why Can't I go and spend two hours cleaning up someone's machine, getting to know them, helping them out?

If someone else is going to nominate them, I feel that it will help bring my community closer together.

Freddy D: 00:30:26

Oh, absolutely.

Stuart Selbst: 00:30:27

If I can start with my community, maybe it will become infectious throughout the United States.

Maybe as a society, we can all give to our neighbors and I'll give to one another and I'll just get through this division of rap that we're dealing with.

Freddy D: 00:30:42

That's why I've created this superfan movement. I call it Business Superfans because it's really focused on not sports, but business. That's exactly right.

You look at a business environment, you treat all the stakeholders. People talk about customer experience, people talk about employee experience. Nobody really talks about the whole equation.

The whole equation is what I call all the stakeholders, which is your suppliers, your distributors, your complimentary businesses. You've got your banker, that's separate. You've got your CPA that's probably separate and all those things. And that's the whole system.

If you treat that system and you get that whole all those stakeholders to be your superfans, you can't help but explode in business.

Stuart Selbst: 00:31:27

That's my next big thing. So that will be announced probably next week after the first year. And I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna do a nominate your neighbor once a month for free PC tune up.

Freddy D: 00:31:37

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:31:38

And do a drawing.

Stuart Selbst: 00:31:38

Do it.

Freddy D: 00:31:39

Because everybody's going to.

Stuart Selbst: 00:31:40

I'm going to just. I'm going to have a form on my website. People fill out the form. I want the nominee, I want the. The person who nominated them.

I want their information. Because it's all about collecting information as well. Right?

Freddy D: 00:31:51

Sure. Called marketing.

Stuart Selbst: 00:31:52

Right. But the thing is, who can I help? Who can I help the most? And maybe I do it through my Facebook page.

Maybe I do the form through my Facebook page, nominate your friend. But whatever it is, I'm going to start giving to my community, to this 55+community.

And I don't care if they're in Mesa or Tempe or Apache Junction or Scottsdale or Phoenix, but if you're following me and you're in a 65 plus community, or if you know somebody that's 55 plus a senior citizen that needs help with their technology, nominate them, refer them to me. Let me help them. And I say this to people of our age in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, that are still technology sound, technologically sound.

How many of you are tired of helping your parents with your computer Issues. Okay, how many of us in our.

How many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s are helping their parents who are in their late 60s, 70s, and 80s or even 90s with their computer? Oh, I can't get my cell phone to work, or I can't, I didn't hear it, or I need a paired to my car or I need a paired to my hearing aids. No problem.

Stutech is your solution, right? That allows you time to spend with your elderly loved ones. You don't have to go and fix their crap.

And I'm trying to do the best for my parents who are in their 80s, right. And fixing their crap. My mom's been asking me to fix her smart lights in her house for months.

And I'm just like, okay, I'll get there, I'll get there, I'll get there. So it's just little stupid things.

Freddy D: 00:33:22

But again, as we talked earlier, the little things are, are the big things. Because those little things, you and I may look at it as it's a little thing to them. It's a big thing because it's annoying them parents.

Stuart Selbst: 00:33:35

Yeah, I can relate to that because my parents will call me and say, hey, my ring doorbell's not working or my smart lights aren't working. I'm thinking, okay, that's my parents. It's annoying. I got other things to do. I can put them on the back burner, but can I really? Okay.

I created this business, Stu Tech, to alleviate, not only help senior citizens with their tech problems, even help younger people say, all right, I don't have time, I'm going to pay Stu Tech. They're going to handle it or I'm going to have Stu Tech come out, I'll take care of it, or whatever because now I've given them time back.

Freddy D: 00:34:09

You're absolutely correct. The other thing too is there's a lot of solopreneur or small businesses which are husband and wife teams.

They may not be in the 55 year old plus category, but they're in a 47 year old category. And they don't have the time or may not have the knowledge to how do I share stuff?

For example, my wife and I, we have shared calendars, we have shared tasks and all that stuff. But that's because I know how to set that up.

But there's a lot of these husband and wife small businesses that don't have that set up because they don't know how to set that up.

Stuart Selbst: 00:34:49

Right.

Freddy D: 00:34:50

And you helping them through Stu Tech will make their business thrive. Because now the left hand will know exactly what the right hand is doing.

And you're creating another super fan because now you're helping them accelerate the growth of their business because they're much more efficient.

Stuart Selbst: 00:35:07

It's a domino effect, my friend.

Freddy D: 00:35:09

Yep.

Stuart Selbst: 00:35:10

It's a domino effect.

Freddy D: 00:35:11

You're doing good stuff. And more importantly, what's nice is you're smiling more.

Stuart Selbst: 00:35:15

I am. I have. Yeah. I was telling Lori this morning I haven't been this happy in a long time. A long. Professionally. Personally, my life is perfect.

Professionally, I haven't been this happy. I'm starting to get my own time back, which is really important.

Freddy D: 00:35:31

Right.

Stuart Selbst: 00:35:31

I didn't think I wanted to ever be self employed again. We've talked about this. I was tired of it. But you know what? I'm not going to say I'm smarter than the man. Right. So to speak.

But I'm an entrepreneur, okay? Always have been. I always think of better ideas or things to do to help people. Some people don't want to do that. I want to.

My vision, my goals are always about how is it that I can help somebody else doing what I do. Because the thing is, and we've talked about this for years, I've always put.

Freddy D: 00:36:02

People before profits and profits will come. People don't understand that. But the reality is profits will come if you take care of your customers. Jim Rohn said it the best.

If you take care of others, you won't have to worry about yourself because you'll be taken care of.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:19

Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:36:20

And that's what you're doing.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:21

Yep. Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:36:23

And that's the secret. That's the formula to creating super fans.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:26

Amen. Amen to that. It's the church of Freddie Man. It's the church of superfans. It's.

Freddy D: 00:36:32

Thank you.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:33

Bringing people together to do the right thing for others. And that's what super fans are all about.

Freddy D: 00:36:37

Yep.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:37

And I tried doing that at other companies that I worked for.

Freddy D: 00:36:40

Difficult.

Stuart Selbst: 00:36:41

It's impossible. Unless you're the one making the decision. Unless you're the one driving the vision, you can't do it. It's Stew Tech. I'm the one driving the vision.

I'm the one in charge. It stops with Stu. It starts and stops with Stu.

Freddy D: 00:36:55

Look at Sir Richard Branson, okay? You don't see him checking the tires on his jet airplanes or making sure that the cruise ship food is prepared properly. He's empowered.

And that's why he's so successful and has a good time out there, because he's empowered people to make decisions, take responsibilities. And he is working on his business and he's having fun.

He's out there serving on an airplane or dancing with people on his cruise ship or entertaining people on the island. And you're going, when does this guy work?

Stuart Selbst: 00:37:35

Let me take that just a step further. Cause I know we're getting close to our time cutting off.

I could have this conversation for days with you, and we will continue it offline at some point. But the problem with small business owners, and I'm not saying every single one, but let's just say the majority. Right.

Is what they have what I call BOA constrictor syndrome. Okay. They're holding on so tight, they're choking the life of other business.

Freddy D: 00:37:57

Yep.

Stuart Selbst: 00:37:57

They have not enabled people within the organizations or hired the right people within the organization to run with stuff. Okay. They may say that they trust them, go for it.

But then when push comes to shove, when something needs to be paid for or whatever, it happens to me, they block them.

So the business owner needs to create autonomy for their leaders and become super fans of what the leaders are doing internally so their customers can now become super fans of them. Because what I know is when you're hiring the right people and hiring people is expensive. You know that and I know that.

Not just don't look at the salary you're paying them, but the time it takes, it's somewhere between 15 and $20,000 to hire a new employee before training.

Freddy D: 00:38:42

If you look at companies that have high turnover because they're.

They don't train their people correctly, but they forget the fact that, okay, you hire somebody new, you got to take someone out of their job to train that new person. So now you've got the loss of productivity because now so. And so is training the new employee and now get to work extra for their workload.

And so now they're feeling overworked because they're training the new employee. Yet they still got to get their job done.

And they're getting chewed out because they're not getting their job done because they're training the employee. And you see where I'm going. It's a vicious cycle. And you're absolutely correct is you got to get yourself out of your own way.

Stuart Selbst: 00:39:25

And.

Freddy D: 00:39:26

And that's why some businesses don't scale.

Stuart Selbst: 00:39:28

Business owners need to build superfans with their employees.

Freddy D: 00:39:31

That's where it starts. Because the employees tonality.

If they've got energy and they're excited about a company and they're talking to a prospective customer, that Energy comes across on the phone, via email, all that stuff. It comes across now the people goes, wow, these people are happy. I like this company. Boom. I want to go do business with them.

And they have a great customer experience. And now they're out there promoting to everybody. Man, this company's great. They have energy. I felt appreciated. I'm valued as a customer. Same thing.

You got a supplier, you take care of the supplier. I tell people, suppliers got choices. Do I take care of this guy or do I supply this guy? These guys take care of me.

They send me a birthday card and everything else. This guy's going to wait. I'm going to take care of my buddies here because they appreciate me. That's how the dynamics just change.

And some businesses thrive because they actually know how to recognize their team and others don't understand why things aren't happening for them. The world's against them.

Stuart Selbst: 00:40:33

Yeah, no, I get it. It's. And it's terrible. It's terrible.

Freddy D: 00:40:37

So, Stu, as we come wrapping up here to the show, it's been an excellent conversation.

Great deep dive into creating super fans and your story of how you've really reluctantly got a business that's actually putting a smile on your face and you're fired up about it. How can people find you? And let's go with that first.

Stuart Selbst: 00:40:59

All right? I'm very easy to find. Stutech.com or I'm sorry, stutechaz.com also on our Facebook page, stuteTechaz. LinkedIn is also stutechaz.

They can reach me by stu techaz.com as well. I'm very easy to get a hold of. I'm pretty responsive. Someone sends me an email, get back to them. Someone calls me. You go to my website.

Got my phone number on there? Send up a flare, homing pigeon, something along those lines.

Freddy D: 00:41:26

Man, my wife. Smoke signals. Smoke signals.

Stuart Selbst: 00:41:29

Yeah, we'll go old school. We'll go smoke signals or carrier pigeon or whatever.

So really, the best ways to give a homie email, a website, Facebook messenger, it just doesn't matter. I answer stuff really quickly. Everything comes to my phone at some point.

Freddy D: 00:41:42

And then. Do you have an offer for our listeners?

Stuart Selbst: 00:41:44

I do have an offer. Anybody who wants to. That reaches out to me. Okay. I will do a free remote PC cleanup for them. Okay. It's $169 value. Just get with me.

We'll schedule some time. I will put a special link on my calendly and you go to calendly.com Stu Tecaz. I'll put a special link on there and with a. And you gotta.

I'll have a Superfans discount code or something like that.

Freddy D: 00:42:13

Yeah, that'll be great. We'll put that in the show notes.

Stuart Selbst: 00:42:15

Well, I'll do a free cleanup for the month of June.

Freddy D: 00:42:18

Here's your. Here's your discount code, Freddie D. Freddy.

Stuart Selbst: 00:42:21

D will be my discount code. Yep.

Freddy D: 00:42:23

Keeps it simple. Let's keep it simple.

Stuart Selbst: 00:42:25

Yep. And it's going to be for. I'll send you the link so you can publish it with that. So only your listeners have that link.

And here's what it's going to be. I'll tell you right now. It's going to be calendly.

Freddy D: 00:42:39

There you go.

Stuart Selbst: 00:42:40

That will be your free cleanup. It will be a hidden page on my calendar, so you won't be able to find it. You've got to use the Freddy D code.

Freddy D: 00:42:49

Perfect. All right, Stuart, thank you very much for being an outstanding guest on the Business Superfan Podcast show.

We look forward to continuing the conversation down the road and having you a guest again. It's a great conversation. And sure, the next time we get on, you're going to have a lot more stories and we wish you all the best.

And again, happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.

Stuart Selbst: 00:43:12

And same to you, my friend. And a very happy New Year to you. And you're saying congratulations on your recent nuptials.

Freddy D: 00:43:17

Thank you. Likewise to you guys.

Stuart Selbst: 00:43:19

Happy New Year, and I'm looking forward to the new Year. Maybe we can do this. We'll talk about the podcast that we discussed last week.

Freddy D: 00:43:26

Yep. Sounds good, buddy.

Stuart Selbst: 00:43:27

All right, take care, everyone. Happy holidays.