The Adult Marshmallow Test: Can You Survive Owning a Business?

What does it really take to succeed as a small business owner? In this episode of The Overlap Podcast, hosts Keith and Sid dive deep into the gritty realities of entrepreneurship, likening it to the adult version of the marshmallow test—a test of delayed gratification, persistence, and strategic thinking. Drawing from over 50 years of combined experience, they unpack the highs and lows of building a business, from managing cash flow to shaping a thriving company culture. With candid stories, surprising statistics, and actionable insights, this episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned leaders alike.

What You Will Learn

• How owning a business tests your ability to delay gratification and stay persistent.
• Practical strategies for managing cash flow to avoid becoming a failure statistic.
• Why culture matters—and how to intentionally shape it as a business owner.
• The hidden pitfalls of comparing yourself to others in the entrepreneurial journey.

Key Topics Discussed

• The Marshmallow Test Analogy: What does a childhood experiment reveal about the mindset needed for business success?
• Business Failure Stats: Unpacking the stark reality—why do 50% of businesses fail within five years?
• Cash Flow Conundrums: When to borrow, when to buy, and why cash is king in the early years.
• .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

Keith (00:00):
I spent

Sid (00:00):
30 years building it.
Building some equity.
Yeah.
And things and then rolling it up.
Yeah.

Keith (00:06):
Yeah.

Sid (00:08):
The adult version of the marshmallow test.
I think that's owning a business.
I think, and there's lots of other things.

Keith (00:13):
Oh man, that's good.
Tim, there's your one line clip.
The adult version of the marshmallow test.

Sid (00:25):
Welcome to another episode of the overlap podcast, where we dive into
the intersections of work, fitness,family, faith, and leadership, because
here at the overlap podcast, we believethat growth in one area of your life
fuels growth in all areas of your life.
Um, and really that's why Keith and Iare committed to taking the lessons we've
learned from business, breaking themdown into simple, actionable insights and

(00:48):
empower small business leaders to thrive.
We appreciate you guys tuning in foranother episode and, uh, hopefully
you're getting good value out of this.
And if you are, please, uh, likeand share with all of your friends.
Yeah.
Help them live the overlap life.
My God, that sounds corny, but it just,I just, it just popped in my head.

(01:09):
So I figured it's along with our mission.
Might as well go at it.
Lift the overlap life.

Keith (01:16):
Other than letting it lap over your belt.

Sid (01:19):
Don't do that.

Keith (01:20):
Don't do that.

Sid (01:21):
I've been there

Keith (01:22):
some.

Sid (01:22):
Have you?
Yeah.
Oh, is that, is that when you met Scott?

Keith (01:25):
Yeah,

Sid (01:25):
it is.
And that's when he saved your life?
He saved my life.
Do you want to share?
No, I'll cry.
It'll be tears.
There will be.
Yeah, I see.
I've, I've seen it a lot.
When Keith starts talking abouthow Scott Miller saved his life.
You always need people.
You need people like that.
Sometimes I have, I havesome of those folks.

(01:46):
I have some of those folks.
So what are you up to?
Oh man.
Uh, look, we're, I'm just going to keepreiterating this in the podcast, each
episode, uh, when we started this, um.
Keith was basically a vagabond,you know, like you just roaming
around the Eastern shore of MobileBay doing whatever he wanted.

(02:08):
And, uh, many people would ask me,what does Keith do for a living?
And I was like, I honestly, I don't know.
But now he's workingmore than I, than I am.
And, uh, yeah, I don't see him very often.
So.
Back to the question,what have you been up to?
Yeah, take notice.
I'm taking notice.
Yeah.

(02:29):
Okay.
Well, you know, I've been livingthat life for 20 plus years.
Welcome.
I'll just say that to you.
Well,

Keith (02:34):
I've been also, I took a little time off.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, um, moving offices today.
Okay.
Got to, well.
I've got a crew moving the office today.
Um, not physically moving,not physically moving.
I'm sitting here talking, but,um, I think you're better at that.
Much better, much, much better.

(02:56):
Um, you know, I'm experiencinglike life right now, aging
parents, growing businesses,
moving offices.

Sid (03:11):
There's almost nothing more.
I hate moving.

Keith (03:14):
Yeah.
And so, uh, especially movingsomething that somebody else.
So you got to find out where everythingis, what you own and what you don't.

Sid (03:26):
So the Hatch office is moving?

Keith (03:28):
Yep.
Hatch office is moving today, uh, to ourfriends at Coastal Community College.
They're giving us a space whilewe're renovating, um, the K 1 center.
The K 1 center?

Sid (03:39):
That's going to be awesome.
Yeah.

Keith (03:40):
16, 000 square feet.
I still haven't seen

Sid (03:42):
the plans for that.

Keith (03:42):
Innovation Hub.
It's pretty cool.
I'll show you the plans, please do.
I will.
Um, so just been very, very busy doingsome new stuff in the publishing company,
doing some new stuff with media, doingsome programming with media, all that
kind of, all that good kind of stuff.
Like, and I think that's a goodsegue into this podcast too.

(04:06):
So you think you want to own a business?
Yeah.
So sometimes, sometimesit gives you the leeway.
To take off for a few yearswhere no one knows what you do.

Sid (04:17):
Yeah, that's true.

Keith (04:18):
And then sometimes

Sid (04:19):
I

Keith (04:19):
would

Sid (04:20):
say most of the time it does

Keith (04:21):
not.
Well, and then sometimes it takes adownturn where you got to go back to work.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, so where you gotto plug back in and you've been
there, I've seen you do it.
Oh my.

Sid (04:34):
Yeah.
Well, and they go, I would say they gothrough seasons, um, don't you think life

Keith (04:39):
goes

Sid (04:39):
through seasons?
Yeah.

Keith (04:42):
Like this balance stuff.
I don't, I don't think.
The balance stuff.
I really struggle.
So here's my definition of balance.

Sid (04:47):
Here's my definition of balance.
There's no like true equilibrium.
Everyone says balance and, and, andthe folks at the high level that
say balance, I think they understandthis, but it never gets explained.
And this is probably the purpose of thispodcast to take those big ideas and,
uh, Run them through the filter and go,this is what they're really meaning.

(05:11):
Think about, have you everstepped on a balance beam?
Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
What's going on?

Keith (05:17):
It's moving constantly.

Sid (05:18):
Yeah.
You're constantly moving back and forth.
So balance is dynamic pressure,uh, of opposing forces left,
right, up, down, whatever, right?
Engage the core, all of that stuff.
And that's all balance is it'smoving back and forth and getting a
little bit more pressure over here.
Maybe you overcompensated.
Now you're going back.
Hopefully you find a little bit, itbecomes a little easier, the better

(05:42):
you get at it, but it's still constant.
Um, adjustments.
And that's balance.
It's never, uh, you know, somehomeostasis, you know, it's never like,
it's never like perfect equilibrium.

Keith (05:57):
I think that whole balance thing though, keeps
entrepreneurs in frustration a lot.
Because if you tell me, if you're oneof those people that want to be holistic
or, or whatever in your life, thatyou just need to find balance, man.
Yeah.
Um, you know, and I, and I fell intothat trap a little bit of wanting to.

(06:19):
You know, I should have everythingmapped out, how much I'm going to work,
how much I'm going to be at home, whenwe're going to go to bed, all of that,
and it's, and you should have a routine.
I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is, is if somethingdisrupts that, it shouldn't ruin you.
Yeah.
And ruin your day.
And I, I stayed in a lot of frustrationof just trying to be in balance.

Sid (06:41):
Yeah.

Keith (06:42):
And sometimes like right now, I'm not balanced.
If you, if you talk to meright now, I'm not balanced.

Sid (06:47):
Well, maybe you're pushing real hard to get back to balance.

Keith (06:53):
Yeah.

Sid (06:54):
I think, man, listen, off air, we were talking about Dave
Ramsey and I was poopooing someDave Ramsey stuff here and there.
Uh, but, but.
In general, 95 percent of thetime, I agree with that guy.
And one of them, one of his coolstatements is, is live like no one else.
So one day you can live like no one else.

(07:16):
That makes a lot of sense even more thanjust, you know, paying off all your debt.
You know, that is work too.
That is growing a business.
That's growing a family.
That's growing a life.
That's getting fit.
That's all kinds of things.
There's tons of overlaps there.
It's every aspect of your life.
Dave.
I love you.
You saved my life.

Keith (07:37):
I don't care what Sid said.

Sid (07:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
And, uh, you know, I feel stronglyenough that I would, if Dave would
honor us with his presence on thispodcast, I'd be happy to argue with him
about a few key points, but, uh, we'reprobably not, uh, we're not getting in.

Keith (07:55):
So today I told you, Dave Ramsey only said two words to me
and I've been like, I've workedfor his organization a time or two.

Sid (08:02):
Well, he's got a lot of people.
We were standing

Keith (08:04):
at a book signing and he literally leaned down to me and he said, is
my head shining and talking about,did he put enough stuff on his head?
So he went, the cameras wouldn't.

Sid (08:14):
Oh yeah.

Keith (08:15):
So.

Sid (08:16):
Yeah.
Well, how about that?
I

Keith (08:19):
can

Sid (08:19):
relate to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tim can relate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tim, well, I think so.
Well, so can I. So can I. Um, yeah, so,so today we're talking about, uh, if you
want, if you think that you would like to.
Operate a small business.
We get a lot of conversations about that.

(08:39):
We thought that it'd be a goodidea to give you some thoughts to
consider, some facts to consider.
Um, and, and one of them is this,the idea you can get the wonder
lust of I'm going to do my ownthing right here, but I wanted to
make sure we threw out some facts.
So, um.

(09:00):
This is from the small business,uh, bureau of labor and statistics.
Uh, 20 percent of small businessesfail within the first year.
That's 20%.
So 10 of them start, you know, twoof them don't make it, but eight do.
50 percent fail within five years.
50%. So half of them,boom, five years done.

(09:23):
Um, yeah, that's kind of whywe started this podcast, right?
Because like we

Keith (09:27):
talked to ourselves in the first five years that we were established.

Sid (09:30):
Absolutely.
Then 65 percent fail within 10years, you know, so six and a
half out of that 10, only about 25percent make it past 15, 15 years.
So 75 percent fail withinthe first 15 years.
Um.
The main reason for failureinclude cash flow problems, lack

(09:51):
of market demand, poor management,and failure to adapt to changes.
This is all from the U. S.Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And, uh, so that's not mine.
That's just big metadata.
Um, and you can look around other places.
It's much worse.
There's a number where 80 percentof all small businesses fail.

(10:14):
Within the first five years, uh, and, andthen it will depend on the sector too.
So yeah.
And

Keith (10:22):
the tech space tech

Sid (10:23):
space now.
Yeah.
I like

Keith (10:25):
the failure rates probably.
Yeah.
It's real.
It's high.

Sid (10:28):
It's real high.
Uh, you know, and then you've got someother that are, you know, easy entry.
Uh, landscape, you know,there's 800 of them around here.
And, and, you know, I know 80percent of those are going to fail
within the first couple of years.
Uh, because it just, it justhappens and, um, and, and like it
said, poor management, cashflowmanagement and stuff like that.

(10:50):
So I

Keith (10:51):
think also, wouldn't you say a large portion of the failure,
and this is what I'm findingworking with founders now is.
Unrealistic expectationsabout the, the ramp time.

Sid (11:06):
You were kind of high on that and have been for a long time.
Um,

Keith (11:11):
I just know that in my, in my organization, had I quit, had I quit
every time it got tough or every time itlooked bleak, I would have quit a lot.
And I think a lot of times, um, wejust had a founder in here that was

(11:31):
in the studio, and I think if you wentdown the hall and ask him right now.
Um, Hey man,
how, how do you make it in a startup?
He would say persistence because.
There's been ebbs and flows thatI've watched him go through just

(11:53):
in the short time that I've beenhelping him kind of scale to

Sid (11:57):
mass.

Keith (11:57):
Well, so yeah,

Sid (12:00):
back to your premise that many of them fail because of a, um, would you
say unrealistic expectation on ramp time?
I would, I would say thatthat's probably pretty.
I think that, I think that hits a lotof people, they think they're going
to own their own business and they'regoing to make a lot more money and, and

(12:22):
maybe they will, but they don't considerthe cost of it to the risk of it to,
and then, um, if there is seasonalityto that business, I don't know that
they often, uh, consider, uh, you know,being the squirrel, putting away acorns
for the winter to make it through.
Uh, which I think is a good segue to ourfirst note, which is that, um, one, I

(12:45):
guess our first thing that we meant thatwe wanted to mention to consider is,
uh, they're shooting real bullets outthere, you know, what does that mean?
That means it.
At that point.
There is no excuse for, youknow, the dog ate my homework.
There is no excuse for, um,I just couldn't get to it.

(13:07):
You know, mom got sick or, uh,you know, the kids are sick or,
uh, my girlfriend broke up withme or whatever excuse that is.
Um, you know, that may come up,it doesn't matter to the customer.
They'll just say, yeah,nevermind, you know,

Keith (13:26):
they don't care.
I mean, this sounds, this sounds horrible.
They don't care.
My dad said, no, they don't, they don't.
I mean, it's not that bad now.
Yeah.
Right.
But did they.
Do they, do they sympathize?
Probably so, but they don'treally care when it gets down

Sid (13:43):
to it.
Well, sorry.
Well, you know, we'll, we'llget someone else to do this.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'll be there.
Right.
They're shooting real bullets out there.
So you're, you're going tolose customers with excuses.
You know, when you're working forsomeone else, maybe that goes.
Over a little bit better that youdon't have to come in that day or
something like that and the job youcan retain your job, uh, not not

(14:07):
everywhere, but you know, sometimes,uh, and they're shooting real bullets,
meaning it's, it's, it's live action.
What's that Mark Tyson quote?
Everyone's got a plan untilyou get punched in the face.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
That's for sure.
And, uh, you know, everyone wants value.
Everyone wants, you know, thebank wants their money back.

(14:28):
You know, people want to get paid on time.
Uh, customers want youto be there on time.
Uh, they want all of that and it's real.
So.
If you're thinking about starting abusiness, first thing you should consider
if you can get your head wrapped around itis that they are shooting real bullets out

(14:51):
there and it's real life or death, uh, youknow, uh, success or bust kind of thing.
And if you don't go in it with that.
Attitude, just good luck to you, man.
Good luck.
It's, it's going to be a tough road.
You're not, you're not going to be ableto half ass starting a business that I
know of, there may be some that are outthere that you can kind of go all in

(15:17):
or what, or you may not go all in and,and, and do well sort of accidentally.
I just have never heard of it.

Keith (15:24):
Oh, I'll be real honest with you.
So I thought I had that.
You know, Midas touch or whatever, acouple of times and started outside things
that I couldn't give full attention to.
Yeah.
They're not around anymore.

Sid (15:39):
No, no, because it requires a lot of effort, right?
And so that really gets me to, uh,another point is, have you ever
read good to great Jim Collins?
Good to great.
Yeah.
Right.
So the flywheel.
Analogy.
And I don't know if you remember this,but it really struck with me, um, is the

(16:02):
best analogy or best visual that I havefor, uh, owning, starting, operating a
business and trying to get it to scale.
So listeners, uh, if you're driving,don't close your eyes, uh, and visualize
this, but if you're, you know, you'resitting somewhere, just visualize.

(16:23):
underneath this big flywheel,which if you don't know what a
flywheel is, is this big round.
Like gear almost.
And, um, and what you're doingis you are giving it all your
effort to get it to turn.
And so, you know, you're puttingeverything you got into it, all of

(16:46):
the legs in your calves, your quads,your glutes, your backs, your, your
shoulders, your hands are gripping it,and you're just pushing it forward and
everything you got, it turns it about.
You know, an eighth of a turn and thenyou hit it again, it hits another eighth
and you hit it again and it might move,you know, uh, not quite a quarter,
but almost and you hit it again, youknow, and these are years or quarters,

(17:11):
uh, that, that we're talking abouteach push, each turn of that flywheel.
Um, and so.
What he was really getting at is thatit takes a lot of time to get a business
up and going and get real momentum.
But what he did say is, is if you canstay focused on turning that flywheel,

(17:31):
and if you can stay persistent, and you'vealready said that, that eventually the
flywheel starts to have its own momentum.
It's it, it, it creates inertia.
Um, and so eventually you can just.
Turn it with just a quick push, youknow, each quarter, and you're not

(17:53):
having to put everything you have in it.
Maybe you've got a team built up afterthree, four years, you know, and you've
got a little bit more capacity andyou can give it a good push, you know,
every quarter, every year, whatever.

Keith (18:08):
That's why you should never compare yourself to a person when
you've just started out, a personthat's been in business 20 years.
Yeah, they've alreadygot the breakthrough.

Sid (18:17):
Yeah, they've got real momentum.
They've paid their dues.
They've learned from their mistakes.
And

Keith (18:24):
like you and I get it a lot,

Sid (18:25):
like

Keith (18:26):
people will come to us and say, how do y'all do that?
Well, we've been doing this 20,

Sid (18:30):
20 plus, 20

Keith (18:31):
plus.
And so, so I know, eventhough times are hard,
like when times are hard, thatI've been through this before.
And I know that if I just staytrue and my idea is good enough.
That it'll make it happen or that my, my,my business plan is good enough, or the

(18:55):
business that I'm running, it's viable.
Now I'm at, we could get in theargument or, or the discussion
about non viable businesses.
A lot of people try to push nonviable products through, you know,
and that's where you have to be wise.
But I like that going back to, togood to great, he breaks it down

(19:16):
in five areas, disciplined people.
Take discipline thought, takediscipline action, that builds momentum.
And then you getbreakthrough breakthrough.

Sid (19:27):
Yeah,

Keith (19:28):
yeah.
I like that.

Sid (19:29):
Yeah.
Um, and, and, and you said comparisonand I think that's another good, uh,
topic just to discuss is that man, andthis, this is for every aspect of your
life, especially with social media, mediabeing so pervasive, um, stop comparing
your insides to everyone's outsides.
Cause you're never going to win.

Keith (19:49):
No, that never.
And you've got to remember if you'rebasing your comparison off social
media, they're putting their A game on.
They're

Sid (19:55):
putting their A game.

Keith (19:56):
You don't get to see their C game.

Sid (19:57):
And if you're talking, and if you're doing that in business, um, everything
looks shiny and nice from the outside.
It's the inside.
And I've seen the inside of plenty ofbusinesses to know that we all have.
Uh, weaknesses and strengths,my, my businesses included,

Keith (20:13):
you know, that's the problem I have with people, especially early in
business, going to a bunch of conferences,

Sid (20:21):
man, you can leave.
Oh, I didn't even think about that.
When we were setting up for when I,

Keith (20:26):
when I first started out.
Oh, I would go to conferences and I wouldleave and feel like a total failure.
Because the only thing, the onlypeople that speak at conferences
is people that's on their A game.
I wish they would have a conference.

Sid (20:38):
Yeah, for losers.

Keith (20:41):
You would just get to see

Sid (20:43):
people.
You're not alone.

Keith (20:46):
Right.

Sid (20:46):
Yeah.
Oh man, God, that's such a good point.
Uh, yeah, don't go to conferences.

Keith (20:51):
Like, I'll be real honest with you.
I, and, and I love EOS andI love what they're doing.
And, but the last EOS conferencefor me was a little bit.
Depressing.

Sid (21:05):
Okay.
Tell me about that.

Keith (21:07):
Well, well, and I think you and I had talked about it a little
bit that Gino Wickman got up there andsaid, Oh, it's just about, you know,

Sid (21:16):
Oh, this is when he was all love.
Yeah.
All

Keith (21:19):
love.
It was all love.
And I'm like, yeah, when you

Sid (21:21):
get a hundred million dollar payout, I guess you can do that.
You know, a

Keith (21:24):
hundred million.
So, yeah, so even, even when yougo to conferences, go to them in
mind of learning, but not comparingyourself to the people on the stage.
Because if you compare the peopleon the stage, they're only asking,
being asked to be there becausethey are the top of the top.

Sid (21:42):
Yeah.
I would go to conferences and Iwould feel like I'm so behind.
And then the worst part is I would takethese 10 things that I had great notes
on, I would spend the whole time travelingback, uh, thinking out execution plans
for all 10 things and have unrealisticexpectations on the implementation time

(22:06):
and say, Oh, in three months from now,we're going to implement all of these.
My team would just brace forimpact when I'd come back and,
uh, it didn't go over well.
You know, it didn't go over welland then I would be frustrated
and why can't we get this done?
And yeah, watch out for conferences.

(22:26):
Watch out for trade magazines.
Yeah.

Keith (22:28):
And you've got to remember that most people speaking at conferences
aren't doing the thing anymore.

Sid (22:34):
Oh, that's a good point.
Yeah.
They're, they're out.
Yeah.
It's easy.

Keith (22:38):
Yeah.
They've sold it.
Yeah.

Sid (22:39):
Um, man, lots of consultants are like that too.

Keith (22:43):
Oh, definitely.
So I told you the best time of my lifeis when I get to go consult because I can
absolutely got plenty of ideas, createideas that I do not have to implement.
And, and I can create great ideas.

Sid (22:57):
Oh, well

Keith (22:58):
it's the implementation.
That is the

Sid (22:59):
difficult part.
Yeah.
All of my biggest mistakesstarted off as great ideas.
Definitely.
So great.
I never had a bad ideauntil the execution phase.

Keith (23:09):
Hey guys, I want to tell you about my friend, Wes Cody.
He's the president of C2 WealthStrategies, a financial advisory firm
dedicated to providing personalizedsolutions for your financial needs.
Wes and his team of professionals arepassionate about helping clients create
wealth and achieve financial freedom.
At C2 Wealth Strategies, they believein taking a holistic approach to

(23:30):
financial planning and are committedto building long lasting relationships
with their clients, ensuring Financialwellbeing every step of the way.
Don't leave your financialfuture to chance.
Contact Wes and C2 [e-mail] to
schedule a consultation.
Let Wes and his team help youbuild your financial future.

Sid (23:52):
If you're a small business owner looking to take your business
to the next level, listen up.
My good friend Chris Francis hasspent over 20 years growing his tree
care business to national success.
Now he's partnered with Rick Miller,you've probably heard him here on the
podcast before, Harvard MBA, and businessconsultant to create Roadmap for Growth,
an online course to help you scale, buildteams, and create systems that last.

(24:17):
It's not just for the treeindustry, this course applies
to any small service business.
Check out TreeBusiness.
com or hit the link on theOverlap homepage to learn more.

Keith (24:31):
Your ideas could be really, really viable, but you
may have an execution problem.

Sid (24:37):
Yeah.

Keith (24:38):
I've been there too.
Yeah.

Sid (24:40):
Tell me about the execution.
I mean, I get what you're saying,but tell me about your scenario.
Well, being able to put a

Keith (24:45):
plan, being able to put a plan in place to take the
idea that I've come up with.
And working in the ideal world,because that's really what I do,
there's been products that I'vecreated in my mind that are
really, really, really great.
Could other people created themafter I had the idea and did really

(25:10):
well with them, but I could neverget past the idea to the execution
and we do it, we do that a lot.

Sid (25:17):
Like you couldn't get it manufactured, you couldn't get

Keith (25:20):
it published, couldn't get it built, couldn't find the programmer,
didn't have the, didn't have the teamdepth to be able to, to facilitate
as grand a scale as it needed to be.
Gotcha.
And I'm sure it's the same way.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you just made thismove into the commercial space.

(25:42):
I think it probably would be thattoo, in a service business is how.
What do you have to scale to gofrom residential to commercial
and what do you have to,

Sid (25:51):
you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And it doesn't happen nearas fast as you'd think.
And it takes persistence andfocus and, uh, uh, some tenacity.
Yeah.

Keith (26:01):
I like the word.
I think if you look at this episode,we go back to the word grit.
I think owning a business takes grit.

Sid (26:12):
Yeah, I would say this.
I would say owning a business.
Um, and this is, I was going to endon this, but let's, let's bring it
up now, since you brought up grit.
Owning the business.
Listen up, Tim.
I know he's over there listening.
Owning a business is the adultversion of the marshmallow test.
Have you, do you haveyou heard of this test?
No.

(26:32):
Oh, what?
Okay.
So you mentioned grit, right?
I

Keith (26:35):
just know I like my marshmallows, like, totally burnt.

Sid (26:38):
Totally burnt?
Okay.
Yeah,

Keith (26:39):
I like

Sid (26:40):
them.
All right.
Uh, I like, yeah, I don't,I'll eat them anyway.
I don't care, but I, Ilike them lightly burnt.
But, um, so the marshmallow test,you know that Dr. Angela Duckworth,
and she wrote the book, Grit,You know what I'm talking about?
Okay.
So it's a fantastic book.
Uh, but really it, it, it delves intogrit as an actual personality trait or,

(27:06):
um, or a, uh, rehab personality trait.
And I'm kind of just trying to rememberthe best I can, but essentially the
psychologist did this, uh, this.
Test of being able to delay gratification.
So they put a bunch of children.
I can't remember the ages, butthey're relatively young, four,

(27:27):
five, six, whatever, and they'rein a room, uh, sort of a lab room.
They set the kit down and theysay, here's you one marshmallow.
Now, if you can wait for 15 minutesand not eat that marshmallow, I'll
come back and give you two, you know?
And, uh, the kids that would waitfor an additional marshmallow got two

(27:50):
marshmallows, maybe there's three.
They, I think they were playingwith the numbers that it would
take to get them to wait.
And then all the other things, butessentially a bunch of kids wouldn't wait.
They would just go aheadand yeah, I'll take.
I'll take the, the, the marshmallow inthe hand is better than two in the bush.
I guess I don't know this person.
Maybe they're not going to bringit to, I don't know what the

(28:10):
reason behind it was, other thanthey didn't delay gratification.
They wanted immediate gratification.
The, uh, the kids that did.
Uh, delay gratification, uh, youknow, got the two marshmallows.
They studied both of these, uh, theseindividuals or all of them, you know,
the, the different groups, I'm sorry,uh, up through a long period of time,

(28:32):
you know, through college and into theircareer worlds and the ones that had that
natural trait to delay gratification,all of them were better, I'm pretty
sure all of them were better off,better educated, better jobs, better
lives, more income, all that stuff.
Delayed gratification is the nameof the game when you start and

(28:55):
you start operating a business.
It's the adult versionof the marshmallow test.
Can you hold off?
Can you not take all of the money?
Can you, uh, can you, um, treat your team?
Can you attract your,the right team members?
Can you compensate them well?
Can you find a way to share the wealth?

(29:15):
Can you do all of those things?
And ultimately for 10 years downthe road being set up better than
you possibly could have been.

Keith (29:25):
Oh man, there's overlaps everywhere.
Same with family.
Same with, can you not compareyourself to your parents?

Sid (29:37):
Oh, that's going to be a tough one for the next 20 years.
I

Keith (29:41):
talked to so many people that want to be at the same place that someone,
young family starting out wantingthe same stuff I have, quite frankly.

Sid (29:55):
Okay.
Yeah.

Keith (29:59):
I spent 30 years

Sid (30:01):
building some equity and things and then rolling it up.
Yeah.

Keith (30:05):
Yeah.

Sid (30:07):
Yeah.
So yeah, uh, the adult versionof the marshmallow test.
I think that's owning a business.
Uh,

Keith (30:19):
Tim, there's your one line clip, the, uh, the adult version of the
marshmallow tested that is on and maybe,

Sid (30:26):
maybe they'll, maybe they'll know what I'm talking about, maybe not, but,
um, in that delayed gratification, uh,one of the key components that I kind
of picked up on is, and I, and I sortof dropped it a little bit in there is
that delayed gratification, can you nottake all the money out because Keith,
what's the one way that It was theonly way businesses go out of business.

(30:50):
They run out of money.
They run out of money.
People will say, Oh,well, it was a bad idea.
Maybe it was a bad idea.
I don't know.
But what did that lead to?
Ran out of money.
Uh, we couldn't figure out.
There wasn't the right demandor product demand or whatever.
And what did that equal?
Run out of money, we couldn'tfigure out marketing or we
couldn't find enough good people.

(31:12):
What did that equal running out of money?
It just all doesn't matter whatit's the end result that the,
uh, the end result is the same.
How you get there can, can vary wildly,but the only way a business goes out of
business is that it runs out of money.
And so if you are.
Wanting to take your payday or your, man,I deserve this too early or too often.

(31:40):
You're just going tokill the golden goose.
So it's the adult versionof the marshmallow test.
Can you hold onto that cash?
Because cash is king.

Keith (31:50):
You actually helped me.
You actually helped me a ton withthis because I was much like we were
talking about earlier, being thatI run a. Company that doesn't need
equipment that I can look at you andsay, why are you borrowing money?

(32:12):
Why would you ever borrow money?
Stupid.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And then I started walking aroundyour yard one day like at your place
looking at the 30 trucks that youhave out there or more than that.
I don't know how many you got.

Sid (32:29):
Yeah.
38.

Keith (32:31):
Yeah.
And.

Sid (32:32):
Just in Daphne.

Keith (32:33):
And I was thinking, my God.
And so then we had, uh, way back, we hada banker on with us and he was talking
about the, the ability to borrow money.
And he was like, we don't,and, and this kind of.
You would think it's counterintuitiveto what you think that when you

(32:54):
need money, you just go borrow it.
But to borrow it, you got to have it.

Sid (32:58):
Yeah.
I've got, I've got a saying,I say it all the time.
The bank will always loan you money.
If you have money, they willnever loan you money if you don't.
And so, so let's

Keith (33:09):
break this down.

Sid (33:10):
So, okay.

Keith (33:10):
When do you make the determination that borrowing versus taking out of cash?

Sid (33:16):
Okay.
So
almost.
If it's under a certain amountand I just don't want to make
payments, I'll go ahead and pay cash.
But I almost always will leverage thatjust because I'm hyper focused on.
Cash reserves really, uh, and, andjust having a safety valve, not safety

(33:41):
valve, but a safety reserve, a prudentreserve, if you will, three months, six
months of expenses, whatever, whatever,whatever you're comfortable with.
But I'm kind of hyper focused on thatbecause I've gone broke a couple of times
and there's no one to loan you money.
So, uh, also I'm not going to goborrow money on something that's
not going to make money too.

(34:03):
That's the other thing.
I want return on capital,you know, so if it's a truck.
I've got those figures, you know,kind of worked out, you know, this
truck and this division shouldproduce X amount of revenue each year.
And we're tracking that, youknow, what's, you know, what's
return on capital on this, uh,you know, this piece of equipment.

(34:27):
Should return should allowus to do this amount of work.
You know, the return onthat is kind of factored in.
You don't have to get fancy about that.
You don't need to get too in the weeds.
You just need to know that if I go borrowmoney, it needs to produce money for me.
Now.
Here's where, um, especially earlyfolks will do is they'll go borrow,

(34:49):
uh, let's take a landscaper.
They'll go borrow, I don't know,I don't even know what one of
those big fancy trucks costs now.
What's like an F 250diesel, uh, crew cab cost?
Is that?
Oh, it's 80, 000.

Keith (35:01):
It's 85, 000.

Sid (35:01):
Is it 80, 000?
Yeah, it's 85, 000.
85, 000. It's gotta bemore than that though, man.
It's gotta be.
Okay.
Let's say it's 85, 000to go run estimates.
If you're not doing the workand pulling the trailer.
Okay.
Let's say you're doing thework, you're pulling the trailer
and you're doing estimates.
Is that a good investment?

Keith (35:19):
That one may be a decent investment.

Sid (35:21):
Yeah.
I don't think so.
I think for 85, 000, I can get two trucks.
I could probably go get a very Decenttruck, uh, that's two years old.
Yeah.
That's probably four years old.
It's probably got, I don'tknow, 75, 000 miles on it.
Just came off lease.
It's a, uh, you know, an Ftwo 50, maybe it's not diesel.

(35:44):
Who cares?
Uh, and, and it's going to be fine.
And then I've got another truckthat I could run estimates in and
we can take two vehicles to the job.
And if I need to leave, I can,you know, I'm not leaving my crew
there, but you get what I'm saying?
Like just.
The, uh, how you invest your capitalreally is important and if you're going

(36:06):
to spend, I don't even know what thepayment is on 85, 000 a month, maybe I'm,
I'm imagining it's like, you know, 2, 000a month there for the next five years.
Uh, could I get more out of that?
You know, could I getmore, what, what can I get?
Does that make sense?
And there's some different.

(36:27):
You know, areas of opinion on buyingnew and not having to mess with it or
buying use and, and, and, and potentiallyhaving the risk of, of having downtime.
We're talking about the youngbusiness owner starting or
thinking about starting a business.
And we're talking about in yourfirst five years, and we're making

(36:47):
some assumptions that you're almosthand to mouth here a little bit.
Um, and I would venture to say thatgoing and buying the new fancy truck
is, is just a terrible waste of money.
And and what it will do is will tieup your, um, debt to income ratio.
And so banks won't loan you moneywhen you might need a line of credit

(37:10):
because you got into commercialwork and you know you're not going
to get paid for a certain amount oftime and you've got to float that.
There's some other things, but cashis king, and we're talking about all
of these things that we could havewhole other podcasts, and we have
had podcasts on cashflow management.
Um, and I'd say it's probably thenumber one thing in business and

(37:30):
most people don't consider it.

Keith (37:32):
When do you decide buy versus rent?

Sid (37:37):
Uh, if you, if it's a new piece of equipment and you can rent
it, you've never really used it.
Uh, I'd say rent it a couple of jobs.
You know, um, if you can rent,I'm trying to, I'm trying
to think like, I don't know.

Keith (37:53):
Well, I've seen you rent big pieces of equipment

Sid (37:56):
that we're only going to use one off, do that, like you need a, you know,
a cherry picker, that's one of thoselike baskets and it goes up and down.
I don't know why we would need that.
But, uh, if you need a big excavatorfor digging a pond or something like
that, and it's bigger than the mini Xwe have, I mean, that, that makes sense.
You're, you're only goingto use it for that one job.
You build it into the job.

(38:16):
It's fine.
Uh, where I stopped rentingis when it's like, you know,
we've never had a skid steer.
In the fleet, let's rent it for amonth and see how much we use it.
Does that make sense?
Yep.

Keith (38:29):
It does.

Sid (38:30):
And then you may not have enough data there, but when you rent it by the
month, you get a pretty good discountand you would say, well, I don't
have enough jobs built in for that.
And you go, well, that's kind ofwhere the gamble comes into play.
Uh, it

Keith (38:43):
gets you more jobs.
So yeah,

Sid (38:45):
I think skid steers for, for me, that.
Uh, and man, other people areprobably way smarter about this.
I just, it was one of those things whereI just didn't realize how much we were
going to use them until we got them.
Uh, and that sounds crazy for a landscapecompany and people are probably laughing
at me right now, but I was hyperfocused on, you know, keeping it, uh,

(39:07):
as low, uh, cash outlay as possible.
Again, I've gone broke a fewtimes and it's not a good feeling.

Keith (39:15):
I may have a little PTSD.
I

Sid (39:16):
got some PTSD, I promise.
Yeah.
I still, I still buy used clothes from

Keith (39:20):
eBay.

Sid (39:22):
Yeah.
Um, so cash is king.
If you're thinking about openinga business, man, just really,
you gotta, you gotta think aboutcashflow management and, and really.
Uh, you got to think about delayedgratification too, because you're
trying to build something up.
And if you start taking all thatmoney away, you really put yourself
at a big risk because Like it says50 percent and I think it's, I

(39:46):
think that's a very low number.
I think it's closer to 80 percentfail in the first, first five years.

Keith (39:51):
Hey, let me tell you about a friend of the show called content fresh.
Since they've taken over our socialmedia for the overlap podcast,
we've seen incredible growth.
When you combine the growth fromall social platforms, we're looking
at a massive increase of 2, 235%.
This partnership has trulytransformed our reach and engagement.
If you're passionate aboutgrowing your business.

(40:13):
Partnering with content freshcould be a game changer for you.
Go to overlaplife.
com and click on sponsors today.

Sid (40:20):
I want to take a moment to talk about someone who's been instrumental
in my personal and business success.
That's Johnny Barranco and histeam at Barranco and Associates.
For over seven years, Johnny has been mygo to accountant and financial consultant.
I can tell you that he's morethan just a tax preparer.
Johnny takes a holistic approach toall my financial dealings, aligning
them with my long term goals.

(40:41):
Plans and personal lifestyle.
I've recommended Johnny to several friendsthroughout different business groups
around the country, and the feedbackhas been nothing short of exceptional.
His expertise and service are top notch.
So if you're looking for someone whonot only prepares your taxes, but also
helps you strategize for the future,Johnny and his team at Barranco and

(41:01):
Associates are the ones to call.
Trust me, you won't regret it.
So contact.
Johnny Branko today and take thefirst steps towards financial peace.
You're not going to regret this.

Keith (41:17):
Another thing that people hear when they grow a business or start a
business is you got to create culture.
Oh yeah.
Let's talk about thatfor a minute because.
I think this is another one ofthose misconstrued words in business
that basically what it means is theintentionality in which you take in to

(41:39):
create culture is what it's going to be.
And so culture is the thing that Ireally think that you have to, one,
that, that can change over time.
Sure.
It takes deep thought to create anactual culture inside your organization.

Sid (42:03):
Yeah, yeah, both of those are absolutely right.

Keith (42:07):
But, I will say this too, if you let the culture dictate itself, it will.

Sid (42:15):
Yeah, um, I think I like to say that culture is going
to happen one way or another.
How it happens depends on you.
Now, you can be intentional aboutit or you can let it happen.
Which one's it going to be?
That's it.
That's it.
It's going to create cultureis just going to happen.
And here let's cultureis one of those words.

(42:36):
It's just overused on everybusiness podcast or everything else.
Let's just define culture.
Um, in, in, in my simple mind,this is what I think about culture.
Culture is just how do we behave?
How do we do things?

(42:58):
How do we interact with each other?
How do we interact with our client?
That's, that's culture.

Keith (43:04):
To the outside world, it would be considered the attitude of your business.

Sid (43:10):
Okay.
I

Keith (43:11):
think,

Sid (43:11):
okay.
Yeah.

Keith (43:13):
Like there's been times that I've felt.
If you're feeling, if you're feeling a,a pinch internally and something's off
other people outside, if, especially ifyou have a forward facing business in
the community, they're feeling it too.

(43:34):
And so that's what I like tosay is that the culture of
the attitude of your business.
I like it.

Sid (43:41):
I'm good with that.
If

Keith (43:42):
you meet somebody with a rotten attitude,

Sid (43:44):
man,

Keith (43:45):
I've met businesses with a rotten attitude.
I have too.
I have too.
And, uh, and internally, if you went backbehind the veil of their front doors,

Sid (43:55):
yeah,

Keith (43:55):
you would find out

Sid (43:58):
a lot of rotten attitudes, a

Keith (43:59):
lot of rotten attitudes.

Sid (44:01):
And if you looked hard enough, you would, you wouldn't even take that
much, but you would understand what.
What's driving the rotten attitude.
There's something, there's some leveragepoint that's being pulled to create that
culture in it, or there's something notbeing pulled to create that culture.

(44:22):
So let's break this downfor the person that is.
I want to start my own business.
I want to do, you know, whatever.
And that's fine.
I'm not, I'm not dogging that out at all.
We're just trying to give you some,some thoughts to consider, which is
if you're going to have a business,it's going to have people, uh, which
unless it's a consulting business, man,maybe there's some other stuff, but

(44:46):
most of them are going to have people,how you interact with your people.
And how you compensate your people andhow you, uh, lead your people, um, that's
all going to dictate the culture that'sgoing to dictate, uh, what's going on
and how do you compensate your people?

(45:07):
Let's, let's, let's dig intothat even further is how do you,
um, incentivize your people?
What does success look like?
What's your scorecard look like?
How are they getting paid?
That's going to dictatehow your culture evolves.
Let's go back to your rotten,uh, attitude and rotten, uh,

(45:29):
company, um, analogy there.
And I would, I would, I would say thatWhatever their, uh, they either have a,
uh, let's see some sort of scorecard.
That's all about, you know, efficiency.
That's probably over been indexed tothe point where they're not worried
about a customer interaction or customerexperience, or they don't have customer

(45:52):
experience and customer interactionand kindness or whatever, anywhere in
their company, no one's that champion,no one's saying, this is how we.
This is how we should treat our customers.
And so in a vacuum, uh, withoutthat, you have enough customers.

(46:14):
They start to become the problem insteadof the, the reason we're all here.
Does that make sense?
They start to become the issue becausethey're the one calling with the
complaint while I'm trying to getthe TPS report done for the week.
You know, uh, they're theone calling and complaining.
For the eighth time this month, andevery time we got to go do something

(46:38):
different for them instead of going.
Whoa, we're really notserving our customer.
I'm terribly here.
I'm tear.
I'm, I'm terribly sorry.
And I hate that you're going through that.
Let me get with whoever the manageris and let's get on top of this.
This is the second time you've called.
I'm so sorry.
And, and really taking that and going,Hey, Randy, you need to get over there.

(46:58):
Well, I'll go with you.
Let's go look and see what the problem is.
I don't want Keith calling us again.
You know, that is a, that's a culture of.
That, that has, that has really drivenhome the fact that if we serve one
customer and the tough ones are the onesthat are going to make us better, if we
serve one customer at a time, especiallythe tough ones, those are the ones

(47:21):
that are going to make us all better.
That's a culture.
If we say, man, you got to get ridof those customers that are terrible.
That's a culture too.
You know, it just is what it is,uh, by intentionality or by default.
If you're thinking about a business, youreally got to be, if the, the, the real

(47:45):
issue is, is you've got to be intentionalabout it and you got to think about it and
you got to work really hard towards it.
And you got to be real consistent.
Uh, there's the persistence, theconsistency, the grit, whatever.
And it'll take you a while,but eventually you get there.
He's working up something over here.
He's got statisticsand stuff or something.

Keith (48:05):
No, I was just looking at, uh, I'm actually dealing with, uh, it just
made me think about when you said, Hey,if you have one of those products where
you can just be a jerk, I'm actuallydealing with one of those customers
are one of those vendors right now.

Sid (48:20):
Oh yeah.

Keith (48:21):
They are the cat's pajamas in, in the field.
There's nobody that touches them.
And, but their customer service isthe most horrible customer service.
I mean, we are about to spend a ton ofmoney with them and they just don't care.

(48:42):
Like you call them for a,like a quote or something.
And they're just like, they're putoff that you've called them to ask.

Sid (48:48):
What are you doing calling us?
So we have this chat bot on our website.
So

Keith (48:52):
if you have that product.
Good on you.
I hope you can keep it, but there's goingto be somebody that's the same thing.

Sid (48:59):
I had software like that, that the customer service was terrible.
We spent a bunch of money now in a,in one space, they were the best.
It was just really good,really good information.
It, it was clunky.
It didn't work really well.
They weren't worried about making it,um, intuitive or, uh, easy to use.

(49:21):
They were just like,eh, whatever you'll do.
Everyone else figured it out.
You'll figure it out.

Keith (49:26):
Well, this company is the opposite.
Their product is the best.
Oh, and it works super well.
Oh, well, but they just don't care.

Sid (49:37):
Yeah.
Well, someone else, like yousaid, it's going to come along
and make a better product

Keith (49:42):
or just make it the same product with better customer service.

Sid (49:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So culture.
Yeah.
One, one, one last thing, one lastthing on this, and then, and then
we'll wrap it up is, um, all of these.
Issues, problems, if you will, thatwe brought up, they're all problems.
There's definitely some upsides.

(50:06):
You've got some autonomy, uh,uh, which is good and bad.
Um, you've got, uh, don't can, don'tfool yourself that you've got some
freedom because that's not true.
You'll have less freedom for a while.
Um, but it's yours.
There's some pride of ownership.
There's some stuff like that.
It's, uh, it's yours.

(50:26):
It's something you're building.
And I, if you're like me.
If you're like Keith, we likebuilding things, you know, I like
building communities, I like buildingcompanies, I like, I like that stuff.
Uh, but there comes with, there comeswith all of that a number of problems.
And here's my final comment is thatthose problems are your problems.

(50:51):
You can't abdicate those responsibilitiesbecause you're the owner, um, and you
can't abdicate those responsibilitiesbecause you're signing the check.
You can't abdicate those responsibilitiesbecause you're the head honcho
and you hired these people.
They're going to do it.
People are just people and some ofthem are going to do well, some of them
are not, but it doesn't, it doesn't.

(51:12):
Change the fact that thoseproblems are your problems.
And so if you don't address them, maybewith the person that was supposed to
have handled it, or maybe you handlethe problem directly, whatever, but
if you don't do it, no one will, noone's going to solve the cashflow
problem unless you do no one, you candefinitely not outsource this culture.

(51:35):
If you're not being intentionalabout the culture, no one else will.

Keith (51:41):
And quite frankly, you as the owner, operator, it's your responsibility.
It's your responsibility.
It's not your team member's responsibilityto create the culture in your business.
You decide that.

Sid (51:53):
If they were good at that, they'd go do their own thing.

Keith (51:55):
Absolutely.

Sid (51:56):
Um, you can't abdicate your responsibility as the owner,
the vision of the company.
Where are we going?
What are we going to be best in class in?
Uh, and how are we goingto charge for that?
Can't really abdicate that, youknow, you, it's your responsibility.
Um, many times, many times, notall the time, you can't abdicate

(52:20):
the sales role for a while.
Most of us started, you know, Ididn't want to be a salesperson, but
I got pretty damn good at it because.
Who else was going to pay to do it and paypennies, you know, on the dollar to do it.
Uh, I couldn't afford tohire anyone to do that.

(52:40):
So you got to get good with that.
And then the last thing I'll say,and this is kind of my shtick.
Um, and people do thisand it's a bad idea.
You can't abdicate your financialplanning or your financial, um, modeling
or the, the control to your accountant.
Uh, if you are, if I'm asking like,Hey, what'd you make this last month?

(53:04):
Or, Hey, what'd youmake this last quarter?
And you say, I don't know.
I got to get my accountant to, uh, sendme that you're in a bad spot, dude.
Or lady, whatever, um, you're in a badspot because you're taking the actual
lifeblood of your company and puttingit in someone else's hands and it's not
their baby, you know, and I know we putour babies into daycare and all that

(53:28):
stuff, but we got choices of who that isand how we do it and, um, but if you're
not a numbers person and I get it, Iwasn't either at first, kind of, kind
of not, but whatever, um, if you're notthat, then you're, Setting yourself up
for, I don't know, to be taken advantageof or to not have all the facts and make

(53:52):
poor decisions, you know, all of thethings you can't, you can't abdicate
that financial part of your business.
And if you're not the guyyet, you need to be soon.
And you know, I would venture to say,

Keith (54:05):
I would venture to say if you're the person that says,
I'm just not a numbers person.
You probably shouldn't own a business.

Sid (54:11):
Yeah.
I, I've seen it.
I've seen it work for non numbers people.

Keith (54:15):
Well, but, but they backfill their weakness.

Sid (54:17):
Yeah.
And, and, and I think thatthey do kind of get better.
They get good enoughto be, um, proficient.
Yeah.
Functional.
Yeah.
To know when someone's lying to themand to know what they need to look at
and really know what success looks like.
If you're running your business likea checkbook, that's not the way to go.
If we got money in thebank, we're spending it.

(54:39):
That's not, that's notcashflow management.
Um, you gotta, you gottathink deeper than that.
And that's a tough one for people.
Uh, and that's what usually gets most ofthose businesses in the first five years.
Getting up and getting going isnot that, it's not that hard.
Um,

Keith (54:57):
no, you can start anything from,

Sid (54:59):
yeah,

Keith (55:00):
staying going,

Sid (55:01):
staying going and, and making, and making it work.
That's the tough part.
So, uh, yeah, owning a business is likethe adult version of the marshmallow test.
Give it some thought, good luckto you and, uh, keep listening,
go check out our sponsors.

Keith (55:21):
They make all this possible, you know, all this
ideation that we have on the show.
I mean, Sid could have never come up withowning a business like the Marshmallow
Test, unless our sponsors were there.
That's right.
That's right.
Go check them out.
Peace.