Slow Growth Secrets: Why Raising Capital is a Trap

Raising venture capital is an absolute profit trap for 90% of small businesses. When founders prioritize immediate micro-trends and massive funding rounds over organic market demand, they trade sustainable growth for crushing, artificial overhead. In this episode, we sit down with Cameron Magee, owner of avad3 Event Production, to discuss how he built a powerhouse national live event brand without a single dollar of external funding.

We sit down to unpack the grit behind scaling a seasonal, project-based firm from a 12-year-old’s church volunteer hobby into a massive multi-state logistics machine. Cameron digs into the hard data behind managing a 25,000-square-foot facility, replacing expensive travel overhead with highly synchronized local crews, and utilizing an air-tight 240-item checklist to keep execution flawless. He also shares his unique philosophy of market money, proving that your best form of working capital comes directly from the customers who actually value your service.

The narrative around building a company is too heavily romanticized by Silicon Valley, masking the operational friction of execution. Cameron pulls back the curtain on the mental strain of overhiring, facing massive staff restructuring, and realizing that fixed overhead will completely crush a project-based firm during predictable seasonal valleys. You’ll walk away with a severe warning against scaling just for the sake of appearances, a concrete strategy for asset management, and a renewed respect for letting a business evolve iteratively over time.

If you care about logistical scaling, avoiding bad debt, and protecting your equity through organic cash flow, you’ll get a lot from this conversation. Make sure to Subscribe and Share this episode with a peer who needs to hear it.

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Yeah, I'm not like a mobster, but like I won't unload
the truck if we haven't gottenour deposit.
Exactly.
Like we'll back the truck up tomake a scene.
I've only had to do this onetime.
We backed the truck up, and Iwalked over to the client and
said, So darn this thing, Ihaven't gotten that deposit that
I've called you about every weekfor for five weeks.
And he's like, Yeah, sorry, thecheck's stuck.
And I said, Well, the truck'sstuck.

SPEAKER_04 (00:23):
This is another episode of Big Talk about small
business.
All right, we're here withCameron McGee today.
Good to meet you, Cameron.
This is a fun show to be on.
I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_05 (00:37):
Thanks, man.
We have fun with it.
We get all kinds of fanfare likecomments and emails and letters
and photography.

SPEAKER_04 (00:46):
Can't with 3D busts of ourselves made on 3D
printers.
Yeah.
I mean, Cameron, what did youbring us today?

SPEAKER_03 (00:53):
Yeah, nothing, apparently.
Yeah, that's that's a high bar.

SPEAKER_05 (00:56):
We we do accept just straight cash.
What?

SPEAKER_03 (00:59):
In gold and silver.

SPEAKER_05 (01:00):
Water.
Jewelry.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (01:02):
Yeah, gold, gold, right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03):
Gold, yeah.
Gold is where gold is where it'sit's solid.
Um I love gold.
Remember gold member?
No.
No, you didn't you know what I'mtalking about.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14):
I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16):
Yeah.
You don't watch movies and wasteyour time, okay?
But anyway, that was uh one ofthe Austin Powers movies.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I've definitely seen that.
Yeah.
I don't remember that part.
Yeah, he's it's great.
I love the best part, is when hesays, I am from Holland, isn't
that viewed?
Isn't that viewed?

(01:37):
An unfortunate schmeltingaccident.
Yes, Mr.
Powers.
All right, here we are, though.
Seriously, we got Cameron McGeewith us.
Cameron's got a good story.
Cameron, tell us a little bitabout yourself and your
business.

SPEAKER_03 (01:52):
Yeah, well, my name's Cameron.
This is crazy because we'rewe're in our hometown.
I've been doing podcasts a lotthis past year, and this one's
actually here, which is a treat.
Great, man.
I'm sure from Arkansas, likey'all.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I wandered up tothe sound booth at my church
when I was 12 and started doingA V and then formed our business
in my dorm room here inArkansas.
And then yeah, AVOD 3 today isreally more of a national uh AV

(02:15):
team.
We're all over the country doingconferences and uh yeah, this
week we're at home because it'sWalmart Associates Week, so
there's plenty of work to do.
Oh, I bet this week.
Me too.
Well, it's a testament to a goodteam.
I'm I'm honored and privilegedto be here now.
I'll be I'll be loading truckstill midnight, but I'm here
right now.
Yeah.
God's love doing that, huh?
I love it.
Yeah, actually, that's one of mygoals for this week is I wrote I

(02:38):
have three goals every week, andone was uh it says pig and mud.
And I just want to be back onthe truck tonight and just
having fun.

SPEAKER_05 (02:44):
Man, that's such that's good stuff.
It's so keep your hands dirty,man.

SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
Oh, I'm telling you.
I'm so we are so sick and tiredof this.
Work on your business, not inyour business.
Oh no, I'm beyond that.
I only do strategy.
Strategy, my ass.

SPEAKER_03 (02:59):
But it's it's it's good to work on the business,
but as far as the team respect,there's no respect like midnight
in the semi.

SPEAKER_04 (03:05):
Exactly.
Yeah, right on, brother.
Yep, right on.
So now the name of the companyagain, say that slowly so our
audience can get it down.

SPEAKER_03 (03:14):
Nobody ever gets this right.
That's the number one tip.
Don't name your companysomething that nobody knows how
to pronounce.
That's that's a big tip here inthe podcast here.
But yeah, our company is Avid 3.
AVOD 3.
AVOD is a Hebrew word for serve.
And I'm very I'm very big intoservice and customer service.
So I can see that.
Um it's very important to mepersonally and professionally.
And we put the three on the endjust for basically SEO.

(03:35):
Like you can't just Google AVOD,you'll never find us.
So it's AVOD 3.
Yeah.
The three, we've made upmeanings over the years.
It's it's got some spiritualmeanings for me, it's got some
professional meanings andthings, but yeah, AVOD 3 is the
name of the company.

SPEAKER_04 (03:48):
Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, you said you're grateful
like two or three times already,so I believe it's real.

SPEAKER_03 (03:53):
Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 (03:54):
Well, where does that come from in your case?

SPEAKER_03 (03:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (03:56):
I mean, I'm Did you grow up poor or did you What was
your background?

SPEAKER_03 (04:01):
No, I mean I I I grew up here in Arkansas.
I mean, some people would saythat's poor.
You know, I feel like I feellike I was rich with my parents.

SPEAKER_04 (04:08):
We have shoes and dentists and steam at ponds now,
but in most of the time.
There are places.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I know.
But so no, seriously, though.
So what did your mom and dad do?

SPEAKER_03 (04:20):
Yeah, no nobody in my family's really been
entrepreneurial.
That's kind of the weird thing,is is starting my own business
and stuff was was a bit out ofleft field for them.
Um my parents moved here in theearly 90s when I was two.
My dad's always worked for uhbanks and and done professional
jobs like that.
My mom is an executiveassistant.
I worked for the mayor, and andthey're they're wonderful

(04:40):
people, but um I I guess I'vesaid I'm grateful three times
already.
That's interesting, because Ican't believe that I'm getting
to do what I love, which is AV.
I'm getting to own and operate asmall business.
Um I I just I just feel likeit's like the American spirit,
like it's the greatest form ofbeing American.
The only time I feel moreAmerican than being a small
business owner is I like to flysmall airplanes for fun as a

(05:03):
hobby to fly Cessnas.
There's there's nothing morefree than just lifting off out
of Bentonville and being like,where do we want to go today?
I mean, it's just so freeing.

SPEAKER_05 (05:10):
Yeah.
How long have you been flying?

SPEAKER_03 (05:12):
Uh about five years.
Really?
Yeah, I finished my instrumentrating a couple years ago.
That's what really kind ofopened the door for getting to
do it more often.

SPEAKER_05 (05:19):
Where did you do that at here in Bentville?
Here in Bentonville, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (05:21):
Cool.

SPEAKER_04 (05:21):
Yeah, they got a good program going on.
Really good.
That airport's great over there.
I love that little businessfield.

SPEAKER_05 (05:28):
I would love to learn to fly because like my
problem with flying is I'm notin control.
Oh, I believe.
I figured it out.
Like I don't trust anyone.

SPEAKER_04 (05:36):
And your lit moves like three miles from the
airport.
Oh my gosh.
I could be all up in it.
It's fantastic.
I'm like, this is I would loveliving there because I just come
and go.
But it's expensive though,right?

SPEAKER_03 (05:47):
It's it's not economical, I'll tell you that
much.
It's an expensive hobby.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have to kind ofself-control how often I do it
and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 (05:53):
But it's either that or a skid steer.
I'd have to be on it.

SPEAKER_04 (05:56):
I was moving, I was on the skid steer last night.
I should have you over at myhouse right now.
We just had a load of dirtdelivered today.
Topsoil, dude.
We're out there grading.
I could be out there with onebucket, don't.
I'm telling you, I love it.
Uh no, anyway, so Cameron, soyour parents weren't
entrepreneurial.
They were they were solidcitizens that were well

(06:16):
employed.
Yeah.
But so what made you start thisbusiness that you did when you
were a freshman?

SPEAKER_03 (06:23):
Yeah, I I had always done A V, just like volunteering
at church when I was reallylittle, and then I started doing
it around town.
I started I was at church allthe time, but still wanted to do
more.
So I would I would ask like thePee-Wee football team, hey, do
your parents mind if I likerecord the last game and sell
DVDs for 15 bucks?
I was 13 here in Bentonville.
And they were like, Yeah, soundsthat's cute, kid.

(06:44):
Knock yourself out.
We'll see if you actually didthat and then and then ran sound
at different like choir concertsand weddings and stuff.
Said, can you give me 50 bucksand a sandwich?
My mom will drop me off.
And and just I ba I basicallythink that I became
entrepreneurial out of anecessity to do what I love more
often.
There there's not a job inBentonville, Arkansas at age 14,

(07:06):
15 to do A V.
You could you could get you workat McDonald's when you're 14,
you could push carts at thesuper center when you're 14.
That's what my friends did.
Um but to do AV more often, Ihad to start something.
And so yeah, when you're in highschool, it's just cute, it's a
side hustle, it's not anythingserious.
But then in college in the dormroom, I was majoring, I was
gonna be a high school historyteacher, and realized I've got

(07:28):
four years of of roof over myhead.
I could make this a space raceto see if I could outpace a
teacher's salary, which is avery low bar,$29,000 at the time
in Arkansas.
And so I made it my four-yearcollege goal to not lose my
scholarship, to not drop out,but to outpace that by senior
year.
And I did that, and and so Ijust never taught.
I've just been doing this eversince.

SPEAKER_04 (07:49):
How long ago was that?
15 years.

SPEAKER_03 (07:52):
I'm 36.

SPEAKER_04 (07:53):
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
So how big is um is the firmnow?

SPEAKER_03 (07:58):
Well, we we we're 18 full-time people, okay.
Um which in the event is a lotof people.
It's actually a lot of people.
Full-time, yeah, it is sure.
You have lots of subs then toOh, we have, I think, uh between
100 and 300 freelancers on everyjust on the cruise all the time.

SPEAKER_02 (08:13):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 (08:13):
Uh, but yeah, 18 full-time.
Now, we were bigger than that atcertain points.
We've it's been a roller coasterof deciding how many do you have
internally.
How many do you freelance?
You know, and my heart fortrying to build a place that I
want to work and build a a aproduction company in Arkansas,
where the I think the largest inArkansas I've never checked, but
surely, and trying to buildthat, I've I've been quick to
hire a lot of folks over theyears and then realize later

(08:35):
like this is not a valuable,yeah, you know, viable, I should
say, maybe valuable, but notviable position.

SPEAKER_05 (08:41):
And so it's too have a full-time staff keeping it.

SPEAKER_03 (08:43):
Of every single position.
I mean, I had a full-timeeverything over there.
We had 51 people at one point.
And it was just like this is abad idea, you know.
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (08:52):
Bad for them, bad for you.

SPEAKER_03 (08:54):
It was awkward.
Yeah.
Super awkward during some ofthose years of okay, we've got a
full-time person doing XYZ, andthat's a kind of a weird fit,
you know.
And and our business is veryproject-based.
You know, we don't have theseretainer, like you either do a
show or you don't.
Right.
And after COVID, nobody reallysigns multi-year.
We have a couple of multi-yearcontracts, but most of them are
just year to year.
And so you have to imagine,like, we'd have a great year.

(09:16):
You know this from the marketingworld.
You know, you'd have a greatyear and I'd go hire a bunch of
people.
Yes.
Well, that's that's a terriblebusiness move to add all that
overhead.
And then the next year when thatproject goes away, not because
you did a bad job, but justbecause there was a merger or
we're not doing that this year.
And then so I've had to learnthe hard way about what's the
right size internally.
Um, and that's what I've spent alot of time trying to share with

(09:38):
others this year because myheart gets in the way of my head
of like, well, we want to hirethis person.

SPEAKER_04 (09:42):
Yeah.
Oh, we all get that.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Work for try to find a job forthem.
That's right.

SPEAKER_03 (09:48):
That's right.
Make a job, create a job.
Right.

SPEAKER_05 (09:51):
What do you employ full time?
Is it more like back officeadmin type project management?

SPEAKER_03 (09:57):
Yeah.
There's 18, and I I guess youknow, two-thirds of them are
folks that really lead the showsthat lead the crews.
We've got four productionmanagers and four technical
directors, and those duos leadevery project.
Almost like in marketing, youhave like an account manager and
a and a project.
Creative shorts.
Yeah, sure.
And so those duos lead everyproject.
So those core eight, and that'show we were in Washington, D.C.

(10:19):
last week.
You know, we're we're all overthe country constantly.
We can send two people in asemi-worth of our gear to a
city.
Yeah.
And then do you own your owntrucks?
We don't own our own trucks.
That's another thing that I hadto learn the hard way.
That is not worth it with theDOT right now for us.
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 (10:35):
And so we third party with the DOT.
DOT.

SPEAKER_03 (10:38):
And our volume and it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_05 (10:40):
But the Department of Transportation.
The Department ofTransportation.
Yeah, because you have to getcertain licensure and all that
type of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (10:45):
And and we do, you know, we do about 144 shows a
year.
Half of them are here in region,you know, regionally, and half
of them are on the road.
So only 72 hauls a year.
It does it actually doesn't makesense, believe it or not.
I thought it did.
Farm that out, sure.
Um anyway, so we can we can flytwo teammates to DC, send a
semi, they meet about, you know,two freelancers who we flew in,

(11:06):
like the key audio lead, the keyvideo lead.
We'll hire maybe four locals onthe crew.
And then maybe we get a boxtruck locally of just generic
stuff, pipe and drape, heavystuff that you don't need to
truck that's not, you know, showcritical.
It's more like we're gonna bringour consoles.

SPEAKER_04 (11:20):
But the show critical just some of that is uh
union supplied in some cities.

SPEAKER_03 (11:26):
Yeah, we work with a lot.
We work with Chicago.
Chicago's heavy, Las Vegas.
Yeah, there's a lot that aremost of California is is
extremely unionized.

SPEAKER_05 (11:35):
So after those eight, do you have people that
are helping to coordinate thisstuff?
I mean, like what's the rest ofyour full-time looking like?

SPEAKER_03 (11:41):
There's there's four of us that are kind of the
leaders in the company, my wifeand I being two of the four.

SPEAKER_05 (11:45):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (11:46):
And then, yeah, we've got um a salesperson, a
marketing person, and then onecoordinator.
And that coordinator role isreally the glue holding us all
together.
Being a pilot, I think of it asthe ATC.
Like there's this one person,there's a hundred planes in
Arkansas.
Traffic manager.
That's right.

SPEAKER_05 (12:00):
And so that's one person that can that handles all
those shows.

SPEAKER_03 (12:03):
We've really we've got it.
It sounds crazy that it's oneperson, and we hope she doesn't
quit.
You know, we've got all thesechicks.
If you're listening here,whoever you are, yeah, she's
appreciating you.
Yeah, I love you.
She's very appreciative.
Yeah, we tell her every day,thanks for what you're doing.
But we've got it down to, youknow, most shows, it's about a
20 240 item checklist that ittakes to do a show from start to

(12:24):
finish.
Yeah, we've we've refined thatover the years.
Right.
We know it takes 240 things 144times a year.
And so it's some of thosechecklist items are like, have
we packed enough gaff tape?

unknown (12:35):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (12:35):
You know, it's you've probably gotten better at
this over time.
It's amazing.
It's a constantly iterativeprocess, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 (12:42):
And I think event production is super kind of
niche and obscure when I'm onthese shows.
They're like, What is that?
It's weird.
You guys understand it, but somepeople don't.
But the the closest cousin isjust construction.
You know, construct a generalcontractor builds a hundred
buildings a year.
Yeah.
You know, some do they get yeah,some do.
And they get good at okay, we'vegot to make sure we've scheduled
the painters three weeks beforethe drive.
You know, and yeah.
And so that level ofcoordination, it's not

(13:04):
insurmountable, but it's a lotof traffic.

SPEAKER_05 (13:07):
It is.
It is.
And then so when you're loadingthe trucks, I mean, do you
outsource that or do you doesyour team internally take care
of that?

SPEAKER_03 (13:14):
Well, we we most of when we're loading them in our
shop, we just pitch in.
Like our, you know, ourmarketing girl or our sales guy
will just go out there and loadthe truck.
It's kind of fun.
You know, you use if you spend40 hours a week at a desk, you
want to pop up for an hour ortwo.
It's actually cool.
Now in the summer it's hot, soeverybody wears shorts and
t-shirts because they're gonnasweat.
Yeah, yeah.
But we actually we load thetrucks ourselves.
It's fun.
I love to go out there and loada truck.
Hurt my wrist loading a truck.

SPEAKER_05 (13:35):
And that's and that's what you're doing at
midnight tonight.

SPEAKER_03 (13:37):
We'll be unloading a bunch of trucks.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (13:40):
So you're loading for an event on the semi, takes
across the country, they comeback, you unload, put it back in
the shop.

SPEAKER_03 (13:46):
Yeah, we we did um last week we did um nine events
in 11 days.

SPEAKER_05 (13:52):
So you're loading and unloading daily.

SPEAKER_03 (13:55):
Yeah, some of those are well, one of those was in
Washington, D.C., like I wassaying.
So it's it's gone for 11 days,you know.
We had to load it and unload itonce.
But the other ones are more of aquick turn.
It's because last week wascommencement and graduation
season.
So we do that at the Universityof Arkansas in Bugwalton and
Barn Hill.
But then we also do every highschool within an hour here.

SPEAKER_05 (14:10):
Sure.
I would imagine you have amassive inventory management.
I was just thinking, like, whatkind of facility do you have?

SPEAKER_03 (14:16):
It's a big it's a big old room.
Yeah, it's 25,000 square feet.

SPEAKER_05 (14:20):
It's 25,000 square feet stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (14:23):
Stuff.
It's road cases and equipment.
It's super cool.
I'd love show tea.
It's yeah, I'd love to come byand check it out.
It's super organized.
I I that's one of my favoritethings.
When a client comes by, they'realways like, oh wow, every case
is color-coded, every case has abarcode.
We scan them in and out whenthey cross the dog plate like a
library book.
We have to keep track of it.

SPEAKER_05 (14:39):
Who implemented that process?

SPEAKER_03 (14:41):
A teammate, her name is Karen years ago.
Um, we we we kind of switchedfrom spreadsheets to like, let's
get a database and software.
And she helps.
That's probably 10 years ago weplugged that in.
We're 15 years old.

SPEAKER_04 (14:51):
That's got to give a customer or client a lot of
faith if they see that.
I love when they can come.
Because it says these guys areorganized, they're not gonna
drop the ball on me.

SPEAKER_05 (14:59):
Well, I mean, if you invent the client, like this
event is extremely important.
But they're staying here.
They're biggest influencers,contributors, donors.

SPEAKER_04 (15:07):
You remember the events we used to do, the hot
firm conference called Elevate.

SPEAKER_05 (15:12):
It's huge now.
It's got like 600 people orwhatever.
So important.
Here you are talking to an eventcontractor that's gonna put this
thing on for you.

SPEAKER_04 (15:20):
You got all these expensive people there paying
2,000 bucks apiece and expect itto be good.

SPEAKER_05 (15:25):
Yeah.
And then you walk into aninventory management system that
he has a warehouse and it'sbarcoded, and you're like, okay.
And you meet this guy and he'sclear-eyed and clear-headed.

SPEAKER_04 (15:34):
That's right.
It's unusual.
Good handshake.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (15:39):
I'll trust this.
Yeah.
I'll trust my entire business,my reputation.

SPEAKER_04 (15:44):
I just kind of got in trouble on LinkedIn today
over that, though.
There was uh this morning, therewas a guy that put this picture
out and said, you know, doesthis look like an estate
tourney?
He met me with a baseball cap onbackwards, and he shows a
picture of him, and he's got hishis golf shirt with with overly
tight short jeans, okay, andthose really bright white shoes.

(16:08):
And then they showed a pictureof the same guy, obviously AI
done, with a suit on andeverything, a double-breasted
suit and all.
And and I said, I wouldn't dresslike that one guy ever.

SPEAKER_05 (16:19):
With the hat on backwards?

SPEAKER_04 (16:21):
Yeah, with the what I mean, his hat wasn't on
backwards, but they said it was.
Yeah.
The the author of this.
And I, yeah, I said, I thinkyour shirt was bad.
I go, There's tight jeans,never.
Okay.
White shoes like that.
Come on, you know.
And then this guy responded, hegoes, That was me.

(16:42):
But I mean, seriously, I saidthere's gotta be somewhere
between that and thedouble-breasted suit, though.
You know, I mean, to give alittle faith in it.
Yeah, but but no, um, so twosubjects I want to touch on,
though.
One of them is um your wifeworks in the business.
Yes, super cool.
How did that work out?

(17:03):
How how does that work out?
How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_03 (17:06):
I'd love to talk about that.
Yeah.
So she was super involved thefirst three years of the
business just out of necessity.
In college.
Yeah, we were dating and then wegot married our senior year, and
when I was really getting thebusiness going.
And and so her involved thosefirst three years, you know, it
was just me.
So you can almost imagine it'salmost like a typical like
carpenter who's who's maybetheir spouse does the books or
something like that.
You know, just very much ahelper, a partner.

(17:28):
And so she would help me prepfor a shoot.
I did a lot more video shootsback then with events, you know.
So she'd help me prep, she'dhelp me call the footage, she'd
help me send the invoices.
And around the third year, weactually started getting like
sort of legit a little bit.
I had four people working forme, and she said, Hey, I'm out.
And I was like, What do you meanyou're out?
She's like, it's a real businessnow.

(17:49):
I'm nervous.
We didn't sign up for this.
Yeah, she was like, We have wehave to run payroll, you know,
like you could screw up thepayroll taxes.
And like, she's an ER nurse, andshe was like, We don't need an
ER nurse in charge of ourcompliance, you know.
And I was like, We're still fourpeople, it's fine.
Calm down, it's fine.
She was like, No, I'm out.
She's uh and so she steppedaway.
Smart lady, very wise, yeah.
And so she stepped away.
That was the third year.

(18:10):
So and she just came back abouttwo years ago.
Really?
Um, and so ironically, she wasmissing from that period.
And then about two years ago,it's so funny, we got so big
that I got scared.
And I went to her and said, Hey,it's funny, you left because you
were scared we were getting bigfor people.
This is when we had like 50people.
And I said, I'm now scared ourentire life savings, yeah, our

(18:31):
entire risk profile, our home,everything's, you know, it's
personally guaranteed somewhereor the other.
You know, we have a lot, we havea lot of assets.
So there's we understand that.
Yeah, the risk.

SPEAKER_04 (18:41):
And I said, listen, I said, 20 million in debt
before, so I know.
My goodness, yeah.
I can't.
That's that's that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 (18:46):
Yeah, that's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 (18:49):
I have too much right now.
But anyway, go on.

SPEAKER_03 (18:51):
But I just I told her, I sat her down and I said,
you know, I I don't think it'sresponsible because I'm I'm the
boss, like I'm accountable tocustomers, but I don't have a
board.
You know, and I said, I feellike I need objective
accountability.
Right.
Like if I used to be if I wantedto buy a speaker, it's like$800,
I'll go buy it.
Well, now we're spending$80,000on a line-based speaker.
I said, like, I don't want to beallowed to go buy that because I

(19:13):
think it's cool.
You need to come up here as anobjective true owner, not a not
a pig in mud, and and and bringsome maturity up here.

SPEAKER_04 (19:21):
And so just make sure though that she doesn't s
slow you down too much.
I mean, seriously, because notevery spouse understands the
risk that you have to take togrow a business.
Nor do they understandnecessarily the value of the
business.
They only think about what youcan take out of it.

SPEAKER_02 (19:38):
That's right.

SPEAKER_04 (19:39):
Okay.
So I'm not saying your wifewould do that, but I'm just
saying you'd have to do that.

SPEAKER_05 (19:43):
But to the listeners, be cautious about
that.

SPEAKER_04 (19:44):
Yeah, it's not I'm not gonna bring anybody in and
and and let them tell me how tospend money or not in my
business.

SPEAKER_05 (19:51):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (19:51):
I guess I have a higher risk profile.
I know if I have a CFO or a COOor whatever, they're all gonna
be telling me not to do it.

SPEAKER_03 (19:59):
Yeah, she for sure she for sure has a lower risk
profile.
Yeah, exactly.
That's for darn sure.

SPEAKER_05 (20:04):
It's a good balance.
I mean, and that's saying it'snot at the same time to your
point, Laura, but it helps youit ensures that you're thinking
through those things.
But if you still make thedecision.
That's right.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 (20:21):
It's an accountability check.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, I can't.

SPEAKER_05 (20:23):
And there's been a lot of times where I've had that
accountability check, and I'mlike, you know what?
I'm actually not that confidentas confident as I'm not.
That's right.
This was actually a pretty goodidea.
No, I think that's a valuabledecision.

SPEAKER_03 (20:32):
Yeah, I'm a high quick start.
I'm quick to just jump and go.
And she's not there to erode myconfidence.
That's the last thing she wantsto do either.
And so I want to be confident,but I don't want to be confident
knowing I I passed the test.
I actually have I had to run aone pager by somebody, and she
said that sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 (20:46):
I mean, she's taking the risk too.
I mean, that's a good thing.
It's for her to not be present.
It's her, it's her money.

SPEAKER_03 (20:52):
It's like a publicly treated company with the
shareholders not getting to lookat the book.
Yeah, like it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_04 (20:57):
You do have to respect that.

SPEAKER_05 (20:58):
Yeah, I think.
And we've talked about thisbefore, like at least as males
with female wives, spouses,right?
Like their intuitive ability isso is a lot higher.
So much better than that.
There's been a lot of times I'lltell my wife what's going on,
she's asking, you know, and I'llsay something.
A lot of times it's about otherpeople that I'm bringing into my
brain.
She's like, I can see right now.

(21:21):
I don't like that.
So, so true.
And then she'll do this.
She'll go, you know, go aheadand do what you think, but just
remember that I said for sixmonths from now what I've saying
to you right now.
I'm like, damn it, man.
That's a you know.

SPEAKER_04 (21:33):
Oh, Sonia always says when I say you were right,
she goes, I don't want to hearthat.
I want to hear you are right.

SPEAKER_05 (21:39):
By the time it's worked, it's too late.
And you know, I'm totally gonnahear her.
Totally say that I was right.

SPEAKER_04 (21:46):
But no, I mean I I think all that's that's great.
And and obviously your wife'sgot a unique understanding of
the business.
She's been there since thebeginning.
She sees everything you gothrough, and and and she's you
know, witnessed every up anddown.
That's right.
And so she's very valuable.

SPEAKER_05 (22:02):
Well, let's can I ask one question about so she is
an ER nurse, you said?
Yep.
And so was she ready to leadthat industry, or was it kind of
more about the helping out yourbusiness that she she loves it.

SPEAKER_03 (22:15):
She loves it there still, yeah.
And she's not active up thereanymore.
They have her, I get you couldsay they've promoted whatever.
They've given her moreresponsibility to do that.
She has to basically do remote.
So she hasn't she probablyhasn't worked a shift, at least
an overnight shift, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 (22:27):
But she still does a little bit for them.

SPEAKER_03 (22:29):
Oh yeah, she's still active with the hospital.
Oh, wow.
She still does stuff with them.
Oh wow.
Because she loves it.
Yeah, because she loves it.
Because and she's painted a veryclear picture for me.
She's like, you know,production's your passion.
Yeah.
And small business is yourpassion.
Nobody in her family, nobody inmy family wanted to sign up for
this.
Sure.
But she married me.
It wasn't a trick, it wasn't abait and switch.
It wasn't like I like worked forthe bank when she married me.

(22:51):
Then I said, hey, I'm going togo jump off the deep end.
Like she knew what she wassigning up.
Yeah, obviously.
And she understood when we weregetting that large, and I was
overhiring because I didn't havean accountability check when I
was overspending because Ididn't have a deal check.
She was able to look and say,Oh, yeah, that's that's a
problem.

SPEAKER_05 (23:04):
So let me ask you a quick question because my wife's
a is a nurse as well.
That's cool.
Nurse practitioner in oncology.
But I don't know about you, andyour wife being an ER.
I'll come home from my hard dayof work.
Exhausting meetings.
Yeah, you're you know,exhausting meetings, freaking
2,000 emails, text, justspinning.
Psychologically, and everybodywas saying no.

(23:27):
And I had nothing but problems.
Yeah.
And I'll and she'll ask, How wasyour day?
I'm like, man, it was like thisand that.
And I'll say a couple things,and I'll say, How was yours?
And she's, or sometimes I'll askher first, which I learned to
do, how was your day?
Yeah, somebody came in, theywere 35 years old, and you know,
they they got better, but nowthey all of a sudden took a
downturn and they're not doingwell.
And I'm like, okay, my day wasactually pretty tired.

SPEAKER_03 (23:50):
Yes, perspective.

SPEAKER_04 (23:52):
Yeah, it's kind of like when my yeah, yesterday my
15-year-old texted me and said,How come Lily uh Lily just got a
new Bronco given to her and it'sblack with a brown interior?
How come I'm driving Sophie'sold car?
Okay.
And I said to her, I said, Youdo realize, I said, Lily doesn't

(24:12):
have a mother or a father.
She lives with her grandmother.
Would you rather be in thatposition?
Have a new Bronco?
Yeah.
Okay.
Perspective.
Completely shut that down.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (24:23):
All done.
It's like, can we go drive inthis?
But hats off to the healthcareproject.
Life and death.
My gosh, man.
Yeah, I think on the thankless.
I don't know how eager it was.
Can't pay him enough.
Intense, uh bad, the worst newscan happen.
I could never do it.
It's like I have so much respectfor them and inspiration.

(24:46):
I mean, so thank you for herservice on that.

SPEAKER_04 (24:49):
It's awesome.
So let me ask you though,another question about having
your wife there.
Okay.
So she was gone.
She came back a couple yearsago, right?
Do you find, and I don't knowanything about her personality
or anything, obviously, but doyou find that other employees
are afraid of her?
Yeah.
Just because of her last nameand they know who she is?

SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Yeah.
Honestly, I think it's hard to,it's hard to split the
difference, but she came backaround the time we had to do
layoffs because I overhired.
And so I think it's really morethe season and the timing of
what she came into.

SPEAKER_04 (25:21):
Yeah, so she was associated with.

SPEAKER_03 (25:22):
I mean everybody's scared of her.
Probably everybody's scared ofme.
You know, it's like, oh, youknow, scared of me because I was
reckless and overhired.
Yeah.
Scared of her because around thetime she came back, we laid
everybody off.
Right.
You know, I don't know thatthey're now she's super
servant-hearted.
I've actually never met a moreselfless person in my wife.
That's why I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_05 (25:37):
Well, she has to be married in her freaking ER.

SPEAKER_03 (25:39):
Yeah, I married her quick because she's so selfless
and just beautiful.
But she she comes in and shedoesn't sit at a desk.
She doesn't stay in theboardroom.
She's always in the shop.
She goes, she walks in and she'slike, Do we have to talk about
any of this like business stuff?
She's like quick to be like, Canwe get the nonsense out of the
way?
And it's like, look, you gottareview these bank documents.
You gotta look at this.
And so our EA and and our leadwill like get stuff done with

(26:01):
her.
She's like, okay, is theinsurance happy?
Great.
I'm going out in the shop.
And she goes out in the shop,and you know, cases will come
back from a show, all dismayed,you know, the raw cables.
She pulls everything out, putsit back up.
And I ask her all the time.
She's been doing that for over ayear.
I said, What the heck are youdoing out there?
Like, as the owners, there's alot of big stuff we need to be
deciding.
That is literally the mostentry-level job in the company.

(26:24):
And she she everybody respectsher because she's out there
doing it.
She's not, she's actually notdoing it for their respect.
She's like, it's so satisfying.
At the end of the day, I've putall these cases back.
And so it's such a pure like,she's not entrepreneurial where
she's always thinking, what's myhighest contribution?
She's just there to help.
You know what she's doing?

SPEAKER_05 (26:41):
She's preventing a problem that happens down the
road.
Yeah.
To make sure everything'stightened up when it comes back
in, because inevitably, likewhat you don't want to have
happen is get to the event andthe guy's that the last guy
didn't do exactly.

SPEAKER_03 (26:56):
That's what she's doing out there.

SPEAKER_05 (26:56):
Every time she's helping you be scalable.

unknown (26:59):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:59):
I give her a hard time because I'm like, it isn't
scalable if the owner's doingit.

SPEAKER_05 (27:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (27:04):
It is though, because the owner's gonna levy
the consequences that needs me.

SPEAKER_05 (27:08):
They're they're gonna know levy.

SPEAKER_04 (27:10):
They're they're re uh that low-level employee may
just fix it and that's it.
They don't they don't know whyit's important.
Right.
Or they don't take the next stepto go, why was it wrong?

SPEAKER_03 (27:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (27:20):
Okay.
It's not their place.
They just put it back.

SPEAKER_03 (27:23):
Yeah.
What's beautiful about it?
It's almost like, you know, likeif this was my dad's business
and I, you know, at 22, hestarted wanting to teach me the
ropes or something.
It's it almost feels like thatwhere she wasn't in the
business, she feels like sheneeds to learn it from the
bottom up in the most wholesomeway.
Yeah.
It's just out there doing that.

SPEAKER_04 (27:37):
She's we love her.
What's her name?

SPEAKER_03 (27:39):
Laura.

SPEAKER_04 (27:39):
Laura, we love Laura.
Yeah, she sounds great.
Now, second question though, Igot.
Um, trying to build thisbusiness, and obviously you've
been successful, but doing it ina place like Northwest Arkansas.
Okay.
I would imagine like the biggiesthat do what you do are probably
in like LA and New York City andAtlanta and places like that,

(28:03):
right?

SPEAKER_05 (28:03):
Yeah, it's probably the worst, worst decision I can
make, literally.
We mean as far as having acompany starting.

SPEAKER_03 (28:09):
To try to establish a national AV event production
company in Arkansas is what itseems like on paper.
Yeah.
And again, when I was in highschool, when I was in college,
if I was really serious aboutscale, about being
entrepreneurial, no way.
It doesn't make any sense onpaper to have it here.
But I didn't make the decisionto have it here as a
professional decision.
I made the decision to have ithere as a personal decision.

(28:30):
Sure.
Sure.
You were here.
I grew up here.
Right.
I want to raise my boys in thesame woods that I ran around.
I think there's no better.
I mean, I get to see the wholecountry.
I travel all the time.
Every single time I'm flyinghome, I ask myself, I'll give
myself permission.
I could move.
I'm the entrepreneur.
We could move.
We could be quickly.
Do I want to be in Vegas?
Absolutely not.
Oh, I think.
Do I want to be in Orlando?
Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04 (28:50):
Those are my two least favorite cities.
They go there all the time.
Orlando.
And Orlando's do you guarantee?
And New Orleans, number three.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (28:58):
Why's Orlando?
Because of that's where Disney.

SPEAKER_04 (29:01):
Soulless.
No, it's just it's soulless.
Everything is clean.
It's poor.
It is.
It's brittle.
It's absolutely soulless.
Really?
Yeah.
And Las Vegas was just designedto suck money out of people who
can't afford to lose it.
Yeah.
I can understand.

SPEAKER_03 (29:14):
It's just a vial, in my opinion.
It doesn't make any sense to behere professionally.
And even if I would just move usto like but Tulsa, like anywhere
but here would have a hope.

SPEAKER_04 (29:25):
No, but you say that, but I mean, on the other
hand, I mean, this wasn't, ithas gotten a lot more so.
It wasn't the most expensiveplace to operate.
We do have pretty good employeebase around here to pick from.
Good people.
Good people, good work ethic.
Um, there's, you know, there's alot of places that could be
worse.
It's pretty business friendly.

SPEAKER_03 (29:45):
I I made the choice to be here again, knowing this
thing may only ever have fourpeople working at it, and I'm
okay with that.
At a piece.
Again, I'm not I'm not a serialentrepreneur.
You know, this isn't an episodefor serial entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_05 (29:55):
You're not trying to make billions and just run older
people like Mark Zwag does.
Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_03 (30:00):
And I'm not interested in uh basically.

SPEAKER_04 (30:02):
You're the one with the billions, okay?
You don't run over people.
You're unbelievably nice, butyeah.

SPEAKER_03 (30:08):
I I wasn't trying to grow it and build it to sell it.
I want to work here.
That's the that's the weirdthing about it.
Like if if we were trying tostart I'm I'm sure you guys have
interviewed all sorts of people,you starting a coffee shop and
trying to make a hundredlocations and then sell it or
something like that.
I just actually like makingcoffee.
Yeah.
You know, and so I'm trying tobuild a place that I want to
work.
And again, when I graduated fromcollege, I would have not been

(30:31):
entrepreneur.
My whole family wasn't.
It's just there wasn't a placein Arkansas that I could get a
job doing this.
Yeah, yeah.
So I said, well, I'll start myown thing.
We'll have a trailer and astorage unit, and I'll have
three or four guys by the timeI'm 40, and and it'll be that'll
be my how I make my living.

SPEAKER_05 (30:45):
Do you do you think that I feel this is my
perspective, but the area iskind of becoming more attention
towards like the oh yeah, the Iguess the credibility of like if
you're out of NorthwestArkansas, like it's it's easier
to recruit now.
Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_04 (31:01):
And people have come here, like I was at a meeting a
couple weeks ago with somepeople that aren't from here at
all, and two potentialinvestors, one's in LA, the
other one's somewhere else.
But he was like, Oh yeah,Northwest Arkansas is fantastic.
I was there, I couldn't believehow great it was.

SPEAKER_05 (31:17):
But I even say on the professional side of like
where they recognize that we dohave major like obviously
Walmart is.
Oh, yeah, there's more media.

SPEAKER_04 (31:25):
We're getting much more PR.

SPEAKER_05 (31:27):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, from that professionalbusiness sense, you know how to
handle bigger business.
Yeah.
No.
I'm getting a little bit ofthat, not as much as probably
once you get in a bigger city,like in New York or whatever,
but there's definitely somecredibility there.

SPEAKER_04 (31:39):
But I mean, but don't, you know, you travel
around a lot.
I used to fly all the time too.
Don't isn't it a great feelingwhen you step out of the doors
of XNA Airport and you go that'sright, the fresh air.
Especially after bakes.

SPEAKER_03 (31:52):
The greenery smells good chicken home, home.
I can walk to my car.
It's not like a tram ride away.
It always feels so good.
Every time I come home, it does.

SPEAKER_05 (32:03):
Like so back, I was like maybe 19 or 20.
I moved out west and I lived outin Colorado for summer and I was
driving back home because oldHonda Court, hot, going through
the deserts and stuff, and Istarted hitting the greenery,
you know.
And then I but I'll never forgetI started smelling chicken.
Yeah.
But well, it was really great.

SPEAKER_04 (32:24):
I was like home, baby.
You can smell cow poop at XNAwhen you get out.
It's beautiful.
I I do I don't smell smell cowpoop.
I know I love that.
So, so so yeah, I mean, so sonaturally, if you're out there
dealing with national clientsand and they're I mean, has

(32:44):
anybody ever said to you, like,you're in Arkansas?
How can you do this, Joe?

SPEAKER_03 (32:49):
I love that.
Yeah, I love that question.
I love it.
Well, the first thing I say is,well, we're we're in Walmart's
backyard and we've been honoredthrough personal relationships
to serve them for over a decade.
And a lot of business comesthrough Northwest Arkansas.
And so we've met PepsiCo, we'vemet different, you know, Ecolab,
different people who have comethrough here and then taken us
with them.
And then even we we're honored,we get to serve the White House,

(33:10):
the president of the UnitedStates, through multiple
different administrations, notjust the current one, but the
previous one.
And we met them because acampaign manager came through
our hometown and then rememberedus when he got the big job.
Cool.
And so we we we're small andthen we're in the kind of the
middle of nowhere, but also thecenter of everything
logistically.
So if we do a show in Vegas, thethe diesel is the exact same

(33:31):
next year because most of ournational events they move them
every year.
So the next year when they moveit to Orlando and they say, Hey,
we moved to Orlando, what's thenew budget?
It's the same budget, it's thesame distance.
That's fair wherever we go.
And so that's a good point.
We've we have found a way.
Again, I didn't I didn't foundit here because it was the
center of the country.
No, I don't know why Sam Waltonfounded his here either, but
that's where he was.
But they ended up realizing thisis a pretty good spot.

SPEAKER_05 (33:51):
He did because Helen loved this area.
He was living here.
Well, he was from uh Missouri,Columbia, Missouri.
Yeah, but Helen was from a Tulsaarea or or eastern Oklahoma.
Uh-huh.
And she's like, we want to, Iwant to live around here.
And she didn't want to big to bein a big town.

SPEAKER_03 (34:07):
So they made the same decision for personal
reasons.
They chose to be big towns.
Exactly.
And then that ended up beingblessed, and it worked
professionally.

SPEAKER_04 (34:13):
That's right.
I think a lot of us start thesebusinesses.
You already said it.
It's like you don't necessarilygo, I'm gonna be uh X number of
people or so many millions.
You just start out doing itbecause you like it, you see a
need, and then it just growsover time.
It's not all a function ofplanning, like we set down.
I worked for a guy when I wasyoung and in high school, I
worked for a guy who owned abunch of bike shops.

(34:36):
And this is a guy who did dothat.
He worked for the federalgovernment as an economist, and
he decided it was in the early70s, he he decided he wanted to
start a business that was goingto be one he could employ his
three sons in that would bepositively affected by an energy
crisis and was good for people'shealth.
And he came up with the bicyclebusiness.

(34:57):
Wow, because he knew nothingabout it.
Then he did a study and came up,and of all the places that he
could start that, how many daysof sunshine they had per year,
how many bike, uh how manypeople per bike shop, and he
decided to do it in St.
Louis.
That's a logical process.
That's incredible.
Okay, he was very successful atone point.

(35:17):
Out of respect for that.
Yeah, but that's not the waymost of us do it.
No, you know, he was like 45when he did that.
It's a totally different deal.
Yeah.
We all did this stuff when wewere young and stupid, didn't
really have a plan.
And so what advice now you'vebeen through this, you've grown
this business significantly.
You said you had too manyemployees at one point.

(35:39):
Does that mean that you scaledback on your revenue, or does
that just mean that yououtsource more of it?

SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
Yeah, both.
Uh we you know, we we certainlyoutsource more now.
And it's it's better for thecustomer too.
You know, we were we wereemploying essentially the whole
crew for any given showin-house.
So the audio tech, video tech,lighting tech, the camera
operators.
Jeez.

SPEAKER_05 (35:59):
And then we were flying them to too much overhead
associated with Vegas, Orlando15, 20 grand just an airfare.

SPEAKER_03 (36:04):
Yeah, well, that's a for the client, it's airfare,
it's it's the it's the hotels.
But what it meant for businessthat wasn't good is you know,
events are seasonal.
You know, around the 4th ofJuly, nobody's doing a national
conference.
Everybody wants to be off aroundthe 4th of July.
We we can't we can't pull arabbit out of a hat and make a
show happen the 5th of July, nomatter what we do.
Yeah, one time in 15 years wedid a show on the 5th of July.

SPEAKER_05 (36:26):
The 5th of July is.
This year'd be a good year.
This year's a good while meals.

SPEAKER_03 (36:32):
Yeah, a good good year for outdoor, you know, Tom
Petty or whatever.
Yeah, but not not necessarilyour core business of like
corporate conferences, you know,around the 5th of July.
Right.
And so we were trying to pay forthose people in the valleys off
of the volume we did in thepeaks.
Yeah.
So we're running them ragged.
You know, from a work-lifebalance standpoint.

(36:54):
In October, they're working 80hours a week.
Right.
In July, we have to keep thememployed.
Right.
For the client, it's not good.
And so we realized this is notgood.
Let's let's hire a local crew inwhatever city, Cincinnati,
Philadelphia, wherever we'regoing.
Let's hire a local crew.
It's better for the client.
It's better for the localeconomy, too.
I don't really like showing upas a circus or roadshow and not
using anybody local.

(37:14):
That probably gets people mad.
It makes me mad.
I make it when somebody comes tomy hometown and completely
self-contained, I'm like, comeon, call us for something.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (37:22):
And so I realize a little bit of the money around
locally.

SPEAKER_03 (37:26):
Come on.
So I realize that there's just abetter way to run the business
that way.
So we but also we've had reallybig projects.
Kind of our our PL has gottenlumpy over the years where you
do a really big project.
And again, I would scale up fora big project, not realizing
this is not a retainer.
This is not a sure thing.
You can't add overhead for aproject.

(37:47):
It's a project.
Sure.

SPEAKER_05 (37:48):
Yeah, and in your industry, it's kind of hard to
get a subscription month ofrecurring revenue that doesn't
exist.
There's nothing like Hey, pay me$20,000 a month for your bet
next year.

SPEAKER_03 (37:56):
We have to work to eat.
Yeah.
There's no such thing.
And so yeah, it's been afunction.
So yeah, our our revenue hasbeen lumpy over the years.
It's a scatter plot up and tothe right, but it's lumpy, you
know?

SPEAKER_04 (38:06):
Yeah, those big jobs are like a freight train when
they pull out, right?
It just leaves this void.

SPEAKER_05 (38:11):
Yeah.
Well, you know, speaking of allthat, like there's a like you
just discussed, there's a lot ofintensity around certain uh
areas.
Yeah.
And then even but even yoursmaller local full-time team,
when those seasons come in, thenintensity rises for them, even
though you do have freelancersthat are helping to take that
burden on.
But how do you how do you keepthe team motivated, not having

(38:33):
burnout during those high peakseasons, yeah, and being able to
to kind of keep that cultureenergetic?

SPEAKER_03 (38:40):
Yeah, I don't have a like a magic pill for that, but
it's I just try to lead throughjust being as open book as I can
and just very pragmatic aboutexplaining to them look, there's
sprinting and there's resting.
And we all know the 5th of Julywe're gonna rest.
So take that PTO.
Yeah, get out of here, go enjoysome sunshine, like get get
lost, get enjoy it and rest.

SPEAKER_05 (38:58):
Yeah, just for the love of God, please do not try
to take two weeks off.

SPEAKER_03 (39:01):
That's right.
And they all they all understandOctober.
We call it Worktober.
Yeah, there's plenty of work inOctober.
October is it?
Yeah, it's and they allunderstand that.

SPEAKER_05 (39:10):
Why is October in it in your your industry?

SPEAKER_03 (39:12):
The the calendar, it's like a McDonald's M.
Like April, May is a huge peak,and then it dies in the summer
because nobody, no corporationwants to ask their people to do
an event, you know, noconference wants to try to sell
tickets then, and thenSeptember, October, it's another
peak, but then you know,Christmas and New Year's, then
we don't do anything.
And so it makes this double bellcurve every six months.
It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 (39:32):
So let's talk a little bit about the financing
of your business.
Um, do you deal with a lot ofcorporate clients?
Are they all paying youpromptly, or do you have these
60, 90 day?

SPEAKER_03 (39:42):
We've had some, yeah, we've had some net nine
situations in the past.

SPEAKER_04 (39:46):
Do you have a bank line of credit for that?

SPEAKER_03 (39:48):
Yeah, we I certainly stay active where I can draw it.
We're not drawing down on itcurrently, but I have a a
healthy one that we can if weget a problem.
Okay.
Um but yeah, the our industrygets around a little bit of the
procurement simply because let'ssay a vice president at, you
know, whatever, uh Unileverwants to have an event.
Hey, we need to get thedepartment together in September

(40:10):
for a a kickoff for our newinitiatives, whatever.
Sure.
And they decide, you know, sixmonths out or 30 days out
sometimes, we want to have thisbig event.
They have to pay the hotel adeposit, they have to pay the
venue a deposit.
And those deposits, they don'thold the place until it's
received.
True.
And so they have ways to getaround procurement saying, no,
no, this is the same.

SPEAKER_04 (40:28):
Yeah, it's like you don't show up unless you get
some money.

SPEAKER_03 (40:31):
Yeah.
I'm not like a mobster, but likeI won't unload the truck if we
haven't gotten our deposit.
Exactly.
Like we'll back the truck up tomake a scene.
I've only had to do this onetime.
We backed the truck up, and Iwalked over to the client and
said, So darn saying I haven'tgotten that deposit that I've
called you about every week fourfor five weeks.
And he's like, Yeah, sorry, thecheck's stuck.
And I said, Well, the truck'sstuck.

SPEAKER_05 (40:47):
Truck stuck.
I love the one time.
Hardball.
Truck stuck, but they can goforward, get all that rolls in.

SPEAKER_03 (40:59):
But we usually, you know, they can get the deposit
paid.
And then I don't mind net 90.
We we we don't have to do mostnet night.
Usually, if they're paying uponreceipt on the deposit, we can
get net 30.
Um, but again, our events arealways rolling, and so I'm sort
of okay with just realizing wehave to manage a pretty large
amount of cash on hand so thatwe can ebb and flow like that.
We have to do that because wehave to make it through summer.

(41:20):
Sure.
It's like hibernation.
It's just like in nature, youknow, like you have to have a
little bit of a nest.

SPEAKER_04 (41:25):
So, how about all your equipment?
I mean, you're very assetintense.
Do you buy that?
Do you lease that?
Do you finance that?

SPEAKER_03 (41:32):
It's purchased.
Yeah, it's purchased.
Um, most of it we own outrightin cash just by growing slowly
over the years.
Now, again, if I if I was moreof a serial entrepreneur and 15
years ago said, hey, I want tostart what a VOD three is today,
yeah, we'd have to go getmultiple millions of dollars in
loans to do that.
You know, if I was trying tobuild an office building, but I
started my dorm room.
And so I bought four speakers.
And then, you know, we gotthose, and then I bought four

(41:53):
more, and then now we have 90speakers.

SPEAKER_05 (41:56):
This is a transition to one of the hottest topics
that we always talk about, whereMark starts banging his hands on
the table.
The problem with a lot of thenew entrepreneurs today think
that they have to go raisecapital in order to build a big
business.
I disagree.
Disagree, right?
Because now, again, I do thinkthere's a sliver of whether

(42:16):
you're in if you're in tech,tech is different.
Yeah, different, but 90% of theother businesses that are out
there, you can build, just keepinvesting and just grow.

SPEAKER_03 (42:27):
Mentor told me it's a crock pot, not a microwave.
And I just got a big dosage ofpatience.

SPEAKER_04 (42:32):
Well, the other thing though, I mean, I agree
with that.
I mean, I started my primarybusiness when I was 30.
Okay.
That's kind of late in a way,though, because I needed to make
so much money to make the jump.
Because I already had a kid, andI was married at a house, all
that.
That's right.
I I wasn't able to do it.
You were 18.
You don't need to make anything.

(42:52):
Wait, you're married?
I thought you just got married afew years ago.
Oh, shush.
Um so, yeah.
So I I do think that's part ofit for a lot of people, is
they're unequipped to make thesacrifice that it takes to
bootstrap it.
And they think like, oh, I makeuh 150K a year working at
Procter and Gamble, therefore Ineed to make 150K out of this.

SPEAKER_03 (43:14):
I pity that person who can't make the leap.
I talk to friends all the timewho are like, You're in small
business, I've always wanted toown my business.
And it's like, well, if you're40 and you make$150,000 a year
and you have incrediblebenefits, that I respect that
you're in a different positionthan I was in the dorm room.
You know, I completely Icompletely respect that.

SPEAKER_04 (43:31):
But you're also very vulnerable because you got one
client.
That's right.
You're employed.
One check.
Yeah.
That's right.
And that could go any sense ofthe city.

SPEAKER_05 (43:38):
And at this time we see that that's a false sense of
security.
Totally false.
That's right.
It's it's it's fabricated andintentionally fabricated by
companies to make you feel thatway.
That's right.

SPEAKER_04 (43:48):
I never lost a client.
I just in fact I just said thisto one of my daughters on the
way here that I didn't replacewith somebody better.
Well, every single time.
That's fair.
Okay.
That's fair.
But when you're Going throughthat, you don't feel like that,
right?
Yeah.
But freeing up the time and theenergy that it takes to serve a
bad client, boy, it'sinvaluable.

SPEAKER_03 (44:10):
Well, and I had a there was a a business that I
watched when I was in highschool college.
I had a lot of respect forregionally around here that had
a production company.
And they went and got a$400,000loan and bought the best gear.
And and it was great, you know,but it didn't work.
And I think it's because theybought, you know, you spend
$400,000.
Imagine building this buildingwe're in right now or building a

(44:32):
home.
And you don't know, do we needlike more bathrooms or more
conference rooms?
Like you don't know.
You're not spending the moneywise like you can't know what
you're gonna need exactly.
I bought four speakers.
I thought we were gonna be avideo production company.
We were doing a lot more videoback then.
Sure.
YouTube was booming.
It was an early stage, and soit's like everybody wanted us to
make a video for them.
And so most of our business waslike we would do a video and

(44:53):
then they'd have us come do liketheir annual events, whatever.
I if I would have taken out amillion dollars back then, I
would have bought all these redcameras and expensive stuff.
It's so true.
And then not been able tofinance it because the volume
didn't come in.
I bought four speakers, I putthem in a trailer, and then I
bought four more, and then Ibought two microphones, and we
just slowly over time havelearned what people actually

(45:13):
respond to.
I would have thought, even doingevents, I would have thought
we'd be mostly doing concerts.
Because again, in Arkansas, wedon't see a lot of 3,000-person
conferences come through here.
We have one little conventioncenter, but the shows that we do
on the road, they can't come tothe store and so they go to real
market set.

SPEAKER_04 (45:29):
Yeah, they don't have big enough facilities to
support.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (45:32):
And so again, even imagining back in the day, like,
oh, I need to buy one of thosemobile stages.
I need to have a really bigsubwoofer array and do live
music because that's what Ithought you did, you know.
Here.
Here at the amp at the mall inFayetteville.
I thought that's what showswere.

SPEAKER_01 (45:46):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (45:47):
And I would have bought all the wrong gear
because I realized, you know,it's like, oh, Walmart needed me
to do a meeting.
What are these meetings?
Oh, it's hundreds of people, andthey need big projectors and
screens.
We should buy projectors.
I that wasn't that wasn't in theplan, you know.
And now projectors and screensand LED wall is you, but just a
little at a time and beingpatient.
But I could be patient because Iwas 21.
Right.
If I was 30, if I was 40, youwould feel impatient.

(46:09):
And I respect that.

SPEAKER_05 (46:10):
You might, yeah.
Well, you I think you you youmight have followed one of the
greatest golden rules, is whichthe best financing, the best
money is the market money.
Yeah.
Like everybody doing something.
Everybody tries to go toinvestors, VCs, private
equities, credit lines, creditcards, whatever.
If you the your best form ofcapital is coming directly from

(46:33):
the market because it's tellingyou what they need.
That's right.
It's has no interest to it thatyou got to pay, right?
I mean, it's just it's theabsolute best form of capital.

SPEAKER_03 (46:41):
Yeah.
The last year I've been doingmore of these podcasts and
stuff, and I've been fascinatedbecause I've I've always been
like, who wants me on theirshow?
What are we talking about?
But the my story five years agowas boring because my five years
ago, everybody wanted to talkabout tech and rapid startups
and stuff, and now there's moreof a trend of like, hey, I just
want to buy an oil change placeand run a good old business.
And so this has been a moreinteresting story, apparently,
for people to listen to the lastyear of just well, it's just a

(47:03):
good old business, and we kindof grew it small.

SPEAKER_05 (47:05):
And I actually want to do it.
It makes me happy to hear that.
I mean, hopefully the point'sstarting to get across because
it's a danger zone to think thatall business is Silicon Valley.
That's the part of the problemwith media and in you know
popular culture.
You know, that's the problem inacademia for a while.

SPEAKER_04 (47:20):
Yeah.
I think we're finally learningthat.

SPEAKER_05 (47:23):
That's good.

SPEAKER_04 (47:23):
But yeah, everything was geared in entrepreneurship
that tech-based companies.

SPEAKER_05 (47:28):
Well, and we really need to understand that here in
Northwest Arkansas.
You know, because like, man,unfortunately, I think that
there's a lot of decisions beingmade about venture capital and
how it starts entrepreneurshipin Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 (47:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (47:39):
And that's like the damn opposite of what we're
really good at.
We're really good at startingbusiness and being
entrepreneurs, not trying to beSilicon Valley.
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (47:47):
And we're good at lots of meat and potatoes
businesses.
Yeah.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 (47:53):
Just do it better.

SPEAKER_04 (47:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (47:54):
That's the definition of entrepreneurship,
right?
Isn't that the French word?
It says like taking two thingsand and like making them better.
Isn't that where the word comesfrom?
No, that's a good that's a goodpoint.
I'll look it up later, but Ithink I think that entrepreneur,
that French word is like twonormal things but combining them
and saying, hey, it's sandwichesfreaky fast.
Okay, that's a differentbusiness.
That's not Subway, that'sQuisna, or where it is, that's

(48:15):
Jimmy Johns.
Like it's normal things, butcombining them differently.
I think that's where the wordcomes from.

SPEAKER_05 (48:20):
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Well, Mark's got some textmessages to get through, so I
think we probably should goahead and show up.

SPEAKER_04 (48:26):
Such a mess.

SPEAKER_05 (48:27):
We're actually out of time.
I'm just giving you shit.
Well, you did tell me to sushearlier.
Like live on camp.
Well, you did.
You said shut up, Eric.
When I was brought up, askedabout you being married.
Like I thought you got married afew years ago, and you go, shut
the hell up, Eric.
Oh, well, you were just BS atthat.

SPEAKER_03 (48:44):
You guys might spend too much time together.
I'm not sure exactly.
It's great to be anywhere.

SPEAKER_05 (48:48):
Our shells get worse because longer if we do these.
Like we're now we're like twoold freaking you know, men that
just hate each other.
But no, we don't.
We're we're stuck.
We're stuck.
Well, we got too many people,too many fans.
Too many people depend on us,you know, to get like our
sponsors.
Just like our sponsors.

(49:09):
There's so many people that wantto invest.
Yeah.
This is it right here, okay?
You know, you share your story,Cameron.
It's a lot like what we're goingthrough right now.
Like we started this out, nowit's gotten huge.
Like their show is just likemash energy.

SPEAKER_04 (49:23):
I mean, you can't go anywhere with that like crack.
I know, but it's thrown.
Like we didn't ask gatheringaround us.

SPEAKER_05 (49:30):
That's right.
We didn't ask for this.
We're just here.
But no, we are out of time.
Karen, uh, how do people get ahold of you?
How do they get a hold of AVOD3?

SPEAKER_03 (49:41):
There you go.
You nailed it.
See, that's good.
It's my fault for naming itthat.
That's fair.
Um, I want people to add me onLinkedIn.
You know, for a long time at theend of these shows, everybody
said, Oh, you need to give themyour website and stuff, and
that's great.
In the rare chance that oneperson listening to this is an
event planner that needs an A Vteam for the national
conference.
Yeah, it's AVOD3.com.
For everybody else, just add meon LinkedIn because I'd love to
be friends and I'm fascinated bykind of the interconnectivity of

(50:04):
LinkedIn and starting to followdifferent people and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 (50:06):
And so they'll get a hold of you, Cameron McGee,
M-A-G-E-E.
Yep.
Yeah, M-A-G-E.
Via LinkedIn.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you can you can write asthat$20,000 check that it's
great requires for us tosponsorship.

SPEAKER_04 (50:18):
Yeah.
We'd love uh gold.
We'll give you the platinumsponsorship.
Right?

SPEAKER_05 (50:23):
You can get like a special parking place.
We got about four other peoplelooking into that.
So we need to talk about it.
Well, maybe we can scarcely.
Maybe our ad inventory is filledup.
Yeah, it's great.
No, this has been a greatconversation, man.
I think it's very encouragingfor listeners.
I mean, really great story.
You know, Mark's, you know, goodpoint talking about the family

(50:46):
involved in the business.
You know, hustle is what you'vebeen doing, little by little,
learning from your clients.
And now you have a fantasticorganization.
Made a good thing.
That's actually thinking processfirst, keeping inventory clean,
taking care of your assets,which we didn't even get into.
But that's super important,right?
Keeping the value there.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (51:03):
Good stuff.
Yes.
And and learn, and obviously youlearn as you went.
But you know, it's just the thethat works.
I mean, it's just like you weresaying, you can't just go buy
everything and start out.
I see that with people, theywant to get a building right
away for their business.
They're like, I want to go buy abuilding.
I'm like, you don't even knowhow big you're gonna be.
That's right.
You don't know what you needyet.

SPEAKER_05 (51:23):
Yeah, and that's one of those things you buy and
you're pretty well stuck with.

SPEAKER_03 (51:26):
Yeah.
We owned we owned a building.
We had to move out because weoutgrew it because we didn't
know how big, and so we outgrewit.
And now we're releasing it.
It kills me.
I want to buy again, but Lauraand I are too scared to buy.
We don't know how big we needit.

SPEAKER_04 (51:35):
Exactly.
Everything's better when itevolves over time.
Iterates.
Like ketchup.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (51:42):
Like high.
Yeah, like a molting.
What are you talking about?
A ketchup.

SPEAKER_05 (51:45):
You know, patience.
Good things come to those whowait.

SPEAKER_03 (51:48):
Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 (51:49):
Ketchup commercials.

SPEAKER_03 (51:50):
Oh, okay.
I haven't seen that one.
It's good.

SPEAKER_04 (51:52):
That's been a long time.
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (51:54):
Um maybe you're the only one who saw it.
Maybe.
I think.

SPEAKER_04 (51:58):
Uh I wish.
Um I'm old enough to be hisdaddy.

SPEAKER_03 (52:04):
I know it's like a dad reference since I've been in
the room.
Not a dad, but my daddy.

SPEAKER_04 (52:09):
It's hard to believe.
Yeah.
I could have given birth tothis.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (52:13):
I can't wait to get out of here, honestly.
This is a great room to be in.
So who fucking went.

SPEAKER_04 (52:19):
All right, everybody.
Well, thanks again for beinghere with us today, Cameron.
It's been great meeting you, andI can see why you've been
successful.
You're obviously an extremelysmart guy and hard worker and
very much trying to do the rightthing.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
So good stuff.
It's great stuff.
This has been another episode ofBig Talk about Small Business.

(52:41):
About small business.com.

SPEAKER_00 (52:49):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk
About Small Business.
If you have any questions orideas for upcoming shows, be
sure to head over to ourwebsite,
www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com,and 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

(53:10):
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