Ep. 73 - Turning Old Assets into New Opportunities

Ever wondered how resilience can transform your business outlook? This episode promises to equip you with the mindset and strategies needed to tackle the most daunting small business challenges, all while sipping your favorite morning brew. Our discussion takes a fascinating detour through listener questions, unraveling the universal struggles of maintaining old businesses and cars, peppered with the timeless wisdom of Edmund Vance Cooke. We encourage you to meet adversity with a cheerful heart, proving it's our responses that define our success, not the obstacles themselves.

Embark on an intriguing exploration of the world of car ownership and discover the financial nuances of managing multiple vehicles. Over 400 cars later, we share personal insights on turning depreciated assets into valuable investments, using examples like the Mercedes CLS and 911 Porsche. The conversation seamlessly weaves into the art of rejuvenating old assets, whether cars or businesses, with actionable strategies such as the "management audit" to breathe new life into underperforming ventures, drawing parallels to restoring cherished possessions.

Unleash the power of decisive leadership and continuous learning to fuel your business's growth. We dive into the essential tactics of empowering your teams through open book management and accountability, and the critical role of continuous recruitment. With anecdotal insights, we highlight the importance of emotional detachment in decision-making and explore the dynamics of leadership transitions. The episode wraps up with an engaging discussion on the CEO's ever-evolving role, underscoring the necessity of innovation and the invaluable contribution of founder wisdom to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive during acquisitions.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
get on the green, down on the green dot yeah, baby
, yeah, baby we are back, busy,back for the business, the big
talk about small business.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm here with my partner, eric Howerton, in the
studio and it's a lovely rainyday outside.
I decided I'd drink hotchocolate today.
Yeah, you did.
In honor of Coco, yeah, coco.
In honor of Coco, who workshere at Podcast Videos.
Yeah, she's awesome, she isawesome.
So it's a perfect day to drinkmy hot cocoa Plus.

(00:45):
I've already had like five cupsof coffee and been up since 2
am Hell yeah, bro.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
So it was 2 am today.
You got up yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I did go back to sleep at 4, but I got two hours
worth of work done in that.
What'd you do?
Just cranking out emails?
No, actually I was texting withgrant, who's the president of
janice?
Was he awake?
Okay, okay, we're, we're goingmaking out lists.
It's beautiful.
You know doing those things.

(01:15):
Will you work for me for freechecking my mission accounts?
I practically am right nowthat's a good point.
All right, I'll back off alittle.
We try to help each other.
Honestly, you're doing the samething.
Yeah, you really are.
You're.
You're giving more to this thanI am by the use of your studio
and production people, so weappreciate that.

(01:38):
That's why we can do this showbecause of the generosity of our
sponsor.
Yes, yes, eric Howerton ofPodcast.
Videos.
Podcastvideoscom is yourleading provider of audio and
video content.
Dang, it's beautiful man Righthere in Northwest Arkansas.
We do it all from A to Z, keepgoing man, from the idea all the

(02:01):
way through to the finalexecution and distribution, and
marketing.
And analytics, and analytics.
I forgot that.
It's the buzzword today.
I got to say analytics andeverything.
We are data-driven, data-driveninsights.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
We're all about the data we are, so anyway, we're
back again.
We got another episode today.
It's going to be a fun topictoday when you have an old car
or an old business.
I think it came from a responsefrom one of our listeners to a

(02:39):
post I put on somewhere onLinkedIn or something.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I love it when listeners throwin some questions or discussion
topics.
It's always good Me too Becausethere's millions of them, yeah,
millions of scenarios that aregoing on out there in small
business and you really kind ofneed somebody at times, yeah,
and you can't talk to everybodyaround you.

(03:02):
It just makes it worse.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Some of those questions are a little bit
embarrassing that people askyeah, we may have to put some of
those out just the same, we'renot going to identify the
characters.
No, no, no, that set them in.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's definitely confidential.
So if you do have a question,send it in.
We'll keep you completelyconfidential, unless you let us
know otherwise and you want tobe the person behind that, which
would be kind of cool.
Yeah, that, but definitelyconfidential.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
We won't narc you out , no, we're not narcs go to big
talk about smallbusinesscom.
Yeah, and there's a information.
Isn't there a inquiry?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
yeah, yeah, yeah, there's contact is to tell us
your question.
Fantastic, hey, I do have alittle on our history lesson
section.
Good, let's go for that.
So I gave you a copy of it.
Okay, because this is historyin the sense that this was
written by somebody a long timeago, but this is actually a poem

(03:59):
.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Oh wow, we're really getting esoteric here.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Eric's going to read some poetry Great, I am man.
It's by Edmund Vance Cook.
He actually passed away in the30s, born in the 1800s.
But what I like about that is,you know, like it's always been
hard.
There's always been these samefundamental questions that we

(04:25):
experience and ask of ourselves.
So I mean, I've always foundthat fascinating.
When I'm like man, things areso hard these days it's not any
harder than it ever was.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
We were just having that discussion this morning.
Richard Worsham and myself,really yeah, I said, man, we got
a lot of problems or we couldsay, opportunities for
improvement.
That's the way he likes to lookat it.
Okay, I love it.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
That is great man.
It's true, because you'll hearthis poem that's actually
talking about that.
It's about your perspective,mm-hmm, you know.
So I'm going to do my best toread this with beauty.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
All right, I'll keep a straight face.
Thank you With beauty.
All right, I'll try to keep astraight face, thank you.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way with
a resolute heart and cheerful,or hide your face from the light
of day with a craving soul andfearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton or atrouble's an ounce or a trouble
is what you make it.
A trouble's an ounce or atrouble is what you make it, and

(05:29):
it isn't the fact that you'rehurt that counts, but only how
did you take it?
You are beaten to earth, well.
Well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to falldown flat, but to lie there,
that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown whilethe higher you bounce.

(05:51):
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn't the fact that you'relicked that counts, it's how did
you fight and why.
And though you be done to thedeath, what then?
If you battled the best youcould, if you played your part
in the world of men, why thecritic will call it good.

(06:13):
Death comes with a crawl orcomes with a pounce, and whether
he's slow or spry, it isn't thefact that you're dead that
counts, but only how did you die?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
oh, man, that's beautiful isn't it?

Speaker 1 (06:28):
yeah, love it.
You know what I love about that.
You know it's just like whatyou're saying earlier it
troubles a ton or troubles anounce.
So either have big problems orsmall problems, but it's what
you make it right.
And then it's not the fact thatyou're hurt that counts.
But how did you take it?
You know this skill is a longone, like we kind of talk about

(06:50):
this a lot in our podcast.
You know it's this ability tobe resilient, to be optimistic,
to fight through.
It's so critical for anentrepreneur.
It is like fundamental, likethat's why, when we talk about
this stuff, it's like can youfight through?
So critical for an entrepreneur.
It is like fundamental, likethat's that's why, when we talk
about this stuff, it's like canyou teach entrepreneurism?
I mean, can you really teach it?

(07:11):
Like not, not business.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, but to be that elements of it.
You can, but can you change thepersonality of somebody?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
is the question right their perspective, yeah, their
energy, yeah, is the questionright?
Their perspective, their energy, their ambition, their drive,
you know, because I mean it hasto come from within.
It does.
And then you have to have abigger perspective in life.
And, like the fact that youknow, I ask myself the question
all the time is, why am I doingthis?
Right?
But then I remind myself whyI'm doing it.

(07:41):
I actually have, I have thisbook right here that I carry
around with me, but it does havemy purpose and has my chief aim
in life and I literally read iton a regular basis to remember
why the hell I'm doing what I'mdoing.
Because there's somethingbigger.
That affirmation, absolutely,it's critical.
It's like the why you're doingsomething has to be greater than

(08:03):
making money, you know oh yeah,always is.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
I mean, whenever anybody tells me it's like what
do you really like to do?
I like to make money, I'm like,okay, you're dead.
Okay, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's like so true, yeah and there's so much of that
goes on in the world and peopleget faked out by this shit.
You know, yeah, yeah, they seeall that.
I mean, like you take somebodylike zuckerberg, like I mean he
he wasn't doing it for the money, he was doing it because, you
know, he saw something, he hadpassion behind it, he drove
through it.
I mean nobody really remembersthose times that he was doing

(08:36):
all not freaking.
You know hackathons, you know Imean like there is a reason
he's doing.
It wasn't because he was tryingto make some money, it's
because he's trying to figuresomething out Right and solve a
problem.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Sure you know, and that's always well.
It's not always the driverthat's.
It's a good driver.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean there are others likecreating good jobs for people
and other things that are sortof, you know, improving the
community and other ancillarydrivers.
But yeah, the mission why doesthe business exist?

(09:09):
Has to be one that's worthdoing, right, if you're going to
be motivated, yeah, and thenit's.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
You know, it's the.
You know the fact that I mean,like you've been through it a
lot, mark, right, where thereare problems, I mean you can
have a day that I've I know,I've experienced hundreds of
them.
But days that it's very bleak,like there's, like you are just
just bad news all day.
Bad news all day, everybody'stwisted, no one's there to help,

(09:35):
right, and it lands on you andit's really all your fault, no
matter how you look at it, andyou're totally accountable.
But you know we don't just laythere, no, and die.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
That's the failure aspect.
If you let you die, that's it.
That's why, if you just decide,I'll never fail.
That's why I hate this wholeidea.
Fail often, fail early.
No, don't failing means yougave up.
Yeah, okay, yeah, not failingmeans that you encounter
roadblocks and setbacks and youplow on, plow on baby.
You go around them, you go overthem, you go through them, you

(10:08):
do whatever you have to do.
Then you didn't fail.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
That's right, because I love what he says right here.
It's a disgrace yeah, it's adisgrace to fail and just lay
there.
That's the disgrace.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
It really is.
It's embarrassing.
I mean, yeah, it's shameful, itis.
It's to be avoided.
Yes, it is.
Well, that's good stuff.
That's heavy.
Okay, it's very heavy.
I will admit I don't read a lotof poetry, but that was a good
one, thank you.
I actually took a photo of thatand already sent it out to some

(10:42):
people.
I think need to hear it.
Great, I actually took a photoof that and already sent it out
to some people.
I think need to hear it.
Great, man, and I thinkhopefully our listeners will
benefit from that.
Again, that was Edmund VanceCook.
How did you die?
All right, today we've got a funtopic.
We're going to talk aboutvehicles in a metaphorical sense

(11:06):
.
Right, the business is thevehicle that has to be
maintained.
But I just wanted to bring upand talk about cars for a minute
.
You know it's one of myfavorite subjects.
Absolutely Love cars.
Can't help it, sorry, I knowit's an addiction.
It's horrible.
I still look at them every day.
You spent so much money on cars, wasted so much money.

(11:28):
It's mind-boggling.
I think you know people may not.
It sounds like bullshit, butI've had over 400 cars.
You've had over 400 cars, yes,and I probably had 150 new cars,
okay, on top of that, you know,included in that 400.
But think about all thedepreciation.
Terrible financial decision, ohmy god.

(11:51):
Yeah, most people would saythat, and a lot of them were bad
financial decisions, but someof them were good, yeah, um, and
that's kind of what I wanted totalk about, because I saw on
linkedin the other there wassome money expert and he was
talking and he said well, ifyou're ever going to be wealthy,
the first thing to do is notdrive a nice car.
And you know there's a lot oftruth to that.

(12:14):
A lot of people are car poor.
They owe too much on their cars.
They shouldn't spend that money.
It's a depreciating asset.
Like, what's the worst thing tofinance A depreciating asset?
Right, yeah, worst thing tofinance a depreciating asset?
Yeah, right, yeah.
However, there are exceptions.
Um, you can buy some nice carscheap if you are clever and you

(12:35):
buy the right cars.
Um, sometimes, I mean, they'renot going to be new cars most of
the time, although sometimesthey are.
I don't know if you've seen thenew international scout that's
coming back.
No, well, I've got one on order.
I read it oh, nice, okay,scouts man.
Well, the last time I bought umthe bronco.
The first night, it wasannounced, matt lewis called me

(12:57):
up and said you want to orderone of these?
I'm like, yeah, he goes, youneed it?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
yeah, okay so I've ordered the easiest cell call of
his day, I'm sure so I paid 44500 for it.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
When it came in, I could have sold it for 72 000.
Dang.
We drove it for I don't knoweight, nine months, whatever it
was.
We sold it back to lewis for 8500 more than we paid.
Wow, because there was ashortage of them.
Yeah, everybody wanted Broncos,so that was a good purchase.

(13:29):
You got to know what you'rebuying, true, you know I've got
this Mercedes CLS.
Okay, it's a complicated car,it's a 2008, but it looks a lot
newer than that.
They were very swoopy andadvanced.
Cost $80,000 new.
The value of it today isridiculous.
Again, I just stumbled across avideo.

(13:50):
Yesterday Guy bought one.
He said it costs 6% of itsoriginal cost.
So I've got one.
It's got 50,000 miles on it.
It's mint condition, it's green, it's wonderful.
80,000 new that equates to117,000, I think, today.
Dang, and the value of the car.
Honestly, I'm having a hardtime selling it for eleven

(14:13):
thousand dollars.
So I just took it out to myoldest daughter last night.
She needs to a car to drive.
I'm like there's no point ingetting rid of the car.
Okay, yeah, $11,000.
But my point is you can buy acar like that.
It's a really nice car.
It's fully depreciated, yeah,and you know it's not a bad

(14:35):
investment.
Yeah, it's not going to go downin value at this point.
Here's another case in point 911Porsches.
They hold their value.
If you buy a used one, you cansell it.
You could drive it for fiveyears and sell it for more than
it cost, all right, yeah,there's no better car to buy,
it's true Than that.

(14:56):
I mean, it was a super nice carwhen it's new.
Let the first five years ofdepreciation do their thing and
then, basically, you're drivingit for free and some new 911s
people buy that they sell threeyears later and make money on.
I know a guy here in town.
He bought a new one.
He drove it for three years,sold it for one thousand dollars

(15:19):
, less than he paid for it.
How can you beat that?
That's good.
So anyway, you can have a nicecar if you're clever about it,
yeah, and you don't just buyexactly what you want,
regardless of the depreciationfactor.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
It requires a little discipline, yeah, foresight,
little research yes, exactlyyeah, so it was funny.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
I I saw this guy on facebook, I know, posted and he
was talking about how he wait,how much time he wastes at work
um looking at cars, because Ijust can't help it you know I'm
sitting there and the next thingyou know I'm on auto trader.
And then he took a picture.
He goes outside.
He goes oh my god, it's abeautiful restored um land bro.

(16:02):
Uh cruiser out there got aphoto with him.
Maybe I should get a landcruiser always chasing that bug
man totally understand that.
But and in today's discussion wewere going to talk about you
know, when you've got an old car, um, or an old business, um,

(16:22):
what do you have to do?
How, uh, you know where do youstart, um, as it relates to
fixing it up, to making it goodagain and I've done a lot of
restorations on cars too, youknow.
I had quite a little collectionat one time, but so I understand
this process and it really issimilar Old car, old house, old

(16:43):
business.
They have many commoncharacteristics and it starts
out with figuring out what yougot yeah, and it starts out with
figuring out what you got andyou know.
So, in business, you knowwhether you have your existing
business and you're not happywith how it's performing, or
you're buying a business thatyou need to fix which is my

(17:06):
favorite kind of business to buyyeah, I've turned around, yeah.
Or you're taking over abusiness that you work in and
now you have a larger role orthe top role in it.
Where do you start?
Yeah, what?
What do you think?
What are, what are some thingsthat you would do to to change
the situation?
Because obviously, if you keepdoing the same thing, it's going

(17:28):
to get the same results, right.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah.
So I mean that's a, that's ahuge question.
I mean, there's so manyvariants to it.
But I mean, like you know, theone thing you just mentioned I
think is cool is like if you buyan existing business and, just
like your analogy with the carwait five years for the
depreciation I mean an existingbusiness you can walk in.
And if they're just sittingthere breaking even and they
have been for a couple of yearsbut they can't seem to grow it,

(17:52):
yep, I mean, man, that's a,that's an opportunity, this huge
opportunity it really is, causeI can guarantee you, you know,
they might not be doing verygood in marketing.
Oh, all of them, they all sharethat.
Yeah, you could just come in and, and especially in today's time
, I mean like, I mean I thinkit's encouraging for younger
people, yes, to get involved,because you can take, like you

(18:15):
know, like a landscapingbusiness that's doing well,
everybody's worn out that ownsit, yep, but it's got a good
operation.
You know, the crew's been withthem.
They've kind of depreciated allthe bad apples of the crew,
right, and now they got five orsix people that are like steady,
consistent, they do good work.

(18:37):
You know everything's goingwell.
They got a customer base, yep,and you can march in that thing
as a young person and know howto do social media marketing,
digital marketing, google andwhatever else it takes, and you
can just absolutely just grow itand working visibility yeah,
okay, I mean, it's like I can'ttell you.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
I've said this so many times.
The landscapers pull up intheir white trucks yeah, with no
signage.
Okay, the workers all havewhatever shirt they rolled out
of bed wearing, yeah On.
And there's no job site signageRight, it's like nobody even
knows who they are.
They come by and they see thisyard transformed or whatever.

(19:19):
Nobody even knows who they are.
Yeah, I would have my truckspainted lime green.
Yeah, I mean, I would havegigantic signage with phone
numbers that are visible,websites that are visible, a
statement of what you do yes, soit's not a mystery right, like
you know.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Simple question do the do you do?
Leaves yeah I know, I mean, youknow.
Simple question Do you doleaves?
Yeah, I know, I mean, you knowI mean, unless you're saying
that kind of stuff and you'vegot to say you know you can get
that business immediately frompeople.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, it's just not that hard, yeah, but yeah,
you're right.
So the marketing is always aproblem.
But let's just go back again towhere do we start.
Okay, where do we start on thisprocess?
I, we did a lot of businessplanning, you know, over the
years.
I started doing it in 1980 andcame up with this concept that

(20:02):
we called the management audit.
I think it was 1988 or 89 whenwe started doing that.
Instead of just being hired asconsultants to go in and
moderate a business planningretreat for a company, we said
we're not going to do that.
We want to go in there armedwith information, get everybody
on the same page.

(20:22):
So we're going to do amanagement audit and it's kind
of analogous to the book Good toGreat.
Yeah, you remember how theystudied those companies.
They just got all theinformation they could and they
just threw it all out on thetable and started talking about
them.
Yeah, with no particularhypothesis or preconceived

(20:44):
notions, mm-hmm, and I thinkthat's a very good idea.
The management audit wassomewhat like that Like, get all
the financials, okay.
Get all their marketingmaterials, get all their
contracts, take a look at alltheir staff, get all the the uh,
go out and interview theirclients, interview their

(21:06):
employees, interview theirowners, um, stack them up
compared to the industry norms,do the benchmarking on how
they're performing with the datathat you've got and then see
what comes out of that.
What issues did you identify inthat process?
And then come up with yourstrategies and actions and goals

(21:31):
to to deal with those things.
But I think it's a really goodway to go.
Um, you need to to, you know,uh, go through some sort of a
process, and it's very hard forpeople who own a business to do
this.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
So you're talking about like, if I like, for my
podcast videos?
Yeah, what you're saying is isthat an appropriate way to
basically check the maintenanceof the vehicle?
Right, yeah, of the business?
Right Is look over the wholething.
Look over the whole thing.
Just come in and do a completeaudit.
Don't try to make assumptions.
Yes, just analyze what thehell's going on in every nook

(22:07):
and cranny and then see whatpulls out of it.
You got it, and is that handledbetter, you think, by somebody
that's outside the company?

Speaker 2 (22:17):
It may be, or maybe it's somebody inside the company
, but they're not necessarily atthe top.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
But somebody that has a non-biased objective
perspective is the big thing.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yes, yes, and it's brave enough to be able to tell
you the truth.
But again, the information thatyou pull together is you don't
have to put a spin on it ifyou're the one that's going
through this process.
The information is theinformation.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Yeah, if somebody sayssomething X, then that's what

(22:52):
they said.
It's not what you said, right,ok, if a client says something
about you, that's what they said.
It's not what you're sayingabout how the firm is performing
.
If the average collectionperiod for a firm in your
business is 45 days and yours is80.
Ok, there's a damn problem out,there is 80.

(23:14):
Okay, there's a damn problemout there, there's a problem.
Okay, that that's, that'sevident.
Yeah, yeah, all right, I mean.
So again, I mean I think it'sit's really good to go through
that process and and it getseverybody on the same footing,
it's kind of like, you know, Itook my RV that I bought not too
long ago, the diesel truck shop.

(23:35):
They have the whole thing goneover.
Okay, the guy charged fourhours to really thoroughly look
at it.
Yeah, now he identifiedproblems I knew it had.
And he identified problems Ididn't know it had.
Right, okay, which is great.
And then we took care of allthose Like I didn't think there
was anything wrong with mybatteries, but he pulled them

(23:55):
out, he tested them, the voltagewas low and one of them was
bulging out.
Okay, that's bad, all right,yeah.
Or I had an airline in the backthat was leaking that I did not
know was even there, because ithad a special brake setup.
So when you tow a car, it hooksup the brakes of the tow
vehicle but you probably knowabout this stuff better than I

(24:18):
do, no, but anyway, it uses theair brakes of the rv to control
the brake pedal of the car thatyou're towing.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Gotcha, it's really, you know, sophisticated, but
that had a leak in it, then youwould have known that until you
started trying to tell something.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
I would not have known that at all.
I mean, my gauges looked like Ihad adequate air pressure, Okay
, but that's a real hazard.
But I mean there were a lot ofthings like that, Okay.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
You know, when we're talking about this, like when I
think about doing an audit of mybusiness, it feels really
painful to go through that, likejust to start it, because you
know, I mean like the thing is Imean great analogy about taking
your car in for that.
Look around, right, that'spretty normal.
I know where to kind of go todo that and I can see kind of

(25:04):
the box.
It's four hours.
But if we're going to dosomething like that for the
business, it's a littleintimidating.
Sure, you know.
But I mean you, you would know,like like I mean, what are we
talking about?
Like how, how would, how wouldone even start to get down that
path?

Speaker 2 (25:18):
like you identify somebody's objective unbiased
and brave, just informationgathering, just a wide open.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
So, but then how?
How long would you think thisaudit all together?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
I don't know.
It depends on the size of theorganization.
It could take you a week, itcould take you two months.
I mean, it's hard for me to say, but you need to pull that
trigger.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yes, that's kind of the point, right, it's a start.
And then, how often do youthink one should do it for a
business?

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't know.
Again, it sort of depends onyour performance.
Yeah, I mean, if I got abusiness that's growing by 50% a
year, five years in a row andmaking profits galore, probably
not going to be too worriedabout it, right, you know?
I mean I'm certainly going todo my annual business planning,
but I don't necessarily need togo through quite, maybe quite,
the same investigative process.

(26:07):
I mean, let's, you know, behonest.
But but I do think you know theother thing when I work with my
small business students whowork with small businesses as
part of their, the class andtheir, their project, they work
with a real business.
So they're going to go througha white, you know, information

(26:30):
gathering phase, and I mean it'severything from Google reviews
to seeing how they show up onGlassdoor.
To, you know, are there anycomplaints against them at the
Better Business Bureau thatthey're unaware?
I mean, there's all kinds ofdigging that you can do, right,
yeah, but you know it's once youget all this information and

(26:50):
you identify all the issues thathave to be addressed, that the
next phase is let's come up witha new business plan.
That's where we can say, ok,which of these things is a
priority?
We can't do everything.
Yeah, you know what.
What's the most important stuffthat we're going to get done?
Yeah, so I think it reallygives you the ammunition to.
It helps get everybody in thefirm on the same page and gives

(27:16):
you the ammunition you need todo the business plan.
And the business plan is theplace where we deal with all
this stuff.
Right, right, too many people,I mean again, it's a function of
sort of the pop culture ofentrepreneurship of which you
and I both like to dig at.

(27:37):
Yeah, that the only purpose ofthe business plan is to go out
and raise outside capital.
Yeah, that's not true, not true.
The business plan should besomething that guides your
business that's right On a dailybasis, and, and so that's where
I like to to.
After that that comprehensiveoverview is done, then let's sit

(28:03):
down and figure out exactlywhat we're going to do.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, and you need to put goals, goals that have
metrics to them, quantitativegoals, quantitative goals.
And you and you know one thingmy former business partner at
Get it Goals that have metricsto them Quantitative goals,
quantitative goals, and you knowone thing my former business
partner at White Spider taughtme at JS was they have to be
easily accessible.
Yes, these metrics, like youcannot have a metric in there

(28:26):
that you have to go spend twohours to go find Right.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
It just doesn't make that.
I mean you were so fortunatethat you teamed up with him.
Yeah, I mean such a brilliantguy who understands management
he does.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
And then you've got to empower your team to know
what they own.
And then they have to providethose metrics.
It's their job to watch overthose right.
And then you have to haverecurring and we have recurring
team meetings here, like whereyou lay it out, you present it
to the rest of the team.
So now you have someaccountability.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yep, and it's really fantastic once you kind of lay
that stuff out, I mean it's itreally, is it just, I mean,
that's why I'm a big fan of openbook management.
Yeah, yeah, you talk aboutaccountability.
Show what everybody sold forthe month.
Yeah, there's youraccountability.
You know how each unit's doing.
Okay, there's youraccountability.
But you're right about havingthe information with the goals

(29:18):
available to everybody and howyou're performing toward those
yep, um.
So, yeah, you gotta have thegoals.
You gotta have, um, uh, youknow actions.
Who's gonna do what?
How?

Speaker 1 (29:31):
when and where?
Yeah, and you've got to decide.
Are you going to repairsomething or are you going to?

Speaker 2 (29:36):
replace it.
Yeah, and that applies topeople too 100%.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
That's actually the first thing I'm thinking about.
Yeah, it does, you know.
I mean, that's a never-endingthing too, and it's not like
You're a coach, you're buildinga team.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Did they just recruit once in the beginning of the
season and then stop?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, no, you can't do that.
You're always in recruitmentmode, you're always looking for
you know, it's just the realityto it, I mean, and you can't
like, I still kind of strugglesometimes with some hard
decisions that you've got tomake with people.
You know, because we love otherpeople, right, we, we love
seeing them grow, I mean that's.
But at the same time you knowthere's people that don't allow

(30:17):
the progress of the company andit hurts everybody else along
the way, and you have to makethose decisions sooner than
later I was just involved in oneof those yesterday and this
morning, and here's the.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Here's the scenario.
There's somebody in a job.
They show up every day.
They're not hostile or negative, right, okay, they do certain
things adequately, but we need alot more out of that person.
The person doesn't have theeducation or the experience or

(30:51):
the aggressive personality thatit's going to take to where you
can say, hey, go, do this, fixit, not do a, b, c, d.
Did you do a?
Now, let's take a look.
Did you do b now, let's take alook?
No, we nobody's got the timefor that.
No, okay, maybe in anotherenvironment that person would be

(31:11):
fine, but in the role thatthey're in now, that's not going
to get us where we need to go.
Yep, so we got to upgrade.
And it's this passionate thing.
It's not that they performbadly.
They may have a hard timeunderstanding when they're let
go.
Why, yeah, hopefully ourmanagers will communicate that

(31:32):
to them in such a way that theyunderstand why they have to be
replaced.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
You know, Mark, I mean like the older I get and
the more experiences I gothrough, the more I'm attuned
and aware of this negative drawthat individual people have.
Oh God, you know what I'msaying.
In the social media, theinformation availability, the
continuous communication hasexacerbated this negative

(32:03):
perspective, this passive,drifting perspective, and it's
just like the person you'retalking about.
They may not be negativetowards other people, but their
own self-perspective and whythey're doing what they're doing
is just fascinating.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's so limiting.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Very limiting.
Yeah, it's just too limiting.
You cannot have that.
I know it's like that.
I mean, honestly, bigcorporations can't have it
either, but it's tolerated morebecause they have enough flow
going through.
Yeah, they've got so muchinertia they do.
yeah you know, but but but youknow, they have to make hard
decisions, like when we seethese big companies make massive

(32:39):
layoffs.
I mean, yeah, really a lot ofpeople maybe that are good are
being impacted by that, ofcourse.
But there's this machine this,yeah, this, this, uh, this, this
, this action or lack of action,it's a component in the machine
, yeah, and it comes down to theindividual.
The poem we just read earlieris exactly if everybody on the

(33:02):
bus had a perspective like thatpoem, like why am I doing what
I'm doing?
Right, what are we?

Speaker 2 (33:08):
going to be able to accomplish, you wouldn't have
any problems, I know.
And here's the other thing.
I think it always everybodythinks about it in the context
of is it broken?
If it's broken, it needs to befixed or repaired.
But it's business.
It's not always broken, right,it just doesn't perform as well
as it could.

(33:29):
Yeah, here's okay.
Let's say, I got a car.
It's a hot rod.
Yeah, american v8.
It's got a four barrelcarburetor on it.
Oh, wow, it's a holly 650double pumper.
Right, yeah, but listen though,I want this thing to go even
faster than it is, so I'm goingto put a Holley 850 on it.

(33:50):
All right, my 650 does not needto be overhauled, right, it
works exactly like it's intended, but it doesn't throw enough
gas in this monster that wantsto suck the fuel and to create
this incredible horsepower.
Yeah, I put that 850 on thereand I can get another 40
horsepower out of it.
Think about your business likethat in that context You're

(34:12):
modifying it, I'm modifying it,I'm improving it.
Okay, I'm not necessarilyfixing something broken.
I think a problem with a lot ofus is we think, okay, we don't
fix something until it's broken.
Ie, you know, we don't replacesomebody until they quit?
Yeah, okay, yeah, then we canupgrade them.

(34:32):
No, we're not stuck with thatforever, right?
Or we don't change that processuntil it breaks down in some
horrible way that greatlyaffects us.
You know, maybe we're doingwhat we're doing and we're doing
a decent job at it, but ittakes way too much effort and we
don't capture informationthat's going to help us later,
and that's why we need to changethe process.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Information that's going to help us later and
that's why we need to change theprocess.
It's true, it's true and Iwould even go a step further
that the modification sometimesis comes back to the leadership
to spend time with people, tohelp them see more in themselves
, to perform better right Tobelieve that it's possible.
The capacity most people have is, like you said earlier,

(35:15):
limiting, self-limiting.
To get out of that and say waita minute, I actually have the
capability to do this, andsometimes it takes, you know, a
lunch meeting or a coffeemeeting.
Just get a person out of theenvironment, talk to them,
encourage them, direct them, andthen it fixes problems.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
It's so true.
It's like you know.
I always tell my students atthe beginning of every semester
this stuff is not brain surgery.
Yeah, you are very capable.
I guarantee you are probablyhave a higher IQ than most
people who will own a business.
Yeah, because they're incollege, they've been able to do

(35:55):
certain tests, and you know, toget there.
They're seniors, but you knowwhat I mean.
They overcome all these hurdles.
That is an indication ofintellect, sure, regardless of
whether it's a predictor ofperformance later or not I'll
argue with that one, though butit's like.
You can do this.
This is not that hard.

(36:16):
You are completely capable andyour potential is completely
unlimited.
There's no limitation on whatyou could do, other than the
limitations that you set forthfor yourself, and business
owners are a lot like that.
They set a lot of veryself-imposed limitations, not
just their employees and whatthey think that business can do,

(36:40):
even themselves.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know some of the great, themost successful folks that I've
, you know, listened to orresearched.
One of their biggest regrets isthat they didn't set their
goals high enough, and we'retalking about people that have
basically changed the entireworld.
Sure, I wish I would have setmy goals higher, because they
recognize when they hit thegoals that they were after they

(37:04):
were obtainable.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, I mean, I could say that about myself.
I can too, about myself too youknow.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
There's no question about it.
Yeah, we should be.
We should have higher goals.
I know what's wrong with us.
What's wrong with us, that'sour problem.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
I was saying that to my wife the other night about
this this local home buildingcompany that sold this wasn't
the latest one that sold to thelargest home builder in the
country, but it was one thatsold to one of the largest home
builders in the country thatpreceded that.
And anyway, I'm like, can youbelieve how much money they got

(37:42):
out of that company for whatthey did, for the quality of
their work and everything I said?
We are freaking idiots.
Okay, that we were.
We didn't do that with our, ourbusiness.
You know we accumulated someassets in the real estate that
we owned and things, but I'mjust saying, as a going concern,

(38:08):
the value that they createdbecause they decided that's what
they were going to do.
They didn't put a cap onthemselves.
Yeah, I'm sure they had amillion problems.
I know they did.
Like, the quality is not alwayswhat they want, right, okay,
right, sometimes you got to putstuff out there to figure out
how to make it better.
Yep, we could say, well, no,we're going to not do this until
it's perfect, or you go boom,we're going to get it out there.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
You know, a lot of times it's relating to focusing
on what's wrong with yourbusiness versus what's really
right about your business.
Oh, I know that's so true,because if you just focus on the
wrongs, look every freakingbusiness, company, everything,
anything has problems, right,you know, it's like we look at
Walmart and think to ourselvesman, they don't have any
problems, I need to run mybusiness.

(38:49):
Dude, you get inside that, I'msure you're going to find a.
Oh my God, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Any company is going to have that, yeah, but there
are certain things they doreally well and they capitalize
on those.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
And that's what you've got to focus on.
Just keep doing.
I mean, you know what I'msaying.
That's the way I feel.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
I feel the same way as an individual.
It's like they all want to workon all their weaknesses.
Okay, let's not work on yourweaknesses.
Let's get out of the thingsthat you're weak at, yeah, and
do what you do really well, okay, yeah, that's the way to
maximize that's it, and feel ahell of a lot better about
yourself.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, you're enthusiastic.
You're doing what you love,what you're good at.
I mean, you're making progress.
Everybody loves what they'regood at yeah, man Don't they.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, they do.
It's so true.
Nobody loves anything thatthey're not good at
no-transcript.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
You got some beautiful magic going on right
there.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
You do it's like a catalyst.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, man.
Another thing that I think thatcan keep or prevent or stall
somebody out from being honestwith their business whether they
should repair or replacewhatever it might be is you do
have owners, especially newfounders, new entrepreneurs,
that are attached to their brand.
Yes, they're attached to theirbrand, yes, and they stall out

(40:07):
by making hard, objectivedecisions because they just fall
in love with their owncompany's identity.
Oh, it's so true and feel likeit's.
I hate it when people say, whenpeople ask me this question so
you know, when we sold ourcompany, they say so what was it
like to sell your baby?
Yeah, and I'm like dude, thatwas not my baby, that was a
monster, that's right.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
I was like chaining yeah and trying to control it,
right, that's right that thing,that whole baby concept went
away like year one, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
I mean yeah, because I did have a you know a moment
way back, and they was like Irecognized this is not my
company.
I am playing a part using mystrength, right, but this thing
is is is its own beast man.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Yeah, it's like you're the mother and it's the
child, and the child for has itsown personality.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, and you've got to let that living through the
child right, and any mom,especially moms, can be a
jeopardy of this right.
They live through their kidsand you know I'm saying they
lose their identity, right, andthen they're always disappointed
and scared and worried about it.
You can't do that like thisthing.
This machine has to develop onitself and you're just kind of

(41:14):
ducking and dodging, trying toplay a part to keep that puppy
going.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
But if you get emotionally attached to this
brand yes, like it's you're justbasically like get rid of the
baby concept it's like you'reignoring if you're so attached
to your brand and what you doand your identity you're
ignoring what's going on in themarketplace.
That's what it says to me.
Yeah, it's like we know betterthan the marketplace what we

(41:38):
need to do and be and provideright.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, you can't operate like that and I think
that some of the thing is islike the entrepreneur can get so
invested which you should beright, it goes back to what we
were originally talking about.
You are 100% invested to seeingthe success of this company.
You can't let loose of that.
But you can't be attached to itlike it's everything and
anything Like and you have likeyou like.

(42:03):
Basically, you know you can'tbe afraid to make changes
because you'd be embarrassedthat your baby isn't looking
pretty.
No, you got to get rid of thatand so if you can't, you know,
segment yourself from thatsituation, you're in a world of
hurt.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
You know, I've always said, like managers all right,
let's say we take an existingorganization.
It's 10, 20, 30 years old,whatever, and it's going to go
through a leadership transition.
There's a new leader that comesin Hopefully they came from
within and rose to the ranks,but there's a transition in

(42:40):
leadership that's taken placeright.
Transition in leadership that'staken place right.
The art of that person's job isknowing what to keep and what
to throw away to get to the nextlevel.
That is so difficult.
Okay, founders tend to not wantto throw anything away.
Yeah, okay, I've been theremyself like yeah, people go like

(43:02):
that revenue, we don't make anymoney on that and we, we need
to get Mike.
No, I want to keep everyrevenue dollar.
It takes more time to do that.
We make it doesn't matter.
You know, I'm always going toprobably, you know likely fall
into that kind of a crap, um,but I do think, um that knowing
what you're going to keep andknowing what you need to change

(43:25):
is the whole art of whetheryou're the one that's continuing
at the helm or, particularly,in transitions.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
You know, and, on top of that, the ability to be
decisive on that, oh yeah, andnot like, like most of the times
, you know in your gut, yes,what needs to be done, yes, so
it's the stalling of thisdecisiveness and it's like
holding on to your brand, it'slike trying to make a calculated
decision, decision.

(43:55):
You're weighing all these prosand cons and you don't.
And you, you just becomepassive and making a decision.
It never.
I have yet to experiencesomething that I know that I
should do and I'll give it moretime before I decide to do it.
And if somebody's coming in tothe company and they're decisive
, it's absolutely fantasticbecause they just make the call,

(44:17):
move on, yes, and they're notworried about the criticism,
right, you know, we've seen thata lot with, like you know, a
lot of companies all the time.
Recent ones, the starbucks,right, the new ceo comes in and
is making decisions.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Right, just call the shot getting criticized, getting
like why did you pull the plug?
Or whatever their latest thingthey said they're gonna not do
anymore.
Yeah, it was very controversial.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, yeah and everybody's criticizing.
But I mean, hey, you, thedecision sticking to the guns.
I mean you just got to do it.
Yeah, it's a hard role, Likethese CEOs of these big
companies.
I mean that's a really toughjob, man, to come in.
Oh it is, but you have to makethe decisions.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, you're going to be subject to all kinds of
Monday morning quarterbacks.
Right, absolutely, man, man.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, so it's so true , but you gotta if you're in a
small business and you knowthings aren't going the right
way you have like, do your audit.
Let that pull out what theinformation, the decisions that
you need to make.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Set your goals, put your metrics to it, make the
decision don't be attached to itright, get yourself objective
and then make decisions and goand and know the difference in
fixing things that are brokenyep and upgrading things that
function but don't give you theperformance that you want.
You got to do both.
It's not just fixing what'sbroken yep, it's more than that.

(45:38):
If you want to optimize,juicing what's going good, yeah,
yeah.
And again to me you know I putsomething out the other day on
LinkedIn and I got a certainamount of negative flack Some of
it from friends of mine, peopleI care about and respect where
I said I don't like the termsolopreneur, I don't either.
Okay, it's like what are youtalking about?

(46:00):
I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a oneperson company, but I do good
things for the community and Iam innovative in my practices,
and yada, yada, yada.
Just because it doesn't haveany value doesn't mean I'm not
an entrepreneur.
You know that's my distinction.
Yeah, it does.
Right, you could have all thosethings you said you do.
Those are the characteristicsof a really great small business

(46:22):
.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I've had small businesses myself.
I had a small business that gotthe $10 million in revenue and
it was on the Inc list, but itwas a small business.
It had no value.
At the end, the value was tiedto me personally yeah, yeah,
okay, not the organizationitself.

(46:44):
Okay, as a going concern,they'd have assets that were
valuable, and assets that werevaluable it's not like it wasn't
lucrative to a certain extent,but you know, I think it doesn't
make you an entrepreneur.
The entrepreneur, it goesbeyond fixing what's broken.
They go beyond just beinginnovative and they say we're

(47:08):
going to scale this, we're goingto make this, so we don't even
have to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
That's right.
It becomes the monster.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, it's going to be the monster that we, you know
we unchain and unleash on theworld.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
That's right, man it is its own freaking monster.
It's not my monster, you'redone with it, frankenstein.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
You know, created the thing and now he's out there,
you know, plundering the, thevillage or whatever it's it's
got its own life, it's doing itsown thing.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, you know, I think, a good, a really
practical example on this too,that I think maybe a lot of
people can understand.
You see solopreneurs doing thisand entrepreneurs too.
I've been guilty of this.
But calling yourself like,given the title of ceo, like a
chief executive officer of anycompany, is not a face, you know

(48:03):
, face value, title position.
It is a real freaking job thatrequires a real amount of
expertise, a real burden ofresponsibility, significant
amount of pressure.
I mean like it, like like you,if you're going to call this
like.
I don't want to call myself CEOof my companies.

(48:23):
Yeah, I don't want to be myselfCEO of my companies.
Yeah, I don't want to be thefreak.
You don't like that.
I'm not a good, I am not a goodCEO.
I've recognized that aboutmyself.
I don't want to deal with thatstuff.
I'm a good growth officer, youknow.
I can see things.
I can go talk some smack.
I can make you.

(48:45):
I can make you're a goodcreator.
Open doors starter.
A good creator, I like to opendoors, right, but I'm not a good
closer.
So I'm not a good sales officer.
I'm not a good.
You're probably better atclosing than you think.
Well, I mean, yeah, but I'drather open.
You know what I'm saying?
Uh-huh, like I'd rather open,let the other other ones know
what your strengths are.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Again, get out of your weaknesses, right, yeah
that's it, but.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
But being a good CEO is a significant burden of
responsibility.
So be careful.
Even if you're starting yourbusiness, you know.
If you're going to put onLinkedIn excitingly that you're
the CEO of your company, thenyou got a lot of crap you need
to be doing and you better beaware of it, right?
I mean, you can be founderright Run with that credibility,

(49:25):
yes, but are you a CEO?
Yes, are you really the personthat's making all the decisions
based on a whole bunch of thingsyou got to calculate?
There's good CEOs out there andyou should think about
partnering with somebody that isactually a good CEO.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Yeah.
If you're not, if that's notwhat you enjoy and you're good
at, I agree.
Not.
If that's not what you enjoyand you're good at, I agree.
Yeah.
Well, that always comes back tothe team building.
We've talked about that.
Finding the right partner whocomplements your skills is not
just like you dude, I got a goodone on this whole conversation.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
What's that?
If you're an entrepreneur, youhave a business and we're trying
to fix or repair or whatever,you need to be able to look at
yourself and say am I theproblem?
Right, right, if you are in theposition of CEO and you have
this audit and all these thingsexpose themselves, can you look

(50:14):
at yourself and say I'm on thewrong seat here?

Speaker 2 (50:17):
That takes somebody whose ego is not, is so out of
control that you know, andthat's a problem, I think.
It takes somebody that's yeah,it's a problem, I think it is,
it takes, it takes somebody.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
It's like this isn't my baby, they're secure.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
They're secure in themselves and and and their ego
is not completely wrapped upand in their identity of the job
.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
That they have the company because I can bet you
you can fix a lot in thebusiness if you get a good ceo.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
You can now that that the one caveat to that, okay,
is that person needs to alsorespect the founder.
Oh, yeah, they.
They cannot cast dispersions onthe found.
That's right, because they wantto put their brand on there.
That's right.
If they do that, then they'reshooting you in the back, it's.

(51:10):
You know well, who was it thatkilled Julius Caesar?
You know Brutus or whatever?
Yeah, you know, I don't.
I mean that happens a lot in alot of entrepreneurial
organizations because it's like,well, you know, they don't know
what they're doing.
They need professionalmanagement.
That's why they brought me in.

(51:30):
I know everything, ego trip,anything.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
That's right, yeah Bad.
It's a big, big decision on whothat is right.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yep, you got to make a good one and they got to
respect the founder.
I I saw a very interestingarticle on that on LinkedIn
recently about, you know,successful uh acquisitions and
one of the keys was keeping thefounder involved, yeah, okay,
and not throwing them out.
Mm-hmm, um.

(52:01):
So they're out there.
You know they need to haverespect shown to them so they're
not working against you withthis business that you just
bought, yeah, and I would sayit's hard for the acquiring
company to recognize.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
I mean to be able to see value.
And the founders are usuallyentrepreneurs, are usually
outliers they're a little bitgoofy outliers, right, they're a
little bit goofy, right,they're a little crazy, they're
squirrely and to know what, yeah, what their value really is.
But they're doing a lot, right,you know?
Right, they're driving thisenthusiasm.
Yes, it's, they're the.
They're the freaking gasolinein the vehicle.

(52:39):
I know you could have a perfectsouped up rod, like you were
talking about earlier, with nofuel in it.
No fuel, yeah, yourentrepreneur founder is the fuel
that.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Maybe they're like the nitrous oxide.
Yeah, they got gas, but theydon't have like that nitrous.
You put that nitrous in there,man.
The horsepower rating just goeslike that's right yeah, yeah,
and you gotta have that man.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
It's an easy thing to forget.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Here's another thing that I think that we need to
talk about, and that's how do weknow when we, or how do we
decide what new product orservice lines that we add in to
this organization as we analyzeit and try to fix it, slash,
improve its performance, newproducts and services?
I've always been a really bigfan of that.

(53:31):
Yeah, I think it keeps themarket interested in what the
company's doing.
Yeah, and it's part ofmarketing.
People don't realize that.
They think, oh, marketing isjust promotion.
You know, it's the four Ps.
It's the product is one of thefour p's, promotion's the one
everybody thinks it is, and thenit's physical distribution and
then it's pricing.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
But the products themselves new yep dude, if you
can roll out a product launch,like I mean, that's what I try
to drive the team here is like,especially being good at
launching new products, likefrom ideation you know to be
able to do an analysis on it.
What's the value proposition?
Yeah, yeah, and then get yourmarketing, your go-to-market

(54:14):
plan.
But if you can be releasing newfeatures and new features are
products oh yeah that's part ofit too is constant improvement.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
It doesn't have to be some revolutionary product.
It's just right an improvementit keeps the market interested,
it keeps your clients orcustomers interested in what
you're doing and it gives youthe excuse to market, gives you
something new to market.
And then my experience withthat is then they also buy more
at the old.
That's right, okay, because nowthey're not ignoring you.

(54:43):
You've been pounding away withthe same stuff for so long.
Now we come up with somethingnew.
It's like oh, now we've gottheir attention, yeah and
interest again.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Exactly, man.
I really hope my team listensto our show.
I know.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
I wish everybody in my businesses would listen to
this show too.
Yeah, every week, man, I knowit's like it should be a
requirement.
My students too.
The problem is that most peopledon't have the discipline to
consistently educate themselves.
Continuous learning Exactly,yeah, it's that.

(55:23):
Exactly, yeah, it's that.
Can that?
Continuous learning?
I mean, you know, I'm damn near67 years old and I swear I feel
like I'm learned so much in thelast two years.
You know what I mean it's likeand it's a constant process.
You've got to tune in, you'vegot to you know, and you've got
to consider the credibility ofwho you're getting your

(55:45):
information from.
That's one of my complaintsabout social media.
Obviously, there's a lot ofunfactual information that's put
out there, right?
Yeah, or there's in thebusiness social media.
There's a lot of opinions thatare given by people who don't
really have any experience,experience or performance to

(56:08):
back up the legitimacy of their,of their opinion.
Yeah, it's just like.
Well, I'm a one man guy band.
I got fired from the last threeplaces I worked.
Now I'm a solopreneur, workingout of my bedroom and don't get
a living.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
But here you go.
Here's how to be successful.
And, by the way, I'm a CEO nowtoo.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, here's how to be successful.
Okay, I mean, it's just so.
That's the problem.
But if you're discerning, youknow and you tune in to good
sources of information, you cancontinue to learn.
This is another thing.
I had an interesting discussionaviation you can continue to
learn.
This is another thing.
I had an interesting discussion,um uh, breakfast monday morning

(56:48):
with a, with a guy here innorthwest arkansas.
He owns a 26 or 28 milliondollar business very smart guy.
Uh, his um.
He took over from his fatherwho acquired the business back
in the 80s, and his mom actuallyowns the business, but he's
done an amazing job growing it.
Okay, he's gonna end up withthe business, right, but he's

(57:11):
done such a fantastic job, um,growing this business.
But you know, we started talkingabout, um, the possibility of
creating a board of directorsfor his company at this point to
expand his marketing reach, togive him expertise that he
doesn't have, you know, in howto grow a company, to give him

(57:33):
reach with regulators in hisindustry.
I mean, there's a lot ofreasons why you'd want to create
this outside board, but we weretalking about potential people
for it and I said, you know, myonly thing is you need to find
people who've been moresuccessful than you had, or and
they don't need the money.
Yeah, okay, so they'll behonest with you.
That's right, and I think it's,and he goes, you know.

(57:56):
It goes back to that thingwhere you know we've all heard
like, surround yourself, thefive people you spend the most
time with, or whatever, aregoing to be the ones that are
most influential on you.
There's a lot to that.
Yeah, there is, there really is.
So upgrade the people you hangout with is the moral of that
story.
It's a big one.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
They'll give you better advice and inspiration.
Yep, and you've got to show upin places to meet those types of
people too.
Oh yeah, which is outside yourcomfort zone.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah, well, it is for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
So hey, I've got a meeting coming up, mark, yeah,
so we've got to close her up.
We've got to wrap this thing up.
Yeah, we've got to.
I've got to go.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
I want to go work on my motorhome today.
That's my job.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
It's going to be fun?
Are we going to do the Zweighat pull?
Yeah, let's do that.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Let's wrap it up.
Let's get a Zweig hat pull.
We don't know what's in here.
No, there's no practice.
We don't even know what thesetopics are.
No, they're just pieces ofpaper.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Fail forward.
So we kind of already talkedabout that a little bit.
I would say that the fail partis the bad word in there.
It's really mistake forward.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yeah, right, experiment forward.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Experiment forward?
Yeah, it is, because if you liethere, if you fail, that means
you lie there and die.
That's disgraceful.
Yeah, but you're going to havea tremendous amount of mistakes,
a tremendous amount ofexperiences.
Just get back up and keep going.
I mean, I know that the conceptof that is what we're talking
about, but it can bemisinterpreted.

(59:36):
That's the fear of what we'retalking about here.
Is that the failure?
It's okay to fail so long asyou fail into the next failure?
Yeah, that the failure.
It's okay to fail so long asyou fail into the next failure.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
That's not true.
No, I don't know.
Do you watch football at all?
No, okay, I didn't for years,but I got into it, like you know
, maybe six, seven years ago.
Yeah, and I was watching thisplayoff game this weekend
between Kansas City and Buffalo.
Yeah, fantastic game, two teamsthat are just like.

(01:00:08):
I mean, if you watch collegefootball and then you watch pro
football, you realize these prosare freaking amazing.
Oh, yeah, okay yeah.
These guys are so good at whatthey do that it's mind-boggling,
yeah.
When you see these quarterbacksbeing chased by five guys
running sideways and throw apass, you know 30 yards and it

(01:00:29):
hits some guy that's got likethree guys around them, I mean
it's just like it blows yourmind.
But anyway, talk about failingforward.
It's the relevance here.
There was the last touchdownthat Kansas City made.
That won the game for them.
You know there's this guy, he'sgot the ball, won the game for
him.
You know there's this guy, he'sgot the ball, he's running, you
know, and man, he's beingtackled, okay, right at the goal

(01:00:51):
line, it just just gets thatball.
It just like you can just seehim.
It's like man, I'm gonna getthat ball over the line, yeah,
and just get his hand on theball and just reaches over the
line and that won the game.
Okay, that was the winningtouchdown.
It's like he could have diedthere.
He could have easily been onthe yard line and been stopped.

(01:01:13):
Instead, he just made thisHerculean effort just to get his
arm out there, and that's a.
He failed forward.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
He got tackled.
It's almost like fall forwardyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Fall forward.
Yeah, let's say fall forward.
I like that better.
Fall forward, fall forward,fall forward.
So we're making progress eventhough we fell.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
But you just fall, you don't fail.
Yeah, that's it All right.
Great episode I got to go to mymeeting Mark Great talk
business to conduct.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Okay, I'm sorry about that, but you go do your thing.
I'm going to play the rest ofthe day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Okay, I thought you were going to say you're going
to keep doing the show.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
No, I'm going to play , so I still have to do that
sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Anyway, another episode of Big Talk About.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Small Business.
Bye everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk
about Small Business.
If you have any questions orideas for upcoming shows, be
sure to head over to our website,
wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscomand click on the ask the host
button for the chance to haveyour questions answered on the
show.
Stay connected with us onLinkedIn at Big Talk About Small

(01:02:34):
Business and be sure to headover to our website to read
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