Lazy Leverage

We mention a lot of books on this show and never write them down. Fixed that. 61 books, 39 essays, 88 episodes, free: https://lazy-leverage.saganpassport.com/ Jon has heard owners say they can't use AI because their software doesn't have a good API. That's backwards! Your owner investor never hired you to upload work orders. They hired you so they always know where their maintenance request stands. Peter calls this the biggest problem with AI: owners can't SEE what's possible, because they know exactly how the work gets done today. Expertise blinds you. In this one: the luxury resort that runs everything over WhatsApp (so why do your owners still get a portal login?), the email every recruiter sends telling you to raise your budget, and what Sagan sends instead: three candidates below, at and above it. Peter's case: a good marketing agency will help you more with AI than a developer will. Jon is pessimistic anyway: you've got an $11,000-a-month SBA loan and an office manager who almost quit last time you rolled something out. Plus Jevons paradox, every email Sagan has ever received sorted with Jev for maybe six bucks, and yes, whether AI takes everyone's job. Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:39 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage 01:47 - Last Week: Justin Roff-Marsh's "Pick One" and the F1 Pit Crew 07:40 - AI's Biggest Problem: Seeing What's Possible 09:34 - Sears in 1997: Email Isn't a Faster Catalog 12:05 - Expertise Blinds You (and the Sagan Budget Email) 15:16 - Hiring Global Talent With Sagan Passport 16:32 - Start From the Job to Be Done 19:19 - Paving Cow Paths: The Task Map Is a Trap 22:24 - Your Customers Don't Want a Portal 26:03 - Why Marketers Are Better AI Guides Than Developers 28:58 - Why Jon Is Pessimistic About AI Rollouts 35:40 - How Fast Will AI Hit Offline Businesses 40:12 - Jevons Paradox: Cheaper Means More Demand 43:15 - Will AI Take Everyone's Job 52:05 - Closing   References Mentioned in This Episode -   Books: Seiffer, J. (2023). Output thinking: Scale faster, manage better, transform your company. https://www.amazon.com/Output-Thinking-Faster-Transform-Company/dp/1930417004 Miller, D. (2017). Building a StoryBrand: Clarify your message so customers will listen. HarperCollins Leadership. https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329 Herold, C. (2018). Vivid vision: A remarkable tool for aligning your business around a shared vision of the future. Lioncrest Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/Vivid-Vision-Remarkable-Aligning-Business/dp/1544508123 Jevons, W. S. (1865). The coal question. Macmillan.   People & Frameworks Cited: Justin Roff-Marsh, Ballistix: https://justinroffmarsh.substack.com/ Kevin Henderson, SMB Law Group: https://www.smblaw.group/ Jobs to Be Done (Clayton Christensen): https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/ Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox Porter's five forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis   Related Reading: Hammer, M. (1990). Reengineering work: Don't automate, obliterate. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 104-112. https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate-obliterate David, P. A. (1990). The dynamo and the computer: An historical perspective on the modern productivity paradox. American Economic Review, 80(2), 355-361.   Tools Mentioned: Claude: https://claude.ai/ AppFolio: https://www.appfolio.com/ Buildium: https://www.buildium.com/ WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/ Jev by TypeSafe AI: https://typesafe.ai/   Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/ Follow Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pslohmann/ | https://x.com/pslohmann | https://www.peterlohmann.com/   🌎 Jon built Sagan to bring Lazy Leverage to business owners, and Peter's businesses use it: https://saganpassport.com Let's identify where global talent and AI can increase your output and cut overhead. Book a free 30-minute call: https://www.saganpassport.com/free-consultation   👷 Join Crane, Peter's community for property management operators: https://www.joincrane.co/   Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyLeverageofficial Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/763FBQuzXqTqJ3mb837WbW Newsletter: https://lazyleverage.beehiiv.com/

We mention a lot of books on this show and never write them down. Fixed that. 61 books, 39 essays, 88 episodes, free: https://lazy-leverage.saganpassport.com/   "Passive income is bullsh*t." Jon keeps getting versions of the same DM: someone with a W2 wants to buy a $650,000 moving company, keep the day job, and let the manager the broker promised run it. Recording in person for the first time, in San Diego, Jon and Peter take that DM apart line by line, from two operators who have bought, sold and started businesses from zero. In this one: why the broker never buys the deal he's selling you, what happens to your SDE the first day a new owner walks in and the manager asks for a raise, why Jon walked away from his franchise competitor after 30-plus sales when he could have sold 300, the one question to ask every time a business or a course is pitched to you ("why am I being presented with this opportunity?"), what full recourse on an SBA loan puts at risk, and the only real path to a semi-passive business: get really good first. If you're buying anyway, go intern for an owner before you write a check. That's how Peter and his partner bought their engineering business.   Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 02:34 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage 03:27 - The DM: "I Want to Buy a Business for Passive Income" 07:58 - Passive Income Is BS (and Why That's Fine) 11:04 - The Moving Company on BizBuySell 15:42 - Who Is Really Selling These Opportunities 19:34 - Why Jon Walked Away From His Franchise Competitor 21:39 - Why Watching Deals Feels Like Progress 24:08 - Why $1-3M Businesses Are So Fragile 26:34 - "Why Am I Being Presented With This Opportunity" 28:01 - Buy the Problem Nobody Else Will Take 30:22 - It's a Seller's Market, So Go Intern 35:00 - Start Small Before You Sign Full Recourse 37:06 - The Secret to a Semi-Passive Business 41:27 - Hiring the Gaps Takes Five Years of Pain 44:18 - Closing   References Mentioned in This Episode -   Books: Ferriss, T. (2007). The 4-hour workweek. Crown Publishers. Wickman, G. (2011). Traction: Get a grip on your business. BenBella Books. (EOS)   People & Frameworks Cited: Acquisitions Anonymous (Michael Girdley, Bill D'Alessandro, Heather Endresen, Mills Snell): https://www.acquanon.com/ Chris Koerner, The Koerner Office: https://www.thekoerneroffice.com/ Rich Jordan, Marine Corps veteran turned plumbing operator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/strongpointrich/ FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement Dr. Dre and Eminem's first studio session, The Defiant Ones (HBO, 2017): https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/watch-dr-dre-eminem-recall-first-meeting-making-my-name-is-202507/ SBA 7(a) loans: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/7a-loans   Tools Mentioned: BizBuySell: https://www.bizbuysell.com/ Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/   Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/ Follow Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pslohmann/ | https://x.com/pslohmann | https://www.peterlohmann.com/   🌎 Jon built Sagan to bring Lazy Leverage to business owners, and Peter's businesses use it: https://saganpassport.com   Let's identify where global talent and AI can increase your output and cut overhead. Book a free 30-minute call: https://www.saganpassport.com/free-consultation   👷 Join Crane, Peter's community for property management operators: https://www.joincrane.co/   Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyLeverageofficial Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/763FBQuzXqTqJ3mb837WbW Newsletter: https://lazyleverage.beehiiv.com/

We mention a lot of books on this show and never write them down. Fixed that. 61 books, 39 essays, 88 episodes, free: https://lazy-leverage.saganpassport.com/ Cameron Tope has a rule for his team: use AI all the time and he fires you, use it none of the time and he fires you. Jon has the reason it matters. Underperformers used to give themselves away by producing very little. With AI, they produce more. Cameron is the broker and owner of Emerson Property Management, about 300 single family homes in the Houston area, and he runs it from San Diego. In this one: why Cameron learned the job on the ground before he took it remote. The juggling monkey, and how easy it is to hide in the easy part of a project. Jon's pyramid of leverage, and why he thinks every business owner underhires. Justin Roff-Marsh's idea that you can only maximize one variable. Where TOC falls short. The $500 test Cameron ran with a Sagan hire to rule out a lead channel. And the barnacle hunt, where Cameron pays his team $200 to $300 for the best piece of old process they can find and kill.   Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:42 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage 01:41 - 300 Doors in Houston, Run From San Diego 06:30 - Sell the Beach, Not the Plane 09:27 - The Juggling Monkey 10:24 - AI Makes Underperformers Produce More 13:05 - The Pyramid of Leverage 14:28 - Hiring Global Talent With Sagan Passport 16:08 - Everybody Underhires 17:36 - Maximize One Variable 21:59 - Where TOC Falls Short 27:31 - The Broken Plates on the Stairs 33:18 - A $500 Test to Kill a Lead Channel 42:30 - Be Yourself, and If That Fails, Be Someone Else 50:01 - How Cameron Thinks About AI 54:10 - The Barnacle Hunt   References Mentioned in This Episode -   Books: Roff-Marsh, J. (2015). The Machine: A Radical Approach to the Design of the Sales Function. Greenleaf Book Group Press. Roff-Marsh, J. (2025). An Ode to Speed. Substack.   Quotes Referenced: "Never cross a river that is on average four feet deep." Nassim Nicholas Taleb.   People & Frameworks Cited: Justin Roff-Marsh on clock speed, pit crew behavior, and splitting business as usual from the growth business Eliyahu Goldratt and the theory of constraints Adam Smith and specialized labor Jon's pyramid of leverage: owner, expensive labor, lower cost labor, technology   Tools Mentioned: Buildium, AppFolio, HotPads, Indeed, Asana, Airtable, Trello, ChatGPT, Grok Bot   Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/ Follow Cameron: https://www.emersonpropertymanagement.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/emerson-property-management-inc   🌎 Jon built Sagan to bring Lazy Leverage to business owners, and Cameron's business uses it: https://saganpassport.com   Let's identify where global talent and AI can increase your output and cut overhead. Book a free 30-minute call: https://sagan-passport.link/Free_consultation_book   Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyLeverageofficial Also on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-leverage/id1777098486

We mention a lot of books on this show and never write them down. Fixed that. 61 books, 39 essays, 88 episodes, free: https://lazy-leverage.saganpassport.com/ Jon can hand a model 35,000 of his own tweets, 250 newsletters he wrote himself, 400 hours of podcast transcripts, and a swipe file of 5,000 hooks he bought for three dollars. Then he can ask it for 50 LinkedIn posts. If you charge him $5,000 a month to write those posts, that is what you are competing with now, and his argument is that you have to beat it noticeably, not narrowly. Peter has made about twelve short form videos. He started with a DSLR, a teleprompter and scripts written for him, and they were flat enough that Jon told him so. He switched to an iPhone, moved to a different corner of his office, swapped the teleprompter for bullet points on a sheet of paper, and stopped trying to sound like an expert. Now he just does the news. Those ones worked. In this one: the two advantages every business owner has over a full time creator, and why most of them use neither. Why there are fewer people who can make good plumbing content than there are plumbers who can replace a water heater. The barbell Jon thinks every business should run, and the middle most people land in instead. Why Peter sells the sponsorship before he writes the newsletter. And the person already on your payroll you should put in front of a camera full time.   Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:47 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage 02:13 - Why Video Is a Superpower 04:16 - Proof of Human 07:06 - You Already Have the Content and the Customers 09:48 - Hiring Global Talent With Sagan Passport 11:03 - Plumbing Content Is Rarer Than Plumbers 12:33 - Why Talking to a Camera Alone Is So Hard 15:12 - Make the Format Your Own 17:54 - The Only Platform Left With Discovery 21:00 - Do the News 26:15 - Smile With Your Voice 27:55 - Promote the Person Who Likes Filming 30:05 - The Barbell, and the Middle Most People Land In 33:55 - Sell Sponsorships to Force Yourself 37:20 - Done For You Agencies Get Squeezed   References Mentioned in This Episode -   People & Frameworks Cited: Proof of human, Jon's memo to his team, becoming a newsletter Smile with your voice, the cold calling habit that fixes a flat take The camera flattens you by about twenty percent, so overdo it past the point that feels ridiculous Look through the lens, not at it Park on the downhill, Peter's habit of stopping mid task so tomorrow starts with momentum Ray Bradbury, David Ogilvy, Gino Wickman and EOS Level 10 meetings   Tools Mentioned: Loom, Remotion, RentVine, AppFolio, Zillow, Claude, Fable, ChatGPT voice mode, Grok Bot   Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/ Follow Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pslohmann/ | https://x.com/pslohmann | https://www.peterlohmann.com/   👷 Join Crane, Peter's community for property management operators: https://www.joincrane.co/   🌎 Jon built Sagan to bring Lazy Leverage to business owners, and Peter's businesses use it: https://saganpassport.com Let's identify where global talent and AI can increase your output and cut overhead. Book a free 30-minute call: https://www.saganpassport.com/free-consultation   Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyLeverageofficial Also on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-leverage/id1777098486

We mention a lot of books on this show and never write them down. Fixed that. 61 books, 39 essays, 88 episodes, free: https://lazy-leverage.saganpassport.com/   This conversation describes personal experience and is not medical advice. Several substances discussed are illegal in most of the United States. Christian Ruf says he did twenty two years of therapy in about two and a half hours. He flew for the 160th Night Stalkers, the most elite special operations helicopter unit in the world. Both he and Jon spent years being drug tested by the government. Now they sit in ceremonies guided by Hoot. Christian got out of the military and two years later he was going downhill fast. Medication was not working and therapy was not working. Hoot came out of television, had what he calls a dark night of the soul, and found his way here through meditation. In this one: why Jon hands over every decision the moment he enters the space, including his own dose. What set and setting mean, and why Hoot runs ceremonies outdoors. Why the music is the medicine, and what happens when whoever is choosing it gets it wrong. The night the clouds cleared over Colorado and a meteor shower arrived at eleven. And the part both of them say matters more than the ceremony itself, which is what you do with it the next morning.   Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:30 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage 03:22 - Who Hoot Is 06:10 - Christian's Road to the First Ceremony 09:48 - Twenty Years of Anxiety and the Backpack 12:20 - Why This Is Not a Concert 15:06 - Harmony, Hoot's Partner 18:42 - Set and Setting 23:16 - The Music Is the Medicine 27:34 - Releasing Control 32:19 - Not the People You Would Expect 35:12 - They Should Have Sent a Poet 40:07 - The Ancestors Rooting for Me 46:01 - The Night the Clouds Cleared 49:37 - What Hoot Does During Ceremony 53:30 - Integration Is the Whole Point   References Mentioned in This Episode -   Books: Sagan, C. (1985). Contact. Simon & Schuster.   Quotes Referenced: "They should have sent a poet," from the film adaptation of Contact, which Jon takes as the closest anyone has come to describing the experience.   People & Frameworks Cited: Chris Berg, whose post on X led Christian to his first ceremony Set and setting, as studied at Johns Hopkins and Imperial College London The backpack every man carries, and what it holds The ski tracks image for integration, and Hoot's answer that if you stare at the tree you hit the tree "The psychedelics are not the medicine. You are." Reality with a capital R, and remembering rather than learning   Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/ Christian Ruf: https://uncommonelite.com | https://x.com/pinpulleddrmf Hoot keeps no public profile. To reach him, leave a comment on this episode or DM Jon.   🌎 Brought to you by Sagan Passport: https://saganpassport.com Schedule a free consulting session: https://sagan-passport.link/Free_consultation_book   Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyLeverageofficial Also on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-leverage/id1777098486