Brian Minick

Brian Minick is Chief Operating Officer at ZeroBounce and an email marketing thought leader. With 15+ years of experience in marketing and tech, Brian oversees day-to-day operations and makes sure you get the most out of ZeroBounce.

Minick’s strategic vision and leadership play a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of ZeroBounce. The email validation and email finding platform is a multiple Inc. 5000 honoree and is serving more than 300,000 customers – from solo business owners to behemoths like Amazon, Netflix, and Disney. The company helps email senders reach their customers and prospects successfully – in the inbox – and make more sales with email marketing.

What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?

First thing I do is check my email. While definitely not the best idea, I need to know what happened over night or what might be needed of me. It helps me think about the rest of my day.

Then I take my kids to school. It lets me have a little time with them before I go about my day.

When I get back home, I’m right on the computer and working. I keep my stand-up 15 minute meetings in the early parts of my day. I find I’m more focused, less distracted, and can make sure I give my full attention to our team members.

After that I get into my own productive work. I generally don’t take long breaks, but I do often take quick five to ten minute breaks. Step outside, grab some water etc. I find I only need five minutes or so and – bam – I’m fully recharged. I rarely take a lunch break. It’s just food, and I can grab that as needed. Almost transactional in a way (boring, I know).

As I get further into the day, I focus on wrapping up any potential open items before the end of day hits. I also think about our teams in Europe and share any information/requests with them at this time so that they can see it when they get up.

It’s a beautiful cycle if you can perfect this because they have all day to work on something before I even wake up. So I always try to request things before my day ends.

After that I’ll catch up with our CEO. We’re constantly aligning/checking many different things. After that I go back to dad life, grab my kids from school, and try to spend time with them.

I still juggle doing work throughout the rest of the night, but I keep it to quick little items I can knock out easily, such as sending a contract for signature. I save the big items for the next day.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I think about them briefly and plan how I might want to execute them. But after that, it’s purely execution.

I’ve always been someone that can generally get things done on my own. If I need help, I’ll ask, but I find it just as quick to try and figure it out on my own. If I’m remotely capable of doing it, I’ll just do it. It’s a powerful gift when applied properly.

I’m a deep thinker, so in a few minutes I can really dive into an idea and think about it from many angles. If I say let’s do it, it’s done. Done fast and done right.

What’s one trend that excites you?

I don’t know if it’s a trend, but change excites me. I’m really comfortable with being uncomfortable. I like it when things evolve and I like creating change.

At work, I’m excited for some transformational changes that I think we’ll have in the next six months with our sales team and some of our processes. There’s nothing wrong with them now, but I always think we can do more or do things better.

What is one habit that helps you be productive?

A habit that keeps me productive is certainly drinking coffee!

I’m naturally not a morning person, I could stay in bed forever. In my younger days, I was a night owl. All I did was productive work at night. I absolutely loved it, it was quiet, dark, no one bothered me.

As I grew in my career, it took everything I had to get up early for normal start times for the jobs I had. Coffee is my savior here.

However, on a more serious note, I would say to-do lists. I try my best to check off items from my to-do list. There’s so much going on, so staying organized is the only way I can keep up.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Don’t be so cocky to think you know it all. It’s a terrible trait.

I initially got overly confident because I started building things on my own with software. People would come to me for absolutely everything. All of a sudden, my brother wants to build a mobile app, my friend has this idea, a long lost ex co-worker needs my help, and so on.

It got to my head. It felt like I was the only one who could do these things. I’ve been working on toning this down for years and I’m still not there, but it’s much more palatable today than 15 years ago.

Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.

I love to change things that are not broken. It goes against every saying we ever learned growing up. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I just don’t feel this way.

Fix it because there’s better ways to do it, even if the old way still works. I always question why people are so uncomfortable with change, yet we change things every single day in our personal lives. But when it comes to work, people push back.

What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?

Think deeper through thoughts and ideas that either you come up with or are presented to you. Quick decision-making is a good thing, but we have to think past just the first step. I’m a quick thinker, so a few extra seconds goes a long way for me and my brain.

A lot of people think only of what’s in front of them. I tend to think, “and what about after this part?” Not always will I do this perfectly, and usually I guess wrong. But it helps round out ideas. Ideas without a plan are nothing more than a dream.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

If it’s persistent and lasts days or weeks, I know it’s time to take a vacation, or find something in my personal life that makes me happy. But if it’s just a mid-day thing, I’ll take a five-minute break, and go do something quick and easy.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ll just go plug my iPad in to charge. Knowing this task is done gives my brain a shot to refocus. I play on little wins to get me over humps in my day-to-day life. I came up with this concept after hearing some great speeches around the military and how you should make your bed every morning when you first get up (I don’t practice this, by the way). But it gave me an idea to find little things that I can tick off in my head and use that as fuel.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?

Being the guy that can always be depended on.

I’ve always wanted to be the person that you could call when you need something. In my entire professional career, I’ve been this guy many times. I also think about how I handle these situations after they are completed. I know how I made the other person feel, I can see it, or feel it by their tone or energy.

But I just shrug it off like it’s no problem and tell them to let me know if they need me again. How you handle yourself under great pressure really shows others what you’re capable of.

What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?

I’ve had so many failures. I used to get hung up on them and felt like I was letting people down.

As I’ve advanced in my career, I find it good to fail because it’s not about the failure, it’s about what you learn from the failure to do better next time. This is precisely what experience should mean.

I’ve failed in hiring the wrong people, numerous times. They fooled me and oversold their abilities. That’s a hard pill to swallow once you figure it out. In situations like these, it’s important to remove this type of person quickly.

Some people might not want to remove a person like this because they worry about how the rest of the team perceives them as managers. I’ve tried to get better at this, but it can be challenging.

I don’t know anyone that hasn’t had a failure in hiring someone that was the wrong person. Usually, I’m right – but not always. The lesson for me here is it’s ok to be wrong, and it’s ok to admit you made a bad hire. But don’t keep this person around for the sake of your reputation because you don’t want people to think you terminate new hires. When they aren’t suited to your team, you must.

What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I will say this: I don’t think it matters at ALL what type of business you want to start. What matters is you make sure that you have the absolute best product in that market.

If you are looking for ideas, find your passion and focus on it. What product or service can you offer in that line?

Plenty of people are successful, so it’s not always about the ‘idea.’ I think too many people focus on being the ‘inventors’ of something. Why does it have to be brand new? Why can’t you just be the best at something that exists already?

For example, mobile detailers. If you love cars, and love cleaning them, just absolutely kill it with your service. Put extra touches on your work, do things that make you and your customers smile. Your customers will make your business boom.

What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

G Suite or Google for Business. The amount of tools at your fingertips is priceless for a tech person like myself. Documents, email, spreadsheets, file storage, email groups, messaging… It just goes on and on what this service does.

The collaboration side of it is critical in business. You can work on many things together with groups at the same time – in real time. What more do you need?

What is the best $100 you recently spent?

Gosh, it seems like everything costs at least $100 now, doesn’t it? If I had to say the best $100, although it’s probably slightly higher, I would say a nice dinner with my wife for a date night.

I get very consumed with work but always make sure I find time to have regular date nights with my wife. The cost means nothing to me, it’s that we’re together and enjoying life together.

Don’t forget about the people who support you to get you where you are. My wife is one of my biggest supporters, so it’s important we spend quality time together.

Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?

I love Joe Rogan’s podcast. I don’t listen to every episode as I don’t have that kind of time to keep up with it. But I love it when he has guests that I admire. I feel like it’s such an open forum on that show, and find value when they discuss the things I never think about. My favorite is when they have guests that go down rabbit holes of space and science, how the pyramids were built. I’m fascinated by this stuff.

What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?

I recently watched “Black Mass” again and enjoyed it even more this time. It’s the story of Whitey Bulger, the mobster from Boston turned FBI informant. It’s so well made and the acting is so good that for two hours, I forgot it was Johnny Depp. The movie is chilling and disturbing, but you can’t stop watching. I understand what Mark Twain meant when he said “truth is stranger than fiction because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”

Key learnings:

• If you feel overwhelmed by the number of things you have to do, use a to-do list and check items off as you accomplish them. It will help you stay organized. Also, do one small thing to get the ball rolling and spark more productivity.
• Even when things are running smoothly, always ask yourself if you can further improve them.
• Remember the people who support you and make time for them.