1342: Managing Annoying People: Solving Everyday Challenges with Bold Ideas and a Sense of Humor and the Ultimate Solution for Home Cooks Ilean-Pan with Ilene Marcus

Robert Plank 0:01 Ilene Marcus is here. She's the author of managing annoying people, seven proven tactics to maximize team performance. And Ilene is here to help us out with those entrepreneurial struggles and also give us some insights and tell her about some of these fun and amazing products that she's created, such as the Ilene pan now, Ilene is a pattern disruptor. She's a decision Catalyst, and she is a change agent. She disrupts patterns and catalyzes decisions. So you can lead with Audacity. So it's always great to hear about what someone else is created, what someone else has struggled with, and whether that's struggling with problems or people, or getting attention or making money. You know, life is full of problems. That's okay. We're entrepreneurs. We go and attack those things. And Ilene is here to help us out. So Ilene, glad to be speaking with you right now.

Ilene Marcus 0:52 Glad to be here. Robert, thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 0:55 Happy to have you. And so what did I leave out of that introduction there? What has you just so jazzed up, passionate, excited right now,

Ilene Marcus 1:02 while the Ilene pan has me jazzed up excited, this is a sloped frying pan that solves the problem of my peppers are burning and my onions aren't ready, and I put them in too soon and my whole meal will be screwed up. So it's actually a frying pan with a patent pending that cooks in almost Well, three different temperatures in the same pan on your stove with no other equipment, just right on your stove. So I'm pretty jazzed about that, because, you know, when you gave me that introduction, I help people solve problems. Everyone's got problems. People, places, things, regulations, you know. And usually it's not the big problems to get you those you kind of know how to sit back and think about for their experts, but it's some of these everyday problems when you're trying to get the space to deal with the big things that really keep us going in circles. So I think the Ilene pan for those people that don't cook and realize, Oh my God, I've blown my whole year's salary on Uber Eats, or people like me in their 60s live alone. Hint, hint, hint, no joke, people in their 60s that live alone and say, like, I don't want to cook in three frying pans. You know, I want a nice meal, but one frying pan is all I want to clean that. Hopefully, when it gets to market, you'll all get one, and it will be a disruptor in the market to have a sloped frying pan?

Robert Plank 2:22 Well, very nice. What's a nice physical manifestation of your efforts? Of saying, Well, hey, I've picked up all these skills over the years, and there's this problem that we all have. I mean, I think about that problem all the time, right? If I need to cook eggs and something else, it's like, I cook the eggs last because those quick, quickest, and I ended up, like, dirty into frying pans. I don't want to, like, cook in one and take the stuff out and put the eggs in. It's already way too hot. And so this sounds like one of those, those issues where we've all had this problem, but no one's really thought of the solution. And then the bridge to be gap there of this sloped frying pan. It's, it's, I mean, it seems it's so simple, right along the lines of, like, an air fryer or George former grill. Like, okay, the like, the concept sounds simple enough, but have you had any trouble in explaining it? Because, like, I feel like I can visualize a slow frying pan, but then when you say, Okay, there's, like, three tiers of it, I'm like, Okay, you lost me a little bit. So, like, what is, what is this? Is there a way to understand in simple terms?

Ilene Marcus 3:23 Yeah, very simply that it's like, think about a bunny hill if you ski. Or think about, you know, it's just a very small, regular frying pan, but instead of flat, it goes like that, you know, the the the surface, so the technology is underneath, you don't see it. That allows it to slope. That lets these three zones so it's flat. You can use your spatula all the way through. You know, I like to talk about steak. I happen to be a meat eater. And, you know, I like my steak, you know, pretty rare. My my son in law liked his very well done so. And usually we share a steak. So instead of like putting it on the grill or in the pan, having to cut it in half and worrying about scratching the bottom and getting the juices out on this flat, sloped surface, his cooks blower, you know, to the flame, and mine cooks up here. I take it out two temperatures in one pan, you know, and the steak is perfect. And then we cut it, and the juices are there. So does that make more sense? So it's a very simple looking thing, and you know, you hit on a few things that I love. One is, I cannot tell you how many people told me this can't be done metallurgy and heat retention and blah, blah, blah, and the big providers. And I'm like, this is a novelty item that you got exactly, you know, I want to cook. A lot of people make British breakfast. I want to cook Irish breakfast. I want to make it all in one pan, you know. And I don't want to have to keep on. I call it babysitting my pan, you know, my grandmother lived on top of the stove, right? Everything she cooked was turned I you know. Know, even though I cook, I want to run in and put a load of laundry, check on the dog, you know, go pick up the mail, whatever I want to do while I'm doing I don't want to sit the pan, so it's a flat pan. Does that make sense? I mean, slope, but it's one surface.

Robert Plank 5:14 I'm getting there almost. But one thing I'm making a mental note of is I like the storytelling that's built in, right? And you see this all the time with the the demonstrations, the infomercials, the as seen on TV, right? You want to sneak in the what it is and the scientific principles. But what's way more exciting is I make the stakes with my son or by, you know, grandma lived on the stove, so that's and we can all relate to that, connect with that, and so, so better to help me understand. Like, you say it's slow, like, wouldn't that mean that the food would like slide down?

Ilene Marcus 5:44 Well, that's the proprietary angle that I got the exact right temperature of the angle that it doesn't like. I had a friend last night who was, I have a few beta testers, and she's making chicken cutlets. So she showed me how she put the oil in. So the oil does pool a little at the bottom, but that's the proprietary nature. I just wanted to tell you something, and I just lost it. Doesn't the food slide. God, I hate when that happens. But the point of it being that it it's interesting, because what happens is, you know, for me, I had a stove that was crooked, right? I got, I moved to this house 20 years ago. The house was 20 years old, so the house was 40, you know, by the time I moved here, was 20 years old. Over the last 20 years, the slow the stove got more and more crooked. Now the floor was plum, which means horizontal and flat, but the stove was like an old enamel stove with those coils. So two years ago, I got a new, you know, flat top, glass top, elect, I'm electric, electric range. And all of a sudden I realized I missed the slope. I missed the fact that some of it was cooking differently than the others. So I knew to put the thick chicken cutlets down and the thin ones up. You know, the meatballs after cooking, I can move them up. They didn't sit in the grease like that. So when I, you know, I went because I'm a problem solver, that's what I do for a living, right? Help you take your daily frustration projects you can't move forward, you know, problems a team is having and coming to consensus. So what did I do? I created the frying pan to solve my own problem. And yeah, so it's one pan. I could have brought it, but the technology is, it, it, that's the proprietary angle that. That's what it does. And here I'll give you a data point. Every click on your stove, whether it's electric or gas, is 25 degrees, medium, medium low, medium high. Everything is 25 degrees. So what this does is, you could be cooking on medium, whatever, but the part of the pan that's lower down is about 50 degrees, two clicks hotter than the other side. That makes sense,

Robert Plank 7:54 yeah, and I didn't even know that, right? Whenever I cook, I just eyeball. I'm like, Oh, this feels like it's half. This feels like a quarter. So you learn something new every day, right? Every click is 25 degrees. And then of these, these three levels you have, each one is 50 degrees. And is it clearly labeled? Like, is it idiot proof enough to be like, okay, like, I can easily see the colder and the warmer sides.

Ilene Marcus 8:17 I need to say that, because it is not idiot proof. So I do a whole nurture series, but it will be eventually. But what we try to do as an entrepreneur is something called an MVP, which is not the most valuable player, but the minimum viable product. And the idea between behind a minimal viable product is to get the most functionality to prove your product without spending a lot of money. So in the um finalized, it will have, you know, hot end, low end. It will be labeled and stamped differently, or there'll be some gradation in this. It just, you know, think about it like this. Take a regular frying pan, turn it on its side a little. It's sloped. That's what it looks like. It just doesn't need your hand to turn it. It's already turned. So it really helps when you pour grease and everything. Does that make sense?

Robert Plank 9:04 It does, yeah, and you know, you're you're mentioning it like one of the most important business ideas ever is validating your idea, right? You can have this really great idea, and if you want to get investors or get people interested in it, you can talk about features and benefits all day long. But what we all really want is, is it validated? Do people use it? Do people want it? If you say, Well, hey, I've sold 10,000 units. I've got a list of 100,000 people interested in it, it's like, hey, that's way more important than anything. Because if I say, it's a great idea, well, that's just my opinion, right? Or if I say, Oh, I've heard a few friends of mine say they want this. Well, that's just in my own little circle, but for you to be like, Hey, I tried it, I tested it, I made the prototype. I made the first version of it, and I sold all these units. Got all this attention. That's way better storytelling, right? That's way better marketing. And so as far as the like you say that you've used it, other people. Have used it. What's been the reaction to it so far? You know, it's very interesting.

Ilene Marcus 10:05 Some people are really drawn by like, the George Foreman concept. And I actually did a tribute in one of my blogs to George Foreman about the fat dripping down, right? They don't even care about the different temperatures. They care that they can, like, push the food up, get the fat out and use the frame farm town without going to the sink and losing half the food when you try to drain it or trying a cover. So some people like that aspect of it. Some people are the 30 year olds my daughter's friends keep on sending me screenshots, right? They're cooking like fried rice with carrots and peas and eggs and rice, you know. And they really like the fact that, like, they don't have to worry about timing. They can put everything in the frying pan, and eventually it mixes together. For me, I really like, and there are a bunch of people that really like the fact that I can make my meals more efficient by putting the ingredients that take different cooking time in at the same time into the same pan. So it's really interesting. I'm finding it's getting very validated. And what's interesting is a lot of people who go camping say we always do this at a campsite, because usually in a campsite, you have one big pot or something you put on, so you have to naturally push the stuff up, and they're like, and we always wish we had one at home. So this is perfect for that. And I love what you said before. It is a physical manifestation of an idea. And you're right, the proof is in the pudding. My beta testers like it. The investors I spoke to love it. You know, I have some interest from some cookware companies for licensure. So now I'm just really focusing on, you know, making my first run and finding my supply chain partners.

Robert Plank 11:38 Well, very cool. And so you're seeing so many great things here, right? That you're looking into licensing. And there seems to be, like, the constant focus on what type of people will use this, right? You say, like, campers, for example. And like, there's, there's so many, like, just possibilities that even here in community, we're swirling around in the idea, right? You think about the well, like the cookbook kind of ideas, or you try to get it in Walmart. And so as far as, like, the kind of the the timeline, or like your master plan, like, what are you doing first? Because it seems like there could be like, 50 different things, or is it all? You do it all in parallel and see what, what happens first? Like, how do you even plan something like this?

Ilene Marcus 12:17 I talk about this a lot as a manager who helps people make decisions. You know, as a consultant that helps people move through, I come from the school of many pots of boiling at the same time. So there are people right who cook the appetizer, then they cook the main dish, then they cook the side dish, not me. And if you're in my kitchen, or if you're in my office, there's always a million projects in a million stages, and it looks like, how will it ever happen? And then it comes together, and that's all part and parcel of it. Because, you know, take for example, you know, part of my customer validation, I found that people who own something like hexad or Kathleen, they're not buying my frying pan at a high price point because it doesn't match their set. They like their pots for a lot, for a reason, and they want to keep their kitchen neat and clean. They love the concept, but it just doesn't match their esthetic, and they'll learn to live without it. Hence the licensure to those companies came about, right? You know, this might be something you're you want, and you know when? And that's a good deal for me. So I'm hoping so it all kind of happens, and that's the trick of really being a good decision maker and a good entrepreneur. Do you hear something? You have to test it and decide, do I act on it or not? Because you have to make choices. So while there are a lot of pots boiling, I'm very strategic about which ones I keep on filling and tending to and making go to the flame. So yes, hopefully I have it all. You know, contact at Walmart, contact QVC, some, maybe some meetings with some big suppliers. And, you know, the big trick is really finding a supply chain of, you know, the the base frying pan, and then what I call my adaptation, or my assembly, call different things in different worlds. So, yeah, you have to be very comfortable with the back and forth and flow while making sure you're really moving. I don't like sports analogies, but I use them moving the ball down the court or down the field,

Robert Plank 14:12 sure. But I do like the cook any analogy. I do like the idea of boiling all the pots, because do you think we all have all we all have goals, right? Like you listed out all these really specific goals, and we all have the irons in the fire. We all have all these things going. And there's that thinking of, well, I don't want to be that person you just described. Where you like you cook one thing you cook one thing that takes too long. Like, life is too fast paced these days. I won't grow fast enough. I won't make enough money fast enough. But then there's the idea of, I can sure be overextended, I can be spread too thin and have too much of the ADHD. But I feel like there's somewhere in the middle where it makes sense, and also maybe push yourself somewhat where that way you're kind of like, you know, growing yourself as a person and accomplishing even more. And. So as far as it relates to you and like your project management and dealing with people, like, what kind of insights have you discovered over the years that are paying off now? Like, what is it about, like, dealing with people or time management, or anything like that that you feel may be outspoken about, that people just aren't talking about these days?

Ilene Marcus 15:21 Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the basic thing people don't talk about, especially, you know, now with the new emphasis on mental health and kindness, and you know, how we talk to our people, is fact based decision making, right? Like I gave you the data about how 25 degrees per click, this is the things you can cook. This is what works, right? People want to make decisions from what they think, what they feel, and that keeps them spinning. Instead of saying, let's go out there and get the information. Because I could have been like, Oh, I'm producing this product and I'm going to sell it for 129, 99 and then I realized these higher end people are never buying it because it doesn't match their cookware. So it's about fact based. If I have an idea, I have to try to get information and data about it as relevant as I can, so I know discard it and get it out of my way so the road is clear, and people get really cluttered with either the wrong information or too much information, or they worry too much about what other people think or feelings. And while those, those things are important, and there's a way to make decisions kindly, the most important thing is to really be looking at the data and have an informed decision. And your gut includes the data source, right? You have a feeling, not if the data is here and your gut, you know the data is here, and your guts here. They have to be somewhat enmeshed. But your intuition is a very important source, especially in cooking. You know, when I know which pot, what's going to turn out good or Well, that's what the recipe called for. But I don't think that really needs any any more salt, you know, something like that. So I think it's about using facts. And, you know, I've been watching the funniest, it's not so funny, but I've been watching the documentary on spot it's not a documentary, it's a series on Spotify. I guess it's real. Have you seen it on Netflix? It's not how Spotify. And there's one scene where, you know, these guys are in business, and one guy has already invested 10 million kroner, you know, almost how many dollars, and he says to his younger partner, why? How did you learn how to get the music rights? You know, this is, we can't get the music rights. He goes, I Googled it, and the guy just cracks up, right? Googling it, it's a start, but it is not the answer. You have to go deeper. You have to talk to people who know. You have to look at secondary data. You have to look at comparables googling. It's a start, but it is not the answer. Does that make sense?

Robert Plank 17:46 Yeah, you have multiple kind of angles of attack there that you don't rely entirely on emotions, entirely on the surface level Googling, but that can give you the genesis of some leads, right? You can say, Well, hey, that gives me somewhat good ideas to look into. And it seems like this is discussed a lot with like, chat GPT, especially, right? You go and use chat GPT for the ideas, but then go and verify it, and maybe gives you ideas for new things to look into. Like, if you were to say, Okay, well, I've got this Ilene pan like, how do I go in and look into to getting the patent that has the patent already been created, and what do I need to know about the supply chain and suppliers? But you wouldn't just stop there. You'd say, okay, great, now I need to go maybe talk to some people, and I'm better informed about what questions to be asking that person, because I did that preliminary research, so it makes quite a lot of sense. And so you've done so much, you've accomplished so much, right? You have the Ilene pan and you have this book managing annoying people, seven proven tactics to maximize team performance with forward written by Mr. Rudy Giuliani himself. And as far as maybe the the missing question in our conversation, right? Well, we've only met a couple of times, so I don't know you inside and out, and I might not know the exact perfect question to ask you in this moment. So what question should I be asking you right now? I just don't know what to ask you.

Ilene Marcus 19:06 You mean about the book in general, or just in general, in general,

Robert Plank 19:09 or it could be the book, or it could be anything else.

Ilene Marcus 19:12 Well, I don't know what the right question is, but I do know that when you and I first met, you asked me, how did you get Giuliani? How much did you pay for the Giuliani forward you think were your exact words? And I looked at you, said, Pay What are you talking about?

Robert Plank 19:27 The reason I asked is because he used to do all the CAMEO stuff. I was like, Okay, maybe that was part of it. But my understanding,

Ilene Marcus 19:32 the reason I'm bringing this up as a thing is that you know, like, I think you know, for me, I think the story is one of hard work and perseverance, right? Like, you know, it's, it's it nothing, you know, I didn't come from a family with wealth. I didn't have generational wealth. I had to create my own way, and, you know, make my, you know, pay for college and graduate school and all that stuff. And in each step, it's about looking about like, what are the relationships I have? And how I can leverage them, or what I'm doing. And I used to think, like that was a finite path, right? Like, I'll be a public administrator. Oh, look, I got my book done, but it's not I get the book. I get the Giuliani thing. I do more speaking, then I start to talk about community building, then I start to create a product. So I think the question is, you know, for most people, is like, what you know, what I don't know how to say this, like, your end game isn't your end game, right? Just keep going. You never know what you're going to find when you go down any of those paths. So I think that's, you know, a big part of my story that I didn't really call it that, but I had to keep on reinventing myself, whether it was about the situations I was in, or what I enjoy doing, or health reasons, you know, could have been a lot of different things. So I think you know, the road to like, being happy, and I don't even call it successful. I call it relevant and purposeful in life, is to keep fresh and keep you know, finding where those roads are leading you. I don't know if that answered your question, but

Robert Plank 21:06 well, yeah, and it leads to other questions, which are the best kinds of answers, right? And it's like the I'm always trying to wrap my head around this idea of, like, you and I met on LinkedIn, right and, and that's kind of that's a step in the process that requires, like, quite a bit of a leap of faith, and it requires kind of like, doing all this work up front. Like, Wait, who's this lady, Ilene. Why am I meeting with her? And you can't be like, I'm only going to meet with Ilene, because that'll lead me to this. You have to always be, like, making new friends, right? It's like, it's like going to parties, or if you have friends, and they have friends, it's like, in your best interest to just kind of befriend someone new without any kind of intention. And then you said something a moment ago, of like, well, you build up all these relationships, and then some of your relationships will then help you get to that next level, or to get to those future goals. But you don't, you won't know who you need, and so you're about to get that step. And then you, like, look at the inventory of who you've been talking to. And like, does that idea ever kind of just mess with your head or drive you crazy? Like you can't be all self serving, but you also feel like, well, I don't want to just, like, give away all my time. So how do you reconcile that? As far as networking relationship building, which is so important, but there's this weird, like, logical, emotional disconnect to all the constant work involved, isn't there?

Ilene Marcus 22:23 Yeah, I come from the school of I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But I have found, especially as I get more popular, you know, people are always pitching me, pitching me right, and what happens is, those are the people I don't really want to be associated with. Right? If you're going to upfront say, I can do this for you. I can do that for you. You don't know what I need. I don't know what you need. How about I think we have something in common, or I think, you know, from what I see in your profile, there's things I'd like to talk to you about, and then you could see where there's value added. So I think for me, and I understand it, you know, because my book is on managing annoying people, and those people think they're saving your time and they're not wasting your time, and they're getting right to the point. But there is something about people who don't know you and are saying, let's get into business together, you know, let's do this without showing me what they've done or who they know. So I think you you know you have to really once again, it goes back to high level research, gut feeling, looking at your connections. But I do believe, you know, we're all put on this earth for a reason. So a five minute conversation, you know, is always a plan, always a plan. It's always time to be kind to someone in the supermarket. Have a nice LinkedIn conversation. You don't have to take it further, but you at least have to open the door always,

Robert Plank 23:40 yeah, at least do somewhat of that, that ration of the kindness and the communication and but also avoiding the other extreme of saying, like, well, if someone's just blasting the same message to 1000s of people, including me, they've spent 0.1 seconds on me. At least get to know me and what I want. And if you can say, Well, hey, this thing, it can help you, because it looked into you like that's different than just like same old. And we all get those right the page long message on LinkedIn. And so you're saying that it's worth it to have this little five minute conversation to see what's happening. And so we mentioned that there's the Ilene pan, which the Ruby website at Ilene dash pan.com and then the very excellent web page that explains the story of the Ilene pan is Ilene marcus.com/about/the-Ilene-pan you can join the wait list, you can see what it looks like, and you can find out how it saves time and effort. It's the perfect pan. It aligns with modern cooking trends and so much more. And then on LinkedIn, you are linkedin.com/in/Ilene, Marcus, and then that very excellent book you mentioned managing annoying people, just to squeeze in a little bit at the end here, like, are there, like types of annoying people, or what's more or less, the the. Elevator Pitch for this book. Why is it? It's so important and unique.

Ilene Marcus 25:04 The most important thing is to know your triggers and who annoys you so you can manage yourself. Because when you get annoyed, you are clearly annoying others. So I like to say your reactions speak louder than your actions. And the high level thing there is, what have I learned is that, you know, people are annoying. They talk with their mouth open. They talk loud, whatever. People remind you of a brother, a sister, a babysitter you didn't like. But the people that trigger the most emotion are people that serve as mirrors for us. They either have what we want or have what we don't want. They remind us of something in ourselves we don't like, and those are the people that usually make you act out the most, which is why you need to manage yourself and know your triggers.

Robert Plank 25:50 Ooh, that is powerful, and that's deep, and that's so important. And we've all been there, right? We've been projecting, or this person reminds us of that, and it seems so silly and so irrational, but the way through is to check out this book, managing annoying people and identify those people. Identify those triggers, that way you can react and respond differently because too often annoying and sometimes generational, challenging personalities drain energy, zap productivity and undermine your morale and sense of efficacy as a manager. So instead of allowing these people to dictate your mood and the tenor of your office interactions, let business guru and leadership expert Ilene Marcus show you how to identify and manage these dynamics for the benefit of everyone involved that book is managing annoying people, and the Ilene pan is what we want to you to really check out, which solves the challenge of cooking multiple ingredients at different temperatures in the same pan, as seen on season 21 of the blocks. So that's Ilene marcus.com you can check out the Ilene pan at Ilene pan.com and the book is managing annoying people. And before I let you go, Miss Ilene, it's time for the scary part of the podcast where I try to put you on the spot and I ask for a quote or lesson that has served you in any sort of sense that you can pass on to us. So what do you have for a quote or lesson.

Ilene Marcus 27:21 Just because it's not working doesn't mean it's not working. Everything good takes time, and you might have to jiggle a little and you know, and zig and zag, but just because it's not working doesn't mean it's not working. So stay the course, and you will get there.

Robert Plank 27:38 Very nice, inspiring problem solve. We've been speaking with Ilene Marcus, author of managing annoying people, seven proven tactics to maximize team performance. And that very amazing kitchen device is called the Ilene pan. And because her name is Ilene, which is I L E N, E, the pan is the I L E A N pan is in you you lean. So it's the Ilene pan. Check it out. Hopefully, by the time you watch this, this will be in stores and Target or Walmart or who knows what, but you can keep up tabs with that at Ilene pan.com cook smarter, not harder. And it's been fabulous and quite a blast, and an adventure, a journey, speaking with you today, Miss Ilene, so thanks for being here.

Ilene Marcus 28:21 Thanks for having me. All right.