March 14, 2025 • 30 mins
Welcome to the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate, where innovation meets inspiration.
Your hosts, Jim Riley and Rod Kuntz, are seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who’ve walked the walk in coaching, employee retention, retail, wholesale, fundraising, and creating thriving workplace cultures. Jim and Rod bring a refreshingly authentic style to every conversation, using their own successes and failures to teach strategies that work. This podcast is your go-to resource for growth, leadership, and real-world insights. They’ll show you how to optimize operations, embrace failure, and disrupt your industry, all while keeping success grounded in humility and paying it forward. Looking for strategies, connection, and a little inspiration? You’ve found your home. Let’s dream big, act boldly, and thrive together.
Welcome to Young Entrepreneur Syndicate with Jim Riley and Rod Kuntz!
Find out more at: https://www.youngentrepreneursyndicate.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-answer-is-yes--2903418/support.
Your hosts, Jim Riley and Rod Kuntz, are seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who’ve walked the walk in coaching, employee retention, retail, wholesale, fundraising, and creating thriving workplace cultures. Jim and Rod bring a refreshingly authentic style to every conversation, using their own successes and failures to teach strategies that work. This podcast is your go-to resource for growth, leadership, and real-world insights. They’ll show you how to optimize operations, embrace failure, and disrupt your industry, all while keeping success grounded in humility and paying it forward. Looking for strategies, connection, and a little inspiration? You’ve found your home. Let’s dream big, act boldly, and thrive together.
Welcome to Young Entrepreneur Syndicate with Jim Riley and Rod Kuntz!
Find out more at: https://www.youngentrepreneursyndicate.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-answer-is-yes--2903418/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast, where we interview some
of the most interesting people that have said yes to
opportunities in their life. We hope that through these stories
you can learn to create your own destiny by saying yes.
Along the way. Join us as we explored the new series,
governing topics such as passion, integrity, and art work. I'm
(00:29):
your host, Jim Riley, and I hope you enjoyed these
interviews as much as I do. I believe that everyone
has an important message work here. Hello, and welcome to
the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate. Rod Kons. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm doing fantastic. Jim Riley, How the heck are you?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You know what? The weeks are just flying by here
we are mid March already. We talked about this on
Monday night with our coaching group, our community, our Young
Entrepreneur Syndicate community. If you had worked on your ninety
day goals back November December, you've probably seen some of
the rewards of that, and I know I am, but
(01:06):
I'm also seeing that, Hey, I need to pick up
the pace again for summer. Right If I start working
ninety days right now, I'm looking at what I'm going
to be doing in summertime or what I will have
achieved by summer. So how about you.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It's the same, and I'll tell you what to me.
It's motivational. You know, when we get into these seasonal changes,
it forces you to look ahead. And I'm thinking, I'm
being selfish recreationally.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I'm right.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm planning my time off and I'm looking at my
I have my camper parked in my I've got a
slot in the backyard so from my kitchen window I
can look out and see it, and it's got the
cover on it and everything.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's like, man, should I pull the cover off? Yet?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, I need to get the camper set up.
I need to get these things done. I've got grandkids
that want me to take them gold panning this year,
so I've got some outings to plan. I've got to
get all my gear out. I started going through first
aid kits and all that sort of stuff. So find
something that motivates you and start gearing ahead. But we
talked about this with clearing your desk, clearing the clutter
(02:06):
off to make room for the new projects. So if
you're using recreation as that carrot at the end of
the stick, right, It's like, what else do you need
to do?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What's the work part of that? How does this all
fall into relationship with that? So you can't you can't
just play.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You have to work.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But if you're working to get your play ready, you
just will be working to get your work ready. You
know how you can get that time off.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And like you, I'm using recreation as as my motivator.
We're planning on some road trips with our trailer this
summer with our kids. But you know, it's not always
this recreation too. It could be financial goals. It could
be sure you buying a home, upgrading your home, remodeling,
could be a vehicle purchase. It could be just putting
more money in savings. I've got a client coaching client
(02:51):
that she's driven to have a certain amount of money
in her savings account, you know, in time of need.
You know, she's shooting for that six months of living
ex fences and our savings and by the way she's
crushing it, She's almost there. You know, It's like, wow,
that was It's only March, and it's only March, you know.
So when you put your mind to something and you
know that kind of that ninety day rule really is
(03:13):
pretty accurate, you know, and it's fun to see how
that unravels. So anyways, I just got to bring that up.
It's March and we're at that ninety day mark. I'm
going to give us the topic right now because I've
been thinking about it. You know, I'm looking out my
window and we've got rain. We talked you know, we
talked about in Montana fake spring. Well we had fake
spring a couple of weeks ago. It's nice and warm.
(03:35):
I'm in shorts. It was fifty one degrees. Finally you'd
think it was, you know, beach weather. But here we are.
We've got some rain or snay, depending on how you
look at it. There's a little bit a little bit
of new snow in the mountains. And my topic of
the day is the weather. Like weather, the weather, right
And I'm not talking about the weather that we all
(03:57):
use as an excuse to discuss, Hey, what's the other
Lloyd in California today, or Nevada or in Montana. I'm
talking about weathering the storm in your business. Weathering the
storm and your business. And this does kind of tie
into that ninety day goal, you know, idea or how
that works as a function. But when you look at
(04:17):
your business, can you whether the storm? Do you have
the tools in play to weather the storm? And sometimes,
you know, those tools aren't just showing up to work
every day. You know, got to my office at eight,
I'm right and early, and I'm going to work the
day through.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Sometimes those tools to whether the storm can be many,
for example, having the financial financial resources to weather the storm,
the ebbs and flows of business and I like to
dig into that in a few but also having the
right infrastructure in place, the right team members, right the
right partnerships and vendors and contractors and extended people beyond
(05:00):
your four walls in the office. You know, do you
have the tools in place to weather the storm? And
by the way, because I don't think you can just
YouTube this, do you have the ability to utilize those
tools and know how to utilize those tools so that
you can weather the storm? And I don't think we
talk about that enough. I'm not really sure that we've
(05:21):
talked about whether in the storm too much in our
podcast the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
We haven't, and we should have. Yeah, what a great topic, man,
I've got so many things. Number one's let's I can
maybe subhead this with backup plan? Yeah, what's your backup plan?
And I'm old enough I remember distinctly what happened in
two thousand and eight. Okay, two thousand and eight economy
(05:47):
really took a hard turn. So what's your backup plan?
I mean, we talk as entrepreneurs. We're always forward thinking
and positive thinking, and that's good, but we also have
to be realists. What if let's look at some worst
case scenarios. Maybe that's part of our new planning. If
something bad were to happen. If if we had a
(06:07):
bad spell of weather, like a hurricane in North Carolina,
they never expected this. How many of those businesses are
going to be out of business when this is all
over and never start up again. How many of those
mom and pops didn't have a plan. So maybe it's
time to say, if something were to happen, what's our
downsize plan? Can we well, let's look at X, right.
(06:33):
Can we afford to get rid of eighty percent of
the workforce and still function? Yeah? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Well efficiently?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or are we running efficiently? So we should take such
a hard look at our business that weathering the storm
shouldn't matter if we're if we're doing prior planning, and
that's not just planning for the good times and growth.
We should be looking at what would we do, at
least with your key partners, if it's just you and
(07:02):
your spouse, you should be looking to say, well, what
would we do. We could go back to work, We
could start hustling on the side, you know, we could.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know you can.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I know somebody's starting an apiary business this summer, right,
I mean, you can do all kinds of things, and
you can prep for that right now. Why not start
some side hustles on the side to help weather any
storm and you might find you like it and it
might be profitable.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Well, let's before we branch too far off on that,
because I do agree with you, is that look at
alternatives right backup plans. I do agree with that, But
to stay on your main thing, all right, And I'm
gonna I have a client that I'll use as an example.
He has a retail product, and in his world, oftentimes
(07:48):
that retail product could be an extension of flavors. Okay,
So you know you got the main one and then
you've got an extension and the market dictates that you know,
flavors do sell. So there there's a little bit of
a pressure from a buyer going, hey, I like your
main one, but do you have X, Y, and Z flavors?
And so I think sometimes as business owners, we've been encouraged,
(08:13):
almost falsely, to extend our product offerings because of a
buyer saying, well, you know, everybody else has it. And
so what that can do when we talk about whether
the storm is it can deplete your resources because you're
chasing something other than what your original intention might have
been or your original timelines might have been. Okay, And
(08:38):
this is where this plays a critical factor in whether
in the storm. And again I'm going to use a
client live experience, is so you know, he has a
core product that does very very well, okay, But because
he's allowed the buyers to dictate the direction of his company,
despite my best efforts to say, hey, focus on the
(08:59):
main thing, he's got several other we'll call him flavor profiles, right,
And so what that does, Rod is that it puts
it ties money up into inventory to extend his offerings.
And so instead of the main one, now he's extended
into four or five, depending one seasonal, right, and which
(09:21):
means more capital goes into those other products and energy
and effort. Right, not only just your money, but your
time from a marketing perspective, So everything gets everything gets
spread thin now, okay, and the main thing is no
longer the main thing. And the money that you had
set aside from the main thing, that that ball of money,
(09:43):
that snowball that was building up. All of a sudden,
you took that snowball and you applied it to this extension.
So what happens when the president puts tariffs on products
out of Canada and Mexico, and all of a sudden,
you've got a storm that you have to weather and
it's like, uh, oh, I don't have enough money to
(10:04):
cover these tariffs or whatever. They're just a good example, right,
all of a sudden, you have no longer the ability
to weather the storm because you've allowed some lazy buyers
to dictate your own business plan and you said yes
to that, and you've spread yourself so thin that you
(10:24):
can't get through a storm. Now, I guarantee you if
you would have focused on the one product and maintained
a level of security and protection and finances and energy
and effort. If something like tariffs came along, he would
be able to not only weather that, but to get
to the other side of that because all the other
competitors they did the same damn thing. Right. Oh yeah, okay,
(10:47):
we'll add all these offerings, right, and so they're inability
to weather the storm because they did the same thing.
He would have been able to push through and come
out the other side. It's what I did in one
of my businesses during COVID right now. I wound up
having to fund it because the business went to zero.
So I funded it because I knew if I could
weather the storm of COVID, I'd come out the other
(11:07):
side and then rebuild my business with momentum because I
maintained it. And that's the company that I sold in December, right,
And so the important factor here is having the resources
and the tools to weather the storm because you don't
know what's going to happen. Now, I'm not saying that
he couldn't extend his product offerings, but don't utilize that
(11:31):
snowball that will get you through the storm to extend
your offerings. And by the way, and i'd love to
have you weigh in on this by the way when
I look at buyers and most salespeople, they're inherently lazy.
And if you're in either one of those categories, I'd
like you to look at yourself, because what I've seen
in this business for the last twenty years is buyers
(11:53):
always want it cheaper. They always want it cheaper. So
if my product is thirty dollars, they want it for
twenty or twenty five. Right, I got to make money, right,
and so then you're inclined to say, okay, well we'll
lower our price for you. Guess what if it was
twenty five and I walked in, they're gonna want it
for twenty, And if it was twenty, they're gonna want
it for fifteen. They always want it cheaper, and that
(12:17):
is their laziness because they just want to make more
money the easy way. They know they're going to sell
it for this suggested retail price. Of course, you're just
going to make more margin, right, And where the laziness
comes in really falls on the salesperson's side, because if
you did your business right, if you did your research right,
if you did your marketing right, and all the other things,
(12:39):
the product that you were offering holds the value in
what you're selling it for. And if you took the
time to go to that person that was the buyer
and said, hey, look, I realize that you like this cheaper,
but here's why it's price where it's at, and here's
where it sits in the marketplace, and here's the authentic
qualities of this product and why we charge the thirty dollars.
(13:00):
So no, I'm sorry, we can't reduce the price, but
I hope you buy it on its own merit for
the story I just told you. And when the customers say, hey,
this is a little bit expensive, you can extend that
story to them, right. And that's where that laziness comes
into play, and people take the easy route and lower
the price. That nobody's ever satisfied with the price. Right.
So anyways, weather in the storm, being cautious with your
(13:22):
snowball so that you can get through in times. You know,
we're experiencing a little bit right now.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Thoughts, Wow, this is a lazy salesman and being swayed
by what other people think. Do you think that Chick
fil A? I mean, everybody likes hamburgers, right, Yeah, everybody
wants a good hamburger, But do you think you could.
You know, somebody should go and say, hey, you're doing
so well with you know, your chicken sandwiches, maybe you
(13:49):
should offer burgers on the side too well, I mean
throw them out. Somebody's telling you that, throw them out
and say no, we're not going to do that. Or
if you really do want to do something, I like
the example you just used was a seasonal product, we'll
do that. You know. Even McDonald's did the mcribs sandwich,
but they only do it for special promotions. It's not
part of the whole menu, you know, So you can
(14:10):
use things for special occasions and that way, maybe you're
not tying up all that money for the long term
and it can be special and you can control it,
you know, it's not just another thing that's going to
consume the marketing budget, the time, the energy and all
that the other resources. So I mean there are smart
things you can do to maybe do those sorts of things,
(14:31):
but don't get away from your core, your core mission.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well that's understanding.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Don't let it suffer. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then your
talk about everyone wants it for less, I don't think
they really want it for less. What they wanted what
they want is to know that they're valued and special.
And you could say, you know what we'll do you
you order four extra cases and we're going to cover
the shipping and handling on one of those. I mean,
(14:59):
there are other wa of showing appreciation than lowering price,
because that's devaluation, not appreciation. So I think people get
that confused a lot. And again, I spent decades in
professional sales. I saw enough of this. You can build
all the value in the world, and sometimes you just
(15:19):
have to say, hey, you can't afford my product.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So you know, good luck.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Out there finding the right one that you can afford,
and be willing to walk away because you can't. Not
everybody can afford, you know, a Range Rover, you know,
maybe you need to buy a Ford Explorer. You know.
I'm sorry, I know what you want. Then you want
the leather version with all the bells and whistles, but
you can't afford the cloth version with you know, vinyl flooring.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I'm sorry. That's just where.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
We're at and and people just need to understand that.
So number one, appreciate your customers, and customers appreciate the
people who are selling things to you.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's it's a hard tough.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
World out there, you know, it really is, and so
that appreciation has to go both ways. Is the customer
always right? No, I've seen the customer being wrong a lot.
And abusive customers, you know, are probably the same at home.
They're probably abusive spouses.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So you know, and right by how you treat your
customers also is about weather in the storm, right, because
you can you can go back to this customer and say, hey,
as you may have seen, you know, we've got some
tariffs we're dealing with right now, and you're a good customer,
and I want to work through this and I want
to come out the other side. You know, how can
we work together? Right, So there's a lot of ways,
even looking at the customer that we can weather the storm.
(16:38):
I want to touch on a couple other things about
weather in the storm, because again that's our topic here
is you know, how you take care of your people.
You know, we talk about customers, but how you take
care of your staff and when you place a priority
on your staff, knowing that without them, you probably wouldn't
have the success that you have, and oftentimes that may
come at a shortage to yourself as the business owner
(17:00):
in other words, you know, looking at COVID as an example,
you know, I had a few few friends that ran
companies that they paid their employees no matter what, and
that meant oftentimes they didn't pay themselves, you know, But
they're the business owner. And so when you look at
whether in the storm, I'd rather get to the other
side of the storm with my employees, with my staff,
as opposed to being alone going where's all my staff?
(17:23):
I have to rehire? Right in the meantime. You know,
you've you've got a beautiful house and all these assets,
but but you know you got no employees.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's one of the things that I loved about, if
you remember, I think we talked about, is the barstool Fund.
Dave Portnoy, during the Middle COVID created the Barstool Fund
where he personally, I think he put a million dollars
cash and then encourage all these other celebrities and you know,
big big money donors to put money into the barstool Fund.
(17:52):
And what he was doing is he was funding restaurants
during COVID to stay afloat. But the caveat was you
had to keep your staff. The money had to go
towards keeping the staff, keeping the lights on, whether or
not you could operate because of COVID restructions, you had
to keep your staff. And I'm intimately familiar with it
(18:14):
because one of my clients received one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars from the Barstool Fund. But that is what
I'm talking about, weathering the storm and having the tools.
If David Portnoy didn't do that, would you be able
to do that on your own right, keeping your staff
and your vendors and the people around you to get
to the other side of it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And that's what a great point, Jim. Staff is family,
and so you have to communicate, you know, with your
own family. You have to communicate what's on the horizon,
what you're thinking, and find ways to deal with it together.
Because even if that money had to go to staff,
I would be willing to bet that most of those
(18:54):
staff if you said, look, we can only do so
much of this. Can you work for X amount? Can
you take a pay cut so we can weather this together.
I'm going to keep it going as much as I can,
but will you work with me? So communication is so
paramount in all of this, And again you brought the
(19:15):
point up. You know, just explain to people why your
product is valued the way it is, why it's priced
the way it is, and why you need to maintain that.
That's just communication skills, and that that goes all the
way up and down the chain, every every step of
the way. Everyone needs to just work on those skills. Again,
those are soft skills, right, yeah, absolutely, you know, just
being honest and authentic and real and not not not
(19:41):
making it what it's not and more than what it is.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I'm going to go back to one thing that you
started to talk about earlier, and that was other opportunities
within your business right as a way to weather the storm.
The best personal example I can give is way back
in my late twenties, I was living in Lake Tahoe
and I worked for a ski resort. So in the summertime,
(20:06):
we were basically off. We were required to work a
couple of days to maintain our salary and our benefits,
but we were basically off, and I acquired a lawn
mowing business. And what was kind of cool about it
is that where I lived, it was the Tahoe Keys,
and there was a lot of condos and town homes
with really small yards, unlike what we have here in Montana.
(20:27):
Like literally, you know, four passes of the lawnmower, and
I covered their whole front yard, but then it was
backed up against somebody else's four passes of a lawnmower, right,
and that was the second customer. So at all these
customers that I could do within a couple hours, you know,
I think it was like fifteen bucks a week or
something like that, and it was really good money. But
(20:48):
most of these people didn't live in town, their vacation homes,
and what I would get a lot of is hey,
can you fix my fence line? Or can you fix
my sprinkler? Or do you know how to whatever it was?
Right now, I could have easily said, you know what,
(21:08):
I just mow and trim. I don't know how to
do those other things. I'm not willing to do those
other things, or that's below me, you know, to work
on your fence or whatever it was, right But what
I realized is if I were to say yes to them,
not only would I secure my future business in lawnmowing,
but I'd also expand my business and my revenue doing
(21:28):
some other things that I was already on site. You know,
I had my pickup truck, I had some tools. I
had the knowledge or I was willing to gain the
knowledge to do something else, or ask the right questions,
or go buy a tool that would you know, enhance
you know what I needed to do. And so although
my original business wasn't fixing handyman stuff, it was to
(21:49):
mow a lawn. I realized that by expanding my efforts
that I was, you know, really being able to weather
a storm, if you will, right, absolutely, because what happened.
You know, if I didn't have lawns to moan anymore,
I mean crazy California, right, they didn't. You couldn't water
your lawns, you know, for a couple of summers and
roasted right dead lawns right now, what Well, believe it
(22:13):
or not, this is true story. And it reminded reminded
me of a photo I saw earlier today. It was
a helicopter flying over Dodger Stadium. You know, the season
is getting start and all the grass was dead, and like,
what do they need down there? Some water? Maybe the
reality is I think they paint the grass. I think
they paint the grass. And I remember as a kid
growing up in La some of the people in the
(22:34):
neighborhood literally painted their grass green. Right. So here I
am in the mowing trimming business, but if I got
into the painting business, I could paint their lawns green.
The point is is that there isn't there is a
time and a place for expanding your business into other
arenas that are similarly aligned. So you're not too out
(22:55):
of whack to weather the storm. And I think that
that's what you're starting to get at, is what are
some of the other things we can do is a
backup plan to weather the storm. Right.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But you gave a great example too, because the landscapers
here in Montana, right because we have seasons, they obviously
aren't mowing lawns in the winter time. But you know
what they have they have They put snowplows on their
pickup trucks and they're out plowing driveways for businesses in
the winter time. You know, they're so while they're mowing
their grass in the summer, they're standing by the way,
(23:25):
who's plowing your snow in the winter? Yeah, So I mean,
just thinking naturally ahead, what are other things that you
could get into, What are other things that that makes
sense for you to do if it's not seasonally. But
like you said, while you're on the spot, while I'm here.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Look at Amazon, right, they used to deliver books. Now
they deliver everything.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, they're even into medicine now, yeah, right, it's it's
the whole thing, you know. And here's let I'm gonna
give a quick example here. When I was a teenagers
working at a filling state and that's when you know,
used to drive over the bell, not like Oregon where
you have to have someone pump the gas, but everyone
got their gas pump for him back in the day. Yeah,
(24:09):
And my boss was an entrepreneur. He owned the drive
in theater, he owned rental properties, and he was a
he was a smart guy. And what he did we
had batteries, fan belts. You know, we did light maintenance,
tune ups, flat tire repair, so we had tires, fan belts,
air air filters.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
We were kind of an all in one service station.
And so I was hired just to pump gas. But
you know, we all worked on our cars back then,
and you know, we had mechanical knowledge. We sold snowmobiles
and motorcycles there also, so you know, we we all
were just these young kids. But we knew what we
were doing. But this guy, his name was Bob Ceter.
(24:51):
I'll never forget it. He started this big sales board
and he said, what I want you to do when
you're out there washing their windshields and checking their oil.
I want you to look at their fan belts. I
want you to look at everything else. And we're going
to have contests every month. He had a contest. So
when you know, not only sold the court of oil,
but now your windshield washer fluids low, and we checked
(25:12):
the air on your tires, but hey, your tires are
getting bald. You know, we've got to set in the
back right now. We could put those on in half
an hour, you know. And we so here are these fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen year old kids who became master salesman by doing
add on sales. And we weren't creating problems. We were
pointing out what was obvious while we were already there,
(25:35):
you know. And even if they didn't do it right away,
they would come back for it. And let me tell
you what, that little filling station was one profitable place
because he trained young kids to look and pay attention
and then to just point it out and ask was
it was phenomenal. What a great lesson, What a great
(25:56):
lesson for everybody, no matter what line of work you're in.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, and I think at the end of the day,
and we'll put a little bow on this discussion, and
I know we've drawn it out a little bit, but
I think at the end of the day, when you
talk about weathering the storm, it really comes down to resources,
and most often than not, those are financial resources. You know,
a lot of times money does cure a lot of
evils in business, and that goes along with sales because
(26:22):
sales generate money for the company. And there are so
many options, as we've already talked about, you know, including
this gastion. I just love that, you know example, because
it's so easy to do that, like you said, adding
value to something that you're already doing. You're already there,
(26:42):
why not suggest it, right? And sometimes it's almost I
do that so often it's almost embarrassing for me sometimes like, hey, look,
I know that I do this, but by the way,
I got a marketing company that can do your website
all these other things, right, But it's solving people's problems
through a relationship that you've already built. You know. It's
one of the reasons why as an extension to my consulting,
(27:03):
I'm in real estate now, right, I can help guide
people through that process if they're local and they want
to go through it, right, because I've already learned the
nature of contracts and relationships and all those other things.
And I think, you know, I think about some of
our members in the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate, And by the way,
if you're not a member, we'd love to have you.
We're ninety nine dollars a month. We meet once a
(27:25):
week on a zoom call. We teach similar subjects as today,
and then we also open it up for Q and A.
And that could be anything, right, And you've got some
great experts in myself and Rod and Rachel with you know,
I don't even know how many years of experience of working.
But you know, when I think about our members, as
an example, your daughter right with her purses, okay, church,
(27:47):
and see she has these beautiful leather made purses okay,
and that are designed to carry firearms or flashlights or
bear spray. Right are then nesess these lipstick and eyeliner
and stuff like that. But you know how how hard
would it be for her to align with under an
(28:08):
affiliate marketing program a flashlight company. You know, a small
handheld goes in your purse, flashlight company, So you're selling
a purse for your you know, your personal carry concealed weapon,
right and oh, by the way, there's also room for
a small flashlight. And I happen to work with such
and such company, or you know, I work with shield
(28:31):
Arms and they carry you know, the special keychain that
can serve as a you know, a whip or something
like that. Or Montana knife company. You know what I mean.
It's so easy for us to look at where we're
conducting our business, where we're already at, and extend it
a little bit to build up your resources to weather
(28:52):
the storm. So there you go, great point. Yeah, all right,
well it's been fun. It is raining outside, but I'm
going to get my run in and weather the storm
by running because I want to build up my personal
resources of being healthy. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, well I'll tell you what I did my afternoon
workout yesterday, and the only thing different was I wore
a rain jacket.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Hey, thanks for listening. If you like to show share it.
Rod and I and our partner Rachel will all be
speaking at the Montana Camp here in Montana. This is
in late May. You can go to montanacamp dot org
to check it out and buy tickets. If you use
y ees, you get a discount. So don't forget that.
We'd love to have you. There's some great speakers coming
and a couple weeks ago we had justin metcha on
(29:38):
the on the call here to talk about that. And
you know, if you need an excuse to come to Montana,
that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right, Yes, it absolutely is. Yeah, not to make It's
gonna be a great time. It's gonna be wonderful to it.
Perfect time here, all right, Rod, Good to see you,
Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Jim,
Welcome to the Answers Yes Podcast, where we interview some
of the most interesting people that have said yes to
opportunities in their life. We hope that through these stories
you can learn to create your own destiny by saying yes.
Along the way. Join us as we explored the new series,
governing topics such as passion, integrity, and art work. I'm
(00:29):
your host, Jim Riley, and I hope you enjoyed these
interviews as much as I do. I believe that everyone
has an important message work here. Hello, and welcome to
the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate. Rod Kons. How you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm doing fantastic. Jim Riley, How the heck are you?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You know what? The weeks are just flying by here
we are mid March already. We talked about this on
Monday night with our coaching group, our community, our Young
Entrepreneur Syndicate community. If you had worked on your ninety
day goals back November December, you've probably seen some of
the rewards of that, and I know I am, but
(01:06):
I'm also seeing that, Hey, I need to pick up
the pace again for summer. Right If I start working
ninety days right now, I'm looking at what I'm going
to be doing in summertime or what I will have
achieved by summer. So how about you.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It's the same, and I'll tell you what to me.
It's motivational. You know, when we get into these seasonal changes,
it forces you to look ahead. And I'm thinking, I'm
being selfish recreationally.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I'm right.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm planning my time off and I'm looking at my
I have my camper parked in my I've got a
slot in the backyard so from my kitchen window I
can look out and see it, and it's got the
cover on it and everything.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's like, man, should I pull the cover off? Yet?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, I need to get the camper set up.
I need to get these things done. I've got grandkids
that want me to take them gold panning this year,
so I've got some outings to plan. I've got to
get all my gear out. I started going through first
aid kits and all that sort of stuff. So find
something that motivates you and start gearing ahead. But we
talked about this with clearing your desk, clearing the clutter
(02:06):
off to make room for the new projects. So if
you're using recreation as that carrot at the end of
the stick, right, It's like, what else do you need
to do?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What's the work part of that? How does this all
fall into relationship with that? So you can't you can't
just play.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You have to work.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But if you're working to get your play ready, you
just will be working to get your work ready. You
know how you can get that time off.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And like you, I'm using recreation as as my motivator.
We're planning on some road trips with our trailer this
summer with our kids. But you know, it's not always
this recreation too. It could be financial goals. It could
be sure you buying a home, upgrading your home, remodeling,
could be a vehicle purchase. It could be just putting
more money in savings. I've got a client coaching client
(02:51):
that she's driven to have a certain amount of money
in her savings account, you know, in time of need.
You know, she's shooting for that six months of living
ex fences and our savings and by the way she's
crushing it, She's almost there. You know, It's like, wow,
that was It's only March, and it's only March, you know.
So when you put your mind to something and you
know that kind of that ninety day rule really is
(03:13):
pretty accurate, you know, and it's fun to see how
that unravels. So anyways, I just got to bring that up.
It's March and we're at that ninety day mark. I'm
going to give us the topic right now because I've
been thinking about it. You know, I'm looking out my
window and we've got rain. We talked you know, we
talked about in Montana fake spring. Well we had fake
spring a couple of weeks ago. It's nice and warm.
(03:35):
I'm in shorts. It was fifty one degrees. Finally you'd
think it was, you know, beach weather. But here we are.
We've got some rain or snay, depending on how you
look at it. There's a little bit a little bit
of new snow in the mountains. And my topic of
the day is the weather. Like weather, the weather, right
And I'm not talking about the weather that we all
(03:57):
use as an excuse to discuss, Hey, what's the other
Lloyd in California today, or Nevada or in Montana. I'm
talking about weathering the storm in your business. Weathering the
storm and your business. And this does kind of tie
into that ninety day goal, you know, idea or how
that works as a function. But when you look at
(04:17):
your business, can you whether the storm? Do you have
the tools in play to weather the storm? And sometimes,
you know, those tools aren't just showing up to work
every day. You know, got to my office at eight,
I'm right and early, and I'm going to work the
day through.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Sometimes those tools to whether the storm can be many,
for example, having the financial financial resources to weather the storm,
the ebbs and flows of business and I like to
dig into that in a few but also having the
right infrastructure in place, the right team members, right the
right partnerships and vendors and contractors and extended people beyond
(05:00):
your four walls in the office. You know, do you
have the tools in place to weather the storm? And
by the way, because I don't think you can just
YouTube this, do you have the ability to utilize those
tools and know how to utilize those tools so that
you can weather the storm? And I don't think we
talk about that enough. I'm not really sure that we've
(05:21):
talked about whether in the storm too much in our
podcast the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
We haven't, and we should have. Yeah, what a great topic, man,
I've got so many things. Number one's let's I can
maybe subhead this with backup plan? Yeah, what's your backup plan?
And I'm old enough I remember distinctly what happened in
two thousand and eight. Okay, two thousand and eight economy
(05:47):
really took a hard turn. So what's your backup plan?
I mean, we talk as entrepreneurs. We're always forward thinking
and positive thinking, and that's good, but we also have
to be realists. What if let's look at some worst
case scenarios. Maybe that's part of our new planning. If
something bad were to happen. If if we had a
(06:07):
bad spell of weather, like a hurricane in North Carolina,
they never expected this. How many of those businesses are
going to be out of business when this is all
over and never start up again. How many of those
mom and pops didn't have a plan. So maybe it's
time to say, if something were to happen, what's our
downsize plan? Can we well, let's look at X, right.
(06:33):
Can we afford to get rid of eighty percent of
the workforce and still function? Yeah? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Well efficiently?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or are we running efficiently? So we should take such
a hard look at our business that weathering the storm
shouldn't matter if we're if we're doing prior planning, and
that's not just planning for the good times and growth.
We should be looking at what would we do, at
least with your key partners, if it's just you and
(07:02):
your spouse, you should be looking to say, well, what
would we do. We could go back to work, We
could start hustling on the side, you know, we could.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know you can.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I know somebody's starting an apiary business this summer, right,
I mean, you can do all kinds of things, and
you can prep for that right now. Why not start
some side hustles on the side to help weather any
storm and you might find you like it and it
might be profitable.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Well, let's before we branch too far off on that,
because I do agree with you, is that look at
alternatives right backup plans. I do agree with that, But
to stay on your main thing, all right, And I'm
gonna I have a client that I'll use as an example.
He has a retail product, and in his world, oftentimes
(07:48):
that retail product could be an extension of flavors. Okay,
So you know you got the main one and then
you've got an extension and the market dictates that you know,
flavors do sell. So there there's a little bit of
a pressure from a buyer going, hey, I like your
main one, but do you have X, Y, and Z flavors?
And so I think sometimes as business owners, we've been encouraged,
(08:13):
almost falsely, to extend our product offerings because of a
buyer saying, well, you know, everybody else has it. And
so what that can do when we talk about whether
the storm is it can deplete your resources because you're
chasing something other than what your original intention might have
been or your original timelines might have been. Okay, And
(08:38):
this is where this plays a critical factor in whether
in the storm. And again I'm going to use a
client live experience, is so you know, he has a
core product that does very very well, okay, But because
he's allowed the buyers to dictate the direction of his company,
despite my best efforts to say, hey, focus on the
(08:59):
main thing, he's got several other we'll call him flavor profiles, right,
And so what that does, Rod is that it puts
it ties money up into inventory to extend his offerings.
And so instead of the main one, now he's extended
into four or five, depending one seasonal, right, and which
(09:21):
means more capital goes into those other products and energy
and effort. Right, not only just your money, but your
time from a marketing perspective, So everything gets everything gets
spread thin now, okay, and the main thing is no
longer the main thing. And the money that you had
set aside from the main thing, that that ball of money,
(09:43):
that snowball that was building up. All of a sudden,
you took that snowball and you applied it to this extension.
So what happens when the president puts tariffs on products
out of Canada and Mexico, and all of a sudden,
you've got a storm that you have to weather and
it's like, uh, oh, I don't have enough money to
(10:04):
cover these tariffs or whatever. They're just a good example, right,
all of a sudden, you have no longer the ability
to weather the storm because you've allowed some lazy buyers
to dictate your own business plan and you said yes
to that, and you've spread yourself so thin that you
(10:24):
can't get through a storm. Now, I guarantee you if
you would have focused on the one product and maintained
a level of security and protection and finances and energy
and effort. If something like tariffs came along, he would
be able to not only weather that, but to get
to the other side of that because all the other
competitors they did the same damn thing. Right. Oh yeah, okay,
(10:47):
we'll add all these offerings, right, and so they're inability
to weather the storm because they did the same thing.
He would have been able to push through and come
out the other side. It's what I did in one
of my businesses during COVID right now. I wound up
having to fund it because the business went to zero.
So I funded it because I knew if I could
weather the storm of COVID, I'd come out the other
(11:07):
side and then rebuild my business with momentum because I
maintained it. And that's the company that I sold in December, right,
And so the important factor here is having the resources
and the tools to weather the storm because you don't
know what's going to happen. Now, I'm not saying that
he couldn't extend his product offerings, but don't utilize that
(11:31):
snowball that will get you through the storm to extend
your offerings. And by the way, and i'd love to
have you weigh in on this by the way when
I look at buyers and most salespeople, they're inherently lazy.
And if you're in either one of those categories, I'd
like you to look at yourself, because what I've seen
in this business for the last twenty years is buyers
(11:53):
always want it cheaper. They always want it cheaper. So
if my product is thirty dollars, they want it for
twenty or twenty five. Right, I got to make money, right,
and so then you're inclined to say, okay, well we'll
lower our price for you. Guess what if it was
twenty five and I walked in, they're gonna want it
for twenty, And if it was twenty, they're gonna want
it for fifteen. They always want it cheaper, and that
(12:17):
is their laziness because they just want to make more
money the easy way. They know they're going to sell
it for this suggested retail price. Of course, you're just
going to make more margin, right, And where the laziness
comes in really falls on the salesperson's side, because if
you did your business right, if you did your research right,
if you did your marketing right, and all the other things,
(12:39):
the product that you were offering holds the value in
what you're selling it for. And if you took the
time to go to that person that was the buyer
and said, hey, look, I realize that you like this cheaper,
but here's why it's price where it's at, and here's
where it sits in the marketplace, and here's the authentic
qualities of this product and why we charge the thirty dollars.
(13:00):
So no, I'm sorry, we can't reduce the price, but
I hope you buy it on its own merit for
the story I just told you. And when the customers say, hey,
this is a little bit expensive, you can extend that
story to them, right. And that's where that laziness comes
into play, and people take the easy route and lower
the price. That nobody's ever satisfied with the price. Right.
So anyways, weather in the storm, being cautious with your
(13:22):
snowball so that you can get through in times. You know,
we're experiencing a little bit right now.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Thoughts, Wow, this is a lazy salesman and being swayed
by what other people think. Do you think that Chick
fil A? I mean, everybody likes hamburgers, right, Yeah, everybody
wants a good hamburger, But do you think you could.
You know, somebody should go and say, hey, you're doing
so well with you know, your chicken sandwiches, maybe you
(13:49):
should offer burgers on the side too well, I mean
throw them out. Somebody's telling you that, throw them out
and say no, we're not going to do that. Or
if you really do want to do something, I like
the example you just used was a seasonal product, we'll
do that. You know. Even McDonald's did the mcribs sandwich,
but they only do it for special promotions. It's not
part of the whole menu, you know, So you can
(14:10):
use things for special occasions and that way, maybe you're
not tying up all that money for the long term
and it can be special and you can control it,
you know, it's not just another thing that's going to
consume the marketing budget, the time, the energy and all
that the other resources. So I mean there are smart
things you can do to maybe do those sorts of things,
(14:31):
but don't get away from your core, your core mission.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well that's understanding.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Don't let it suffer. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then your
talk about everyone wants it for less, I don't think
they really want it for less. What they wanted what
they want is to know that they're valued and special.
And you could say, you know what we'll do you
you order four extra cases and we're going to cover
the shipping and handling on one of those. I mean,
(14:59):
there are other wa of showing appreciation than lowering price,
because that's devaluation, not appreciation. So I think people get
that confused a lot. And again, I spent decades in
professional sales. I saw enough of this. You can build
all the value in the world, and sometimes you just
(15:19):
have to say, hey, you can't afford my product.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So you know, good luck.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Out there finding the right one that you can afford,
and be willing to walk away because you can't. Not
everybody can afford, you know, a Range Rover, you know,
maybe you need to buy a Ford Explorer. You know.
I'm sorry, I know what you want. Then you want
the leather version with all the bells and whistles, but
you can't afford the cloth version with you know, vinyl flooring.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I'm sorry. That's just where.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
We're at and and people just need to understand that.
So number one, appreciate your customers, and customers appreciate the
people who are selling things to you.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's it's a hard tough.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
World out there, you know, it really is, and so
that appreciation has to go both ways. Is the customer
always right? No, I've seen the customer being wrong a lot.
And abusive customers, you know, are probably the same at home.
They're probably abusive spouses.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So you know, and right by how you treat your
customers also is about weather in the storm, right, because
you can you can go back to this customer and say, hey,
as you may have seen, you know, we've got some
tariffs we're dealing with right now, and you're a good customer,
and I want to work through this and I want
to come out the other side. You know, how can
we work together? Right, So there's a lot of ways,
even looking at the customer that we can weather the storm.
(16:38):
I want to touch on a couple other things about
weather in the storm, because again that's our topic here
is you know, how you take care of your people.
You know, we talk about customers, but how you take
care of your staff and when you place a priority
on your staff, knowing that without them, you probably wouldn't
have the success that you have, and oftentimes that may
come at a shortage to yourself as the business owner
(17:00):
in other words, you know, looking at COVID as an example,
you know, I had a few few friends that ran
companies that they paid their employees no matter what, and
that meant oftentimes they didn't pay themselves, you know, But
they're the business owner. And so when you look at
whether in the storm, I'd rather get to the other
side of the storm with my employees, with my staff,
as opposed to being alone going where's all my staff?
(17:23):
I have to rehire? Right in the meantime. You know,
you've you've got a beautiful house and all these assets,
but but you know you got no employees.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's one of the things that I loved about, if
you remember, I think we talked about, is the barstool Fund.
Dave Portnoy, during the Middle COVID created the Barstool Fund
where he personally, I think he put a million dollars
cash and then encourage all these other celebrities and you know,
big big money donors to put money into the barstool Fund.
(17:52):
And what he was doing is he was funding restaurants
during COVID to stay afloat. But the caveat was you
had to keep your staff. The money had to go
towards keeping the staff, keeping the lights on, whether or
not you could operate because of COVID restructions, you had
to keep your staff. And I'm intimately familiar with it
(18:14):
because one of my clients received one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars from the Barstool Fund. But that is what
I'm talking about, weathering the storm and having the tools.
If David Portnoy didn't do that, would you be able
to do that on your own right, keeping your staff
and your vendors and the people around you to get
to the other side of it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And that's what a great point, Jim. Staff is family,
and so you have to communicate, you know, with your
own family. You have to communicate what's on the horizon,
what you're thinking, and find ways to deal with it together.
Because even if that money had to go to staff,
I would be willing to bet that most of those
(18:54):
staff if you said, look, we can only do so
much of this. Can you work for X amount? Can
you take a pay cut so we can weather this together.
I'm going to keep it going as much as I can,
but will you work with me? So communication is so
paramount in all of this, And again you brought the
(19:15):
point up. You know, just explain to people why your
product is valued the way it is, why it's priced
the way it is, and why you need to maintain that.
That's just communication skills, and that that goes all the
way up and down the chain, every every step of
the way. Everyone needs to just work on those skills. Again,
those are soft skills, right, yeah, absolutely, you know, just
being honest and authentic and real and not not not
(19:41):
making it what it's not and more than what it is.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I'm going to go back to one thing that you
started to talk about earlier, and that was other opportunities
within your business right as a way to weather the storm.
The best personal example I can give is way back
in my late twenties, I was living in Lake Tahoe
and I worked for a ski resort. So in the summertime,
(20:06):
we were basically off. We were required to work a
couple of days to maintain our salary and our benefits,
but we were basically off, and I acquired a lawn
mowing business. And what was kind of cool about it
is that where I lived, it was the Tahoe Keys,
and there was a lot of condos and town homes
with really small yards, unlike what we have here in Montana.
(20:27):
Like literally, you know, four passes of the lawnmower, and
I covered their whole front yard, but then it was
backed up against somebody else's four passes of a lawnmower, right,
and that was the second customer. So at all these
customers that I could do within a couple hours, you know,
I think it was like fifteen bucks a week or
something like that, and it was really good money. But
(20:48):
most of these people didn't live in town, their vacation homes,
and what I would get a lot of is hey,
can you fix my fence line? Or can you fix
my sprinkler? Or do you know how to whatever it was?
Right now, I could have easily said, you know what,
(21:08):
I just mow and trim. I don't know how to
do those other things. I'm not willing to do those
other things, or that's below me, you know, to work
on your fence or whatever it was, right But what
I realized is if I were to say yes to them,
not only would I secure my future business in lawnmowing,
but I'd also expand my business and my revenue doing
(21:28):
some other things that I was already on site. You know,
I had my pickup truck, I had some tools. I
had the knowledge or I was willing to gain the
knowledge to do something else, or ask the right questions,
or go buy a tool that would you know, enhance
you know what I needed to do. And so although
my original business wasn't fixing handyman stuff, it was to
(21:49):
mow a lawn. I realized that by expanding my efforts
that I was, you know, really being able to weather
a storm, if you will, right, absolutely, because what happened.
You know, if I didn't have lawns to moan anymore,
I mean crazy California, right, they didn't. You couldn't water
your lawns, you know, for a couple of summers and
roasted right dead lawns right now, what Well, believe it
(22:13):
or not, this is true story. And it reminded reminded
me of a photo I saw earlier today. It was
a helicopter flying over Dodger Stadium. You know, the season
is getting start and all the grass was dead, and like,
what do they need down there? Some water? Maybe the
reality is I think they paint the grass. I think
they paint the grass. And I remember as a kid
growing up in La some of the people in the
(22:34):
neighborhood literally painted their grass green. Right. So here I
am in the mowing trimming business, but if I got
into the painting business, I could paint their lawns green.
The point is is that there isn't there is a
time and a place for expanding your business into other
arenas that are similarly aligned. So you're not too out
(22:55):
of whack to weather the storm. And I think that
that's what you're starting to get at, is what are
some of the other things we can do is a
backup plan to weather the storm. Right.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But you gave a great example too, because the landscapers
here in Montana, right because we have seasons, they obviously
aren't mowing lawns in the winter time. But you know
what they have they have They put snowplows on their
pickup trucks and they're out plowing driveways for businesses in
the winter time. You know, they're so while they're mowing
their grass in the summer, they're standing by the way,
(23:25):
who's plowing your snow in the winter? Yeah, So I mean,
just thinking naturally ahead, what are other things that you
could get into, What are other things that that makes
sense for you to do if it's not seasonally. But
like you said, while you're on the spot, while I'm here.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Look at Amazon, right, they used to deliver books. Now
they deliver everything.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, they're even into medicine now, yeah, right, it's it's
the whole thing, you know. And here's let I'm gonna
give a quick example here. When I was a teenagers
working at a filling state and that's when you know,
used to drive over the bell, not like Oregon where
you have to have someone pump the gas, but everyone
got their gas pump for him back in the day. Yeah,
(24:09):
And my boss was an entrepreneur. He owned the drive
in theater, he owned rental properties, and he was a
he was a smart guy. And what he did we
had batteries, fan belts. You know, we did light maintenance,
tune ups, flat tire repair, so we had tires, fan belts,
air air filters.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
We were kind of an all in one service station.
And so I was hired just to pump gas. But
you know, we all worked on our cars back then,
and you know, we had mechanical knowledge. We sold snowmobiles
and motorcycles there also, so you know, we we all
were just these young kids. But we knew what we
were doing. But this guy, his name was Bob Ceter.
(24:51):
I'll never forget it. He started this big sales board
and he said, what I want you to do when
you're out there washing their windshields and checking their oil.
I want you to look at their fan belts. I
want you to look at everything else. And we're going
to have contests every month. He had a contest. So
when you know, not only sold the court of oil,
but now your windshield washer fluids low, and we checked
(25:12):
the air on your tires, but hey, your tires are
getting bald. You know, we've got to set in the
back right now. We could put those on in half
an hour, you know. And we so here are these fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen year old kids who became master salesman by doing
add on sales. And we weren't creating problems. We were
pointing out what was obvious while we were already there,
(25:35):
you know. And even if they didn't do it right away,
they would come back for it. And let me tell
you what, that little filling station was one profitable place
because he trained young kids to look and pay attention
and then to just point it out and ask was
it was phenomenal. What a great lesson, What a great
(25:56):
lesson for everybody, no matter what line of work you're in.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, and I think at the end of the day,
and we'll put a little bow on this discussion, and
I know we've drawn it out a little bit, but
I think at the end of the day, when you
talk about weathering the storm, it really comes down to resources,
and most often than not, those are financial resources. You know,
a lot of times money does cure a lot of
evils in business, and that goes along with sales because
(26:22):
sales generate money for the company. And there are so
many options, as we've already talked about, you know, including
this gastion. I just love that, you know example, because
it's so easy to do that, like you said, adding
value to something that you're already doing. You're already there,
(26:42):
why not suggest it, right? And sometimes it's almost I
do that so often it's almost embarrassing for me sometimes like, hey, look,
I know that I do this, but by the way,
I got a marketing company that can do your website
all these other things, right, But it's solving people's problems
through a relationship that you've already built. You know. It's
one of the reasons why as an extension to my consulting,
(27:03):
I'm in real estate now, right, I can help guide
people through that process if they're local and they want
to go through it, right, because I've already learned the
nature of contracts and relationships and all those other things.
And I think, you know, I think about some of
our members in the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate, And by the way,
if you're not a member, we'd love to have you.
We're ninety nine dollars a month. We meet once a
(27:25):
week on a zoom call. We teach similar subjects as today,
and then we also open it up for Q and A.
And that could be anything, right, And you've got some
great experts in myself and Rod and Rachel with you know,
I don't even know how many years of experience of working.
But you know, when I think about our members, as
an example, your daughter right with her purses, okay, church,
(27:47):
and see she has these beautiful leather made purses okay,
and that are designed to carry firearms or flashlights or
bear spray. Right are then nesess these lipstick and eyeliner
and stuff like that. But you know how how hard
would it be for her to align with under an
(28:08):
affiliate marketing program a flashlight company. You know, a small
handheld goes in your purse, flashlight company, So you're selling
a purse for your you know, your personal carry concealed weapon,
right and oh, by the way, there's also room for
a small flashlight. And I happen to work with such
and such company, or you know, I work with shield
(28:31):
Arms and they carry you know, the special keychain that
can serve as a you know, a whip or something
like that. Or Montana knife company. You know what I mean.
It's so easy for us to look at where we're
conducting our business, where we're already at, and extend it
a little bit to build up your resources to weather
(28:52):
the storm. So there you go, great point. Yeah, all right,
well it's been fun. It is raining outside, but I'm
going to get my run in and weather the storm
by running because I want to build up my personal
resources of being healthy. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, well I'll tell you what I did my afternoon
workout yesterday, and the only thing different was I wore
a rain jacket.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Hey, thanks for listening. If you like to show share it.
Rod and I and our partner Rachel will all be
speaking at the Montana Camp here in Montana. This is
in late May. You can go to montanacamp dot org
to check it out and buy tickets. If you use
y ees, you get a discount. So don't forget that.
We'd love to have you. There's some great speakers coming
and a couple weeks ago we had justin metcha on
(29:38):
the on the call here to talk about that. And
you know, if you need an excuse to come to Montana,
that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Right, Yes, it absolutely is. Yeah, not to make It's
gonna be a great time. It's gonna be wonderful to it.
Perfect time here, all right, Rod, Good to see you,
Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Jim,
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