Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 2 with Industry Veteran Joey Gabra

Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 2

[00:00:02] This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and discuss what's going on in our business. Plus, we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week, we'll be talking to Joy Gabra of New Media Services.

[00:00:22] First of all, today, let's cover some of the news going on in our industry. Content creators, Sophi Ladder. Notice the different content platforms have different notions of what they considered restricted content. So Latter, who's also a photographer, a DOM and a web developer, decided to compile the variations in the form of a shareable spreadsheet today, or spreadsheet of restrictions to adult content. Mapping the corporate self centered censorship imposed on content creators has grown to twenty one adult selling sites and 16 categories. You can see the spreadsheet on Sophy's Twitter page. The US Copyright Office has released a lengthy report on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, calling for Congress to modify certain aspects of the Safe Harbor Doctrine that protects TUPE sites both for mainstream and adult content from copyright liability, according to its introductory letter. The publication of this report as the final output of several years of effort by the Copyright Office to assist Congress with evaluating ways to update the Copyright Act for the 21st century. Although the report did not recommend sweeping changes to the DMCA, it reached the conclusion that the act had been tilted since its inception. With the end result, the tech companies and platforms were more protected than copyright owners. Now let's feature our Property of the Week that's for sale at Adult Site Broker. We've just reduced the price on a network of two foot fetish sites.

[00:02:01] The first site is an all tickling fetish site with every category of tickling. The primary focus is female and female tickling. The second site has forced orgasms as well as hand jobs, all with the fetish twist featuring showing of feet in the videos. The hand jobs are more taboo. Female domination themed. There are also a number of highly profitable clips for sale stores as well, featuring the content. The most profitable of those stores features foot worship. Some of the stores are top 50 in the world and clips for sale, and one has been as high as number four in the world since the owner is never build out of foot worship site but has plenty of content. For one, this is a wonderful opportunity for a new owner. Also, the owner has never advertised the site or started an affiliate program. A new owner could do both and instantly boost sales. The company has over 11000 videos in their content library, all exclusive. Also, since the owner has been out of the day to day operations of the company for some time, a new owner will have the opportunity to keep on the current people who were operating the network. So there will be no interruption in the new owners ability to get content. Now time for this week's interview.

[00:03:21] Today, I am delighted to have as my guest on Adult Site Broker Talk, Joey Gabra, solutions director at New Media Services. Joey is the kind of guy in this industry who either knows everyone or everyone knows him. And you agree with that, Joey?

[00:03:37] That's very nice of you to say, but, yeah, I'd say at this point in my career, I mean, you the the web is the web has been weaved quite long.

[00:03:47] Kidding. So so he's been in the adult space as long as I can remember. He's one of the true icons in the space. Joey has always been a joy to be around and is a great partner for many of us in the adult industry. The New Media Services is quite a company. Here's a bit about them from their website. At New Media Services, they focus on a commitment to teamwork between staff and customers to ensure the growth and success of everyone involved. Their made outsourcing services provide growing businesses with the support and expertize that increases their efficiency and improves their bottom line. In 2007, Martin IKing established the company with only five employees handling basic consumer messaging over the years, and MMS has gained in-depth knowledge across a wide variety of outsourcing services to ensure their customers are totally taken care of. From five staff at Starbucks to over fifteen hundred staff today, they have not stopped growing. Now, today, the services they provide continue to empower businesses around the world to perform at their absolute best and grow alongside. And Ms. Their services include live chat, multilingual customer support, video production, content services, virtual employees website and app design and development, social media, moderation services, I.T. systems and admin tools and bulk SMS services. Did I leave anything out?

[00:05:22] That is a mouthful. I know it. I think you got it most every day.

[00:05:28] That's that's many mouths full. Now, I know you guys recently moved into a new state of the art facility in the Philippines. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that?

[00:05:39] Yeah, so it's actually pretty cool.

[00:05:41] So this is our founder, Martin had this about 10 years ago.

[00:05:50] You know, they were growing pretty rapidly and we went from kind of one building to the next just to kind of keep up with the amount of people that were who were on boarding. And around that time, you know, he's he's just really he's got this he's got his head in the clouds constantly. And there was a conversation we were having at dinner about where do you see the company ten years from now?

[00:06:14] Now, you weren't even born. He had company then where you draw it?

[00:06:17] No, I wasn't with the company. I'd known Martin for some time.

[00:06:19] And and to maybe we'll touch a few words. But you worked with an early on, though, didn't you?

[00:06:24] Correct. Yes. So I had been a part of the animes family, so to speak, for we're going on more than ten years now in a number of projects. And I helped grow a lot of the inner workings of the business and develop things for them a bit. Well, I only became an official member of the team about five, four years ago.

[00:06:45] Finished your story. Sorry, I go way back anyways.

[00:06:48] Yeah. So we go back a ways and I'd been out to the Philippines to help out with things. So this is one of our projects that we're working on. And he has that conversation, you know, asking people around the table, where do you see this company in ten years? And at the time I believe we were about maybe we had just kind of hit the 50 person mark and we had a few executives that we always spent our time together working on things. So he had almost to a t described this building ten years ago. I imagine us here and, you know, ba ba ba ba ba kind of goes breaks it down to this dream building.

[00:07:23] A facility that he thinks is going to be the coolest thing describes it the our future proof, the whole nine. And it's shocking. And so here we are today.

[00:07:33] The project starts about two and a half years ago. We put the shovels to the ground and now the buildings up and running. And we've got our staff in there. And it's just sort of what you would imagine, you know, this new millennium of, you know, the tech buildings. Right. So, you know, look at the Google buildings. Everything's everything's touch screen, everything's sensors. There's no buttons in the entire building.

[00:08:02] Yeah, I saw. I saw. I saw the videos. It's very cool.

[00:08:06] Yeah. It's a neat place and everything, you know, from the coffee machines, there's a restaurant, a cafe in there for everybody. And you don't there's facial recognition. I mean, it's a whole it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. So, yeah, it's it's kind of and for the Philippines, it's a huge deal, I'd say in most sort of for lack of a better term, more first world type of surgeries. This may not be as big of a deal, but it's still I mean, it's quite nice. But, you know, we see this quite often in the area in the Philippines where we are. It's not there's nothing like it, you know, so it's this amazing sort of thing. And the big the big thing about that was that Martin also wanted to create a place for people to want to come to work. You know, he wanted this to be a desirable location. We're always looking for really great talent and we want to make sure we can provide for them in every way possible. And so that was a big deal for him to ensure that we had a place there that they really looked forward to spending all their time. Oh, yeah. And so mission accomplished.

[00:09:13] Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of competition these days in the Philippines for good talent, I would think.

[00:09:19] Big time. Big time. Yeah. And that was also part of why we chose the location. You know, we're in a place called Baguio City about five hours outside of Manila where it's still competitive, but it is less competitive and it's a big university town. So we're able to get a lot of fresh talent that the students who are hungry to work and that kind of thing. So it's it's really nice.

[00:09:40] Nice. OK, let's let's talk about you, not the businessman, but the other guy. I know you have a variety of interests outside of adult. You are an accomplished musician. You're a photographer. You're more than a bit of a tech geek.

[00:09:56] So tell me more.

[00:09:59] Yeah. So you know, music I'm going on now. Thirty years having been playing, been a total music nerd music junkie for a long time. And yeah, I did have for the better part of my twenties, I had a good run with some albums and some tours and then, you know, life happens, marriage, kids, the whole thing. And that all has to slow down. And yeah, so we as I was starting to find my place in the world in terms of my career, what might forever work was going to be my wife and I moved around. We lived in London. We lived in some parts of the states. And we finally kind of found our footing, especially once we got pregnant and it was time to settle down and figure figure stuff out. So in California, where we're born and raised, we had three kids and life was moving pretty quickly. The career has been going unbelievably well, thank goodness. And the next thing I realize is I've got a phone full of memories and videos and pictures and they're just kind of, you know, how everybody's phone is going to be.

[00:11:10] You take pictures, you never look back at them ever again. And so I decided maybe I'll invest in a really nice camera and it'll just force me to be more organized with the photos and just to kind of keep up with stuff and actually make photo albums and just to care more about the pictures I'm taking. And that kind of spiraled for those who know me, know that when I buy something and it seems kind of cool, then I dove real deep into it. And so I bought a camera just to take a few nice pictures of my kids. And here I am.

[00:11:44] Fifty thousand dollars later, with everything possible for Disneyland you could think of, like I said, like I said, Technik.

[00:11:52] Yeah.

[00:11:53] Oh, you would. I mean, so yeah. Right now, as it stands, I got real into it. I got the lighting, I got the lenses and one thing led to another. And people because I did start caring about the pictures I was taking and I, I kept it real organized. I shared a lot. I had photo albums that we would leave out on the table and people really liked what I was doing with the pictures and I did too. I actually really found that photography was something that allowed me to be creative, which I needed because I wasn't playing that much music anymore and that creativity I could take with me everywhere. I could always bring my camera somewhere, especially with what we do for use in the digital media world, you know, traveling like crazy. Correct. I was able to bring a couple of engines and a camera with me everywhere and take pictures and feel like I was getting a little bit of that sort of creative outlet that I needed. And oddly enough, people back in L.A. even wanted to pay me to do it, which was shocking. So I got clients doing some paid shoots and that turned into a thing. And then not long after just three years ago, we moved to San Antonio. We decided it was time to kind of desert. But now it's been three years, almost exactly next month it'll be three years. Yeah. Mike Tyson, as it does, you know that we can get into that in a minute. But we left L.A. mainly because we we part of our family is young and it's just not the place to raise a young family and make sure that all three of our kids are going to turn out decent people.

[00:13:32] So I have my feeling that, sure, some people will argue, but anyway, we thought it was time to go. So we came to San Antonio and that's where it all really in terms of the photography side of things. You know, when I wasn't doing my full time gig with NMW, I was getting a lot of work out here. You know, I did a couple of family shoots, and it's a nice community out here in San Antonio where they they did all the work for me. They spread the word. You know, I'd say as of today, it's it's a real second business for me. I'm working almost all the time when I'm not doing animes things and circle back to the music thing. Now that my kids are a little older and they're in school and life's gotten a little bit more easier to manage. I'm in a band again, I'm playing music and I we're working every weekend. And yeah. So, you know, in terms of the creative side, yeah. Photography and music is now playing a much bigger role in my life here in my early forties where it wasn't looking that way. You know, even five years ago, it was looking like there wouldn't be much of that creative outlet that I needed happening because I didn't know what things were going to look like once the kids came into the picture. But it's been nice. San Antonio has been good to me.

[00:14:46] And yeah, so that's where I'm at now. You know, I'm working when I can with the music of this holography and then juggling the kids, which has been a blast, especially out here in Texas. There's a lot a lot of fun stuff to do out here that you don't really get in the big city like in Los Angeles. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now. I mean, you know, fast version of it.

[00:15:09] At least I hear great things about San Antonio. That's one place in Texas I haven't been, but I do want to go there. I heard nothing but good things about it.

[00:15:19] I'll tell you what the neat. Thing is, and because you know, a lot of guys in our business, you know, when we're sort of the the opposite of whatever Texas is, right? So I got here knowing that I am not a Republican, I'm not a religious guy.

[00:15:35] I was going to say, you know, I don't own a gun.

[00:15:37] I don't own a belt buckle or boots, and I never will. And it's all these things. And those are like the first five questions you get asked. You just moved here. Which should you go to? What would you vote for? Where's your belt buckle? Where's your hat to do that kind of shit? And yeah, and that's a legitimate thing. You know, when when when they meet the new guy, those are things. But anyways, San Antonio mayor was really nice guy here and those were minor concerns of mine. I knew it wasn't going to be a big issue, that we weren't sort of the typical Texan at all. But it was a thing that nagged at me and I got here.

[00:16:17] And the people here are so unbelievably lovely, you know, knowing what they know, you know, all my neighbors and the people that we're not your typical Texas, we we still got the warm hug. You know, our neighbors came and brought us cakes and and whiskey and you welcome gifts, you know, which never happens. Or, you know where I lived in L.A., you don't you don't bring people gifts, you know, welcome neighborhood type of thing. You know, everybody did it. And everybody's been so lovely. And we've you know, we've seen a bit of Texas now. And it's just becoming I think there was a time when Texas was really what people know, textbook Texas Republican, really just hardcore. And it's not like that anymore.

[00:17:02] Well, you got a lot of you got a lot of Californians out there now.

[00:17:05] Well, that's that's a big one. Everybody's kind of jumping ship and coming to places like Texas and Tennessee now because, you know. Yeah. For all the right reasons. So, yeah, that's that's true that there's a huge mix of transplants here now that maybe help balance the scales a bit. Oh, yeah.

[00:17:23] So we heard about Joey, the person. Let's talk about Joey, the businessman.

[00:17:30] Talk a little bit about your background, what you're up to now, which you do capsule's some of that.

[00:17:38] But I know you've had many lives in our industry, so talk a bit about it.

[00:17:45] Yeah. So I think it goes I mean, it goes back a lot further than I think people realize.

[00:17:51] But I started back nearly 20 years ago where the Internet was coming to a place where Google AdWords was a big thing, like a huge thing. I mean, it just came out. And so we were learning what SEO was. We were learning about flag words. Edwards and I was I joined on with a company called Telic Media at the time. They're not around anymore. But that was what they did. They focused on Google ad strategies at the time. You know, they were they were the big boys.

[00:18:26] So I had learned a lot of what our online marketing was, uh, from from there. And then around 2006, this thing happened. This crazy thing happened. June 2006, some maniac said, I'm going to create a touch screen phone and we're going to call it an iPhone.

[00:18:46] And Godlove.

[00:18:50] And things exploded. There was really nobody in the tech world that had experience with advertising on a handheld device that was going to be our new our new means for surfing and taking in content. And so some of these big companies who kind of had sort of the foresight to say, OK, well, we need to start planning ahead. Somehow they were looking for online marketers like myself, people. We I mean, I had no mobile experience whatsoever in terms of these types of devices, but I had it right here and nobody. Yeah, so we were learning I'm twenty six. I joined up with a company that we know quite well today in our industry called Twist Box. Right. And. That was sort of where I got my start in all of this sort of what we refer to as adult or high risk digital media space, where Twist Box was really focusing on creating mobile product. So any sort of online adult content that you could consume from a mobile device, but also focused on how best to monetize it, because at the time, you know, submitting a credit card to your cell phone was not only torturous because it's this tiny little screen and it's asking you for so much info, but it still didn't feel safe.

[00:20:11] We didn't really know how protected our information was. So there were the other ways to monetize things were, you know, alternative building solutions. And that was the big one was mobile billing. This was a way to directly collect money for a subscription or a service or product and pay directly to your mobile carrier. And the mobile carrier and twist box had the partnership. And so when I paid for my mobile content, the mobile carrier, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, whoever would pay me a cut. And that was it. And it was really easy. It was usually one or two clicks and you're paid and it was the easiest way to collect money and consume content, and especially when it's for an impulse buy like some sort of adult content gambling. You don't want to give too much time to pay anyways. Right. That was where the business stand, like, OK, we've got this figured out. And from around 2006, 2007, all the way to, gosh, 2011, 2012, this was big, big bit. And this is where I was completely sort of entrenched in everything. Mobile billing and the smart phones were exploding everything Android, iPhone, anything with a touch screen that was smaller than your computer we were working with and creating content and the whole nine. So what happens is now that cell phones and all those things are are taking over the desktop space, essentially, you know, now we know that, you know, we're getting more traffic on mobile than we are on desktop. People are using their apps and consuming adult content and everything else under the sun, more so from a device than from a handheld device, than a desktop. So this means it needs to be more regulated.

[00:22:10] So the mobile characters and the governments and everybody are getting involved and making sure that it's not so easy to consume that content anymore content anymore when you're looking at things like double time on your phone. Yeah. You know, and it's just as easy to you just click one button than any kid can say, yes, I'm 18, give me porn and it's done right. And of course, this this doesn't have anything to do with a lot of, you know, the free porn and adult content that's been, you know, all over the place. That's kind of a separate discussion. But what we're more on these mobile devices. So by around that time, 2012, the company I was with, this is this was the first version of Twiss, Fox will say, because we had gone through quite a bit of changes and because of all these regulations to aspart essentially cease to exist or just wasn't really working anymore. We've gone from a huge amount of staff and money to virtually none. And I ended up working with another company based in Paris. This was now we're getting a 2011 2012 called Wistar, who had actually sort of cornered the French market for the exact same thing. I was doing a Swiss box in terms of mobile building products and that kind of thing. And because now I've got what would be considered pretty extensive experience in the mobile space and the mobile building space specifically, it's probably safe to say that I was sort of a desirable catch, you know, for companies like Wistar, where I could not only help manage the monetization aspects of these things, but I could also grow them out of France into more regions.

[00:24:03] I had a pretty strong network of connections to kind of help things move in, shake a little better and faster than they were able to do. So that started probably when you say, you know, I know a lot of people and a lot of people know me and the recognition and and sort of those types of things start to kick in. And it probably really started with Wistar, this company. We started doing so. Well, and becoming so cash rich so fast that it sort of exploded into this really cool marketing machine, right? We we knew that the strategy here was not only to get our our services and our products into more countries, which we did, but we needed the traffic and we needed, you know, so that's where the program came in. And we had a feel for you, which is the brand. I think most people, I'm sure. And so I sort of became the face of the feel for you brand where it was my job to get out there and get the traffic. We knew now that we had sort of perfected a way to monetize it, at least at the time, the most effectively and efficiently as possible. And now the affiliates, we needed the people to start throwing traffic our way. And we were going to clean up and we did. And that's exactly what happened.

[00:25:27] Every bit of it get we monetized it the best way possible and we had a really great run for several years, you know, and and that's where all the interesting things, the trade shows and those types of things really do have a powerful impact on not only, you know, the brand strength, but really finding all that new business, which which has changed quite a bit as of late because the models are changing, the regulations are changing. But of course, where and that's that's a whole other thing. But where are we now? So that was then. So, yeah, right around 2016, another, you know, huge sort of regulation. I don't know, a shift kind of came and that was because, ah, yeah, you know, the affiliates are getting smarter, but with that came sort of more devious things. And so the affiliates, a lot of them, not all of them, but quite a few found ways to, I don't know, fudge the system a bit. And every time regulation changes came, which at this point they were coming almost every three months from different carriers and different countries, affiliates were finding smart ways to work around them so that some of those roadblocks for them were nonexistent in certain cases.

[00:26:49] And it became for me and my team, for that matter, a a constant struggle, because every time regulations and compliance, those rules are broken. We don't just get a slap on the wrist. We get hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines.

[00:27:06] And so when you're spending now, the better part of your days, you know, fighting fraud, visiting governments, trying to plead your case that this wasn't me, this wasn't me, this was some guy in his bedroom, you know, doing funny things with his traffic. It became more about that and less about just doing my job and making money. I remember that. Yeah. And so that's it. So, you know, again and it was another one of the things similar to the sort of the twist Fox thing, it's know another four or five years goes by and it's looking tough. A lot of the businesses in the mobile billing space are starting to close their doors or shrink to almost nothing. And that was happening with Wister as well. So I felt it was time to start looking. Since I'd been through this already, I had to kind of plan ahead.

[00:27:58] I knew where this was going. Sure. Everything was right. Right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It just this cycle. Right. And and I'm happy to say that the Wistar team is kicking ass right now and things really actually worked out really well for them. But we'll save that for another story. But it all went well. But I knew that.

[00:28:21] There was so when it was time for me to leave Wister, there was a couple of days I needed to look at this and one was, do I just go find another sort of. Whatever the hot thing is right now and try to ride that wave for another four or five years until it's time for me to, you know, make another move, or do I kind of look for something where there's a real long term potential?

[00:28:47] And the reason animes made sense to me when I started talking to Martin about working with new media services. The one thing that always made sense is, you know, from from the service provider side of things. Right. You know, when when you talk about the gold rush, you know, it wasn't the people who found the gold who are making all the money. It was the hotels who brought him there. It was the trains who brought him there to the gold. You know, it was provided and that kind of tell me about it.

[00:29:19] Yeah.

[00:29:21] So so this is what Media Services was was a way to know that no matter what our job was, just to always provide what people needed, as long as we stayed in, I guess stayed on top of what those demands were. And we kept our thumb on the pulse of the network we were a part of in terms of digital media and both mainstream and adult, then we would be able to find a way to always give them what they needed. And right in where now as an outsourcing company for, you know, and then I think calling ourselves an outsourcing company is is just a really sort of dumbed down way to bundle up all the things that we do. But it is like what you said in our description earlier, we're the sort of group of people who will tailor make solutions to best suit your business needs. And in this world now, where full of startup companies and even just some of the medium level companies who can't quite get past that certain point of growth, they need that extra set of eyes, ears and hands and minds to kind of help push them forward and, you know, at at better rates in the whole night. Know, sure. Outsourcing right. To do this simply because it's it's budget friendly. But we wanted to make it a little bit more interesting. So, yeah, that's it. So here we are now going on for years with new media services and for once here, four years have gone by. And I don't feel like our our business is being threatened by anything. Things haven't slowed down at all. It's only sped up. It just keeps getting better because. You know, without tooting my horn, I mean, I was right, this was the right place to be. This is, you know, with the way the world changes and grows and shifts, we we strategically put ourselves in a position to kind of facilitate that. And that's the best we can do. So, yeah, that's I think I pretty much covered it all in terms of my career, but that's kind of where what brought me here.

[00:31:35] Ok, and you kind of covered some of this, but now what benefits? Why should somebody come in and work with new media services now?

[00:31:46] Well, yeah, I think it comes down to a few things, depending on, you know, if your local staff in the Philippines, the for me, the obvious reason is the growth potential. We are we have this sort of mentality of making sure we take care of our people, not just by doing the things we supposed to do, but but going beyond that. So providing that facility now that building. But we pay better than everybody. We look after you. We we help with they have kids who need school education. They need extra vehicles. We have a bunch of company cars. We provide transportation for all of our employees. We have our own busses and vans that will take you to and from work. We try to really go above and beyond what's needed and for for a lot of reasons. One, you know, this now means you've got there's no reason for you not to come to work. You we've got you covered and we created this sort of family thing. So that's that's the you know, the local staff are given all the things that are not commonly given in a place like the Philippines. And so they feel that they want to work there. They don't want to leave. So our turnover is really low considering we have over a thousand staff. It's shockingly low. It's good. And then, yeah, it it's great. And then outside of that, you know, it's always been this sort of it's really neat with this company because of the way we have to be so malleable in what we do. It really lets you be creative. I come in to the company with one sort of idea of what I was going to do and what I was what I was meant to bring to the table. And it's changed a lot for the better where I realized, oh, so we've got so much resources available to us that every time I have a stupid idea, we can try it.

[00:33:45] That's the same. And so that's awesome.

[00:33:48] And that's what it is. Awesome. And and I would do and for that matter, anybody who joins the team from not just locally, but we have we have international staff all over Europe and America. You know, these guys, they say, OK, well, I just had a dumb idea for an app. I had a dumb idea for a website. I have an idea for this and that. And OK, well, we've got the resources to do it. If it's we're not going to make it a priority unless we can we can back it up with something, but we'll check it out. And a lot of time, you know, nine out of ten times, they're bad ideas. They don't go anywhere. But we we always there's always that one drive. And if you do that enough times. Right. Which you hundreds of times a year, just ideas all day long they stick. And so, yeah, that's kind of where it's gone. And that's what I love about this company, to be able to have sort of that freedom to throw stuff out there and the ability to exercise it.

[00:34:49] And when when we say no idea is a bad idea, we actually mean it, which that's cool.

[00:34:58] Well, it seems like it comes from the top. Martin Smartens seems like a very special guy.

[00:35:05] Yeah. Yeah, he is. And, you know, I think he had always sort of made sure of that along the way, that he was able to provide that sort of environment and comfort level. This wasn't something that just came when there was enough money to do it. It was always this way. Sure, everybody really felt like they were a part of this, even when there weren't two pennies to rub together. So it's been really cool.

[00:35:29] Mm hmm. And we talked about this a little bit before the call. But how's the virus treating you, Joy?

[00:35:39] The virus? What virus? What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. I thought about that. You know, maybe we'll just skip that. But, uh, part of life right up.

[00:35:50] It is interesting. Well, I'll tell you what, so we don't have to get too deep into it. But if, you know, if the focus of this conversation is meant to kind of circle back to what we do, it actually is kind of interesting that so this will give you some insight on what what I think is going on in our world right now. So me personally, I work from home anyways. So this is a huge stretch to be stuck at home doing things like this. Like I said, to the big difference. Yeah, the big difference is just having the kids home and doing the home schooling and trying to kind of rework our day to day is a little bit. But it's so it's not having, thankfully, a tremendous effect on us. And I kind of have been doing my best to step back and look at it like, well, if this is what has to happen right now, at least I'm here at home with my kids all the time. There's a lot of things and a lot of time with and experiences that I'm getting with. And I never would have had and they're young, you know, three, six and eight, so this is a this is a time that really, you know, sort of developmental ages. It's a rare opportunity as a parent, I think.

[00:36:59] Oh, I mean, absolutely. It is a question. And so, you know, I'm trying to keep that sort of positive spin on it as well, because more often than not, it is it's challenging. So sure. As far as that goes, that's where we stand at home with the virus. But interestingly enough, when the quarantine started going into like a full global effect, of course, we were all worried. And we've got this brand new office that just opened a few months ago. And we're thinking, holy shit, nobody's nobody's going to use the office. This great piece of work we built in and now it's going to be empty for the rest of the year. It was crazy. And so right from the fact that did happen. Now the office has been closed for, I think almost seven, six weeks or something like that, five, six weeks. What ended up happening was business started booming. And I'll explain why. I don't think we got into it too much. But one of our biggest sort of items on the menu is our services. I know you mentioned it when you were describing the company earlier, but we do support services, customer support as as a lot of outsourcing sort of call center operations do, and so do a chat service.

[00:38:22] And a lot of times this is on social media or dating sites. You will have companies like mine engage with the users to kind of get members of the sites just a little more active while the sites are establishing themselves. So I get my get right. So that type of thing. What's happening now is, I guess what people are stuck at home.

[00:38:49] They're spending a lot of time in these chat environments, you know, through social media, through sure. You might you might be in an online gambling online poker room. And there's these little chat rooms in there where people are engaging more and we help facilitate a lot of those chats when things go quiet or they are getting boring, will jump in and say, hey, guys, what's going on? You know, whatever. So it is these chat services are really valuable to online businesses because keeping people interested and engaged is what it's all about. And it just blew up. It has completely blown up. Some of our biggest clients are the dating sites. And I'm hearing, you know, I don't know how long this lasts. Eventually, people who are at home, you know, especially the ones losing their jobs, aren't going to be able to afford these subscriptions for much longer. But Caressa first month and a half, two months has been awesome for us. I know it's great for a lot of people. Yeah, but we we've been really lucky. So we're working at home. Our business has gone up nearly, I think 15 percent. And it's a complete it's a total reflection of what's happening in the dating and online engagements industry. So, yeah, it's it's the virus in that in that regard dress has been I don't like to say it's a good thing, but it has definitely made the business that somebody is making money on it.

[00:40:21] At least, you know, it might as well be. Yeah.

[00:40:24] Yeah. I mean, the circumstances are weird and I don't I don't you know, I want this to stop tomorrow.

[00:40:30] Well, nobody wants nobody wants to profit from it.

[00:40:32] But at the very least, you know, at least it's good reality, which is. Which is good. Yeah. Yeah. Business business is good here too. So that's that's a good. Good.

[00:40:44] Well, Joey, you know, it's always a pleasure, I always enjoy talking to you, whether it be in person at a show or, you know, or or on Skype or or whatever, but I quite like I'd like to I'd like to thank you so much for being on Adult Site Broker Talk, and I hope to get you back for a future show.

[00:41:05] Thanks again, Bruce.

[00:41:07] Thank you very much. Everybody listening out there. I go back many years with Bruce. I have a feeling this the show is actually going to be awesome. He is not only a great talker, but one of the smarter guys I've been lucky enough to sit and and chat with. I always pick up little pearls of wisdom from Bruce when I, when I, when I whenever I get the chance. So I encourage everybody to keep listening. And thank you again, Bruce. Thanks a lot. Thanks. My brother.

[00:41:34] My brother today is part two of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Keep your website design up to date. Do a redesign from time to time. People will tend to think your site is the same as ever and click out of it without even looking if something doesn't change. So keep it fresh and up to date times change. So should your Web site look at what your competitors are doing and see what it is that you really like emulate success. If you know a site to be particularly successful, look at what it is they're doing and do some of the same things. I'm not saying copy it. I'm just suggesting you improve your site by looking around a bit. You've got to keep up with the times or you'll end up being left behind. Also, keep an eye on your competition and make sure you're offering everything on your site that they are. And more don't just look at their design, but make sure your offers are good and you're competitive. The same goes for your content. Do you ever wonder why one site does well and others don't check out the competition's content? What are they doing that you're not doing? Be willing to make changes. People can understand why they're losing sales to a competitor, yet competitors clearly doing everything better. Emulate success. Make sure everything on your website works well. Make sure all of your links work properly. Check them on a regular basis. If things don't work, you're going to lose customers. People are not patient these days. People's attention spans are like that of a gnat. They click out immediately and go on to the next result in Google. If they don't find what they're looking for, if the site is hard to navigate or if things don't work, check all of your internal scripts and plug ins and make sure they're updated regularly as well. We'll talk more about the subject next week. And next week we'll be talking to Holly Rupert of Playboy.

[00:43:34] And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guests. Joey can talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Freep.