April 19, 2025 • 28 mins
Welcome to the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate, the ultimate podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs and business leaders ready to innovate, lead, and grow. Hosted by Jim Riley and Rod Kuntz—two seasoned pros with real-world success in coaching, consulting, employee training, and workplace culture—this show is your gateway to actionable strategies and empowering insights. Whether you’re navigating start-ups, scaling retail or wholesale operations, fundraising, or optimizing for profitability, Jim and Rod bring their authentic, humble approach to every episode. They’ll inspire you by embracing failure as a stepping stone and paying success forward. Together, they’ll guide you with mindset shifts, leadership strategies, and the tools you need to disrupt your industry and build your future. Let’s turn challenges into opportunities and dreams into achievements. Welcome to Young Entrepreneur Syndicate, where the future of business is built. Find out more at: https://www.youngentrepreneursyndicate.com/
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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 hearing. Hello, and welcome to
the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate. Jim Riley here with Rod Koontz.
Good afternoon, morning, Rod.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Right Truman from
The Truman Show.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I believe you're dating yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh that was a long time ago. You're right, Never mind,
Happy happy day everyone where you're listening.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, lots going on. I just had a great coaching
call that is going to be the foundation of our
topic for today, and I actually I want to quickly
and briefly thank everybody that's listening to the show. I've
had a number of comments via text in the last
couple of weeks. I was away as you know on
(01:19):
a men's retreat this last weekend and several people commented like,
I just love your show. So I want to thank
everybody that at least reached out and told me that.
It's inspiring to know that at least somebody's listening at
least one. But you know, the feedback is important. And
by the way, if you guys have topics that you
want me to cover, let me know. I'll throw them
(01:40):
out to Rod and see how he responds. That's the
fun part for me. So Rod, I'm just appreciative today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know, being grateful is a good thing. Jim always, always, always, Yes,
it is. And I'm grateful too because I get those
comments as well, and it means a lot. We're not
just talking to the wind, right, It's it's making its rounds.
It's making a difference. So I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, I think we're going into a season of success
and abundance. I think that that is on the horizon.
And I would like to say that I hope that
you've listened and you've been playing along here, and you
developed your goals and your plans for twenty twenty five
(02:31):
way back in October November, and that you're wrapping up
this first quarter of the year, going, Okay, I've got
some momentum. And I see that amongst a lot of
people that we work with, the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate community.
I see that with them. I see that in my
workout coaching community that I'm a part of with Brad Dunn.
(02:52):
I see it with my other clients. Matter of fact,
they got my new hat on today. Trench I love it.
Trench warfare training with Kyle Early, he does well. Right now.
He's working at the D one facility out in Franklin, Tennessee,
and that is where they basically trained athletes to become
professional athletes, and Kyle specializes in linement training. Of course,
(03:18):
he was a very well known and successful lineman for
the NFL, and so I loved his motto trench warfare, right,
get in there and just you know, my daughters, they're like,
what does that mean? I said, well, it can be
interpreted a lot of ways, but my meaning is during
our early World Wars, they dug trenches to protect themselves
(03:39):
from the enemy, and it gave them a position to
attack and fire their weapons out of these trenches that
were dug. And then you advance and you dig another trench,
and you advance and dig another trench. And that's why
there's a shovel on this hat. And it's about advancing
and building, building some strongholds along the way, you know,
and training, you know, for whatever reason you're training for.
(04:04):
Right now, I'm training for my senior years in life
and enjoyment of my young daughters. But whatever you're training for,
I love the concept of trench warfare. So anyways, congrats
to Kyle for moving his business forward and me getting
a hat out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, I'm gonna I'm going to use this as an
opportunity to educate if you don't mind trench warfare. It's
two things from the business community. Number One, get in
there and get dirty, right, Yeah, you've got to get
blisters on your hand and dig the holes. But there's
something else involved there too, And it's tactical. Remember the
way they used to do warfare. They'd stand in lines
(04:44):
and they'd go out in an open field and just
start shooting at each other. Yeah, right out in the open.
But by the War of eighteen twelve, and I don't
know how many of you have ever gone to the
East coast Virginia especially, that's where I've seen him, the earthworks,
the battlement that they I mean, it has permanently changed
the landscape of our country and of Europe as well
(05:06):
from the trench warfare. But I want you to remember
that it was because we were being smarter. We were
still working. In fact, we worked harder because we were
working smarter.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So the lesson there is working smarter sometimes means you've
got to do harder work. Yeah, that's digging the trench
because that kept more people alive, and they were more
like snipers instead of standing out in the open like
hey shoot.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Me right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And the British even worse, you know, wearing red coats.
Yeah I can't see me. So that's that American spirit
right there, which we did learn from the Native Americans.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And by the way, this isn't a topic, but I'll
take a quick left turn that we did on our
weekly call the other night, and that was just talking
about I was using myself as a reference sometimes it
just feels better instead of poking at somebody else and
not having their approval to use them as a reference.
But you know, again, I've talked about this a few times.
(06:05):
Real estate being new to me. Just because I have
forty plus years in business doesn't mean I don't get
to start from the bottom again in something new, and
that I don't have to get in the trenches. You know.
They talk about, like in real estate, the number one
way to get businesses on knocking doors. Well, guess what
(06:26):
the last thing anybody wants to do knock on doors? Right,
And I knocked on a couple dozen doors the other
day because I wanted to understand what that Naw, what
that felt like. I knew he'd grow my business, so
I'm not going to ignore it. And I was, you know,
in the real estate world, I was in the trenches.
You know, yesterday's snowing here and I had an open
(06:46):
house schedule. Well, I had flyers out, I had advertisements out.
I'm not going to just cancel because it's snowing and
the conditions aren't great. Nope, I'm going to get in
the trenches. I'm going to put my signs out in
the blowing you know spring snow storm that we had yesterday,
of course suns out again today, and do what's required
of me to do a good job. Right, what the
(07:07):
expectations are from my customer base that saw the ad
that said, you know what, it might be crappy outside,
but I'm going to go see that house if it's open.
And there I was. Doors were open, and guess what
people showed up, you know. So I know, you know,
as you navigate your business life and your career and
(07:27):
your new aspirations and things that you're doing to grow
your business, we're never too good, are old, are experienced?
Are too far up that company ladder to get in
the trenches and do some work, you know, and you
might just appreciate it, you might just learn something, and
(07:49):
you may just inspire somebody else to do the same
thing and be the best that they can be. So
don't forget to get in the trenches. There you go.
See I'm using the hat for a lesson today. I
like it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, And that's the do the reps. You got to
do the reps right. You're not going to get better, stronger,
faster if you're not doing the reps well.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And by the way, that's exactly what I said to
my girls last night. They're like, how was your open house?
I know it was snowing, Was it good? I said, Well,
it doesn't matter if it was good or not. I
was putting in the time and the reps. I literally
use that because I love that metaphor. I was putting
in the reps so that when it is sunning out
and people are driving around looking for something to look at,
I'm there. I've done the reps. Now I know by
(08:32):
the way, I know exactly where to put my signs.
Now you know where I park to go get them
out on the highway, and you know where it's getting
traffic to come. So by doing the reps, I can
be more efficient the next time I go and do
the open house. You know. And these little observations might
sound silly, but if that saves me an extra five
or ten minutes because I know where the signs are
(08:53):
going to go, well I've got an extra five or
ten minutes to be prepared and open the doors early,
you know all these other things. I think that's where
people miss opportunities by not being prepared and doing the reps.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely. Yeah, great example.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, Well, I got a good topic for today and
it goes along. It's funny how this always happens exactly
with what we're talking about. And Royd, you and I
have talked about this before, maybe on the show, but
definitely in the in the young entrepreneurs community. And that
is the work that you're putting in today you will
see the results of in ninety days. And I am
(09:32):
such a firm believer in that because time and time
again I've seen the results, because that's really kind of
the cycle of business cycle, of opportunity cycle of putting
in the reps and seeing the benefits of that. And
you can look at a lot of deal structures and
typically they fall in line with about that ninety day mark.
(09:53):
And the reason why that's important is you know, whether
you're operating on a monthly quarterly you know, we're just
wrapping up the first quarter of the year. You know,
are the first third of the year, I should say
a little bit past the first quarter, and this is
a good time to look back at the goals that
you set for yourself this year, back as I suggested,
(10:16):
hopefully October November, and looking at your business plan, looking
at where you're at, look at what's happened, and then
you know the first three and three months and seventeen
days of the year and say, okay, am I aligned
am I doing what it takes to achieve success, and
am I hitting the mark on my goals financially, physically,
(10:39):
have I produced enough widgets whatever that looks like. Take
this time now to adjust if need be, or to
confirm you're on the right path. So literally, take out
your goals, take out your strategy, lay it out on
your desk, and go, Okay, where am I at today?
Pull the numbers and get that barometer out, because if
(11:01):
you're starting to veer off left. You know they talk
about the old the you know, the tanker ship, how
long it takes for it to turn right. You got
to start right two miles out at sea to make
a left by the time you get to the harbor
or whatever it is. You know, that's what happens. If
you're off the mark a little bit today, by the
end of the next ninety days, you're off a little
(11:22):
bit more, and by the end of the year you
could be off a whole lot. And so I want
you to take this opportunity to look at where you're
at today, realign or confirm what you're doing is right,
so that we can see those results again in another
ninety days as we progress throughout the year.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Makes sense, It makes absolute sense. In fact, I was
thinking about. Two things came to mind while you were talking, Jim,
and the first is we have been talking about this
since well we've been talking about it for years, but
in October we were pushing our Cochin group, you know,
to start looking ahead, right, yeah, and so that was October.
(12:05):
That's been what seven months ago? All right, It's it's
plenty of time in a society where we expect everything
right away. This is one of those hard lessons where
it's it's delayed gratification. But as a business person, as
(12:26):
a seasoned business person, I'm gonna I'm gonna change that
phrase around. Instead of delayed gratification, why don't we call
it delayed expectation, because it's it's an expectation that it's
not gonna come right now. It should be an expectation
that we're going to get what we put into it
down the road. Farmers know this, right, Ranchers know this.
(12:48):
You know, feeder cattle, you know you start as a calf,
but you've got to do the work. You gotta wait,
you know, a farmer, you got to plant the seed,
you got to you know, fertilizing and then harvest. You
you have to wait. And so it's an expectation. And
in our society, everyone wants right now, right now. Everyone's
in a hurry. They want it right now, and we
(13:10):
need to get away from that. We need to get
back to our roots, back to our nature. Right it's
our nature to have to work and wait. And when
we get away from that, that's when people start making mistakes.
That's when they start making bad decisions. That's when they
start going off track, that's when they start losing sight
(13:30):
of their goal. And so that was the first thing.
The second thing was checking in. You know, you set
that goal, but you have to check in off in it.
I don't I don't know if how many of our
listeners out there have done orienteering where you literally use
a map in a compass. But if you're going five
miles and you're out in the woods or in the jungle,
(13:52):
right you're going five miles, you take an asthmuth on
the map and you're saying, okay, we're going to walk,
you know, thirty seven degrees southeast for two miles and
then we'll hit a canyon and go. Another thing, if
you're walking through dense jungle, you have to check in
about every hundred paces and reshart that asthmth and and say,
(14:12):
am I really on track? Because if you don't and
you make it two miles down the road through the woods,
you could be off a quarter mile from your destination.
If you're supposed to meet somebody, if there's a pickup,
if there's a supply drop, you know, if there's a
cash of some sort, you're going to miss it if
you're not checking in on that end goal regularly, and
(14:37):
if you put it off, it will take you off course.
So that's a perfect illustration of checking in often. That's
why we take, you know, stock of our inventory. That's
why we keep data, why we track, you know, how
our programs are working, our social media, our ad purchases
and all that stuff. So again, a great, great topic,
(14:59):
great lesson to apply, but you have to apply it well.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
And I think to use your comparison. It's important. Right
if you're let's just say you have to meet somebody
at a specific time in the jungle, right, So you're
doing all the work and let's just say you know
you're checking it often and you realize, hey, I'm out
(15:25):
pacing the time, okay, and I can utilize that opportunity
to do more to preserve assets and resources. Right, maybe
in this case, maybe it's energy. Right, you're working through
the jungle, It's like, wow, i've been out pacing. You
(15:45):
learn this when you do marathon running. You know you
have your pace, your one mile pace, and you realize, hey,
if I stay at this pace, I'm going to fade
out at the end, i won't have any energy. Right,
So you know, you hear a lot of people talk about, well,
my race mile pace is eight fifteen. You know, they
could probably run a six minute mile, but they couldn't
do it for twenty six miles. So it's eight point
fifteen gets them to the finish line with enough energy.
(16:10):
And if you apply that to your business and your
finances and your structure, by checking in often, you know
what resources you have. You also know if there's an abundance,
and that abundance, in my example, the abundance of time. Okay,
so hey, you know what, I'm gonna sit here and
enjoy this waterfall in the middle of the jungle for
(16:30):
a few more minutes because I'm ahead of schedule. You know,
the terrain wasn't as tough as I thought, so I've
gained some time. Let me enjoy that, let me rest
so that I can be equally efficient on the last
half of this journey. That applies in business too, and
it also applies in the way of enjoyment and the
(16:51):
fruits of your labor, where you might say, hey, I'm
not only hitting my financial goal, I'm well above that,
and you know what, I want to take a week
and away and spend a little bit of money for
the fruits of my labor. And you'll know, hey, that's okay.
You are ahead of pace, you're ahead of your financial goals,
(17:12):
and it's okay to reward yourself because of that's where
you're at. If you have no idea where you're at,
you can be working yourself into a grave all the time,
having more than enough and you didn't know it because
you didn't check. Right, you know, you've created an abundance,
but because you didn't take the time to check, you're
(17:33):
working yourself into a grave and distancing yourself from your
family and you know, your friends and all these other
things because you didn't check. And so again, the importance
of the efforts that you're putting in today you're going
to see the results of in ninety days. But also
understanding exactly what your goals are and where you're at
on that map, we'll make a difference in your business. Rod,
(17:57):
I'll tell you what. It blows me away people in
sales that don't know their numbers and don't want to
look at their numbers first thing every morning. It's like,
why wouldn't you want to know is the machine working?
Or do I got to dial it in a little
bit more to see how it's going forward?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It just it baffled it. But yet every single day
I run into encounter somebody in my coaching We're like, yeah,
I don't know that number. I'm like, why not? It's
about numbers at the end of the days. You know,
most of the stuff's about numbers.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well especially and I know you were in the restaurant
business as well, food service, Oh yeah, and boy, if
you don't know your numbers there, I mean it's the
difference between, you know, staying in business and going out right.
I mean, you have to stay on it all the time.
You don't get to take breaks from the numbers, and
the numbers are your friend. I mean that's a lot
(18:51):
of people don't like that, right, But I like data,
you know, I even in the government government service.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I like data.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I want I want to see it, give me more information.
If you've already got the information, I want to see it.
I want to see it in a pipe chart. I
want to see it in a bar graph. I don't
care show it to many different ways. I want it color,
color marked. And it's amazing how it changes how you
perceive things, your perception of things. And the other thing
you know you talked about you might have extra time.
(19:20):
You also might need to speed up the schedule. Yeah right,
I mean it. Your numbers aren't just going to tell
you good stuff. Your numbers can tell you bad stuff.
It's a it's the best crystal ball you're going to
get is to be checking in with the numbers and
checking in often because that is really going to be
your future. And you said it before, what you did
(19:41):
in October, you're you know, getting the results of that,
the rewards of that right now.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So I'm going to touch on something before we wrap
up here, And I think it's important to understand this
about the conversations that Rod and I have about are
found elements in the young entrepreneurs community, and what that
is is that we put an emphasis on the soft skills.
We put an emphasis on the excellence in what we
(20:11):
do and in business, and by the way, excellence that
starts with you and me. You know, nobody's going to
do that for us. The strength is in what we're doing.
And so these discussions at times might seem a little
bit trivial, but that is the difference between excellence and
understanding the soft skills in business and finding the success
(20:34):
through that, as opposed to what many, if not most,
of what others are doing. And they're challenged to be
above the rest. They're challenged to hit their financial goals
or their personal goals, you know, the achievements that they
thought they were seeking in life, and they never hit it.
(20:54):
The difference, in my opinion, Rod, is what we're doing here,
and that's learning what the soft skills are are learning
how to create opportunity. And that's exactly what we're talking
about today, especially when you look at that compass, right,
is creating opportunity by knowing exactly where you're out on
the map to speed up, slow down, take advantage of
or not hitting the mark right on, hitting the time
(21:16):
right on, you know, all those things. A lot of
people just run it by the seat of their pants,
and we want to emphasize not doing that through the
skills that we're teaching here. So take note, hit rewind
if you need to re listen to some of the
things we talked about, because this will this will set
you apart, will set you apart from your competitor, from
(21:41):
the other you know, the guy next door, and if
nothing else, you will end on a happier note because
you've done all the things for all the right reasons,
and that touches on a whole bunch of other soft skills.
So those are kind of my closing thoughts, but I
just want to emphasize these are the soft skills that
aren't often taught.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Absolutely, So I'm gonna I'll end my note with a
quick a quick story, just because it's fresh in my
mind and I think people can listen to this and
learn from it. Maybe two quick stories. The first is
my wife received a gift certificate as a thank you
(22:21):
to a place like a spa place right that does
all kinds of different things, and so she said an
appointment to go do this and obviously you know it's
not just a gift certificate. She would tip and hopefully
they would get a customer out of it.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
She would go back and she had to reschedule the
appointment one time because she had a birth right. My
wife delivers babies, so that's not any one schedule. Yeah,
so she rescheduled it once and then the next time
that she had rescheduled disappointment and another lady went into
(22:57):
labor and so she wasn't able to reschedule that one
twenty four hours in advance. Now that's the policy, right,
Our policy is if you don't reschedule twenty four in advance,
you're getting charged. Well, she calls up and says, look,
I had disappointment. It's like eight hours in advance, right, said,
I had to call you. I have to you know, cancel,
(23:17):
And the lady says, well, we're going to have to
charge you. And she said, well are there. You know
I was at a birth. I couldn't be helped. You know,
I don't get to do this. Well, that's our policy,
that's our policy. Well, number one, she'll never go back.
They never got her in the door. She will never
go back, and they're not going to get a good referral.
And I want to emphasize this. Managers make managers follow
(23:43):
the rules, right, and they enforce the rules. Leaders make
exceptions to the rules. Sure, So a manager can be
a leader, right, they can be a leader. And so
I'm just I'm challenging people out there, take a look
at your policies and procedures and is there room for
(24:05):
changing course? You know, it looks good on a map,
but all of a sudden, there's there's a wash out
that wasn't there when they made the map. You have
to change course sometimes. Are you gonna go left, You're
gonna go right, You're gonna go around it, You're gonna
go over it, you're gonna go through it. What are
you gonna do? You need to empower your people to
make wise choices for the company's sake. Yeah, and and
(24:28):
back them up on that. And that's a soft skill,
knowing when you not to be taken advantage of, but
to know what is really important. And it's about people.
We say this over and over. It's about people.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So and in common sense, you know, here's here's the thing.
Just to use your example, I would understand you know,
you're you're less than an hour a while out from
the apploytment, and you've got to cancel because of an emergency.
Maybe there is a fee because somebody had to come in.
But when you're given enough notice to change the day
(25:03):
and you know everybody else, sometimes common sense is you
know what life happens, right, it's across the board. Rod
and I would encourage I would encourage business owners are
entrepreneurs to push that envelope more towards common sense than
towards policies that can steer people away from the business. Right.
(25:26):
So I have a parting thought here and before I
do that, Hey, look, we would love to have you
in the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate if you're interested. It's ninety
nine dollars a month. We do four calls a month
talking about the soft skills exactly what we're talking about here.
We will help you be and have a compass for
your business on a regular basis, and we do allow
(25:47):
of time on every single call for people to have input,
have questions, and allow us to help solve their problems
while while we're in the group setting. And you've got
some incredible resources between Rod, myself and Rachel all sectors,
so you know, years and years of experience amongst the group.
So we'd love to have you otherwise, keep listening to
(26:07):
the show, share it with some friends. I'm behind having
one episode published, admittedly, which will probably go out today.
So I'm going to say this closing statement. We're going
into Easter weekend. If this gets published after Easter, I'm sorry,
but this, this statement still applies, and I want people
(26:28):
to hear it. And I read this last night, and
this morning I reread it, and I've sent it to
a few people. And not only does it apply towards
our personal lives. If you're a believer, it really applies.
If you're not a believer, maybe think about the concept
of what's being talked about here. But this also could
(26:48):
be a metaphor for business. And it's what I love
about it so much. And so here here's how it goes.
It's a short little thing, and I'll read it real,
you know. Briefly, there's a part of the Easter story
we often overlook, which is Saturday, the day after the Cross,
but before the resurrection, the day when everything felt silent
(27:09):
and it seemed like hope was gone. But just because
it felt hopeless didn't mean hope was gone. God was
still working while the disciples were weeping, while the world
thought death had won, God was preparing for resurrection, and
on the third day, Jesus rose. So if you're in
(27:31):
a season of waiting where God feels silent, if you're
praying and you don't see an answer, don't give up.
What feels like a silent Saturday may just be the
day before the resurrection. God is still working even when
you can't see it. Hope is still alive even when
(27:51):
it feels far away. And if Jesus conquered the grave,
there's no situation in your life too dead for him
to bring back to life. So hold on, keep praying,
keep trusting. Sunday is coming.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I love that. There you go, absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah. Thanks, thanks for listening to the show, and thank
you for your comments. And we look forward to doing
a lot more of this. I don't know about Rott, Well,
I do know about Rod. We love doing this. We
have been so blessed equally that if we can give
back just one little tidbit of wisdom from all the
dummy tacks that I paid enough for both of us,
(28:36):
hopefully to make your life a little bit better. So
thanks for tuning in. Rod. Good to talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Good to talk to you Jim as always, Hey everybody,
have a great week.
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 hearing. Hello, and welcome to
the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate. Jim Riley here with Rod Koontz.
Good afternoon, morning, Rod.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Right Truman from
The Truman Show.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I believe you're dating yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh that was a long time ago. You're right, Never mind,
Happy happy day everyone where you're listening.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, lots going on. I just had a great coaching
call that is going to be the foundation of our
topic for today, and I actually I want to quickly
and briefly thank everybody that's listening to the show. I've
had a number of comments via text in the last
couple of weeks. I was away as you know on
(01:19):
a men's retreat this last weekend and several people commented like,
I just love your show. So I want to thank
everybody that at least reached out and told me that.
It's inspiring to know that at least somebody's listening at
least one. But you know, the feedback is important. And
by the way, if you guys have topics that you
want me to cover, let me know. I'll throw them
(01:40):
out to Rod and see how he responds. That's the
fun part for me. So Rod, I'm just appreciative today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know, being grateful is a good thing. Jim always, always, always, Yes,
it is. And I'm grateful too because I get those
comments as well, and it means a lot. We're not
just talking to the wind, right, It's it's making its rounds.
It's making a difference. So I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Well, I think we're going into a season of success
and abundance. I think that that is on the horizon.
And I would like to say that I hope that
you've listened and you've been playing along here, and you
developed your goals and your plans for twenty twenty five
(02:31):
way back in October November, and that you're wrapping up
this first quarter of the year, going, Okay, I've got
some momentum. And I see that amongst a lot of
people that we work with, the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate community.
I see that with them. I see that in my
workout coaching community that I'm a part of with Brad Dunn.
(02:52):
I see it with my other clients. Matter of fact,
they got my new hat on today. Trench I love it.
Trench warfare training with Kyle Early, he does well. Right now.
He's working at the D one facility out in Franklin, Tennessee,
and that is where they basically trained athletes to become
professional athletes, and Kyle specializes in linement training. Of course,
(03:18):
he was a very well known and successful lineman for
the NFL, and so I loved his motto trench warfare, right,
get in there and just you know, my daughters, they're like,
what does that mean? I said, well, it can be
interpreted a lot of ways, but my meaning is during
our early World Wars, they dug trenches to protect themselves
(03:39):
from the enemy, and it gave them a position to
attack and fire their weapons out of these trenches that
were dug. And then you advance and you dig another trench,
and you advance and dig another trench. And that's why
there's a shovel on this hat. And it's about advancing
and building, building some strongholds along the way, you know,
and training, you know, for whatever reason you're training for.
(04:04):
Right now, I'm training for my senior years in life
and enjoyment of my young daughters. But whatever you're training for,
I love the concept of trench warfare. So anyways, congrats
to Kyle for moving his business forward and me getting
a hat out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, I'm gonna I'm going to use this as an
opportunity to educate if you don't mind trench warfare. It's
two things from the business community. Number One, get in
there and get dirty, right, Yeah, you've got to get
blisters on your hand and dig the holes. But there's
something else involved there too, And it's tactical. Remember the
way they used to do warfare. They'd stand in lines
(04:44):
and they'd go out in an open field and just
start shooting at each other. Yeah, right out in the open.
But by the War of eighteen twelve, and I don't
know how many of you have ever gone to the
East coast Virginia especially, that's where I've seen him, the earthworks,
the battlement that they I mean, it has permanently changed
the landscape of our country and of Europe as well
(05:06):
from the trench warfare. But I want you to remember
that it was because we were being smarter. We were
still working. In fact, we worked harder because we were
working smarter.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So the lesson there is working smarter sometimes means you've
got to do harder work. Yeah, that's digging the trench
because that kept more people alive, and they were more
like snipers instead of standing out in the open like
hey shoot.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Me right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And the British even worse, you know, wearing red coats.
Yeah I can't see me. So that's that American spirit
right there, which we did learn from the Native Americans.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And by the way, this isn't a topic, but I'll
take a quick left turn that we did on our
weekly call the other night, and that was just talking
about I was using myself as a reference sometimes it
just feels better instead of poking at somebody else and
not having their approval to use them as a reference.
But you know, again, I've talked about this a few times.
(06:05):
Real estate being new to me. Just because I have
forty plus years in business doesn't mean I don't get
to start from the bottom again in something new, and
that I don't have to get in the trenches. You know.
They talk about, like in real estate, the number one
way to get businesses on knocking doors. Well, guess what
(06:26):
the last thing anybody wants to do knock on doors? Right,
And I knocked on a couple dozen doors the other
day because I wanted to understand what that Naw, what
that felt like. I knew he'd grow my business, so
I'm not going to ignore it. And I was, you know,
in the real estate world, I was in the trenches.
You know, yesterday's snowing here and I had an open
(06:46):
house schedule. Well, I had flyers out, I had advertisements out.
I'm not going to just cancel because it's snowing and
the conditions aren't great. Nope, I'm going to get in
the trenches. I'm going to put my signs out in
the blowing you know spring snow storm that we had yesterday,
of course suns out again today, and do what's required
of me to do a good job. Right, what the
(07:07):
expectations are from my customer base that saw the ad
that said, you know what, it might be crappy outside,
but I'm going to go see that house if it's open.
And there I was. Doors were open, and guess what
people showed up, you know. So I know, you know,
as you navigate your business life and your career and
(07:27):
your new aspirations and things that you're doing to grow
your business, we're never too good, are old, are experienced?
Are too far up that company ladder to get in
the trenches and do some work, you know, and you
might just appreciate it, you might just learn something, and
(07:49):
you may just inspire somebody else to do the same
thing and be the best that they can be. So
don't forget to get in the trenches. There you go.
See I'm using the hat for a lesson today. I
like it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, And that's the do the reps. You got to
do the reps right. You're not going to get better, stronger,
faster if you're not doing the reps well.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And by the way, that's exactly what I said to
my girls last night. They're like, how was your open house?
I know it was snowing, Was it good? I said, Well,
it doesn't matter if it was good or not. I
was putting in the time and the reps. I literally
use that because I love that metaphor. I was putting
in the reps so that when it is sunning out
and people are driving around looking for something to look at,
I'm there. I've done the reps. Now I know by
(08:32):
the way, I know exactly where to put my signs.
Now you know where I park to go get them
out on the highway, and you know where it's getting
traffic to come. So by doing the reps, I can
be more efficient the next time I go and do
the open house. You know. And these little observations might
sound silly, but if that saves me an extra five
or ten minutes because I know where the signs are
(08:53):
going to go, well I've got an extra five or
ten minutes to be prepared and open the doors early,
you know all these other things. I think that's where
people miss opportunities by not being prepared and doing the reps.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely. Yeah, great example.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, Well, I got a good topic for today and
it goes along. It's funny how this always happens exactly
with what we're talking about. And Royd, you and I
have talked about this before, maybe on the show, but
definitely in the in the young entrepreneurs community. And that
is the work that you're putting in today you will
see the results of in ninety days. And I am
(09:32):
such a firm believer in that because time and time
again I've seen the results, because that's really kind of
the cycle of business cycle, of opportunity cycle of putting
in the reps and seeing the benefits of that. And
you can look at a lot of deal structures and
typically they fall in line with about that ninety day mark.
(09:53):
And the reason why that's important is you know, whether
you're operating on a monthly quarterly you know, we're just
wrapping up the first quarter of the year. You know,
are the first third of the year, I should say
a little bit past the first quarter, and this is
a good time to look back at the goals that
you set for yourself this year, back as I suggested,
(10:16):
hopefully October November, and looking at your business plan, looking
at where you're at, look at what's happened, and then
you know the first three and three months and seventeen
days of the year and say, okay, am I aligned
am I doing what it takes to achieve success, and
am I hitting the mark on my goals financially, physically,
(10:39):
have I produced enough widgets whatever that looks like. Take
this time now to adjust if need be, or to
confirm you're on the right path. So literally, take out
your goals, take out your strategy, lay it out on
your desk, and go, Okay, where am I at today?
Pull the numbers and get that barometer out, because if
(11:01):
you're starting to veer off left. You know they talk
about the old the you know, the tanker ship, how
long it takes for it to turn right. You got
to start right two miles out at sea to make
a left by the time you get to the harbor
or whatever it is. You know, that's what happens. If
you're off the mark a little bit today, by the
end of the next ninety days, you're off a little
(11:22):
bit more, and by the end of the year you
could be off a whole lot. And so I want
you to take this opportunity to look at where you're
at today, realign or confirm what you're doing is right,
so that we can see those results again in another
ninety days as we progress throughout the year.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Makes sense, It makes absolute sense. In fact, I was
thinking about. Two things came to mind while you were talking, Jim,
and the first is we have been talking about this
since well we've been talking about it for years, but
in October we were pushing our Cochin group, you know,
to start looking ahead, right, yeah, and so that was October.
(12:05):
That's been what seven months ago? All right, It's it's
plenty of time in a society where we expect everything
right away. This is one of those hard lessons where
it's it's delayed gratification. But as a business person, as
(12:26):
a seasoned business person, I'm gonna I'm gonna change that
phrase around. Instead of delayed gratification, why don't we call
it delayed expectation, because it's it's an expectation that it's
not gonna come right now. It should be an expectation
that we're going to get what we put into it
down the road. Farmers know this, right, Ranchers know this.
(12:48):
You know, feeder cattle, you know you start as a calf,
but you've got to do the work. You gotta wait,
you know, a farmer, you got to plant the seed,
you got to you know, fertilizing and then harvest. You
you have to wait. And so it's an expectation. And
in our society, everyone wants right now, right now. Everyone's
in a hurry. They want it right now, and we
(13:10):
need to get away from that. We need to get
back to our roots, back to our nature. Right it's
our nature to have to work and wait. And when
we get away from that, that's when people start making mistakes.
That's when they start making bad decisions. That's when they
start going off track, that's when they start losing sight
(13:30):
of their goal. And so that was the first thing.
The second thing was checking in. You know, you set
that goal, but you have to check in off in it.
I don't I don't know if how many of our
listeners out there have done orienteering where you literally use
a map in a compass. But if you're going five
miles and you're out in the woods or in the jungle,
(13:52):
right you're going five miles, you take an asthmuth on
the map and you're saying, okay, we're going to walk,
you know, thirty seven degrees southeast for two miles and
then we'll hit a canyon and go. Another thing, if
you're walking through dense jungle, you have to check in
about every hundred paces and reshart that asthmth and and say,
(14:12):
am I really on track? Because if you don't and
you make it two miles down the road through the woods,
you could be off a quarter mile from your destination.
If you're supposed to meet somebody, if there's a pickup,
if there's a supply drop, you know, if there's a
cash of some sort, you're going to miss it if
you're not checking in on that end goal regularly, and
(14:37):
if you put it off, it will take you off course.
So that's a perfect illustration of checking in often. That's
why we take, you know, stock of our inventory. That's
why we keep data, why we track, you know, how
our programs are working, our social media, our ad purchases
and all that stuff. So again, a great, great topic,
(14:59):
great lesson to apply, but you have to apply it well.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
And I think to use your comparison. It's important. Right
if you're let's just say you have to meet somebody
at a specific time in the jungle, right, So you're
doing all the work and let's just say you know
you're checking it often and you realize, hey, I'm out
(15:25):
pacing the time, okay, and I can utilize that opportunity
to do more to preserve assets and resources. Right, maybe
in this case, maybe it's energy. Right, you're working through
the jungle, It's like, wow, i've been out pacing. You
(15:45):
learn this when you do marathon running. You know you
have your pace, your one mile pace, and you realize, hey,
if I stay at this pace, I'm going to fade
out at the end, i won't have any energy. Right,
So you know, you hear a lot of people talk about, well,
my race mile pace is eight fifteen. You know, they
could probably run a six minute mile, but they couldn't
do it for twenty six miles. So it's eight point
fifteen gets them to the finish line with enough energy.
(16:10):
And if you apply that to your business and your
finances and your structure, by checking in often, you know
what resources you have. You also know if there's an abundance,
and that abundance, in my example, the abundance of time. Okay,
so hey, you know what, I'm gonna sit here and
enjoy this waterfall in the middle of the jungle for
(16:30):
a few more minutes because I'm ahead of schedule. You know,
the terrain wasn't as tough as I thought, so I've
gained some time. Let me enjoy that, let me rest
so that I can be equally efficient on the last
half of this journey. That applies in business too, and
it also applies in the way of enjoyment and the
(16:51):
fruits of your labor, where you might say, hey, I'm
not only hitting my financial goal, I'm well above that,
and you know what, I want to take a week
and away and spend a little bit of money for
the fruits of my labor. And you'll know, hey, that's okay.
You are ahead of pace, you're ahead of your financial goals,
(17:12):
and it's okay to reward yourself because of that's where
you're at. If you have no idea where you're at,
you can be working yourself into a grave all the time,
having more than enough and you didn't know it because
you didn't check. Right, you know, you've created an abundance,
but because you didn't take the time to check, you're
(17:33):
working yourself into a grave and distancing yourself from your
family and you know, your friends and all these other
things because you didn't check. And so again, the importance
of the efforts that you're putting in today you're going
to see the results of in ninety days. But also
understanding exactly what your goals are and where you're at
on that map, we'll make a difference in your business. Rod,
(17:57):
I'll tell you what. It blows me away people in
sales that don't know their numbers and don't want to
look at their numbers first thing every morning. It's like,
why wouldn't you want to know is the machine working?
Or do I got to dial it in a little
bit more to see how it's going forward?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It just it baffled it. But yet every single day
I run into encounter somebody in my coaching We're like, yeah,
I don't know that number. I'm like, why not? It's
about numbers at the end of the days. You know,
most of the stuff's about numbers.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well especially and I know you were in the restaurant
business as well, food service, Oh yeah, and boy, if
you don't know your numbers there, I mean it's the
difference between, you know, staying in business and going out right.
I mean, you have to stay on it all the time.
You don't get to take breaks from the numbers, and
the numbers are your friend. I mean that's a lot
(18:51):
of people don't like that, right, But I like data,
you know, I even in the government government service.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I like data.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I want I want to see it, give me more information.
If you've already got the information, I want to see it.
I want to see it in a pipe chart. I
want to see it in a bar graph. I don't
care show it to many different ways. I want it color,
color marked. And it's amazing how it changes how you
perceive things, your perception of things. And the other thing
you know you talked about you might have extra time.
(19:20):
You also might need to speed up the schedule. Yeah right,
I mean it. Your numbers aren't just going to tell
you good stuff. Your numbers can tell you bad stuff.
It's a it's the best crystal ball you're going to
get is to be checking in with the numbers and
checking in often because that is really going to be
your future. And you said it before, what you did
(19:41):
in October, you're you know, getting the results of that,
the rewards of that right now.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So I'm going to touch on something before we wrap
up here, And I think it's important to understand this
about the conversations that Rod and I have about are
found elements in the young entrepreneurs community, and what that
is is that we put an emphasis on the soft skills.
We put an emphasis on the excellence in what we
(20:11):
do and in business, and by the way, excellence that
starts with you and me. You know, nobody's going to
do that for us. The strength is in what we're doing.
And so these discussions at times might seem a little
bit trivial, but that is the difference between excellence and
understanding the soft skills in business and finding the success
(20:34):
through that, as opposed to what many, if not most,
of what others are doing. And they're challenged to be
above the rest. They're challenged to hit their financial goals
or their personal goals, you know, the achievements that they
thought they were seeking in life, and they never hit it.
(20:54):
The difference, in my opinion, Rod, is what we're doing here,
and that's learning what the soft skills are are learning
how to create opportunity. And that's exactly what we're talking
about today, especially when you look at that compass, right,
is creating opportunity by knowing exactly where you're out on
the map to speed up, slow down, take advantage of
or not hitting the mark right on, hitting the time
(21:16):
right on, you know, all those things. A lot of
people just run it by the seat of their pants,
and we want to emphasize not doing that through the
skills that we're teaching here. So take note, hit rewind
if you need to re listen to some of the
things we talked about, because this will this will set
you apart, will set you apart from your competitor, from
(21:41):
the other you know, the guy next door, and if
nothing else, you will end on a happier note because
you've done all the things for all the right reasons,
and that touches on a whole bunch of other soft skills.
So those are kind of my closing thoughts, but I
just want to emphasize these are the soft skills that
aren't often taught.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Absolutely, So I'm gonna I'll end my note with a
quick a quick story, just because it's fresh in my
mind and I think people can listen to this and
learn from it. Maybe two quick stories. The first is
my wife received a gift certificate as a thank you
(22:21):
to a place like a spa place right that does
all kinds of different things, and so she said an
appointment to go do this and obviously you know it's
not just a gift certificate. She would tip and hopefully
they would get a customer out of it.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
She would go back and she had to reschedule the
appointment one time because she had a birth right. My
wife delivers babies, so that's not any one schedule. Yeah,
so she rescheduled it once and then the next time
that she had rescheduled disappointment and another lady went into
(22:57):
labor and so she wasn't able to reschedule that one
twenty four hours in advance. Now that's the policy, right,
Our policy is if you don't reschedule twenty four in advance,
you're getting charged. Well, she calls up and says, look,
I had disappointment. It's like eight hours in advance, right, said,
I had to call you. I have to you know, cancel,
(23:17):
And the lady says, well, we're going to have to
charge you. And she said, well are there. You know
I was at a birth. I couldn't be helped. You know,
I don't get to do this. Well, that's our policy,
that's our policy. Well, number one, she'll never go back.
They never got her in the door. She will never
go back, and they're not going to get a good referral.
And I want to emphasize this. Managers make managers follow
(23:43):
the rules, right, and they enforce the rules. Leaders make
exceptions to the rules. Sure, So a manager can be
a leader, right, they can be a leader. And so
I'm just I'm challenging people out there, take a look
at your policies and procedures and is there room for
(24:05):
changing course? You know, it looks good on a map,
but all of a sudden, there's there's a wash out
that wasn't there when they made the map. You have
to change course sometimes. Are you gonna go left, You're
gonna go right, You're gonna go around it, You're gonna
go over it, you're gonna go through it. What are
you gonna do? You need to empower your people to
make wise choices for the company's sake. Yeah, and and
(24:28):
back them up on that. And that's a soft skill,
knowing when you not to be taken advantage of, but
to know what is really important. And it's about people.
We say this over and over. It's about people.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
So and in common sense, you know, here's here's the thing.
Just to use your example, I would understand you know,
you're you're less than an hour a while out from
the apploytment, and you've got to cancel because of an emergency.
Maybe there is a fee because somebody had to come in.
But when you're given enough notice to change the day
(25:03):
and you know everybody else, sometimes common sense is you
know what life happens, right, it's across the board. Rod
and I would encourage I would encourage business owners are
entrepreneurs to push that envelope more towards common sense than
towards policies that can steer people away from the business. Right.
(25:26):
So I have a parting thought here and before I
do that, Hey, look, we would love to have you
in the Young Entrepreneur Syndicate if you're interested. It's ninety
nine dollars a month. We do four calls a month
talking about the soft skills exactly what we're talking about here.
We will help you be and have a compass for
your business on a regular basis, and we do allow
(25:47):
of time on every single call for people to have input,
have questions, and allow us to help solve their problems
while while we're in the group setting. And you've got
some incredible resources between Rod, myself and Rachel all sectors,
so you know, years and years of experience amongst the group.
So we'd love to have you otherwise, keep listening to
(26:07):
the show, share it with some friends. I'm behind having
one episode published, admittedly, which will probably go out today.
So I'm going to say this closing statement. We're going
into Easter weekend. If this gets published after Easter, I'm sorry,
but this, this statement still applies, and I want people
(26:28):
to hear it. And I read this last night, and
this morning I reread it, and I've sent it to
a few people. And not only does it apply towards
our personal lives. If you're a believer, it really applies.
If you're not a believer, maybe think about the concept
of what's being talked about here. But this also could
(26:48):
be a metaphor for business. And it's what I love
about it so much. And so here here's how it goes.
It's a short little thing, and I'll read it real,
you know. Briefly, there's a part of the Easter story
we often overlook, which is Saturday, the day after the Cross,
but before the resurrection, the day when everything felt silent
(27:09):
and it seemed like hope was gone. But just because
it felt hopeless didn't mean hope was gone. God was
still working while the disciples were weeping, while the world
thought death had won, God was preparing for resurrection, and
on the third day, Jesus rose. So if you're in
(27:31):
a season of waiting where God feels silent, if you're
praying and you don't see an answer, don't give up.
What feels like a silent Saturday may just be the
day before the resurrection. God is still working even when
you can't see it. Hope is still alive even when
(27:51):
it feels far away. And if Jesus conquered the grave,
there's no situation in your life too dead for him
to bring back to life. So hold on, keep praying,
keep trusting. Sunday is coming.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I love that. There you go, absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah. Thanks, thanks for listening to the show, and thank
you for your comments. And we look forward to doing
a lot more of this. I don't know about Rott, Well,
I do know about Rod. We love doing this. We
have been so blessed equally that if we can give
back just one little tidbit of wisdom from all the
dummy tacks that I paid enough for both of us,
(28:36):
hopefully to make your life a little bit better. So
thanks for tuning in. Rod. Good to talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Good to talk to you Jim as always, Hey everybody,
have a great week.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com