July 30, 2025 • 28 mins
The myth that corporate executives can seamlessly transition to entrepreneurship gets shattered in this candid conversation between Eric Howerton and Mark Zweig, two battle-tested business owners. They break down why these are "two completely different animals" and why the entrepreneurial journey demands getting your hands dirty in ways corporate America never prepared you for.
What happens when that professional with the corner office decides to strike out on their own? Our hosts share real stories of executives nine months into a business with just one sale, still focused on financial forecasts rather than generating revenue. The harsh reality? Without sales experience and the willingness to hang door hangers yourself, your brilliant business concept goes nowhere.
The conversation takes a surprisingly personal turn when both hosts confess to their own procrastination demons. That dreaded email sitting in your inbox for days? That recommendation letter you keep putting off? These small avoidances create constant background stress that undermines your effectiveness and happiness. As Mark puts it, "Procrastination and lack of action leads to depression."
Perhaps most refreshingly, these veteran entrepreneurs admit they're still learning lessons they "should have learned 40 freaking years ago." This revelation offers both comfort and challenge to listeners at any stage of business ownership. There's no magical graduation from the entrepreneur's dogfight; success comes from persistence rather than perfection.
From spotless bathrooms as a reflection of brand values to the danger of watching problems develop without intervention, this episode delivers practical wisdom for anyone building a business. The takeaway? Stop looking for the secret sauce or the perfect system that will let you become an absentee owner. Instead, embrace the fight. As Mark Zweig concludes: "You never fail if you never quit."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Being a corporate executive is not the same.
They're two completelydifferent animals.
From the entrepreneur, thecorporate executive has so many
more resources and people todraw on than you have when
you're a small business owner.
Yeah, that, the job is justtotally different.
Yeah, okay, you've got to getin the weeds.
(00:21):
And if you have not been in theweeds for 20, 30 years or more,
coming out of Megacorp, goodluck, dude.
Here we are again with anotherepisode of Big Talk by Small
(00:42):
Business, and it's great to behere.
It's hot outside.
I'm sweating.
I've been up early, dude.
I woke up at 3 am this morning.
I love it.
Okay, maybe 3.10.
I laid there from like 2.35 toDid you?
Yeah, just thinking yes, andthen finally I just said I'm
(01:03):
getting up, you just got to doit.
I started making out my lists.
I wrote, you know, an article.
I mean, I just freaking got onit.
What can I?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
say so that's fun, like I like that.
You've always been writingarticles.
Yeah, like you're a bigcommunication person, but that's
obviously a significantpriority for you.
But that's obviously asignificant priority for you, it
is as something that isproductive to get done.
What is your theory behind whyyou do that Like?
Why is?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
that important in prioritize, well, I mean, first
off, you document your thinking.
You're not going to forgetthings as easily when you write
them down, and it forces you toreally organize your thinking.
But I'm talking about writingan article, right, Okay, writing
that article forces me toorganize my thinking about
whatever the topic is Gotcha,and it helps me communicate that
to other people that I need tomake things happen.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, got it.
It's not just teaching, it'salso for the things I'm
personally involved in, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Because you're okay.
So here's what I'm hearing yousay you have all these things
flying at you, right, and andwhat I've experienced is people
don't, they don't understandwhat you're saying a lot of
times, sure, in the momentexactly, and so after a day's
worth of trying to communicate,you have all these different
things hitting.
If you can in the morning, atthat time, you'll, you'll kind
(02:20):
of collect all these things andyou start organizing and you
write an article that'sexpressing what your direction
is, what your theory behind itis yes, your philosophy, your
actions.
Yeah, and then you release thatand then other people happen to
read it.
Maybe they will understand alittle bit better.
Yeah, that's it.
(02:40):
And if they don't, so what?
It helps you.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Exactly.
I mean, you'd be surprised howmany people say to me wow, you
must be listening in on ourboard meetings because this is
what we're talking about rightnow.
So I mean, all it tells me it'sthe same reason we do this show
yeah, whatever we're goingthrough you and me individually,
in our businesses and with thepeople that we try to help, and
(03:04):
other people are going throughit it's not that unique.
No, it's not.
You know, we could say all ofour struggles are totally unique
and I guess on certain levelsthey are, because we don't have
the same history, resources,whatever, but on the other hand,
a lot of it is just universal.
It just goes along withbusiness ownership.
Yeah, it does, you know.
(03:26):
So there's a lot of peoplefacing the same issues.
Whatever you and I are facing,there's other people facing the
same issues.
It's the same theory I haveabout marketing.
Okay, yeah, it's like I know,if I like something myself and
would pay money for that,somebody else out there is going
to yeah, a hundred percent, youknow yeah, and would pay money
for that, somebody else outthere is going to yeah, 100%,
you know yeah, I don't likedesigns to businesses around
(03:49):
stuff that I wouldn't buy myselfor use myself, right, I think
some people do that, though.
They try to do that, yeah,because they think that's a good
market.
They think of the money part too.
Yeah, it's the money, it's onlythe money.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I think it's a danger zone.
Oh God, I do too.
I've seen a lot of people gethurt in that You're too
disconnected from the user andyou've got to be a user and no
one really really understandshow absolutely challenging it is
to take something to market andto build a company off of it,
like it's just relentlessly fullof problems, like we talked
about.
Yeah, relentlessly full ofproblems, like we talked about.
(04:26):
Yeah, you know, you, and thenif you don't love it, then you
get lost real quick and you wantto quit.
Exactly.
It's just like if you workedout all the time and you don't
see any results you're notgetting stronger or you're not
losing weight what are you goingto do?
yeah, you're gonna keep doing itbecause you've been told it's
going to work.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
No, no, no stop yeah, it's funny, you know.
I think I mentioned on one ofthe prior shows that my kids got
me this, this book, or one ofmy daughters did for father's
day, where they send me aquestion every week and I have
to answer it.
Yeah, and the one I justanswered a couple of days ago
was what advice do you have forfuture generations of you know
(05:00):
in our family?
And one of them was you know, Iknow, I mean and again it
sounds like a cliche follow yourpassion, follow your interest.
Okay, so it will keep you goingin spite of the obstacles.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
If it's purely financial, the obstacles will
come up and they'll seeminsurmountable and it won't ever
make sense on on paper like youcan run every freaking analysis
calculation the world was like.
That's never going to work out.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, you can do enough market research to
convince yourself that anythingis not going to work.
That's right.
Is this the truth?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
okay, yeah, yeah but you, unless you believe in it
and you're like man, this isgoing to pan out and you can see
yourself, you know, being partof something that built and was
successful.
That's pretty, pretty inspiringand if you love to do it, you
got to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But you know at the same time, what amazes me is now
I'm 67 years old.
Okay, I am still learninglessons that I should have
learned 40 freaking years ago.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I'm glad you said that.
Okay, I feel so much better.
I mean, it makes me feel somuch better about myself, man,
this is why we do this show.
I feel good about myself.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, it's a mutual group therapy session.
But I mean, on the one hand,it's very frustrating that I'm
like holy cow.
I knew better than that.
I should have known that lesson, I should have learned that
long ago, and yet here I did itagain.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Speaking of that, have you ever had the experience
of where you know you should dosomething but you don't make
the time Right and you justallow it and you watch?
It's like some things I'vewatched and I know what's going
to happen and I just neverprioritize to take care of it or
have a conversation or change avendor or fire this or, oh,
(06:44):
absolutely that right, make achange.
But I just watch it and it juststeadily just gets worse and
worse and I'm just sitting therewatching it like I'm on the
sideline as a coach, just sayingwatching a bad play.
That I know is going to be bad,but I just let it go I have
done that myself.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That's another point I made in my advice.
What was it Is?
Procrastination and lack ofaction leads to depression.
Okay, you will never be happy.
You will be under stress allthe time if you procrastinate.
You'll always be saying toyourself why don't I need to do
(07:20):
that, I need to do that, I needto do that, just freaking.
Do it, okay, then you won't beso stressed out.
So true, whatever happenshappens.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Dude, I have been stressed out at times over an
email that I've got like acouple of days ago, and I'll
just sit there and let it hangout in the inbox.
I'll get that later.
Exactly, I stay stressed aboutit for days and days and then I
finally take care of it on aSunday morning when everybody's
still sleeping.
It takes you five minutes.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It takes me five minutes.
I'm like, ah, I know, I do thatall the time.
It's like a guy wanted me towrite a recommendation for the
MBA program.
I'm like God, I got to do that,I got to do that, I got to do
that, I got to do that.
It to take me that long, justwrite the 10 minutes it takes to
do the guy's recommendation andI'm done.
(08:08):
And you feel so much better.
Oh, it's like so much.
But I had this, another one.
I I got asked to write aforward for somebody's book.
That I know, yeah, and I'm likeall it had to be was like a
thousand words.
It's not going to take me thatlong, right, yeah, fast.
And and it's like Iprocrastinate, I procrastinate.
He's sending me emails.
Where's's the forward?
Where's the forward Copy in thepublisher?
Where's the forward?
Where's the forward?
No, we all do stuff like that,but it's that the key to
(08:33):
reducing your stress is justgetting it out of the way.
I mean, you know, and itapplies in life, I mean it's
just, there's so many thingslike this.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, but you know, what I think is good about this
conversation is that I would notlooking up to you and your
experience in business, right?
I'm thinking Mark doesn't seemlike that.
He has my problem with this,Just like this whole
procrastination of this email.
But I mean, all our listenersare probably, if you're a new
(09:02):
entrepreneur, you're probablylooking at you know.
You look at Martin like howdoes he do it?
It's so mysterious, you know,and I'm over here and I've had
this email in my inbox.
I've been stressed out.
I don't want anybody to everknow that I've been
procrastinating.
We don't want to be criticized,right?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, and I look at you and I think my God Eric is
so smart.
He just keeps getting smarterand smarter and smarter with
these businesses that he creates.
But I'm struggling.
It's just like God.
Of course he never cuts me inon those people.
No, that's fair.
He saves the shitty stuff forme, but no, I'm kidding, but he
does not.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The reality is, if you got him, I mean you'd be
like what in the fuck?
I can hear it now, what are youdoing?
I can hear it now, what are youdoing?
I don't even want to have thatmeeting Like, hey, can you have
Mark, look at the financials ofpodcast videos?
And I mean I'd be like out oftown for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Dude, I think one of my problems as I got older is
I've gotten too nice.
I really do.
I've lost some of my edge.
Like, I really do.
I've lost some of my edge.
What do you mean by too nice?
Not confronting enough, notbeing as direct as I should be,
letting things go too long whenpeople that need to be
confronted and you could say,well, why do you do that?
(10:16):
Well, we all want to be loved.
Yeah, we all like being nice.
It's nicer to be nice.
Right, it's more enjoyable.
But the problem with it isthings don't get done all the
time.
Yeah, that's fair, and you justend up with a mess on your
hands.
It's a bigger problem becauseyou're not confronting what you
need to confront daily before itgoes out of control.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Well, that's the kind of that.
That's actually the little bitof the genesis of of.
You know, when I was talkingabout watching that play, that
bad play just progressed, and Iknow better.
It's this person, it's this, ofcourse it is.
It's the way, and it's not thewhole person, it's the way that
they're thinking.
Everybody it's funny.
Everybody has a way that theyprocess the way that they think,
(11:03):
their vision.
You know what habits they gotright.
They're just all these thingsjust mixed up.
They bring all that to the job,they bring it all in, they put
that perspective on stuff.
And I have there's beensituations where I have
literally articulated the samething over and over and over
again with the person.
But I like the person, I like99% of this person On the other
(11:23):
side, I like the way.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
So many of my feelings are related to that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh my God, you know they're valuable over here, you
know, you know they have goodcharacter, they won't steal all
these things.
But there's this freaking onething that like just continues.
But but you start and what I'verealized is if, if, if they're
missing out on the vision ofwhat the company is trying to do
(11:49):
Right and where we're going,and they're dragging that
progress Right In the businessLike it ends up being a bad
thing and like I would think,like it would seem like there's
three conversations.
If I could meet with this ladyor gentleman and have three
conversations, then I finallyrealize with my wisdom like it's
(12:11):
not going to work out.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, well, some people can't see the context,
they can't see the end goal.
Yeah, okay, it's just, I don'tknow why that's the case.
But again, I mean, our job isto keep selling that to
everybody inside and outside thecompany, and to get them to see
(12:33):
how what we do today impactswhere we end up tomorrow and
whether or not we achieve thatvision it is and then it's also.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I would say it's our job to to make to cut ties.
Oh, dude, it is and the soonerthat we know, like you, you know
what I'm saying.
Yeah, it's true, but we have aresponse and I'm just talking
just frankly with you.
Yeah, like I need to have ahigher level of what you said
and then a higher level ofunderstanding and reality of
cutting the ties, because whatends up happening is that person
(13:07):
continues to bottleneck, yes,and it becomes an exacerbated
problem.
Oh my God, I'm there, right,I'm there, and so I have to
blame myself for not cuttingthat off way early, especially
because I knew that washappening.
It's your fault.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It is my fault.
Listen, I had that conversationwith somebody this morning and
I said, you know, this personwas being very self-deprecating
and taking the blame and I'mlike, look, I'm every bit as
much of the blame as you.
I allowed you to go on withoutconfronting.
Okay, yeah, for weeks.
Yeah, because I didn't want todeal with your area.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
That's it.
For some reason in my brainit's probably because of some
sort of imagination that I'vehad of some other entrepreneur
that's been really successful.
They don't have to deal withthis shit.
Right, they've gotten past that.
They've achieved beyond that.
But the reality is is thatespecially in small and
particularly in small businessthat's what we're talking about
(14:08):
here you have to deal with everylittle thing.
That bathroom in this office,if somebody is pissed on the
toilet seat, that's my problem.
I know I clean it.
But then I go around and I sayI don't want to sit on the
toilet seat.
And if I find out who's pissingon the toilet seat, or if you
don't clean it up after a clientdoes it, which they don't have
(14:30):
a responsibility, they can pissall over it if they want, right,
no, I get it.
Yeah, but we clean it.
That's what we do as a company.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
That's what I do.
You do have nice bathrooms here.
I always enjoy going into them.
Thank you, I do that is alwaysnice.
That is the most importantthing about this entire studio,
in my opinion.
They say that about restaurantstoo.
It is that the bath if thebathrooms are super, super clean
at the impression of therestaurant is good I can tell
you right now, jimmy johns hasexcellent bathrooms.
(14:59):
Yeah, just went there yesterday.
It's, it's spotless.
It's what do they say?
Um spooky fast, crazy fast.
Yeah, yeah it is, but it'ssuper cool.
I said to my wife she's driving, I'm on my Jimmy John's.
I said, take me to Jimmy John's.
I got to get a sandwich.
Okay, seriously, she goes well,order it in advance.
(15:19):
Was she driving?
She's driving, she alwaysdrives.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So you're riding shotgun and you're sitting there
and you're going to take me toJimmy she didn't want to drive
with me.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
She drives so fast, I drive too slow for her.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
My wife drives.
I mean she scares me.
Yeah, it's, I'm like, babe,watch it, I'm like.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And she's always about to hit a curb on the
passenger side oh, oh, man don'teven get me started always I'm
like okay like a half inch offthe curb, these 21 inch wheels
that cost,000 a piece on herPorsche.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Okay, I'm like ah, and she's just sitting there all
cross-legged just driving, Iknow Like it's no big deal, but
she won't hit them.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But anyway, she did once with the motorhome though,
when I said you're too close andshe did, but anyway.
So going to Jimmy John's, shegoes order in advance.
So I get on the app, I go lookI could walk in and order it.
They'll give me the order in aminute.
She goes no order it in advanceanyway.
So I order it in advance.
(16:19):
I mean I hit send and then shepulls up in front of the place.
Like 30 seconds later I get outand the guy is looking at my
thing receipt.
It prints something out for theorder when you make it online.
He's literally looking at itright as I come in.
Boom done, boom fast.
Jimmy john's is amazing.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know what's more, the most amazing restaurant
that I've ever been to is thesushi house there off exit 86 in
bentonville.
Okay, have you ever been there?
No, bro, you gotta go, you gotto go.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I've never been there .
Do you like sushi?
Yeah, I like it.
I mean, I'm not a huge Sushirolls or whatever, Like I don't
like raw fish, but I like sushirolls.
No, I'll get like a Californiaroll or whatever.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Go there, uh-huh, just go there place and it's
great quality.
Like I'm talking, you walk in.
Hey, how you doing Excellent,immediate sitting down.
Another server comes by aseparate one.
What would you like to drink?
I'll have a water.
And while he's taking that,boom, here's a free sushi roll
(17:22):
for you to try.
Yeah, it's amazing Boom boom andthen you order it.
It's like bang bang and I meanyou're in and out five minutes
with great quality stuff andeverybody's screaming it's
packed in.
I mean just rotation.
Best brand establishment I'veever been to Sounds good.
Bathrooms are.
I mean I heard the bad.
Well, your bathrooms are nicehere, thank you.
I mean you know it's important,but I mean that represents the
(17:45):
brand.
You take the dirtiest place andit looks really nice.
That means they care abouttheir clients.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
They care about oh, I've listened exactly.
I mean, I've had this samediscussion with one of the
businesses I'm involved in.
I, I go there and I andhonestly I can't stand being in
the office.
Yeah, because it's just a mess.
Yeah, and I'm not comfortablelike that.
I, I, you know, I don't worklike that.
Yeah, I like a clean desk, Ilike to work.
(18:11):
Yeah, I mean you know that,yeah, yeah, yeah, and it just
it's.
It's, it reflects on everythingit permeates through the entire
organization, if you toleratethat.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You would have loved it.
Back about two months ago, Istopped all business in this
company you said we're meetingon mond's like we're cleaning
everything.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
God Lachie, I love that.
I love the idea of stopping.
It's funny you say that.
It just occurred to me theother day.
What if we just stopped, Justand fix?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, you know it's got to happen.
Sometimes, man it does, and Iwas like, don't bring any boxes,
I'll bring the right boxes.
I brought clear.
I have these specifictupperware boxes.
I'm in a stack of eight and wejust started cleaning and
cleaning and got everything offthe top.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I mean it's just piled up everywhere I love that
and you get the exact right sizefor me.
It's a 69 quart and it fits onmy shelves in my garage
perfectly.
Yeah, takes the maximum amountof space, but doesn't hang over.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yes, okay, yeah, doesn't waste any space clippy
things on the side, exactly,yeah, and I like the transparent
one so I can look.
Exactly, not to mark anything.
I don't want to see the ones Ican't see.
Yeah, just look in the outsideof, like, there's what I'm
looking for, I'm with you.
You, I got certain racks that Ihave right.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, they fit right in the racks.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
It is my God.
We are so much alike, toosimilar, on that.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But I had them, like you know, and it was that whole
day.
They were like what do we needto keep them?
Trash, everything going in thetrash and everybody's desk was
clean that day.
It was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, when I decided I was going to shut down my
construction and developmentcompany and we sold all the
assets off, we had so many filesthat landed in our garage and
this is like two or three yearslater and I, eric, I ordered a
small dumpster delivered to ourhouse and just tossed it all in
there.
I'm like I need to shred it.
(20:12):
I don't really need to shred it.
What difference does it make?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
What's anybody going to do?
Who's going to the landfillpicking around for a shredded
document or for a document?
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I just tossed it just all in that dumpster and it was
so gratifying.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So the point of all this is is, as a small business
owner, we are responsible.
We have the big r, the bigresponsibility for all these
things the cleanliness of theoffice, the organization,
because people like, and I hateto.
I wish that there was a way toget above that, yeah, but I
don't think there's not.
And it's comforting to havethis dialogue with you that,
where you know you still facethe same things, it's comforting
(20:53):
, but on the other hand, itcould be depressing.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You're like 20 years younger than me.
Okay, that's what you have to.
Another 20 years of that,that's what you have to look
forward to.
Hopefully, you're smarter thanme and you'll get through it,
but no, but that's I mean.
To me, though, eric, this againis reinforces why the owner of
(21:17):
a small business needs to beinvolved with the business.
This whole absentee owner myththat's a myth.
Systems are so great I can hireanybody to run this thing.
It's it a myth You're settingyourself up for failure, Total.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And to our conversation we had last week,
that's going to air the nextcouple days.
With technology, the black hole, AI, a deeper black hole.
You cannot be hands-off on that.
People don't just do things.
Computers just don't do things.
Ai is just not going to dosomething.
You literally have to beinvolved in every nook and
(21:53):
cranny of understanding why it'sdoing what it's doing.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, you've got to understand the background.
I mean, that was a fascinatingconversation we had last week.
Yeah, that was good, and Ithink just the whole sort of
breaking down the steps ofwhatever you want was so
profound to me, as opposed todescribing the out and result
you want.
Yeah, I never thought aboutthat.
Yeah, okay, I mean, clearly,you're, you know, your guys know
(22:18):
what they're doing.
That's why you're in thisbusiness.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
But uh, that's very profound to me and you're right,
yeah, it is fascinating but youknow, I mean, I think that what
one danger zone I see withentrepreneurship is that
somebody again we we talk aboutit somebody in a professional
career that's done really well,one has an idea or a dream.
But to think that you can startthat and not be working
(22:44):
extremely hard to see thatthrough, you're fooling yourself
.
And to think that you can havejust because you have some money
to invest, that through you'refooling yourself.
And to think that you can havejust because you have some money
to invest in something that youwon't be involved Now you can
be a passive investor, but youbetter not want control.
This is a pretty importanttopic, right?
Are you going to be an investorand you got $100,000?
(23:05):
You said this before you sendit in.
But then all of a sudden youwant to just come to a board
meeting and dig in and peel backonions and get pissed off and
man shit, you can't do that.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
You don't have enough knowledge to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
No, if you're an active investor and a business
owner, in that you will havecredibility to say things like
that yeah, that makes totalsense.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But you can't come in on a board meeting and just
throw down the walls, no, andwhat you think, but you know we
have also mentioned this beforeon this show but being a
corporate executive is not thesame.
They're two completelydifferent animals.
From the entrepreneur, thecorporate executive has so many
more resources and people todraw on than you have when
(23:54):
you're a small business ownerthat the job is just totally
different.
You've got to get in the weeds.
And if you have not been in theweeds for 20, 30 years or more
coming out of Megacorp, goodluck, dude.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Bro, funny, you said this right, just literally about
two weeks ago.
I get a call from somebodythat's been in professional life
and he started a business,right, and it's been nine months
in and he's like what the hell?
I was like stop, stopeverything.
He's talking about getting somedebt financing and all this
(24:29):
stuff and I'm like quit it.
I was like everyone's lying toyou, going over here and getting
a financial forecast about whatthe problems of your business
In order to go get a loan tohelp solve those problems.
Stop everything.
I was like what are your sales?
Yeah, exactly.
He was like what are your sales?
Yeah, exactly.
He's like well, we've had onesale, but it's not.
I'm like everything stops.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
There's your problem, dude Go buy some freaking door
hangers and go down the freakingneighborhoods and start hanging
door hangers.
That's the only thing that's onyour mind.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh God, sales, sales sales Right on your mind.
Oh god, sales, sales, salesright.
Without that you got nothing,nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
It always starts with that, doesn't it does.
And then I mean speaking of ourentire conversation, yeah, all
this stuff we gotta do.
If I'm not engaged in sales andfiguring out how to sell from
the sell sheets to the pricing,to the value statements, to all
that stuff like that issomething that I've and you know
I have learned a hard lessonson, is like that.
I step away from that and I'mnot actively involved in that
(25:32):
well, it puts you close to thecustomer too.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I mean, you've got to be dealing with the customers
or clients directly, yeah, toreally understand their needs.
I think you get too divorcedfrom that.
Things go out of control onceagain.
But yeah, that's a really goodpoint.
I mean, if they don't have anyrevenue, what's the point of it?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
it starts with that, yeah, it starts with a sale and
you can't expect somebody elseto go and promote your business
like you have.
Like, if you're the owner, youare the salesperson.
I had another conversation withsomebody the other day about
that.
They were thinking about shouldthey hire a salesperson so that
they can focus on execution?
And they've had a business foryears and they don't think of
(26:13):
themselves as a salesperson.
I'm like you are the bestsalesperson, exactly, and you
forever will be Right You'regoing to hire a salesperson.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's easier to find somebody to help you with the
execution than it is to sell.
That's exactly the advice, man.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yeah.
So, in summary and wrap up tothis, we went way off.
Yeah, we did, but I think Iwant to answer your question
about.
It sounds depressing for thenext 20 years, but actually it's
encouraging, because what I dorealize is that this is nothing
but a dogfight and I can hangout in the dog fight.
There's no secret sauce.
I'm not missing a certain bookthat.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I need to read.
You're just not going to laydown and die right.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Exactly.
But if I know that theencouraging thing is, I know if
I just fight, yep.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I can play ball Exactly you never.
You never fail if you neverquit.
That's right.
Dog with a bone Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Get that dog, I need that, get that dog.
Get that dog, that bone.
Get that dog, that bone.
Just lobbering, so I think.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But all right.
Well, we're going to wrap it up.
Let's do it.
It's been another episode ofbig talk about small business.
It's beautiful.
Tune in folks,wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom.
All our episodes are there.
Share them, like them, lovethem.
Spread them.
Love them.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Report them Ask a question.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Record them, advertise on them.
Oh, but anyway, we'll see youall next week.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Bye-bye.
Thanks for tuning into thisepisode 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
(28:11):
Business and be sure to headover to our website to read
articles, browse episodes andask questions about upcoming
shows.
Being a corporate executive is not the same.
They're two completelydifferent animals.
From the entrepreneur, thecorporate executive has so many
more resources and people todraw on than you have when
you're a small business owner.
Yeah, that, the job is justtotally different.
Yeah, okay, you've got to getin the weeds.
(00:21):
And if you have not been in theweeds for 20, 30 years or more,
coming out of Megacorp, goodluck, dude.
Here we are again with anotherepisode of Big Talk by Small
(00:42):
Business, and it's great to behere.
It's hot outside.
I'm sweating.
I've been up early, dude.
I woke up at 3 am this morning.
I love it.
Okay, maybe 3.10.
I laid there from like 2.35 toDid you?
Yeah, just thinking yes, andthen finally I just said I'm
(01:03):
getting up, you just got to doit.
I started making out my lists.
I wrote, you know, an article.
I mean, I just freaking got onit.
What can I?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
say so that's fun, like I like that.
You've always been writingarticles.
Yeah, like you're a bigcommunication person, but that's
obviously a significantpriority for you.
But that's obviously asignificant priority for you, it
is as something that isproductive to get done.
What is your theory behind whyyou do that Like?
Why is?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
that important in prioritize, well, I mean, first
off, you document your thinking.
You're not going to forgetthings as easily when you write
them down, and it forces you toreally organize your thinking.
But I'm talking about writingan article, right, Okay, writing
that article forces me toorganize my thinking about
whatever the topic is Gotcha,and it helps me communicate that
to other people that I need tomake things happen.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, got it.
It's not just teaching, it'salso for the things I'm
personally involved in, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Because you're okay.
So here's what I'm hearing yousay you have all these things
flying at you, right, and andwhat I've experienced is people
don't, they don't understandwhat you're saying a lot of
times, sure, in the momentexactly, and so after a day's
worth of trying to communicate,you have all these different
things hitting.
If you can in the morning, atthat time, you'll, you'll kind
(02:20):
of collect all these things andyou start organizing and you
write an article that'sexpressing what your direction
is, what your theory behind itis yes, your philosophy, your
actions.
Yeah, and then you release thatand then other people happen to
read it.
Maybe they will understand alittle bit better.
Yeah, that's it.
(02:40):
And if they don't, so what?
It helps you.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Exactly.
I mean, you'd be surprised howmany people say to me wow, you
must be listening in on ourboard meetings because this is
what we're talking about rightnow.
So I mean, all it tells me it'sthe same reason we do this show
yeah, whatever we're goingthrough you and me individually,
in our businesses and with thepeople that we try to help, and
(03:04):
other people are going throughit it's not that unique.
No, it's not.
You know, we could say all ofour struggles are totally unique
and I guess on certain levelsthey are, because we don't have
the same history, resources,whatever, but on the other hand,
a lot of it is just universal.
It just goes along withbusiness ownership.
Yeah, it does, you know.
(03:26):
So there's a lot of peoplefacing the same issues.
Whatever you and I are facing,there's other people facing the
same issues.
It's the same theory I haveabout marketing.
Okay, yeah, it's like I know,if I like something myself and
would pay money for that,somebody else out there is going
to yeah, a hundred percent, youknow yeah, and would pay money
for that, somebody else outthere is going to yeah, 100%,
you know yeah, I don't likedesigns to businesses around
(03:49):
stuff that I wouldn't buy myselfor use myself, right, I think
some people do that, though.
They try to do that, yeah,because they think that's a good
market.
They think of the money part too.
Yeah, it's the money, it's onlythe money.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I think it's a danger zone.
Oh God, I do too.
I've seen a lot of people gethurt in that You're too
disconnected from the user andyou've got to be a user and no
one really really understandshow absolutely challenging it is
to take something to market andto build a company off of it,
like it's just relentlessly fullof problems, like we talked
about.
Yeah, relentlessly full ofproblems, like we talked about.
(04:26):
Yeah, you know, you, and thenif you don't love it, then you
get lost real quick and you wantto quit.
Exactly.
It's just like if you workedout all the time and you don't
see any results you're notgetting stronger or you're not
losing weight what are you goingto do?
yeah, you're gonna keep doing itbecause you've been told it's
going to work.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
No, no, no stop yeah, it's funny, you know.
I think I mentioned on one ofthe prior shows that my kids got
me this, this book, or one ofmy daughters did for father's
day, where they send me aquestion every week and I have
to answer it.
Yeah, and the one I justanswered a couple of days ago
was what advice do you have forfuture generations of you know
(05:00):
in our family?
And one of them was you know, Iknow, I mean and again it
sounds like a cliche follow yourpassion, follow your interest.
Okay, so it will keep you goingin spite of the obstacles.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
If it's purely financial, the obstacles will
come up and they'll seeminsurmountable and it won't ever
make sense on on paper like youcan run every freaking analysis
calculation the world was like.
That's never going to work out.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, you can do enough market research to
convince yourself that anythingis not going to work.
That's right.
Is this the truth?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
okay, yeah, yeah but you, unless you believe in it
and you're like man, this isgoing to pan out and you can see
yourself, you know, being partof something that built and was
successful.
That's pretty, pretty inspiringand if you love to do it, you
got to do that.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But you know at the same time, what amazes me is now
I'm 67 years old.
Okay, I am still learninglessons that I should have
learned 40 freaking years ago.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I'm glad you said that.
Okay, I feel so much better.
I mean, it makes me feel somuch better about myself, man,
this is why we do this show.
I feel good about myself.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, it's a mutual group therapy session.
But I mean, on the one hand,it's very frustrating that I'm
like holy cow.
I knew better than that.
I should have known that lesson, I should have learned that
long ago, and yet here I did itagain.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Speaking of that, have you ever had the experience
of where you know you should dosomething but you don't make
the time Right and you justallow it and you watch?
It's like some things I'vewatched and I know what's going
to happen and I just neverprioritize to take care of it or
have a conversation or change avendor or fire this or, oh,
(06:44):
absolutely that right, make achange.
But I just watch it and it juststeadily just gets worse and
worse and I'm just sitting therewatching it like I'm on the
sideline as a coach, just sayingwatching a bad play.
That I know is going to be bad,but I just let it go I have
done that myself.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That's another point I made in my advice.
What was it Is?
Procrastination and lack ofaction leads to depression.
Okay, you will never be happy.
You will be under stress allthe time if you procrastinate.
You'll always be saying toyourself why don't I need to do
(07:20):
that, I need to do that, I needto do that, just freaking.
Do it, okay, then you won't beso stressed out.
So true, whatever happenshappens.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Dude, I have been stressed out at times over an
email that I've got like acouple of days ago, and I'll
just sit there and let it hangout in the inbox.
I'll get that later.
Exactly, I stay stressed aboutit for days and days and then I
finally take care of it on aSunday morning when everybody's
still sleeping.
It takes you five minutes.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It takes me five minutes.
I'm like, ah, I know, I do thatall the time.
It's like a guy wanted me towrite a recommendation for the
MBA program.
I'm like God, I got to do that,I got to do that, I got to do
that, I got to do that.
It to take me that long, justwrite the 10 minutes it takes to
do the guy's recommendation andI'm done.
(08:08):
And you feel so much better.
Oh, it's like so much.
But I had this, another one.
I I got asked to write aforward for somebody's book.
That I know, yeah, and I'm likeall it had to be was like a
thousand words.
It's not going to take me thatlong, right, yeah, fast.
And and it's like Iprocrastinate, I procrastinate.
He's sending me emails.
Where's's the forward?
Where's the forward Copy in thepublisher?
Where's the forward?
Where's the forward?
No, we all do stuff like that,but it's that the key to
(08:33):
reducing your stress is justgetting it out of the way.
I mean, you know, and itapplies in life, I mean it's
just, there's so many thingslike this.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, but you know, what I think is good about this
conversation is that I would notlooking up to you and your
experience in business, right?
I'm thinking Mark doesn't seemlike that.
He has my problem with this,Just like this whole
procrastination of this email.
But I mean, all our listenersare probably, if you're a new
(09:02):
entrepreneur, you're probablylooking at you know.
You look at Martin like howdoes he do it?
It's so mysterious, you know,and I'm over here and I've had
this email in my inbox.
I've been stressed out.
I don't want anybody to everknow that I've been
procrastinating.
We don't want to be criticized,right?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, and I look at you and I think my God Eric is
so smart.
He just keeps getting smarterand smarter and smarter with
these businesses that he creates.
But I'm struggling.
It's just like God.
Of course he never cuts me inon those people.
No, that's fair.
He saves the shitty stuff forme, but no, I'm kidding, but he
does not.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The reality is, if you got him, I mean you'd be
like what in the fuck?
I can hear it now, what are youdoing?
I can hear it now, what are youdoing?
I don't even want to have thatmeeting Like, hey, can you have
Mark, look at the financials ofpodcast videos?
And I mean I'd be like out oftown for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Dude, I think one of my problems as I got older is
I've gotten too nice.
I really do.
I've lost some of my edge.
Like, I really do.
I've lost some of my edge.
What do you mean by too nice?
Not confronting enough, notbeing as direct as I should be,
letting things go too long whenpeople that need to be
confronted and you could say,well, why do you do that?
(10:16):
Well, we all want to be loved.
Yeah, we all like being nice.
It's nicer to be nice.
Right, it's more enjoyable.
But the problem with it isthings don't get done all the
time.
Yeah, that's fair, and you justend up with a mess on your
hands.
It's a bigger problem becauseyou're not confronting what you
need to confront daily before itgoes out of control.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Well, that's the kind of that.
That's actually the little bitof the genesis of of.
You know, when I was talkingabout watching that play, that
bad play just progressed, and Iknow better.
It's this person, it's this, ofcourse it is.
It's the way, and it's not thewhole person, it's the way that
they're thinking.
Everybody it's funny.
Everybody has a way that theyprocess the way that they think,
(11:03):
their vision.
You know what habits they gotright.
They're just all these thingsjust mixed up.
They bring all that to the job,they bring it all in, they put
that perspective on stuff.
And I have there's beensituations where I have
literally articulated the samething over and over and over
again with the person.
But I like the person, I like99% of this person On the other
(11:23):
side, I like the way.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
So many of my feelings are related to that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh my God, you know they're valuable over here, you
know, you know they have goodcharacter, they won't steal all
these things.
But there's this freaking onething that like just continues.
But but you start and what I'verealized is if, if, if they're
missing out on the vision ofwhat the company is trying to do
(11:49):
Right and where we're going,and they're dragging that
progress Right In the businessLike it ends up being a bad
thing and like I would think,like it would seem like there's
three conversations.
If I could meet with this ladyor gentleman and have three
conversations, then I finallyrealize with my wisdom like it's
(12:11):
not going to work out.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, well, some people can't see the context,
they can't see the end goal.
Yeah, okay, it's just, I don'tknow why that's the case.
But again, I mean, our job isto keep selling that to
everybody inside and outside thecompany, and to get them to see
(12:33):
how what we do today impactswhere we end up tomorrow and
whether or not we achieve thatvision it is and then it's also.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I would say it's our job to to make to cut ties.
Oh, dude, it is and the soonerthat we know, like you, you know
what I'm saying.
Yeah, it's true, but we have aresponse and I'm just talking
just frankly with you.
Yeah, like I need to have ahigher level of what you said
and then a higher level ofunderstanding and reality of
cutting the ties, because whatends up happening is that person
(13:07):
continues to bottleneck, yes,and it becomes an exacerbated
problem.
Oh my God, I'm there, right,I'm there, and so I have to
blame myself for not cuttingthat off way early, especially
because I knew that washappening.
It's your fault.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It is my fault.
Listen, I had that conversationwith somebody this morning and
I said, you know, this personwas being very self-deprecating
and taking the blame and I'mlike, look, I'm every bit as
much of the blame as you.
I allowed you to go on withoutconfronting.
Okay, yeah, for weeks.
Yeah, because I didn't want todeal with your area.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
That's it.
For some reason in my brainit's probably because of some
sort of imagination that I'vehad of some other entrepreneur
that's been really successful.
They don't have to deal withthis shit.
Right, they've gotten past that.
They've achieved beyond that.
But the reality is is thatespecially in small and
particularly in small businessthat's what we're talking about
(14:08):
here you have to deal with everylittle thing.
That bathroom in this office,if somebody is pissed on the
toilet seat, that's my problem.
I know I clean it.
But then I go around and I sayI don't want to sit on the
toilet seat.
And if I find out who's pissingon the toilet seat, or if you
don't clean it up after a clientdoes it, which they don't have
(14:30):
a responsibility, they can pissall over it if they want, right,
no, I get it.
Yeah, but we clean it.
That's what we do as a company.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
That's what I do.
You do have nice bathrooms here.
I always enjoy going into them.
Thank you, I do that is alwaysnice.
That is the most importantthing about this entire studio,
in my opinion.
They say that about restaurantstoo.
It is that the bath if thebathrooms are super, super clean
at the impression of therestaurant is good I can tell
you right now, jimmy johns hasexcellent bathrooms.
(14:59):
Yeah, just went there yesterday.
It's, it's spotless.
It's what do they say?
Um spooky fast, crazy fast.
Yeah, yeah it is, but it'ssuper cool.
I said to my wife she's driving, I'm on my Jimmy John's.
I said, take me to Jimmy John's.
I got to get a sandwich.
Okay, seriously, she goes well,order it in advance.
(15:19):
Was she driving?
She's driving, she alwaysdrives.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
So you're riding shotgun and you're sitting there
and you're going to take me toJimmy she didn't want to drive
with me.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
She drives so fast, I drive too slow for her.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
My wife drives.
I mean she scares me.
Yeah, it's, I'm like, babe,watch it, I'm like.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And she's always about to hit a curb on the
passenger side oh, oh, man don'teven get me started always I'm
like okay like a half inch offthe curb, these 21 inch wheels
that cost,000 a piece on herPorsche.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Okay, I'm like ah, and she's just sitting there all
cross-legged just driving, Iknow Like it's no big deal, but
she won't hit them.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But anyway, she did once with the motorhome though,
when I said you're too close andshe did, but anyway.
So going to Jimmy John's, shegoes order in advance.
So I get on the app, I go lookI could walk in and order it.
They'll give me the order in aminute.
She goes no order it in advanceanyway.
So I order it in advance.
(16:19):
I mean I hit send and then shepulls up in front of the place.
Like 30 seconds later I get outand the guy is looking at my
thing receipt.
It prints something out for theorder when you make it online.
He's literally looking at itright as I come in.
Boom done, boom fast.
Jimmy john's is amazing.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You know what's more, the most amazing restaurant
that I've ever been to is thesushi house there off exit 86 in
bentonville.
Okay, have you ever been there?
No, bro, you gotta go, you gotto go.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I've never been there .
Do you like sushi?
Yeah, I like it.
I mean, I'm not a huge Sushirolls or whatever, Like I don't
like raw fish, but I like sushirolls.
No, I'll get like a Californiaroll or whatever.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Go there, uh-huh, just go there place and it's
great quality.
Like I'm talking, you walk in.
Hey, how you doing Excellent,immediate sitting down.
Another server comes by aseparate one.
What would you like to drink?
I'll have a water.
And while he's taking that,boom, here's a free sushi roll
(17:22):
for you to try.
Yeah, it's amazing Boom boom andthen you order it.
It's like bang bang and I meanyou're in and out five minutes
with great quality stuff andeverybody's screaming it's
packed in.
I mean just rotation.
Best brand establishment I'veever been to Sounds good.
Bathrooms are.
I mean I heard the bad.
Well, your bathrooms are nicehere, thank you.
I mean you know it's important,but I mean that represents the
(17:45):
brand.
You take the dirtiest place andit looks really nice.
That means they care abouttheir clients.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
They care about oh, I've listened exactly.
I mean, I've had this samediscussion with one of the
businesses I'm involved in.
I, I go there and I andhonestly I can't stand being in
the office.
Yeah, because it's just a mess.
Yeah, and I'm not comfortablelike that.
I, I, you know, I don't worklike that.
Yeah, I like a clean desk, Ilike to work.
(18:11):
Yeah, I mean you know that,yeah, yeah, yeah, and it just
it's.
It's, it reflects on everythingit permeates through the entire
organization, if you toleratethat.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You would have loved it.
Back about two months ago, Istopped all business in this
company you said we're meetingon mond's like we're cleaning
everything.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
God Lachie, I love that.
I love the idea of stopping.
It's funny you say that.
It just occurred to me theother day.
What if we just stopped, Justand fix?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, you know it's got to happen.
Sometimes, man it does, and Iwas like, don't bring any boxes,
I'll bring the right boxes.
I brought clear.
I have these specifictupperware boxes.
I'm in a stack of eight and wejust started cleaning and
cleaning and got everything offthe top.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I mean it's just piled up everywhere I love that
and you get the exact right sizefor me.
It's a 69 quart and it fits onmy shelves in my garage
perfectly.
Yeah, takes the maximum amountof space, but doesn't hang over.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yes, okay, yeah, doesn't waste any space clippy
things on the side, exactly,yeah, and I like the transparent
one so I can look.
Exactly, not to mark anything.
I don't want to see the ones Ican't see.
Yeah, just look in the outsideof, like, there's what I'm
looking for, I'm with you.
You, I got certain racks that Ihave right.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, they fit right in the racks.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
It is my God.
We are so much alike, toosimilar, on that.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But I had them, like you know, and it was that whole
day.
They were like what do we needto keep them?
Trash, everything going in thetrash and everybody's desk was
clean that day.
It was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah, when I decided I was going to shut down my
construction and developmentcompany and we sold all the
assets off, we had so many filesthat landed in our garage and
this is like two or three yearslater and I, eric, I ordered a
small dumpster delivered to ourhouse and just tossed it all in
there.
I'm like I need to shred it.
(20:12):
I don't really need to shred it.
What difference does it make?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
What's anybody going to do?
Who's going to the landfillpicking around for a shredded
document or for a document?
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I just tossed it just all in that dumpster and it was
so gratifying.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So the point of all this is is, as a small business
owner, we are responsible.
We have the big r, the bigresponsibility for all these
things the cleanliness of theoffice, the organization,
because people like, and I hateto.
I wish that there was a way toget above that, yeah, but I
don't think there's not.
And it's comforting to havethis dialogue with you that,
where you know you still facethe same things, it's comforting
(20:53):
, but on the other hand, itcould be depressing.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You're like 20 years younger than me.
Okay, that's what you have to.
Another 20 years of that,that's what you have to look
forward to.
Hopefully, you're smarter thanme and you'll get through it,
but no, but that's I mean.
To me, though, eric, this againis reinforces why the owner of
(21:17):
a small business needs to beinvolved with the business.
This whole absentee owner myththat's a myth.
Systems are so great I can hireanybody to run this thing.
It's it a myth You're settingyourself up for failure, Total.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And to our conversation we had last week,
that's going to air the nextcouple days.
With technology, the black hole, AI, a deeper black hole.
You cannot be hands-off on that.
People don't just do things.
Computers just don't do things.
Ai is just not going to dosomething.
You literally have to beinvolved in every nook and
(21:53):
cranny of understanding why it'sdoing what it's doing.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, you've got to understand the background.
I mean, that was a fascinatingconversation we had last week.
Yeah, that was good, and Ithink just the whole sort of
breaking down the steps ofwhatever you want was so
profound to me, as opposed todescribing the out and result
you want.
Yeah, I never thought aboutthat.
Yeah, okay, I mean, clearly,you're, you know, your guys know
(22:18):
what they're doing.
That's why you're in thisbusiness.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
But uh, that's very profound to me and you're right,
yeah, it is fascinating but youknow, I mean, I think that what
one danger zone I see withentrepreneurship is that
somebody again we we talk aboutit somebody in a professional
career that's done really well,one has an idea or a dream.
But to think that you can startthat and not be working
(22:44):
extremely hard to see thatthrough, you're fooling yourself
.
And to think that you can havejust because you have some money
to invest, that through you'refooling yourself.
And to think that you can havejust because you have some money
to invest in something that youwon't be involved Now you can
be a passive investor, but youbetter not want control.
This is a pretty importanttopic, right?
Are you going to be an investorand you got $100,000?
(23:05):
You said this before you sendit in.
But then all of a sudden youwant to just come to a board
meeting and dig in and peel backonions and get pissed off and
man shit, you can't do that.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
You don't have enough knowledge to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
No, if you're an active investor and a business
owner, in that you will havecredibility to say things like
that yeah, that makes totalsense.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But you can't come in on a board meeting and just
throw down the walls, no, andwhat you think, but you know we
have also mentioned this beforeon this show but being a
corporate executive is not thesame.
They're two completelydifferent animals.
From the entrepreneur, thecorporate executive has so many
more resources and people todraw on than you have when
(23:54):
you're a small business ownerthat the job is just totally
different.
You've got to get in the weeds.
And if you have not been in theweeds for 20, 30 years or more
coming out of Megacorp, goodluck, dude.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Bro, funny, you said this right, just literally about
two weeks ago.
I get a call from somebodythat's been in professional life
and he started a business,right, and it's been nine months
in and he's like what the hell?
I was like stop, stopeverything.
He's talking about getting somedebt financing and all this
(24:29):
stuff and I'm like quit it.
I was like everyone's lying toyou, going over here and getting
a financial forecast about whatthe problems of your business
In order to go get a loan tohelp solve those problems.
Stop everything.
I was like what are your sales?
Yeah, exactly.
He was like what are your sales?
Yeah, exactly.
He's like well, we've had onesale, but it's not.
I'm like everything stops.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
There's your problem, dude Go buy some freaking door
hangers and go down the freakingneighborhoods and start hanging
door hangers.
That's the only thing that's onyour mind.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh God, sales, sales sales Right on your mind.
Oh god, sales, sales, salesright.
Without that you got nothing,nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
It always starts with that, doesn't it does.
And then I mean speaking of ourentire conversation, yeah, all
this stuff we gotta do.
If I'm not engaged in sales andfiguring out how to sell from
the sell sheets to the pricing,to the value statements, to all
that stuff like that issomething that I've and you know
I have learned a hard lessonson, is like that.
I step away from that and I'mnot actively involved in that
(25:32):
well, it puts you close to thecustomer too.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I mean, you've got to be dealing with the customers
or clients directly, yeah, toreally understand their needs.
I think you get too divorcedfrom that.
Things go out of control onceagain.
But yeah, that's a really goodpoint.
I mean, if they don't have anyrevenue, what's the point of it?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
it starts with that, yeah, it starts with a sale and
you can't expect somebody elseto go and promote your business
like you have.
Like, if you're the owner, youare the salesperson.
I had another conversation withsomebody the other day about
that.
They were thinking about shouldthey hire a salesperson so that
they can focus on execution?
And they've had a business foryears and they don't think of
(26:13):
themselves as a salesperson.
I'm like you are the bestsalesperson, exactly, and you
forever will be Right You'regoing to hire a salesperson.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's easier to find somebody to help you with the
execution than it is to sell.
That's exactly the advice, man.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yeah.
So, in summary and wrap up tothis, we went way off.
Yeah, we did, but I think Iwant to answer your question
about.
It sounds depressing for thenext 20 years, but actually it's
encouraging, because what I dorealize is that this is nothing
but a dogfight and I can hangout in the dog fight.
There's no secret sauce.
I'm not missing a certain bookthat.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I need to read.
You're just not going to laydown and die right.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Exactly.
But if I know that theencouraging thing is, I know if
I just fight, yep.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I can play ball Exactly you never.
You never fail if you neverquit.
That's right.
Dog with a bone Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Get that dog, I need that, get that dog.
Get that dog, that bone.
Get that dog, that bone.
Just lobbering, so I think.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But all right.
Well, we're going to wrap it up.
Let's do it.
It's been another episode ofbig talk about small business.
It's beautiful.
Tune in folks,wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom.
All our episodes are there.
Share them, like them, lovethem.
Spread them.
Love them.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Report them Ask a question.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Record them, advertise on them.
Oh, but anyway, we'll see youall next week.
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Bye-bye.
Thanks for tuning into thisepisode 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
(28:11):
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