May 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Welcome to the "Show Me The Way" podcast with David Seitter
In this episode of "Show Me the Way," Dave and Cheryl Obermiller, President of Obermiller Construction Company, Inc. This episode shines a light on her remarkable journey dealing with embezzlement, financial fraud prevention, and her resilience to build a multi-million dollar business. Cheryl’s story is not just about her successful venture into the construction industry but also a testimony to her resilience in the face of significant adversity.
Ep. 69 — Million Dollar Embezzlement to Rebuilding Her Empire with Cheryl ObermillerCheryl Obermiller's journey is not a typical one. Born in Grandview, Missouri, Cheryl’s eclectic career path began in the world of modeling. She shares candidly about her experiences with promotional modeling work, which primarily involved engaging with various cosmetics companies and working at bridal shows. However, she explains that despite the glamor often associated with the modeling world, the job was rooted in humility and reality – balancing between appearing elegant while tackling mundane life chores.
The Unexpected Leap into BusinessCheryl’s foray into entrepreneurship came almost by accident. Initially assisting her husband with bookkeeping tasks in his engineering office, she inevitably stepped into the construction business. The aim was simple: to build a small part-time venture from various inspections and testing that her husband could not accommodate under his engineering license. However, Cheryl proved more adept at business than anticipated, transforming the side hustle into a thriving operation. Within seven years, the business burgeoned into a multi-million dollar enterprise.
Rising Above Financial TurmoilCheryl's journey wasn't without its setbacks. She recounts a harrowing experience of falling victim to embezzlement, leading to nearly a million-dollar loss. Her diligence and commitment prevailed as she sent her accountant to federal penitentiary, fought through severe financial and emotional turmoil, and emerged stronger. Cheryl wrote "Fraud Points," a guide for small business owners to detect and prevent financial fraud.
Lessons in Overcoming AdversityThe publication of "Fraud Points" not only served as a cathartic release but also turned Cheryl into a beacon of knowledge for those battling similar issues. Her book fills a crucial gap by laying down practical strategies for small business owners to safeguard against fraud, emphasizing that understanding the nuances of financial systems is critical for survival.
Cheryl candidly shares essential advice for business owners:
- Get Your Own Mail: To avoid unchecked financial discrepancies.
- Secure Financial Instruments: Have sole control over checks and credit cards.
- Daily Financial Vigilance: Regularly review online bank and credit card statements to thwart potential fraud.
Cheryl’s story encapsulates the indomitable spirit required to navigate the peaks and troughs of business ownership. Her survival and eventual success pivoted on her ignorance of industry absolutes – she simply didn’t know small businesses weren't supposed to bounce back from such devastating losses, so she did it anyway.
Reflections and Forward MomentumReflecting on her journey, Cheryl embodies perseverance and resilience. Her business now boasts revenue significantly higher than its humble beginnings, and her approach to managing it has transformed. Today, every penny is meticulously monitored under her scrutiny, ensuring her business's fortified defense against any kind of financial fraud.
Final Words of WisdomFor business owners, Cheryl offers two cardinal pieces of advice:
- Dismiss Discrimination Perceptions: Focus on goals rather than perceived slights, knowing one’s worth and capability.
- Give Ge
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Show me the way.
Episode 69 from model.
To the model of business.
In this episode, we talk withCheryl Obermiller of Obermiller
Construction Company on herinteresting, not necessarily
twisted, but circuitous route to.
Her current business model,
(00:35):
welcome to show me the way, a podcastabout business succession planning,
the merger and acquisition experience.
And successful exits.
I am your host, Dave Cider.
I want to thank you forchecking out my podcast series.
Show me the way.
If you are seeking assistancewith your business dreams, please
consider checking out the resourcesthat I've made available to you at.
(00:57):
Either my LinkedIn website or my podcast.
Again, show me the way, or you cancheck out my book, quiet Plans and
Exciting Results available on Amazonin either written or audible format.
And as well my websites, davidsider.com, where I have quite a bit
of content for you to consider andinformation on how you can, for a very
(01:21):
nominal price, access and assessmentthat you and I can review together.
To discuss where you're at and whereyou want to go as far as your dreams
are concerned, and I would look forwardto talking to you about your future.
Joining me today on the show isCheryl Obermiller, who is the owner
(01:43):
of Obermiller Construction Company.
She is a model.
She's written books and sheruns a construction company.
She has had a veryinteresting business career.
Someone that merits your timeand attention, I'm sure you're
going to find this interesting.
Cheryl is a great personality andsomeone you're going to wanna listen
(02:04):
to about her business objectives.
Cheryl, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Dave, give us a little bit of flavor, forlack of a better term of your background.
Tell us about Cheryl.
Where were you born?
You don't have to tellme when, just where.
I'll tell you when because I have afirm belief that it's better to tell
(02:26):
the truth about your age, even thoughpeople say you look great for your age,
instead of to lie and have them say, well,you've had a rough life, haven't you?
Yes.
So I was born in Grandview, Missouri,and 1958 my parents, my dad and his
brother ran Wilson's meat market.
The.
(02:46):
Family owned business that mygrandparents had started in the early
19 hundreds on Main Street in Grandview.
And so I grew up with, in a familybusiness with a self-employed father.
And when my husband and I gotmarried, he is a civil engineer and.
He was running his own smallprofessional practice, and his father
(03:10):
had also owned his own small business.
So the result of that is I hadto go into business for myself
because I'm completely unemployable.
I'm used to doing whatever Iwant, and bosses don't like that.
So you have to be the boss.
That's how you roll.
You cannot be anybody'semployee apparently.
No, no.
I, I would get fired so fast.
(03:31):
So, and where did you go to high school?
I went to Grandview
High School
and graduated in 1976.
Bicentennial everything.
It had Liberty Bells on it and,but that was a long time ago
now, just yesterday, let's sharewith everybody a little bit.
You have children, right?
We have.
(03:51):
Eight.
Yours, mine, and ours, when my husband andI got married, and our 40th anniversary
is this coming April, and our 40thwedding anniversary is on April 19th.
Oh, wow.
So when we got married, wehad my four and his two.
So we had six childrenunder the age of seven.
So we thought, why not?
Let's have a couple of kids of our own.
(04:12):
At that point, it's just more kids.
So we have
two
of our own, so we have eight.
Oh my goodness, and sheis a business person.
Now you have an interestingplace that you started from.
You were a model at one time.
Tell us about that experience.
'cause I have, we have these, thesevisions of what it's like to be a model.
(04:33):
Well, I did some promotional modeling.
I worked for differentcosmetics companies.
I. I did tea room modeling, modeledfor coats, and worked at bridal shows.
You know, I was never in vogueor anything, but it sounds a
lot more glamorous than it is.
The reality is that you have to go changeclothes a lot in the bathroom and, um,
try to come out looking really fancy.
(04:54):
And I know that I would godo these tea room modeling
shows and model Alaskan Fs at.
Expensive restaurants and then I wouldhave to go home and clean the bathroom.
And I told my husband, it kind ofkept my head in the right place.
So, and uh, so it was, it was fun, butI kinda got on construction by accident.
My husband, as I said, isan engineer, and I was.
(05:16):
Just doing some bookkeepingand things in in his office.
And he had different types of businessthat came in, inspections and some
different testing that he didn't wannado under his engineering license.
And so I decided, we decided that Iwould take those clients and just build
a little small part-time business of myown, because all those kids eat a lot
(05:39):
and piano lessons are expensive and so.
I started this little part-timebusiness doing subdivision construction
inspection and doing soils testingand, but I was better at it than we
thought because in seven years itwas a multimillion dollar business.
So then that was great for alittle while until I got quite
thoroughly embezzled and Lost Pro.
(06:00):
Probably ran a million dollars.
Sent my sweet little accountant tothe federal penitentiary for 33 months
and kind of clawed back from that.
Wrote what I think is a great bookabout financial fraud and the risk
that small businesses face whywe are particularly vulnerable.
I. I do speak to groups about detectingand preventing financial fraud,
(06:21):
which in small businesses is verydifferent than in a large company.
And as of November 15th this year, Iam now in my 32nd year of business.
So all of those big fat men in theiroverhauls, chewing tobacco, who called
me honey and sweetheart, and thoughtit was so cute that a little gal had.
(06:44):
Go into business like this.
Well, they're gone and I'm still here.
And now they call me.
Yes ma'am.
Instead.
And I'm like that just fine.
But you also wrote a book on the terribleexperience that you had with embezzlement.
Why did you do that?
Why did you write the book?
Well.
I, the book is called Fraud Points, andit is, I wrote it kind of initially and
(07:06):
kind of cathartic, you know, I, I, mm-hmm.
I had all this terrible stuff goingon and I, man, I needed to kind
of do something with all of that.
So I started.
Initially kind of writing a bookabout just the difficulty of going
through something like that and kindof finding your way back from it.
And then I talked to somebodywho was in business and they said
(07:28):
like, that's interesting, buteverybody has a story about life
was hard and then it got better.
Why don't you write a factual book abouthow to keep this from happening to people?
And I thought that really makessense because after my embezzlement,
I started looking for things toread that were applicable to small
businesses, and there there was nothing.
The books that I found were eitherforensic accounting manuals, textbooks,
(07:53):
or they were written for CPAs and theywere filled with acronyms and advice
for how to handle your payroll onceyou had more than 10,000 people on it.
There was really nothingfor small businesses.
Most small business owners are notaccountants and they don't understand
a lot of accounting processes, but thefact is that you don't have to be an
(08:16):
accountant, but if you better know how tomanage an accountant, and it occurred to
me that I. If you wanna know how to cheatin any given field, you ask an expert,
Dave, you know how attorneys cheat.
You know how they overbuiltclients or how they pad expenses,
even if you would never do it.
You know exactly how it's done in paving.
I know exactly how people cheat in paving.
(08:38):
I wouldn't do it, but I see it happen.
And that's when it occurred tome that when a small business
owner hires an accountant.
By virtue of that accountants training,that business owner has hired someone
who has been professionally trainedin how to steal their money and
keep them from finding out about it.
And so I developed a really,really solid system that I use
(09:02):
every day on how to manage.
How to oversee what the accountantdoes, what processes I need
to manage, and it works great.
That's the name of thebook is Fraud Points.
The Small Business Owners Guideto Outwitting, embezzler Thieves,
and S Scallywags, and a FraudPoint is a weakness in your.
(09:23):
Business systems where moneycan leak out undetected.
So you have to understand how people stealmoney and what you can do to stop that.
And you don't have to bean accountant to do that.
You just have to know what to look for.
And so they can go, that is, my audiencecan go on to Amazon and buy the book.
Is that where they would get it?
(09:43):
Absolutely.
And if, and I do speak, I do speak atconventions and other public events
and can give instruction in this.
I'm amazed how few people understand therisk because they, the dichotomy, they,
they say, Joseph t well says the dichotomyof financial fraud is that it cannot exist
(10:04):
without trust, but neither can commerce.
But the dichotomy of embezzlement is that.
Nobody thinks it'll ever happento them, but everybody knows
somebody that it's happened to.
Yeah, that's
true.
That is true.
So everyone knows, oh, the company mydad used to work for, or my cousin's
business partner, or, you know, everybodyknows somebody it's happened to.
(10:29):
And really the ways to control it are alot more simple than than people think.
So you've, because of the book,you've been invited to speak.
What are some of the interestingquestions that you've gotten at
some of the seminars about whatyou've been able to share with them?
Have, have there been some kind ofmonumental, for lack of a better
term, better term, revelations?
(10:51):
I.
Well, probably the two things thatI, I see most frequently are, number
one, when I start talking about howreally, really common fraud schemes,
like everyday garden variety fraud andexactly how the accountant can do it,
and exactly why the owner doesn't see it.
(11:11):
They're so simple that you see, andof course this is a podcast, you
can't see my face, but I look outin the crowd and people go from kind
of smiling and looking interested.
To getting this kind of concerned lookon their face, just sitting there with
their mouths open and they have whatI call their oh crap moment, which is,
this could be happening at my office.
I. I can see exactly how my accountantcould do this, and I would never see it.
(11:36):
And when you stop and think that theaverage embezzlement is over $1.4 million
and under 42 months, right under thenose of a small business owner, you
start realizing how much risk there is.
So the number one thing is the realizationthat people have, oh my gosh, not
(11:56):
only could this be happening to me.
I've seen some of thesered flags in my office.
The second thing that is really common,I have never spoken at a public event,
large or small, but I didn't have atleast one person come up to me often
in tears and say, this is what'sgoing on in my business right now.
Can you help me?
And it's easy to talk about, oh,the money is missing and it's a
(12:18):
crime when, when you commit thiskind of fraud in a small business.
I don't think people understand.
Not only is it financially devastating,but in a small office, you know,
everybody, you exchange Christmasgifts, you know their children.
You may have been friends for years.
People are just emotionally guttedof what goes on, and the majority
(12:41):
of small business owners who areembezzled are left with devastating
tax issues, which I was too.
The, the embezzler nearly shutthe business down, but the
IRS nearly finished it off.
Virtually any business owner who hasfinancial fraud will also have tax issues.
So those were the two, the twobig things, people realizing,
oh my gosh, it could happen.
(13:03):
And then talking to people that itis happening to, and they don't know
if they're gonna lose their homes.
They don't know if their businesseswill fail and, and they don't realize
how, how really easy it is to control.
If you know what to look for, and thethree things that I tell people every
single business owner can go home anddo today, go back to your business.
(13:23):
Do this yourself every day.
Number one, get your own mail.
Well, why do you get the mail?
I mean, that's a pain in the neck.
You know, somebody else should sortout all the circulars and stuff.
Well, what's in the mail?
Checks from vendors.
I mean, you understand that somebodyin charge of your accounting
system can endorse the check tothemselves, deposit it in their
account, and then simply delete theinvoice from your accounting system.
(13:45):
People don't realizehow easy that is to do.
What else comes in the mail, your creditcard statement with those nice convenience
checks that are very convenient forembezzler to make out for themselves.
Credit applications, all sorts ofthings that allow an embezzler to work.
Right in the open and you never see it.
If, if a business owner will go home, gettheir own mail for a week and think like
(14:09):
a thief, you always think like a thief.
When you're looking at your business,you open up that mail every day and you
say, what could a thief do with this?
What could someone wanted to steal out ofmy business do with this piece of paper?
You will never let anyoneget your mail again.
The second thing is to lock upall your checks and credit cards.
You are the only person who shouldhave access to those things.
(14:31):
Anyone who needs a credit card, anyonewho needs a check, they go through you.
You have control over thosefinancial instruments.
And the third thing is you getonline and you look at your
bank and credit card accounts.
Daily you can you, I don't look atall my credit card accounts daily.
I certainly look at my bank accountsdaily because people can do all sorts
(14:52):
of things in your accounting system.
They can manipulate your mail,they can do all sorts of things.
They can't impact.
What you see in the online bankaccount, that's what's really going on.
And I actually talked to a forensicaccountant who said, well over 50%
of the businesses where she goes into investigate, there's been a crime.
She helps kind of reconstruct thebusiness, reconstruct the crime.
(15:14):
Well over 50% of those businessowners do not have a password to
their own online bank accounts.
I mean, that's how far removedwe are because we've listened
to all the experts tell us.
Do what you are passionate about.
And so we market our businessesand we design flyers and
we optimize our webpages.
(15:34):
Meanwhile, people are stealing yourmoney right under your nose, and I have
decided that for me, the thing I ammost passionate about in my business
is not even people steal all the money.
And so.
I looked bank accounts, those things willtake a business owner minutes a day, but
it will stop probably upwards of 90% ofthe most common types of financial fraud.
(15:57):
So give people hope through all ofthis you've climbed out of that hole.
In fairness, it's been quite awhile since it's happened, but
it's devastating emotionally.
It puts you under, how didyou climb out of the hole?
What did you do to right the ship?
You mean if to right my business orto kinda write myself emotionally?
Well, both.
(16:17):
I mean, one, I think doesn'tone happen before the other.
First of all, you gotta take careof yourself and then second of all,
you take care of your business.
Or, or am I wrong?
Which comes first.
If
you want your business to succeed, youkind of put yourself on the back burner
and you, you try to keep your businessgoing without, I mean, there were a lot
of people who helped in the business.
I had family members whohelped, my bank helped.
(16:38):
I had CPAs that came in and helped.
But I will tell you the one, themain primary reason that my business
survived an embezzlement, that goingback and looking at the books now,
there's no reason my business survived.
The one reason it survivedwas I kept it going.
I called vendors every day.
If I was gonna make a payment late.
I called and told people I talkedto my bank multiple times a week.
(17:01):
Yes, I know this is later.
I don't have money in there, but I havemoney coming in in 48 hours, and I'll
be back on the phone with you then.
I honor every commitment that I made.
Keep in mind, something interesting aboutthat is I owed several hundred thousand
dollars to vendors that had been hidden.
I mean, those things were kept hidden, soI wouldn't know how bad the situation was.
(17:22):
And when I saw that and I startedcalling people in Missouri, you have
five and a half months after the lastdate of work to file a mechanics lien.
So I was calling people and saying.
If you file a lien, I workwith corporate clients.
If you file a lien, they'll fire me.
I, I simply will be bankrupt.
I won't have any way to payyou, not a single vendor, file
(17:45):
a lien against my property.
Wow.
Not one.
Which means they let theironly real legit their claim,
their one easy way to get paid.
They let those lien rights expire.
Do you know why?
What I heard over and overand over and over again?
Well, when I was embezzled.
Oh wow, really?
(18:06):
I heard that over and over againand, but if I told people I will
mail you a check on Wednesday.
If I knew it was gonna be Friday,I had them on the phone on Tuesday
saying, not only is it gonna be aco a couple of days late, but if you
need me to, I'll pay to overnight it.
I'll hand deliver it.
I kept my word and I paid every dime.
(18:28):
The only money that was not repaidwas to people who agreed to waive
late charges or interest fees.
In return for having the ballots paid,and in fact, one company I had owed late.
50 or $60,000 in asphalt to took mea year and a half to get 'em paid.
I paid it.
At the end of it, they sent me thisbeautiful leather briefcase that they
(18:50):
give to their really high-end alliance.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh wow.
And they said, nobody who has ever owed usthis much money has ever paid it before.
Thank you.
Did they give me credit again?
Yeah, three years later, beforethat, it was cash, right?
So they were watching out fortheir company, but they were,
but they were really, reallygood to me, it was exhausting.
(19:11):
It was, I look back and I don't know how Igot through it physically or emotionally.
Once the company was on better brand,I had to take better care of myself.
I hadn't been sleeping, Ihadn't been eating well.
But if you want your company to survive,that may be the price you pay, but
you have to do it in the short term.
Because you can't do that forever.
So from the time you found outabout it until you righted the ship,
(19:34):
days, weeks, months, years, how long
Bills all paid?
Probably 18 months.
Tax problems resolved closer to four yearsbecause they were extremely mean to me.
I wound up with very, very, likeillegally aggressive IRS agents.
My business was saved from the IRS forone reason and one reason only, and that
(19:57):
is our, our sitting senator At that time,Senator KIPP Bond, opened a congressional
inquiry into my case and stopped the IRSin their tracks and laid out a payment
plan that they were required to accept.
Good for you,
and I repaid it 10 times fasterthan I was required to do.
They still put a lien against my housebecause if I had sold my business and
(20:17):
sold my equipment, I could have paid theremaining $12,000, but it did get paid.
So it, it's one of the big, bigreasons for a business owner.
To keep very close tabs ontheir finances, particularly
making sure that taxes are paid.
You can't assume that they're paid becauseyour checking accounts that it's paid.
(20:37):
Get on your IRS website, you can do that.
If you don't have a username andpassword to the IRS website, you
need to take care of that immediatelybecause you get on the website and
you confirm that your taxes are paid,
so you have.
Done in your short time on thisearth, something that most people
have never had to experience at thislevel and have bounced back from it.
(21:01):
If there is one lesson you couldteach people, I'm talking about,
I. Basically, what is the word?
Is it grit?
Is it perseverance?
Is it the fact that you are, youknow, humbled by the experience?
What, what is it in Cheryl thatallowed her to be able to do that?
(21:23):
Because the experience.
Would be enough to crush most people.
I think
I, if, if I had to give a single reason,a, if you, you ask for a single word, I'll
give you the word and then I'll explain.
It would be ignorance.
That's, that's why Interesting.
I pulled back from it is ignorance.
My first major corporateclient was Walmart.
There's still a bigcorporate client of mine now.
(21:46):
Uh, 25, 26 years later, and I alwaysjoke that nobody told me that a little
bitty local business couldn't, couldn'tmarket the largest retail in the
world and take them on as a corporateclient, so I just did it anyway.
Right?
Right.
Nobody told me that you couldn'tcome back from a million dollar
embezzlement and massive tax problems.
(22:08):
I simply never considered.
Failure was an option.
I was too ignorant.
To know that normal businesses would notcome back from this kind of a crushing
financial loss, and in fact, many do not.
But I was too dumb to know that.
So I just.
Did it anyway.
I think you've sold yourself so farshort and it shows you your modesty.
(22:30):
That's grit, that's resilience,that's belief in yourself.
That is a high level of capabilityin who you are as an individual.
I mean, there's some kind of a, forlack of a better term, a stone mason
concrete soul that allows you to.
Build toward an objectivethat's so difficult.
(22:52):
Well, it was hard, but you know, I loveSteve Jobs and he said so many cool
things, and the one thing that he saidthat I relied on over and over and over
as I fought through that was he said,I don't know anybody else who's lost a
half a billion dollars in a single year.
It's very humbling.
So I'm like, well, do best of I can.
(23:15):
Yeah.
Well, oh, that's good.
And, and so for, since thislast 25 years, I know you have
prospered at an extraordinary level.
Tell people what the business istoday versus what it was 25 years ago.
Well, 25 years ago when I took Walmart onmy gross revenue was like 75,000 a year.
(23:35):
And now it's many, many, many times higherthan that, which, which is a good thing.
Our business averagessix to 10 million a year.
And every penny of it goes across my desk.
Every penny.
I look at every transaction.
I sign every check.
I review the credit cards.
I approve all the accounts payable.
(23:57):
I send payroll.
The checks and credit cards arein a big gun safe in my office.
And I have the combination.
And I always tell people that before I wasembezzled, I kept my guns in the gun safe.
My checks in the desk drawer, andnow that I've lost a million bucks, I
keep my checks in the gun safe in mybedroom drawer, and I sleep much better.
(24:19):
Then everybody laughs until theyrealize that I'm not joking, and then
they're afraid to sit next to me.
But it's okay.
Look at this ladies and gentlemen.
She, she was a model.
She is a mother.
She is a wife.
She has eight kids.
How many grandkids do you have?
20 is due on April 23rd.
And in When is your anniversary coming up?
(24:42):
When is that?
Our wedding anniversary, our 40thwedding anniversary is on April 19th.
Right, exactly.
And my 67th birthday is in February,
and ladies GHI is not 67.
I don't know what's going on.
There's a painting somewherein an attic that's 67, but it
ain't, but it is not yours.
(25:03):
It's all that stress, so it's good foryou, you, it just keeps your facial
muscles all contracted so you don'tget room holes, something like that.
So there are going to be for peoplefrom time to time, difficulties,
you have climbed a mountain thatfew people have frankly ever seen.
What would be kind of yourparting thoughts to the audience?
(25:25):
So the people that are at some pointin their life in a big struggle,
specifically a woman running a business,and there are huge difficulties that
they have to overcome, what would be thelesson that you would share with them?
I have two.
One is, I don't think being awoman has anything to do with it.
(25:46):
If the men around me when I first startedin business thought it was kind of cute
and didn't really believe it, they figuredout very quickly that I was very tough,
that I would keep my word at all costs.
If we said we would be someplacedoing a job, we would do it.
And if there was a problem,we could make it right.
And we would.
And it did not take long, even thoughthey thought it was a little odd.
(26:08):
Mm-hmm.
They didn't know quite what to do with me.
They respected me.
They, they didn't, theydidn't give me any crap.
And I know I told you this before,and you can have your guy cutted if
you don't think people will like this.
But when women ask me, well, whatdo you do to succeed in business?
Isn't there a lot of discrimination?
I mean, face it, I'm in a man's world.
I, I always tell people that I haveto put on lipstick every morning so I
(26:31):
don't forget I'm a girl because I'm out.
I hang out with redneck men all the time.
And so, but I tell people,if you think you're being.
Discriminated against as a woman.
Now, obviously we're not talking aboutsexual assault or truly actionable
items, but if you just don't think lifeis quite treating you fair, go sit down
(26:51):
in front of your computer, type out along, cathartic letter to Gloria Steinem.
Tell her about the injustice of it all.
Spell, check it, print it out onyour letterhead, sign it, seal it
with a kiss, run it through theshredder, and get back to work.
Like
they're 2042.
(27:12):
If you think somebody is a misogynistpig, well don't work with it.
Yeah.
You know, because, and I get it,you're a lawyer, so maybe you like
litigation more than normal peopledo, but lawsuits are expensive.
They're emotionally draining.
They.
Suck up energy and money that if youcan't ignore a slight, ignore it.
(27:34):
There are so many more opportunities,go spend your money on that.
So that's number one.
And the second thing is give away as muchmoney as you can possibly afford to, and
maybe more give as generously as you can.
God love you.
I'm serious.
God, love you.
You know.
You can't out give God
(27:54):
No, you can't.
And I've, I've saidthis before to clients.
There are, as best I can tell,and I've checked every time, there
are no lage racks on any hearsethat I've ever seen in my life.
In fact, can I tell you my, mycontractor Joe for the very end?
Yes.
Yes.
On your hearse, Joe.
Yeah, go ahead
guy.
Very, very wealthy man.
(28:16):
Got and said, prayed andprayed, said Lord, I know they
say he can't take it with you.
But I gotta take some of it.
He prayed and prayed and prayed, andfinally got a message from the Lord and
he said, all right, but you, you got, yougot one suitcase you can bring with you.
That's it.
One suitcase.
Mm.
So he thinks, and thinks, and thinks.
Get his suits case packed.
Eventually he dies, shows up atthe pearly gates with his piece of
(28:38):
luggage and St. Peter says, well,that's the weirdest thing I've ever
seen, but I've got instructions thatyou can bring it in, but I bet you
have to show me what's inside first.
So the guy opens up his luggage.
Full of gold bricks likeFort Knox Gold bricks.
Right?
Right.
And St. Peter said, you're the onlyperson in history who's ever gotten
permission to bring some of itwith you, and you brought pavement.
(29:04):
But seriously, folks,we're here until Thursday.
Tip your waiter.
Yep.
Ladies and gentlemen, somuch to learn common wisdom.
She's not a common person.
Do you see that?
Great insight, great motivation,but that's what I've always known.
Hanging around you.
You are the EverReady bunny.
You are nuclear charge.
(29:25):
You're, you're one of a kind in theenergy and enthusiasm you bring.
Please do not ever change.
Can I put in what?
For my upcoming book?
Oh, oh, oh, please.
I did not know.
Please.
Let's go.
Okay.
I am writing another book now.
My first one was about.
Financial systems and it is a fun read.
I made it very userfriendly, lots of humor.
(29:46):
But this one is about my beginningsand working as a model and then
working in construction and justthe fun business stories and
experiences and, and good advice.
And it's called Do theseshoes match my hard hat?
So
when will this be out?
I, if I can like manage to retire someafter the first of the year and stay
(30:06):
home and write some maybe next fall.
Good.
It's in works.
Ladies and gentlemen.
This is a little bit different than someof my other shows, but I thought it was
worthwhile and a shall we say, at anEverest level by virtue of knowing this
lady, knowing what she's been through, thefact that she brings so much enthusiasm to
(30:29):
everything she does in the business world,I, I'm sure in the rest of her life.
I know you've gained a lot of insightand I want to thank Cheryl for.
Talking.
Well, thank you for your kind work.
That was a privilege.
You are one and the only one that I know.
Who has that kind of spirit, and wewere blessed to know you, so thank you.
(30:50):
Thanks, Dave.
Hey, thank you so much forlistening to my podcast.
If you're seeking assistance withyour business dreams, please consider
checking out the resources thatI can make available to you at
either my LinkedIn page, obviously,my podcast, my book, quiet Plans,
exciting results available on Amazon.
Either in a written or verbalformat and as well, check out
(31:13):
my website, david seider.com.
A lot of content, a lot of informationthere, and there's also a way for
you to access an assessment, a quick16 question survey that would allow
us to get together and discuss whereyou're at and where you seek to go.
I'm here to help you with your dreams.
Until then, be safe.
(31:40):
This podcast is providedfor educational purposes.
It does not constitute legal adviceand it's not intended to establish
an attorney-client relationship.
The recommendations contained in thispodcast are not necessarily appropriate
for every individual or business.
So in determining the best courseof action, business owners should
consult with their attorney ontheir distinct circumstances.
Show me the way.
Episode 69 from model.
To the model of business.
In this episode, we talk withCheryl Obermiller of Obermiller
Construction Company on herinteresting, not necessarily
twisted, but circuitous route to.
Her current business model,
(00:35):
welcome to show me the way, a podcastabout business succession planning,
the merger and acquisition experience.
And successful exits.
I am your host, Dave Cider.
I want to thank you forchecking out my podcast series.
Show me the way.
If you are seeking assistancewith your business dreams, please
consider checking out the resourcesthat I've made available to you at.
(00:57):
Either my LinkedIn website or my podcast.
Again, show me the way, or you cancheck out my book, quiet Plans and
Exciting Results available on Amazonin either written or audible format.
And as well my websites, davidsider.com, where I have quite a bit
of content for you to consider andinformation on how you can, for a very
(01:21):
nominal price, access and assessmentthat you and I can review together.
To discuss where you're at and whereyou want to go as far as your dreams
are concerned, and I would look forwardto talking to you about your future.
Joining me today on the show isCheryl Obermiller, who is the owner
(01:43):
of Obermiller Construction Company.
She is a model.
She's written books and sheruns a construction company.
She has had a veryinteresting business career.
Someone that merits your timeand attention, I'm sure you're
going to find this interesting.
Cheryl is a great personality andsomeone you're going to wanna listen
(02:04):
to about her business objectives.
Cheryl, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Dave, give us a little bit of flavor, forlack of a better term of your background.
Tell us about Cheryl.
Where were you born?
You don't have to tellme when, just where.
I'll tell you when because I have afirm belief that it's better to tell
(02:26):
the truth about your age, even thoughpeople say you look great for your age,
instead of to lie and have them say, well,you've had a rough life, haven't you?
Yes.
So I was born in Grandview, Missouri,and 1958 my parents, my dad and his
brother ran Wilson's meat market.
The.
(02:46):
Family owned business that mygrandparents had started in the early
19 hundreds on Main Street in Grandview.
And so I grew up with, in a familybusiness with a self-employed father.
And when my husband and I gotmarried, he is a civil engineer and.
He was running his own smallprofessional practice, and his father
(03:10):
had also owned his own small business.
So the result of that is I hadto go into business for myself
because I'm completely unemployable.
I'm used to doing whatever Iwant, and bosses don't like that.
So you have to be the boss.
That's how you roll.
You cannot be anybody'semployee apparently.
No, no.
I, I would get fired so fast.
(03:31):
So, and where did you go to high school?
I went to Grandview
High School
and graduated in 1976.
Bicentennial everything.
It had Liberty Bells on it and,but that was a long time ago
now, just yesterday, let's sharewith everybody a little bit.
You have children, right?
We have.
(03:51):
Eight.
Yours, mine, and ours, when my husband andI got married, and our 40th anniversary
is this coming April, and our 40thwedding anniversary is on April 19th.
Oh, wow.
So when we got married, wehad my four and his two.
So we had six childrenunder the age of seven.
So we thought, why not?
Let's have a couple of kids of our own.
(04:12):
At that point, it's just more kids.
So we have
two
of our own, so we have eight.
Oh my goodness, and sheis a business person.
Now you have an interestingplace that you started from.
You were a model at one time.
Tell us about that experience.
'cause I have, we have these, thesevisions of what it's like to be a model.
(04:33):
Well, I did some promotional modeling.
I worked for differentcosmetics companies.
I. I did tea room modeling, modeledfor coats, and worked at bridal shows.
You know, I was never in vogueor anything, but it sounds a
lot more glamorous than it is.
The reality is that you have to go changeclothes a lot in the bathroom and, um,
try to come out looking really fancy.
(04:54):
And I know that I would godo these tea room modeling
shows and model Alaskan Fs at.
Expensive restaurants and then I wouldhave to go home and clean the bathroom.
And I told my husband, it kind ofkept my head in the right place.
So, and uh, so it was, it was fun, butI kinda got on construction by accident.
My husband, as I said, isan engineer, and I was.
(05:16):
Just doing some bookkeepingand things in in his office.
And he had different types of businessthat came in, inspections and some
different testing that he didn't wannado under his engineering license.
And so I decided, we decided that Iwould take those clients and just build
a little small part-time business of myown, because all those kids eat a lot
(05:39):
and piano lessons are expensive and so.
I started this little part-timebusiness doing subdivision construction
inspection and doing soils testingand, but I was better at it than we
thought because in seven years itwas a multimillion dollar business.
So then that was great for alittle while until I got quite
thoroughly embezzled and Lost Pro.
(06:00):
Probably ran a million dollars.
Sent my sweet little accountant tothe federal penitentiary for 33 months
and kind of clawed back from that.
Wrote what I think is a great bookabout financial fraud and the risk
that small businesses face whywe are particularly vulnerable.
I. I do speak to groups about detectingand preventing financial fraud,
(06:21):
which in small businesses is verydifferent than in a large company.
And as of November 15th this year, Iam now in my 32nd year of business.
So all of those big fat men in theiroverhauls, chewing tobacco, who called
me honey and sweetheart, and thoughtit was so cute that a little gal had.
(06:44):
Go into business like this.
Well, they're gone and I'm still here.
And now they call me.
Yes ma'am.
Instead.
And I'm like that just fine.
But you also wrote a book on the terribleexperience that you had with embezzlement.
Why did you do that?
Why did you write the book?
Well.
I, the book is called Fraud Points, andit is, I wrote it kind of initially and
(07:06):
kind of cathartic, you know, I, I, mm-hmm.
I had all this terrible stuff goingon and I, man, I needed to kind
of do something with all of that.
So I started.
Initially kind of writing a bookabout just the difficulty of going
through something like that and kindof finding your way back from it.
And then I talked to somebodywho was in business and they said
(07:28):
like, that's interesting, buteverybody has a story about life
was hard and then it got better.
Why don't you write a factual book abouthow to keep this from happening to people?
And I thought that really makessense because after my embezzlement,
I started looking for things toread that were applicable to small
businesses, and there there was nothing.
The books that I found were eitherforensic accounting manuals, textbooks,
(07:53):
or they were written for CPAs and theywere filled with acronyms and advice
for how to handle your payroll onceyou had more than 10,000 people on it.
There was really nothingfor small businesses.
Most small business owners are notaccountants and they don't understand
a lot of accounting processes, but thefact is that you don't have to be an
(08:16):
accountant, but if you better know how tomanage an accountant, and it occurred to
me that I. If you wanna know how to cheatin any given field, you ask an expert,
Dave, you know how attorneys cheat.
You know how they overbuiltclients or how they pad expenses,
even if you would never do it.
You know exactly how it's done in paving.
I know exactly how people cheat in paving.
(08:38):
I wouldn't do it, but I see it happen.
And that's when it occurred tome that when a small business
owner hires an accountant.
By virtue of that accountants training,that business owner has hired someone
who has been professionally trainedin how to steal their money and
keep them from finding out about it.
And so I developed a really,really solid system that I use
(09:02):
every day on how to manage.
How to oversee what the accountantdoes, what processes I need
to manage, and it works great.
That's the name of thebook is Fraud Points.
The Small Business Owners Guideto Outwitting, embezzler Thieves,
and S Scallywags, and a FraudPoint is a weakness in your.
(09:23):
Business systems where moneycan leak out undetected.
So you have to understand how people stealmoney and what you can do to stop that.
And you don't have to bean accountant to do that.
You just have to know what to look for.
And so they can go, that is, my audiencecan go on to Amazon and buy the book.
Is that where they would get it?
(09:43):
Absolutely.
And if, and I do speak, I do speak atconventions and other public events
and can give instruction in this.
I'm amazed how few people understand therisk because they, the dichotomy, they,
they say, Joseph t well says the dichotomyof financial fraud is that it cannot exist
(10:04):
without trust, but neither can commerce.
But the dichotomy of embezzlement is that.
Nobody thinks it'll ever happento them, but everybody knows
somebody that it's happened to.
Yeah, that's
true.
That is true.
So everyone knows, oh, the company mydad used to work for, or my cousin's
business partner, or, you know, everybodyknows somebody it's happened to.
(10:29):
And really the ways to control it are alot more simple than than people think.
So you've, because of the book,you've been invited to speak.
What are some of the interestingquestions that you've gotten at
some of the seminars about whatyou've been able to share with them?
Have, have there been some kind ofmonumental, for lack of a better
term, better term, revelations?
(10:51):
I.
Well, probably the two things thatI, I see most frequently are, number
one, when I start talking about howreally, really common fraud schemes,
like everyday garden variety fraud andexactly how the accountant can do it,
and exactly why the owner doesn't see it.
(11:11):
They're so simple that you see, andof course this is a podcast, you
can't see my face, but I look outin the crowd and people go from kind
of smiling and looking interested.
To getting this kind of concerned lookon their face, just sitting there with
their mouths open and they have whatI call their oh crap moment, which is,
this could be happening at my office.
I. I can see exactly how my accountantcould do this, and I would never see it.
(11:36):
And when you stop and think that theaverage embezzlement is over $1.4 million
and under 42 months, right under thenose of a small business owner, you
start realizing how much risk there is.
So the number one thing is the realizationthat people have, oh my gosh, not
(11:56):
only could this be happening to me.
I've seen some of thesered flags in my office.
The second thing that is really common,I have never spoken at a public event,
large or small, but I didn't have atleast one person come up to me often
in tears and say, this is what'sgoing on in my business right now.
Can you help me?
And it's easy to talk about, oh,the money is missing and it's a
(12:18):
crime when, when you commit thiskind of fraud in a small business.
I don't think people understand.
Not only is it financially devastating,but in a small office, you know,
everybody, you exchange Christmasgifts, you know their children.
You may have been friends for years.
People are just emotionally guttedof what goes on, and the majority
(12:41):
of small business owners who areembezzled are left with devastating
tax issues, which I was too.
The, the embezzler nearly shutthe business down, but the
IRS nearly finished it off.
Virtually any business owner who hasfinancial fraud will also have tax issues.
So those were the two, the twobig things, people realizing,
oh my gosh, it could happen.
(13:03):
And then talking to people that itis happening to, and they don't know
if they're gonna lose their homes.
They don't know if their businesseswill fail and, and they don't realize
how, how really easy it is to control.
If you know what to look for, and thethree things that I tell people every
single business owner can go home anddo today, go back to your business.
(13:23):
Do this yourself every day.
Number one, get your own mail.
Well, why do you get the mail?
I mean, that's a pain in the neck.
You know, somebody else should sortout all the circulars and stuff.
Well, what's in the mail?
Checks from vendors.
I mean, you understand that somebodyin charge of your accounting
system can endorse the check tothemselves, deposit it in their
account, and then simply delete theinvoice from your accounting system.
(13:45):
People don't realizehow easy that is to do.
What else comes in the mail, your creditcard statement with those nice convenience
checks that are very convenient forembezzler to make out for themselves.
Credit applications, all sorts ofthings that allow an embezzler to work.
Right in the open and you never see it.
If, if a business owner will go home, gettheir own mail for a week and think like
(14:09):
a thief, you always think like a thief.
When you're looking at your business,you open up that mail every day and you
say, what could a thief do with this?
What could someone wanted to steal out ofmy business do with this piece of paper?
You will never let anyoneget your mail again.
The second thing is to lock upall your checks and credit cards.
You are the only person who shouldhave access to those things.
(14:31):
Anyone who needs a credit card, anyonewho needs a check, they go through you.
You have control over thosefinancial instruments.
And the third thing is you getonline and you look at your
bank and credit card accounts.
Daily you can you, I don't look atall my credit card accounts daily.
I certainly look at my bank accountsdaily because people can do all sorts
(14:52):
of things in your accounting system.
They can manipulate your mail,they can do all sorts of things.
They can't impact.
What you see in the online bankaccount, that's what's really going on.
And I actually talked to a forensicaccountant who said, well over 50%
of the businesses where she goes into investigate, there's been a crime.
She helps kind of reconstruct thebusiness, reconstruct the crime.
(15:14):
Well over 50% of those businessowners do not have a password to
their own online bank accounts.
I mean, that's how far removedwe are because we've listened
to all the experts tell us.
Do what you are passionate about.
And so we market our businessesand we design flyers and
we optimize our webpages.
(15:34):
Meanwhile, people are stealing yourmoney right under your nose, and I have
decided that for me, the thing I ammost passionate about in my business
is not even people steal all the money.
And so.
I looked bank accounts, those things willtake a business owner minutes a day, but
it will stop probably upwards of 90% ofthe most common types of financial fraud.
(15:57):
So give people hope through all ofthis you've climbed out of that hole.
In fairness, it's been quite awhile since it's happened, but
it's devastating emotionally.
It puts you under, how didyou climb out of the hole?
What did you do to right the ship?
You mean if to right my business orto kinda write myself emotionally?
Well, both.
(16:17):
I mean, one, I think doesn'tone happen before the other.
First of all, you gotta take careof yourself and then second of all,
you take care of your business.
Or, or am I wrong?
Which comes first.
If
you want your business to succeed, youkind of put yourself on the back burner
and you, you try to keep your businessgoing without, I mean, there were a lot
of people who helped in the business.
I had family members whohelped, my bank helped.
(16:38):
I had CPAs that came in and helped.
But I will tell you the one, themain primary reason that my business
survived an embezzlement, that goingback and looking at the books now,
there's no reason my business survived.
The one reason it survivedwas I kept it going.
I called vendors every day.
If I was gonna make a payment late.
I called and told people I talkedto my bank multiple times a week.
(17:01):
Yes, I know this is later.
I don't have money in there, but I havemoney coming in in 48 hours, and I'll
be back on the phone with you then.
I honor every commitment that I made.
Keep in mind, something interesting aboutthat is I owed several hundred thousand
dollars to vendors that had been hidden.
I mean, those things were kept hidden, soI wouldn't know how bad the situation was.
(17:22):
And when I saw that and I startedcalling people in Missouri, you have
five and a half months after the lastdate of work to file a mechanics lien.
So I was calling people and saying.
If you file a lien, I workwith corporate clients.
If you file a lien, they'll fire me.
I, I simply will be bankrupt.
I won't have any way to payyou, not a single vendor, file
(17:45):
a lien against my property.
Wow.
Not one.
Which means they let theironly real legit their claim,
their one easy way to get paid.
They let those lien rights expire.
Do you know why?
What I heard over and overand over and over again?
Well, when I was embezzled.
Oh wow, really?
(18:06):
I heard that over and over againand, but if I told people I will
mail you a check on Wednesday.
If I knew it was gonna be Friday,I had them on the phone on Tuesday
saying, not only is it gonna be aco a couple of days late, but if you
need me to, I'll pay to overnight it.
I'll hand deliver it.
I kept my word and I paid every dime.
(18:28):
The only money that was not repaidwas to people who agreed to waive
late charges or interest fees.
In return for having the ballots paid,and in fact, one company I had owed late.
50 or $60,000 in asphalt to took mea year and a half to get 'em paid.
I paid it.
At the end of it, they sent me thisbeautiful leather briefcase that they
(18:50):
give to their really high-end alliance.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh wow.
And they said, nobody who has ever owed usthis much money has ever paid it before.
Thank you.
Did they give me credit again?
Yeah, three years later, beforethat, it was cash, right?
So they were watching out fortheir company, but they were,
but they were really, reallygood to me, it was exhausting.
(19:11):
It was, I look back and I don't know how Igot through it physically or emotionally.
Once the company was on better brand,I had to take better care of myself.
I hadn't been sleeping, Ihadn't been eating well.
But if you want your company to survive,that may be the price you pay, but
you have to do it in the short term.
Because you can't do that forever.
So from the time you found outabout it until you righted the ship,
(19:34):
days, weeks, months, years, how long
Bills all paid?
Probably 18 months.
Tax problems resolved closer to four yearsbecause they were extremely mean to me.
I wound up with very, very, likeillegally aggressive IRS agents.
My business was saved from the IRS forone reason and one reason only, and that
(19:57):
is our, our sitting senator At that time,Senator KIPP Bond, opened a congressional
inquiry into my case and stopped the IRSin their tracks and laid out a payment
plan that they were required to accept.
Good for you,
and I repaid it 10 times fasterthan I was required to do.
They still put a lien against my housebecause if I had sold my business and
(20:17):
sold my equipment, I could have paid theremaining $12,000, but it did get paid.
So it, it's one of the big, bigreasons for a business owner.
To keep very close tabs ontheir finances, particularly
making sure that taxes are paid.
You can't assume that they're paid becauseyour checking accounts that it's paid.
(20:37):
Get on your IRS website, you can do that.
If you don't have a username andpassword to the IRS website, you
need to take care of that immediatelybecause you get on the website and
you confirm that your taxes are paid,
so you have.
Done in your short time on thisearth, something that most people
have never had to experience at thislevel and have bounced back from it.
(21:01):
If there is one lesson you couldteach people, I'm talking about,
I. Basically, what is the word?
Is it grit?
Is it perseverance?
Is it the fact that you are, youknow, humbled by the experience?
What, what is it in Cheryl thatallowed her to be able to do that?
(21:23):
Because the experience.
Would be enough to crush most people.
I think
I, if, if I had to give a single reason,a, if you, you ask for a single word, I'll
give you the word and then I'll explain.
It would be ignorance.
That's, that's why Interesting.
I pulled back from it is ignorance.
My first major corporateclient was Walmart.
There's still a bigcorporate client of mine now.
(21:46):
Uh, 25, 26 years later, and I alwaysjoke that nobody told me that a little
bitty local business couldn't, couldn'tmarket the largest retail in the
world and take them on as a corporateclient, so I just did it anyway.
Right?
Right.
Nobody told me that you couldn'tcome back from a million dollar
embezzlement and massive tax problems.
(22:08):
I simply never considered.
Failure was an option.
I was too ignorant.
To know that normal businesses would notcome back from this kind of a crushing
financial loss, and in fact, many do not.
But I was too dumb to know that.
So I just.
Did it anyway.
I think you've sold yourself so farshort and it shows you your modesty.
(22:30):
That's grit, that's resilience,that's belief in yourself.
That is a high level of capabilityin who you are as an individual.
I mean, there's some kind of a, forlack of a better term, a stone mason
concrete soul that allows you to.
Build toward an objectivethat's so difficult.
(22:52):
Well, it was hard, but you know, I loveSteve Jobs and he said so many cool
things, and the one thing that he saidthat I relied on over and over and over
as I fought through that was he said,I don't know anybody else who's lost a
half a billion dollars in a single year.
It's very humbling.
So I'm like, well, do best of I can.
(23:15):
Yeah.
Well, oh, that's good.
And, and so for, since thislast 25 years, I know you have
prospered at an extraordinary level.
Tell people what the business istoday versus what it was 25 years ago.
Well, 25 years ago when I took Walmart onmy gross revenue was like 75,000 a year.
(23:35):
And now it's many, many, many times higherthan that, which, which is a good thing.
Our business averagessix to 10 million a year.
And every penny of it goes across my desk.
Every penny.
I look at every transaction.
I sign every check.
I review the credit cards.
I approve all the accounts payable.
(23:57):
I send payroll.
The checks and credit cards arein a big gun safe in my office.
And I have the combination.
And I always tell people that before I wasembezzled, I kept my guns in the gun safe.
My checks in the desk drawer, andnow that I've lost a million bucks, I
keep my checks in the gun safe in mybedroom drawer, and I sleep much better.
(24:19):
Then everybody laughs until theyrealize that I'm not joking, and then
they're afraid to sit next to me.
But it's okay.
Look at this ladies and gentlemen.
She, she was a model.
She is a mother.
She is a wife.
She has eight kids.
How many grandkids do you have?
20 is due on April 23rd.
And in When is your anniversary coming up?
(24:42):
When is that?
Our wedding anniversary, our 40thwedding anniversary is on April 19th.
Right, exactly.
And my 67th birthday is in February,
and ladies GHI is not 67.
I don't know what's going on.
There's a painting somewherein an attic that's 67, but it
ain't, but it is not yours.
(25:03):
It's all that stress, so it's good foryou, you, it just keeps your facial
muscles all contracted so you don'tget room holes, something like that.
So there are going to be for peoplefrom time to time, difficulties,
you have climbed a mountain thatfew people have frankly ever seen.
What would be kind of yourparting thoughts to the audience?
(25:25):
So the people that are at some pointin their life in a big struggle,
specifically a woman running a business,and there are huge difficulties that
they have to overcome, what would be thelesson that you would share with them?
I have two.
One is, I don't think being awoman has anything to do with it.
(25:46):
If the men around me when I first startedin business thought it was kind of cute
and didn't really believe it, they figuredout very quickly that I was very tough,
that I would keep my word at all costs.
If we said we would be someplacedoing a job, we would do it.
And if there was a problem,we could make it right.
And we would.
And it did not take long, even thoughthey thought it was a little odd.
(26:08):
Mm-hmm.
They didn't know quite what to do with me.
They respected me.
They, they didn't, theydidn't give me any crap.
And I know I told you this before,and you can have your guy cutted if
you don't think people will like this.
But when women ask me, well, whatdo you do to succeed in business?
Isn't there a lot of discrimination?
I mean, face it, I'm in a man's world.
I, I always tell people that I haveto put on lipstick every morning so I
(26:31):
don't forget I'm a girl because I'm out.
I hang out with redneck men all the time.
And so, but I tell people,if you think you're being.
Discriminated against as a woman.
Now, obviously we're not talking aboutsexual assault or truly actionable
items, but if you just don't think lifeis quite treating you fair, go sit down
(26:51):
in front of your computer, type out along, cathartic letter to Gloria Steinem.
Tell her about the injustice of it all.
Spell, check it, print it out onyour letterhead, sign it, seal it
with a kiss, run it through theshredder, and get back to work.
Like
they're 2042.
(27:12):
If you think somebody is a misogynistpig, well don't work with it.
Yeah.
You know, because, and I get it,you're a lawyer, so maybe you like
litigation more than normal peopledo, but lawsuits are expensive.
They're emotionally draining.
They.
Suck up energy and money that if youcan't ignore a slight, ignore it.
(27:34):
There are so many more opportunities,go spend your money on that.
So that's number one.
And the second thing is give away as muchmoney as you can possibly afford to, and
maybe more give as generously as you can.
God love you.
I'm serious.
God, love you.
You know.
You can't out give God
(27:54):
No, you can't.
And I've, I've saidthis before to clients.
There are, as best I can tell,and I've checked every time, there
are no lage racks on any hearsethat I've ever seen in my life.
In fact, can I tell you my, mycontractor Joe for the very end?
Yes.
Yes.
On your hearse, Joe.
Yeah, go ahead
guy.
Very, very wealthy man.
(28:16):
Got and said, prayed andprayed, said Lord, I know they
say he can't take it with you.
But I gotta take some of it.
He prayed and prayed and prayed, andfinally got a message from the Lord and
he said, all right, but you, you got, yougot one suitcase you can bring with you.
That's it.
One suitcase.
Mm.
So he thinks, and thinks, and thinks.
Get his suits case packed.
Eventually he dies, shows up atthe pearly gates with his piece of
(28:38):
luggage and St. Peter says, well,that's the weirdest thing I've ever
seen, but I've got instructions thatyou can bring it in, but I bet you
have to show me what's inside first.
So the guy opens up his luggage.
Full of gold bricks likeFort Knox Gold bricks.
Right?
Right.
And St. Peter said, you're the onlyperson in history who's ever gotten
permission to bring some of itwith you, and you brought pavement.
(29:04):
But seriously, folks,we're here until Thursday.
Tip your waiter.
Yep.
Ladies and gentlemen, somuch to learn common wisdom.
She's not a common person.
Do you see that?
Great insight, great motivation,but that's what I've always known.
Hanging around you.
You are the EverReady bunny.
You are nuclear charge.
(29:25):
You're, you're one of a kind in theenergy and enthusiasm you bring.
Please do not ever change.
Can I put in what?
For my upcoming book?
Oh, oh, oh, please.
I did not know.
Please.
Let's go.
Okay.
I am writing another book now.
My first one was about.
Financial systems and it is a fun read.
I made it very userfriendly, lots of humor.
(29:46):
But this one is about my beginningsand working as a model and then
working in construction and justthe fun business stories and
experiences and, and good advice.
And it's called Do theseshoes match my hard hat?
So
when will this be out?
I, if I can like manage to retire someafter the first of the year and stay
(30:06):
home and write some maybe next fall.
Good.
It's in works.
Ladies and gentlemen.
This is a little bit different than someof my other shows, but I thought it was
worthwhile and a shall we say, at anEverest level by virtue of knowing this
lady, knowing what she's been through, thefact that she brings so much enthusiasm to
(30:29):
everything she does in the business world,I, I'm sure in the rest of her life.
I know you've gained a lot of insightand I want to thank Cheryl for.
Talking.
Well, thank you for your kind work.
That was a privilege.
You are one and the only one that I know.
Who has that kind of spirit, and wewere blessed to know you, so thank you.
(30:50):
Thanks, Dave.
Hey, thank you so much forlistening to my podcast.
If you're seeking assistance withyour business dreams, please consider
checking out the resources thatI can make available to you at
either my LinkedIn page, obviously,my podcast, my book, quiet Plans,
exciting results available on Amazon.
Either in a written or verbalformat and as well, check out
(31:13):
my website, david seider.com.
A lot of content, a lot of informationthere, and there's also a way for
you to access an assessment, a quick16 question survey that would allow
us to get together and discuss whereyou're at and where you seek to go.
I'm here to help you with your dreams.
Until then, be safe.
(31:40):
This podcast is providedfor educational purposes.
It does not constitute legal adviceand it's not intended to establish
an attorney-client relationship.
The recommendations contained in thispodcast are not necessarily appropriate
for every individual or business.
So in determining the best courseof action, business owners should
consult with their attorney ontheir distinct circumstances.
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