May 12, 2023 • 37 mins
In this episode, Aalia is joined by Aaron Michael Sanchez, author, talk show host and business strategist. Are you trying to figure out where to start when launching a business? Aalia and Aaron talk about the challenges and opportunities of starting one in a down economy, and how self-regulation, resilience and emotional intelligence are important qualities for entrepreneurs to possess. Aaron discusses his co-authored book "How to Start a Business in a Down Economy," sharing real-world advice and strategies.
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Stay connected with your host on IG: @aalia_unsugarcoated
Stay connected to our guest: @aaronmsanchez
UNSUGARCOATED™ Media is a 501c3 media enterprise, using podcasts, print publications, short documentaries, and more to tell stories of empowerment in the face of adversity and trauma. For more information on our goals, content, and sponsorship opportunities, please visit our website.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
From Ubian Studios. You're listening toUnsugarcoated with Aliya bringing you interviews with public
figures and inspirational people speaking on selfimprovement with empowering themes. And I'm your
host, ali Elaneus. Hello,Hello, Hello, and welcome back to
another episode of your favorite social goodtalk show podcast, All Things Social Good.
(00:21):
How are you today? I hopeyou're well and I hope that you're
excited to hear the conversation that we'regoing to have today. As always,
we are continuing our season theme ofemotional intelligence. It is specifically on the
aspect of entrepreneurship and business. Whatdo I know about business? Well,
let's see, I have been inbusiness and an entrepreneur since I was twenty
(00:43):
two years old. More importantly,I actually had a biological mother who was
a role model as an entrepreneur andowned her own business. So me being
nine years old and sitting in heroffice and proofreading her pamphlets and sitting in
the car when she would put flyersfor her business. We're so factful that
later on, when I grew upand I had a business of my own,
I was able to identify the principlesof success and also the principles of
(01:10):
not having success right, So thosedo exist. Like everything, there is
a recipe, there is a formula, and at the end of it,
you know, if you're baking acake, if you put the right ingredients
in, you're gonna have a fantasticcake. If you put the wrong ingredients,
probably not so much, and itmight just go in the garbage.
But we don't want that for youin your business. Many people know that
(01:30):
through the pandemic, we had ahuge surge in people what we called the
Great Resignation. So a lot ofpeople recognized, I value my life so
much that I don't think sitting inthe car two hours a day, three
hours a day, four hours aday to get to a job that doesn't
really pay me what I'm worth.Treat me the way I want to be
treated. I am going to exitand I'm going to build something on my
own because guess what, I knowhow to treat myself. Right. That's
(01:53):
our thinking. But as we've alsorecently seen, a lot of those people
have had to go back to workand it hasn't been that easy, because
you know it, it's not thateasy. There is a reason why a
good portion of people who start businesseswithin the first five years do not succeed
in that. And I want tosay that it's okay because not everything is
(02:15):
intended to stay in that process.Hopefully you fail forward, but we're going
to try and give you some tipstoday that are going to keep you from
doing that. And even right now, that's the other thing. I've owned
businesses in two of the past recessionsthat we've had, and if you're not
aware, we are in a recessionnow, so we have this down economy.
What about the people who are stillsaying I want to get into business
(02:38):
for myself? How do I dothat? What should I be looking for?
And that's what we're going to talkabout today. So with that,
we're also going to talk about,you know, as another important component of
the emotional intelligence aspect. We're goingto talk about self regulation and how that
is very much needed when we're talkingabout owning a business. And that's because
(03:00):
self regulation involves being able to controlimpulses and delay gratification as well as being
able to adapt to changing circumstances.In other words, a solutions oriented person.
Because genuinely, when you are inbusiness for yourself and things go wrong,
what's my saying. When shit hitsthe fan, it does not disperse
evenly. If you've been in business, you know what that means. You
(03:22):
know and furthermore, it's not justabout the nuts and bolts of starting a
business. In entrepreneurship, it requiresa deep understanding of emotional intelligence. People
operating from that level of understanding knowthat to truly connect with customers, employees,
and partners, you need empathy,self awareness, and a willingness to
(03:42):
adapt and change. Our guest issomeone who's been there. They've co written
a book that's packed full of practicaladvice, real world examples, and actionable
strategies for building a business from scratcheven when the economy is tough. Aaron
Michael Sanchez a host on ABC NewsRadio since twenty sixteen, where he hosts
the Morning Show every weekday at eightam. He's also an executive producer of
(04:08):
Hollywood Social Lounge. We're excited tohave Aaron join us today to discuss his
co authored book, How to Starta Business in a Down Economy and the
role of emotional intelligence in entrepreneurship.Let's welcome Aaron Michael Sanchez to the show.
Thanks for having me. I appreciateit. You know, A I'm
a huge fan for all those wondering, I'm a used fat ever since I
(04:30):
met you on our show to talkabout the book that you did, and
I remember that was kind of likepeople were like, oh my god,
I'm inspired. Oh my god.And then you took it next level.
I didn't know You're gonna have yourown show, and I'm like, okay,
I'm now a fan of you.So great job. And you know,
I saw a couple of episodes Isaid, oh my god, I'm
inspired. So if you haven't seenany of the other episodes, you gotta
go check it out. And Ifollow you on Instagram and I love that
(04:51):
you use the media that's there thateveryone you know, please share, please
tweet, please, you know,get it out there. Yeah, absolutely,
and thank you, hughe. Ifollow you as well. You're an
amazing person. You share your family, you share your heart, you share
your work, and honestly, it'sjust always great to be able to continue
working together and lift each other upand share what each other doing. So
(05:13):
when you were like, I wrotea book, I'm like, oh,
yeah, there we go. Well, people don't know when I had another
show I produced it with Jesse Torres, who's the author, and he and
I we were talking about it,and he says, hey, we should
do a book. And then wehad my mother and the because we're at
a studio right near what Marvel isnow, next to a place where Cameron
actually shoots over in Manhattan Beach andit never happened. And I'm like,
(05:39):
and then years later, you know, life hits, as you say,
and then and then I said,you know what, let's put this out
there. Cornavirus hit. People arenot making sense. People are closing.
You know, Starbucks close at threeo'clock when we were actually proofing this.
He tweeted out, got a lotof light response. But I'm like,
what Starbucks closed the inside at threeo'clock and expects to stay open years later?
(06:00):
There are businesses not making sense?Right, Absolutely, I agree with
you, and I'm thankful that youwere so inspired to then put out a
tool for other people to at leasthave another resource, which we need,
right because as I said, youknow, it's not easy to start a
business. Tell us a little bitabout your background and experience in starting businesses.
So we come from the strategy partof it, but what we also
(06:25):
come from is hey, how dowe get you there? Kind of like
a lot of people are kind ofrevamping things like Brian Tracy and other ones
would say, help us, helpyou with your business so that you can
go far and along. But thisbook is a series of eight The first
ones really mean to get everyone togo, okay, I want to do
it now and versus like later,because we have so many people give you
(06:46):
an example, they go, oh, I wrote a script or oh I
want to do a film, Butit's always the I want to And then
years later you meet up with themand you go, so did you do
it? They go no, andyou go, so, how do you
do it now? So it's veryit's what would say, well, it's
not real big, you know,I go, you don't want big,
You want to the point, getit done, get in your head,
move on, go love that.That's your inspiration, wanting to help people.
(07:09):
What do you hope to be themain things? The main thing readers
take from it. Honestly, atthe end they say, I want to
start a business. It's very simplebecause there's a lot of people that don't
understand how to get a loan.Back to what you're saying, how to
qualify for a loan, and thenthey hear the big l where do they
go forget it? I'm not readyAnd I go no, no, you
have people do that for you.And they go, well, I don't
(07:29):
have any money to start up.I go, well, then just start
a little. That's the first threechapters. Save three thousand dollars. If
you can save three thousand dollars,you're good to go. Do it.
But make a sale. Don't doall the production, all the you know,
you got to make a sale toprove to an investor when he meets
you or she meets you, ora conglomerate of investors, or money that
you want to get from family.You could say, I ra sold this
(07:51):
amount. Make a sale within yourfirst three months of whatever product, service,
and our speciality as we put it, and then you'll be able to
prove to someone and yourself, butmainly to someone else because they're very results
driven. If you have an idea, it's a great idea. But if
you have sales like Shark Tank.Everybody love shark Tank, right, but
they go, how many sales doyou have? They say, what did
you do? They go, greatidea, but what are your net profits.
(08:16):
You hit on something that's very key. Is there a demand for your
product or service in the current market? Right, Like, that's I think
sometimes the biggest to your point.Yes, a lot of people come with
me that like, I've got thisgreat idea. It should just you know,
especially because we deal a lot withmore film and TV. It's like,
I've got this script, It's thebest script in the whole world.
It needs to be out. Buthow do you qualify that? Right?
(08:37):
So, in your experience, whenyou have somebody who's saying, okay,
is there a demand for this product, how do they really qualify that?
How do they make sure that whatthey have available something people want by a
sale. Back to what you justsaid, you have that little and I
don't know if you saw it,you'll probably see it like later, would
you watch it? That little andyou did that thing that people go,
yeah, but they want to benice about it. But it's a little
(08:58):
so thing that you go, no, they love it. They said it,
but did they mean it? Andwe talk about that in the book.
We say, don't trust the peoplearound you because they are they're the
worst ones to tell you the truth. And if they tell you the truth,
you might get discouraged. So goto somebody else who doesn't know you,
who's not going to steal your idea, and ask them what they think
of your product, service, orspecialty. That's how you qualified first for
(09:20):
you. Now, a lot ofpeople go, yeah, but everybody loves
my product. But will they buyit? That's the next thing. If
you say okay, it's now,and you say it's affordable, but you
say, this is how much itis. Do you want one? If
they say yes now, or theydo it for a multitude of things,
to be nice to you, tothrow you away, to say get out
of your kid, or to sayan essence you know, I like it
(09:41):
and I can use it whatever itis. But you got to get your
first sale. Now. You don'tspend that money. You put it in
the bank and you say okay,that is a sale made. Now you
make more sales on that, andyou know who your target is at some
point, but you gotta ask itlike at least a minimum I say always
of at least eight to twelve people, maybe e team, maybe twenty.
But get over your first hump.Get it to people that are not going
(10:03):
to steal your idea, that don'thave money. That's number one. Take
it to a waitress, take itto someone that you you know, maybe
you're at the store and you go, hey, you pull it out,
you go what do you think ofthis? And they honestly will be like
huh, because they're always seeking ofsomething. Right. Everybody has an idea
and then somebody goes, wait,I have the same idea. Awesome,
you know, but inspire and thenget your sale. You have to get
the sale. If you get thesale, you can proved to investors once
(10:26):
you get thirty sales, forty salesor more. But I say start with
at least thirty sales. Then yougo to the next level. Ma,
pa, can I get some money? Because look, I sold this.
If you just have an idea withoutany sale, there's no proof. And
that's how you know. Even bigguys say, yeah, that's what we
want to see. We just wantto see it was sold, that there's
a market for it and there arepeople that want to buy it. You
(10:46):
know, competitive advantage finding something thatmakes you stand out, right, Because
for example, I used to bea licensee with metro PCs. For those
of my audience who have forgotten,I was one of the original dealers.
The first ten dealers that were allowedto launch on the LA market with Metro
PCs. I was one of them. Do speak, by the way,
can I just say that? Soyou're a seller of Metro PCs. So
(11:09):
you had a store I could goin, Okay, so I could go
in and I could buy something.I have to go and make a payment
every single time, but you couldpay it on the contract. But it's
month to month. So I don'tknow where they're at now, but you
were, you know, you madeSee that's where I say, and I
always say, if you have onestore, have another store, have no
store, have an no store.But I haven't managed by good people.
(11:31):
Sure, and they to have theirown store with your brand, right right,
because you were under their little likeyou know, whatever they do,
you have to do well you know, no, yeah, well, and
I think that for every person.So it was interesting because everyone had a
certain flexibility in the way you marketedyour products with Metro. We you know,
ethically, you're not supposed to changethe prices. We never did because
(11:52):
we wanted to always be seen asnot somebody just focused on making a dollar
off of our client right there,Because actually we didn't have contracts. There
was no track, so what wemade and any transaction was simply off the
point of sale. Right, ButI would often take less on that point
of sale to show people this wasn'tabout money. This is about longevity,
and this is about you coming backwith your THEO, your grandma, your
(12:16):
cousin and being like, this isa store you need to buy a phone
from. Right that long term,and I remember being very creative in marketing
because I recognize, to your point, psychology matters when you can qualify something.
So there's the competitive advantage of myproduct or service can save you money
X amount of dollars. Right again, to the point I had that Metro
(12:37):
during the two thousand and eight andtwo two thousand and two financial crisis,
right, there's a reason why ourbusiness flourished because people wanted to save money
from Verizon trands were over. Sowhile people were making jokes about Metro piece
Shi T we were laughing all theway to the bank. And I'm not
trying to be funny, that's justreally what happened. So and they can
(12:58):
still happen, but now so manyprices Right now, back to something that
you're saying, and I say thisto say prices are outrageous. Everybody's using
the eye word. I say,stop using that word, because it's not
normal. We're going back to thedays. And you mentioned it, and
I'm glad you said it in thebook. I say this, but I
said it at a time when itwasn't popular. In two twenty, I
said, we're in a recession.You guys don't get it. But people
are like, no, no,no, and then you see one's great,
(13:20):
no, no, no, becausethey don't want to admit it.
But we were already in recession basedon twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty
twenty. Then coronavirus pushed it solike in a direction that everyone was like,
oh no, and we're still dealingwith that. We're still dealing with
hostiles, were still dealing with,you know, and we're still dealing with
bills of people that did recover.You know, people aren't talking about that.
We're dealing for closures. So banksare like, hey, we get
(13:41):
to recover that of meaning that they'regoing to for close on you. Because
now that's all over, people areraising rent, the raising funds and the
rais raising. Banks are now goingwhat are we going to do? Because
you have a huge fall out therewhen Wall Street crashed in nineteen thirties.
It really started in the nineteen twenties, but then they had a fall out
then the Great Depression. When theGreat Depression happ it, that's what we're
at today. And if you understandwhere at that today, you understand there
(14:05):
was a lot of business that isnow alive now which started in the recession
and in the depression with people thatsave their money and are made smart.
Kind of like just ideas, buthave it sold, have somebody by it,
but by But back to your ideaabout metro PCs, I love it
because there's a market for that atcheap price. Because I can tell you
right now, Verizon, you guysgot to come back down. We're paying
(14:26):
like three hundred dollars on a planof just like three devices, and I'm
like, how did that happen?Overnight? People are paying more and they're
not calling it out, and peoplegoing, well, government, you're gonna
do anything. But at the endof the day, you could control you
spend a little invest it, savethree thousand dollars, do your own business,
but make sure it sales. Makesure your product sales. Period in
the story and if you have aservice even better because of service, if
(14:50):
you understand, hey, people needthis. If people you know want your
service and they're gonna pay you,have them pay you at the front,
not like, oh, write mea check later because people renake on that,
but have them do it at thebeginning. That way, you could
prove to a investor when you wantto go big or you want to start
hiring people. And that's really whatalone entails, and entails what they call
it the big BP word, whichpeople hate business plan because people don't want
(15:11):
to get, you know, allthat down. There's plans like this,
but you got to make it simplefor the person that goes do I just
have an idea. I don't wantall the you know, because nobody likes
writing, nobody likes reading, nobodylikes you know, So you've got to
get the people that can help youand the tools. I mean, look,
chaty BT hate to throw that outthere again, but I think for
people who do struggle, not thatthey are not capable, I want to
make this clear, but who aren'tbandwidth right like me. I mean,
(15:35):
if you're a parent and you've gotkids and then you're you know, and
you sit down, you know,like and to your point, Oh my
god, I'm exhausted to think ofhow I'm going to write this business plan
out. You know what can Ihelp you? It's boring to the people
that know it, like you,you're a professional, you know it,
and the big money they know it, have that ready to go. But
to the person that's like a likethe little kid who's eleven or twelve,
(15:56):
I have to do a business planlike you know, her mother helped her
or somebody helped them. But toa teen who's like even to like the
mid twenties and thirties are like,forget it, I'm done. You know.
They give up so easy. AndI've seen this. So you gotta
be like all right with that andsay, okay, I can help you
because you have a good idea.I'm not going to steal it because I
(16:17):
get a little weird about that.And then you say, okay, this
is what you need, here,here, and here. Just answer these
three questions and you're good to go. And at the end of the book
it actually has a few of thosequestions and it's very simple. But that's
what every big bank actually asks.They just ask it the wrong way.
Sure. So when it comes toentrepreneurs building resilience and adaptability in the face
(16:38):
of economic challenges, what do yourecommend? Oh? Perfect, okay,
we talk about don't do Okay.There's this thing some people know and some
people don't. I want to discourageanyone, but they say, every business
a certain percentage will fail within acertain amount of years. Yeah, okay,
get that out of your head.That's number one. You don't want
to fail off yours. But Isay, prepare, not for like the
(16:59):
three years plan, prepared for thehundred year plan. If you're prepared for
the hundred year plan, you'll makesense. In other words, think of
several of the companies that you knowthat you buy. They've probably been in
business anywhere from thirty to forty tofifty to maybe over one hundred years.
There's very few that one hundred yearsthat brand that. But the easiest one
is always something you drink, thinkof that and then say, okay,
(17:22):
how did they start? And yougo, but they're so big, I
can't be that. You can beeventually, but you've got to lay the
groundwork. So back to what you'resaying, resilience. You create resilience by
making it affordable for the common.That's number one. Some people have high
products, right, we see thingsat CS, We see things all the
time that we go, that's agreat idea. How much is it?
They go, oh, it's andyou go, huh, you know,
(17:44):
three hundred bucks for something that yougo that's more like a thirty dollars item,
I'm not going to buy that,and you kind of walk away.
There's no resilience there. It's anitem that someone will buy at three hundred,
but the majority knows. So youbuild resilience by selling to the common.
Then you could have a probably that'sthree hundred bucks to the elite,
as you would say, or thepeople that have that money that have it
(18:06):
as expendable. Right now, alot of people don't have an expendable especially
for like a massager, right thatcould be a thirty dollars item. My
point is this, people right now, the way you create resilience is sell
a product. Minimum have several differentproducts that three hundred dollars items should have
a thirty dollars item as well.Maybe not all the you know that it
has the three hundred, but atthe thirty they can get the majority of
(18:29):
people. Now because people do nothave that three hundred to spend you know
earbuds, right, I love earbuds. I bought a seventy dollars item versus
a three hundred dollars item. Whybecause I can spend that somewhere else.
Right, even very rich money arevery cheap on that. Oh my godness,
you wait, you say something thatmakes me as a business person,
this is one of my mantras.I save money where I can, so
(18:52):
I can spend money where I wantto love it. And to your point,
like even LV Louis Baton, theyhave like that ultra ultra line that
you know, most people can't afford, and then like the regular stuff that
the regular Louistan will still say itis. But I mean they're putting out
a very euro yes, but they'reeven they do that to your point,
like even the big companies. Youthink, no, they're not doing that,
but that's they are. They areand the reason for is because of
(19:15):
course they're developing something that can withstandthe test of time and different economic time
period things. Well, you know, I want to stress this. Although
we use the R word and weuse the EYE word, and we use
you know, recession inflation at thesame time we use the depression where I'm
sure that's coming up soon. Um, we use the bubble word, you
know, we use all those words. There still is a way to recover.
(19:37):
And that's why I say invest whenit's low A people will negotiate.
Some people they don't whatever, youlet them go. But people need to
fill up spaces. How many placeshave we seen are empty? Right for
a place coronavirus. That's an opportunity. That's opportunity. You say, look,
if you're not writing it out andif they run out, fine,
but you say, look, i'llrun it at this price. This I
can do, you know, butthen you to see it through, meaning
(20:00):
you gotta be there. I sawone plays it was just a card place
and they saw like Pokemon to kidsand stuff, and I say, okay,
but be there all the time.Recently and I went by there and
I saw kind of the right onthe wall. You know, it's a
husband wife team. But I sawa behavior that was like I'm right,
you're wrong, and I'm like,man, you're gonna fail. And then
instead of hiring an employee, heclosed at the worst hour possible on a
(20:22):
Saturday, when he could have likepeople buy. You never want to be
closed as a business. How areyou going to pay the rent? How
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. It's
funny. Actually, when one ofmy stores used to be in this Santa
Ana main place, small shout outSanta Anna, and if I was a
minute late, I paid a fee. I paid a fine, like it
was like two hundred and fifty dollars. And I mean, I remember one
time one of my employees was,like, I left my keys at home,
(20:45):
I flew from Huntington Beach to SantaAnna and like ten minutes walk in,
Like I had to make sure thatthat store was open. But to
your point, I understand that itwas the reason why the mall did that.
You don't want to be closed onceyou're allegedly supposed to be open for
business. Secondary to that, somethingthat you brought up, and I think
is very important is people need tounderstand that they can't advocate for themselves.
(21:07):
They go to look at a spotthere, maybe they're offering it for something.
A lot of people don't realize commercialat least when I used to rent
commercial spaces, for every year thatI had a lease, I got a
month free of rent right. Socommercial space leasing is different from traditional residential
and I don't think people go inand say and I think that's what it's
(21:27):
going to take for people to say, no, I know that your space
is empty. Maybe they want acceptyour terms, but guess what, that's
okay because there could be another placeout there. I recently got an office
and I looked at one place inBeverly Hills. It was cool, wasn't
actually the budget that I wanted,but I was willing to spend a little
bit more proximity to home. YadAYadA, and then the guy like ghosted
(21:48):
me. Right because there was acouple of things I had had issues on,
I let it go boom. Withintwo weeks, I found another office
that was within my budget, everythingI wanted, still close to home.
But I didn't settle or put myselfin a predicament that I didn't want to
be because the terms were not agreeableto me. And if people don't understand
that, one of the characters,especially to build that resilience as an entrepreneur
(22:11):
is understanding you got to advocate foryourself and your business and be reasonable and
realistic about your initial expenses and whatit's going to take to get it going.
And that's why those first three monthswere always so or whatever. Like
if I signed a three year lease, then those three months meant everything for
me, because I mean I couldget everyone in there, start making money
going well. And there's this newthing we have. Somebody on the show
(22:33):
talk about pop up show. Nowit's a huge thing. Everybody does it,
But I say, why not do? And I love how you just
threw it out there. A threemonth, a six month, a nine
month, get them in there,get them pain. At least you pay
your rent because a lot of peoplethat have those stores have to pay on
it. They may have forgotten that, I think sometimes and I think that's
what's happening in you know, andit's completely different, but it's not what
(22:56):
you have to understands. People aregonna move in together, Okay, people
are going to con their money.It's going to happen. You know.
People make fun of the guy livingat home with his mother, but they're
going to be a lot of peoplemoving in with their parents because they can
conserve. For parents are going toneed help at some point. They may
be in a hospital, they havea bill. But it's all cyclical.
And here's what I mean by that. You have an employee, your employee
gets sick, do you pay forhim or do you hire someone else?
(23:21):
Or do you fire him? Whatdo you do? If you're going to
build resilience, you make it okayfor him, but you got to have
a backup plan because you stepped inwhen you you know, but other people
will. And this is why Isay some players are really lazy. So
there's a way to hire a goodperson from the beginning, but then mold
them to be eventually. Some arenot for it, but they could be
(23:42):
a manager. And then if they'reamagic, you can say, hey,
I can have you have a storeof your own at some point. You
know, you could have those people. And so they level up at some
point because they have to pay theirrent, they have to pay their family
stuff, they have to pay.So it's all cycle. That's how economy
can rebound if you understand. Andyou gotta make it affordable from the beginning.
(24:02):
But some people are saying, theproduct, the service speciality that I
get my stuff from is high.How do I get my profit? And
I say this, negotiate and ifthat doesn't work, go somewhere else.
But find someone just what you did. A lot of these things start in
a truck. How do you geta truck to a big conglomerate. Eventually
your franchise, right, franchise word. Some people don't like it. I
(24:25):
say like it because you can makeit happen. You just have to have
certain parameters. But you're not thereat the beginning. But if you want
to be a part of franchise andsay okay, back to regulation, they
will find you. They want youopen because you have their name, not
your own name, not your ownproduct. So I say, if you
did that once, you could dothat again, but probably do it with
a different service. So you wantto hear a real life story from me
when it comes franchises. So I'vebeen a franchise before. Well, this
(24:48):
is actually with my ex husband.We were when we got together. It
was the Domino's pizza and ironically enoughso our Domino's pizzas were up in the
Bay Area in Silicon Valley right inRedwood City, Oracle was ordering three hundred
pizzas a week for their parties.This was during the dot com bloom Right
school system was ordering all the pizzasand there was no energy crisis at this
(25:12):
time. This is two thousand andtwo, This is two thousand and one
and two thousand and so then allof a sudden energy crisis started dot com
bubble burst. Now you didn't haveOracles spending on all these parties. In
fact, you had Oracle execs inmultimillion houses bouncing checks for a seventeen dollars
(25:32):
pizza. Right, You're like,I'm like yeah. And then on top
of it, and then then theycame in with Healthy Eating took away our
school sales. And then competition.We had Papa John's and you know the
Peninsula, it's very so it's isolated. So again when you're assessing all these
different things as business, and especiallyif it's got a location. So we
(25:53):
lost hard, and then Dominos camein and said, I want to go
back to that. You lost hardbecause of what because of multiple factors?
Multiple factors. Well, it wasmainly people not paying their bill. Well,
definitely people not paying their bill,you know, and reneging on that,
yeah, and renegging or just thesales stopped. Now I didn't have
a demand for the product because theywent belly Ye remember that tech bubble,
(26:17):
Yes, it sure did. Butthen people rebounded several years later because all
those websites began next level right right, Well, you know, it was
just the IPEO thing, and wepivoted. That's when we ended up going
into Metro. So we went outof the franchise. You went into the
licensee you know, Ski model andyou know, and started with one store
and built them sequentially. And Ithink that one of the things that you
(26:40):
hit on a little bit, butI kind of want to expand on.
You know, it's a very importantnot only the what I said, advocating,
but definitely negotiating. When I sayadvocating, to me, that's negotiating
people because to me, I'm negotiatingfor myself, for my business and so
but people often forget to fail outor excuse me, people will forget to
seek out support from others, mentorsor advisors. They can actually help them
(27:06):
stay on track and maintain a positiveoutlook, which is something I think you
really got to have if you're goingto get into business for yourself. You
have to know how to have apositive even when everything is going wrong.
You have to be able to sayit could be worse, let's figure it
out, right, how do yousee the benefit of people seeking out mentors
(27:26):
and advisors during the process of startingtheir business in a down economy. Got
it, Okay, yes, yes, yes, yes, man. You
should wait for the probably like theother book coming because I say this,
some mentors will turn into your competitors, and some investors will turn your competites.
Specially right now, people are verydestored right now. I don't know
if people understand that they used tonot be. Right back in two thousand,
twenty ten and right before twenty twentyhappened, people were very sharing.
(27:52):
Okay, and I know this,but I've had so many of my ideas
taken by people I used to trust, and I'm like, okay, that's
interesting. So I tell the personthat's out there, I say, look
for someone that may sense that awill help you along the way, but
have something ready to go so thatif like, okay, a lot of
people do confidentiality stuff. Right.Film it's a huge thing because perfect example,
(28:15):
how many times have we seen afilm? Right? It's very simple,
but everybody knows this, and yousee a bunch of them all at
the same time from all different studios. What happened. Somebody made a pitch,
somebody said, eh, right,and now they're all getting sued because
they're like, you stole my idea. You just had it, re right,
I have that with the screen rightnow. Almost got shown with somebody
in Europe, and they could havedone in Europe and I wouldn't have known
about it. But you know,you know, somebody talks to somebody and
(28:37):
then you figure it out. Mypoint is this, you find people that
you could trust. Sometimes you don'tknow who you could trust, so then
you have something ready to go becausethey may become your competitor at some point.
They may want your idea. Theymay come in as a vestor,
but they have like eighty other businessesand then they funnel your idea to someone
else without you knowing, and yougo, wait, why is it big
in like EU? Owe? WhenI want to now branch out to Europe?
(28:57):
Because now eight years later, eightor twelve years later, when you're
ready to go, you're like,oh, it's already there. Louis Bhutan,
Gucci. There was a huge moviewith Love Lady Gaga and that saw
that, and there was this wholething happening, and people that thought they
were in it long term were notbecause it got sold out from under them,
I say, don't do business withthe mob because they'll steal stuff from
(29:17):
me or whatever. And they'll tellyou to do it that way. But
the point is, and that's wheremoney comes from, so be careful where
the money comes from. But Ido the opposite of what people say,
and they say, well, thenyou're not a teampire. I go,
yeah, but you guys steal theideas. If you could prove you never
steal the idea of anyone, thenI say, okay, yeah, if
you watch the movie I'm already totalking about it, but it's called I
can never remember the name of it. But Jennifer Lawrence in that movie they
(29:41):
written Egg. They give her themoney at the beginning, but they rid
nigg so she's like, what doI do? And then she went in
business for herself. She helped abunch of other business is based on a
real story, by the way,really good her. And what's his name?
She voiced those movies with him?Oh god, he's the voice of
Rack anyway, Bradley Cooper. BradleyCooper, he's in that if you you
know, they make a great duo. But he helps her along the way,
(30:03):
but he becomes competitor becomes a competitorof him. It's a perfect example
of how you may respect them atthe beginning and they say this word.
At the end they go, nospoiler, but you know, well that's
just business, right, So Isay this, be careful because when you're
doing business, just like films,just like other you gotta be careful of
who may take your idea at somepoint. And then you go, well,
I might trust anybody. I saybear to that and watch your back
(30:26):
because if you're creating a hundred yearthing, will they be in business one
hundred years with you? Would hopeso, but doesn't mean it's going to
happen. It's interesting because you know, look, some people might say,
well that's being very very like overdramatic, but you know you're right, it's
not. When I think about EdShah songwriters, now they have to ed
sharing one illegal case where they weresomebody said you took my song and he
(30:48):
had to prove that it was hissong. Now he says, every time
he writes a song, he actuallyrecords it so that he can show proof
this was an original idea, Thiswasn't something I took from someone else.
And unfortunately, you do have toI often recommend not so much. India's
Indias are very popular. People thinkIndias, but I've never met an attorney
who has pursued a legal case overan Ndia. A non circumvent is something
(31:12):
that I'm keen on having available tome so that if I'm sharing a business
idea of somebody, they cannot goand produce it, or it lessens the
chance you're creating a barrier there forthem to go and just take your idea
and run with it, or evencircumvent you in. You know, as
producers were introducing people, then theycut you out. So if you don't
want to be cut out, youknow, non circumvent, genuinely non circumvent.
(31:36):
And with business, when you're dealingwith high net investors and you're making
these introductions, I know differently thanyou hear of celebrities that will have you
sign certain documents just to hang outwith them, certain people with certain certain
people with you know, networks thatthey have to protect. Yeah, if
somebody comes to me and I'm aperson of integrity and thank you for saying
(31:56):
that, no, I don't,it's stuck a pre nup, right like
people don't have any if you don'thave. If you're smart, you know
a prenup is a smart thing.If you don't want to do it,
that's fine, But you shouldn't shameanyone for having a prenup. And for
me, it's a little bit ofthat planning for the divorce when you're in
the honeymoon phase. So if Imeet somebody and we jel, okay,
that's great. But like you said, things can change. Money changes people.
And I agree with you as youhave. I'm sure I feel get
(32:21):
a book you'll see, but thereality is that's proof. But don't get
screwed in the first place. Sure, sure you know, protect yourself.
And that's what I say, especiallynow, people are desperate. If they
were not desperate, okay, andpeople go they're not desperate, yes,
Tech recession inflation the reason. Andif you don't know the news about business
(32:44):
right now, business is really reallyin a weird situation, which I say,
go ahead and get your idea donenow because it makes sense because they're
going to look for that eventually becausea lot of big businesses are failing.
I'll give you an example. AMCdid the stupidest thing they said in essence,
okay, and at a time wherethey need people to go back to
the theaters. It's like they forgotright now they're charging more for a seat
(33:07):
that you sit at. One ofthe other comparators said, yeah, dumb,
and they said, come to ourplace, Hawkings. I think shout
out to Hawkings, which said,you know, and that's where you have
certain business ideas done really like justand you have CEOs ago. No,
that's a good idea. We canmake more money on that. You made
money on liquor sales. I getthat. And if you bought liquor at
a AMC, you made money.That's when they made sense. I meant
(33:27):
some at that produced by conference,and they made sense. Then they said
this is our profit because we chargethis and people will pay it because you're
you're stuck. You can't take inyour own you know. I'm sure some
people do now because honestly, peopletaking that in. But the point is
there's going to be a lot ofbusiness making what I say, ridiculous ideas.
That's probably the best way of sayingthat, or ideas that just you
(33:49):
go, what, but you gowhy you guys became greedy rather than just
make it affordable, make it fun, and those companies that do that will
be way ahead. Do you thinkemotional intelligence can help businesses not just survive
but thrive during economic downturns? Beintelligent and don't be emotional. Um,
(34:10):
I mean, to some extent,be intelligent, don't be emotion take the
emotion out of it, and conductbusiness that's actually quite spawn. I know
what you mean, because you wantto be emotional intelligent about certain things with
people. But even people hate thistechnology word. You say that. They
go, oh, I don't bemarketed. You forget I've had carmis easy.
Later I go, oh, mygod, I'm trying to help you
(34:30):
not you know. I think atthe end of the day, be emotional,
but in a way like when youhave money, be emotional to not
walk away from your business. Somany people become so emotional and they spend
it, and then when their businessneeds something, they don't spend it.
Okay, I come from something big. Shout out to radio. This doesn't
(34:53):
happen, but a lot of radioOkay, I've seen behind the scenes is
a certain thing. Like at somepoint meaning people go, oh, that's
old school mentality, go no,they just did it like forties, fifties,
sixties, seventies and eighties. Somepeople go, we don't listen to
anymore, Like what do I mean? You have an antenna? But they've
adapted. Some have adapted, somenot, and some got brought up like
(35:15):
iHeartRadio. They really can't a lotof people. But I say, well
that's technology, right. But ina way, are they emotion intelligent?
Yes, they know what people want, but they got to remember what the
kids want. So if you're goingto be emotion intelligent, don't be emotion
intelligent at your age and what yougrew up with. Be emotionally intelligent with
the little kids that watch things onYouTube, watch things on they don't have
(35:37):
Facebook, but if they would havemos like little thing they're scrolling right,
don't think they're not find out whatthey watch. Find out what the teens
watch. Because I'll give you example. My cousin younger than me was the
team at the time Snapchat before Snapchatbecame big, and I said, what's
that? She goes, oh,no one sees it. I go,
somebody's gonna see if they just haveanother camera, they just take a picture.
Right, But anyway, and thatbecame big overnight and I'm like,
(35:58):
whoa. And then they got alot of investors. You gotta go where
the kids are at find what theylike. Then that'll help you with your
emotional intelligence long term versus short term. Where can people get your book Barnes
Noble dot com okay, perfect?And where can people follow you for listening
and our video or visual audience?Where can they support you? Follow you
stay connected everywhere? Arion am Sanchez. I mean on Instagram, Facebook and
(36:19):
Twitter. I love it. Ilove it. Well, thank you so
much for being here today. It'sgoing to to see you and collaborate again.
Yeah, by the way, yeah, and we'll continue it next time.
All right, all right, thankyou so much. So business,
it's a big conversation. There's alot of information that just came at you.
But I hope that you see thevalue in it. I hope that
you felt the value it and honestly, you know a lot of what we
(36:40):
talked about, the self regulation,the emotional intelligence, and just the experiences
by focusing on those as an entrepreneur, being resilient and it will ultimately increase
your chances of success despite the challengesof a down economy. Thank you how
much for being with us today.I cannot wait for the next episode.
(37:04):
Once again, thank you so muchfor letting us be unsugarcoated.
From Ubian Studios. You're listening toUnsugarcoated with Aliya bringing you interviews with public
figures and inspirational people speaking on selfimprovement with empowering themes. And I'm your
host, ali Elaneus. Hello,Hello, Hello, and welcome back to
another episode of your favorite social goodtalk show podcast, All Things Social Good.
(00:21):
How are you today? I hopeyou're well and I hope that you're
excited to hear the conversation that we'regoing to have today. As always,
we are continuing our season theme ofemotional intelligence. It is specifically on the
aspect of entrepreneurship and business. Whatdo I know about business? Well,
let's see, I have been inbusiness and an entrepreneur since I was twenty
(00:43):
two years old. More importantly,I actually had a biological mother who was
a role model as an entrepreneur andowned her own business. So me being
nine years old and sitting in heroffice and proofreading her pamphlets and sitting in
the car when she would put flyersfor her business. We're so factful that
later on, when I grew upand I had a business of my own,
I was able to identify the principlesof success and also the principles of
(01:10):
not having success right, So thosedo exist. Like everything, there is
a recipe, there is a formula, and at the end of it,
you know, if you're baking acake, if you put the right ingredients
in, you're gonna have a fantasticcake. If you put the wrong ingredients,
probably not so much, and itmight just go in the garbage.
But we don't want that for youin your business. Many people know that
(01:30):
through the pandemic, we had ahuge surge in people what we called the
Great Resignation. So a lot ofpeople recognized, I value my life so
much that I don't think sitting inthe car two hours a day, three
hours a day, four hours aday to get to a job that doesn't
really pay me what I'm worth.Treat me the way I want to be
treated. I am going to exitand I'm going to build something on my
own because guess what, I knowhow to treat myself. Right. That's
(01:53):
our thinking. But as we've alsorecently seen, a lot of those people
have had to go back to workand it hasn't been that easy, because
you know it, it's not thateasy. There is a reason why a
good portion of people who start businesseswithin the first five years do not succeed
in that. And I want tosay that it's okay because not everything is
(02:15):
intended to stay in that process.Hopefully you fail forward, but we're going
to try and give you some tipstoday that are going to keep you from
doing that. And even right now, that's the other thing. I've owned
businesses in two of the past recessionsthat we've had, and if you're not
aware, we are in a recessionnow, so we have this down economy.
What about the people who are stillsaying I want to get into business
(02:38):
for myself? How do I dothat? What should I be looking for?
And that's what we're going to talkabout today. So with that,
we're also going to talk about,you know, as another important component of
the emotional intelligence aspect. We're goingto talk about self regulation and how that
is very much needed when we're talkingabout owning a business. And that's because
(03:00):
self regulation involves being able to controlimpulses and delay gratification as well as being
able to adapt to changing circumstances.In other words, a solutions oriented person.
Because genuinely, when you are inbusiness for yourself and things go wrong,
what's my saying. When shit hitsthe fan, it does not disperse
evenly. If you've been in business, you know what that means. You
(03:22):
know and furthermore, it's not justabout the nuts and bolts of starting a
business. In entrepreneurship, it requiresa deep understanding of emotional intelligence. People
operating from that level of understanding knowthat to truly connect with customers, employees,
and partners, you need empathy,self awareness, and a willingness to
(03:42):
adapt and change. Our guest issomeone who's been there. They've co written
a book that's packed full of practicaladvice, real world examples, and actionable
strategies for building a business from scratcheven when the economy is tough. Aaron
Michael Sanchez a host on ABC NewsRadio since twenty sixteen, where he hosts
the Morning Show every weekday at eightam. He's also an executive producer of
(04:08):
Hollywood Social Lounge. We're excited tohave Aaron join us today to discuss his
co authored book, How to Starta Business in a Down Economy and the
role of emotional intelligence in entrepreneurship.Let's welcome Aaron Michael Sanchez to the show.
Thanks for having me. I appreciateit. You know, A I'm
a huge fan for all those wondering, I'm a used fat ever since I
(04:30):
met you on our show to talkabout the book that you did, and
I remember that was kind of likepeople were like, oh my god,
I'm inspired. Oh my god.And then you took it next level.
I didn't know You're gonna have yourown show, and I'm like, okay,
I'm now a fan of you.So great job. And you know,
I saw a couple of episodes Isaid, oh my god, I'm
inspired. So if you haven't seenany of the other episodes, you gotta
go check it out. And Ifollow you on Instagram and I love that
(04:51):
you use the media that's there thateveryone you know, please share, please
tweet, please, you know,get it out there. Yeah, absolutely,
and thank you, hughe. Ifollow you as well. You're an
amazing person. You share your family, you share your heart, you share
your work, and honestly, it'sjust always great to be able to continue
working together and lift each other upand share what each other doing. So
(05:13):
when you were like, I wrotea book, I'm like, oh,
yeah, there we go. Well, people don't know when I had another
show I produced it with Jesse Torres, who's the author, and he and
I we were talking about it,and he says, hey, we should
do a book. And then wehad my mother and the because we're at
a studio right near what Marvel isnow, next to a place where Cameron
actually shoots over in Manhattan Beach andit never happened. And I'm like,
(05:39):
and then years later, you know, life hits, as you say,
and then and then I said,you know what, let's put this out
there. Cornavirus hit. People arenot making sense. People are closing.
You know, Starbucks close at threeo'clock when we were actually proofing this.
He tweeted out, got a lotof light response. But I'm like,
what Starbucks closed the inside at threeo'clock and expects to stay open years later?
(06:00):
There are businesses not making sense?Right, Absolutely, I agree with
you, and I'm thankful that youwere so inspired to then put out a
tool for other people to at leasthave another resource, which we need,
right because as I said, youknow, it's not easy to start a
business. Tell us a little bitabout your background and experience in starting businesses.
So we come from the strategy partof it, but what we also
(06:25):
come from is hey, how dowe get you there? Kind of like
a lot of people are kind ofrevamping things like Brian Tracy and other ones
would say, help us, helpyou with your business so that you can
go far and along. But thisbook is a series of eight The first
ones really mean to get everyone togo, okay, I want to do
it now and versus like later,because we have so many people give you
(06:46):
an example, they go, oh, I wrote a script or oh I
want to do a film, Butit's always the I want to And then
years later you meet up with themand you go, so did you do
it? They go no, andyou go, so, how do you
do it now? So it's veryit's what would say, well, it's
not real big, you know,I go, you don't want big,
You want to the point, getit done, get in your head,
move on, go love that.That's your inspiration, wanting to help people.
(07:09):
What do you hope to be themain things? The main thing readers
take from it. Honestly, atthe end they say, I want to
start a business. It's very simplebecause there's a lot of people that don't
understand how to get a loan.Back to what you're saying, how to
qualify for a loan, and thenthey hear the big l where do they
go forget it? I'm not readyAnd I go no, no, you
have people do that for you.And they go, well, I don't
(07:29):
have any money to start up.I go, well, then just start
a little. That's the first threechapters. Save three thousand dollars. If
you can save three thousand dollars,you're good to go. Do it.
But make a sale. Don't doall the production, all the you know,
you got to make a sale toprove to an investor when he meets
you or she meets you, ora conglomerate of investors, or money that
you want to get from family.You could say, I ra sold this
(07:51):
amount. Make a sale within yourfirst three months of whatever product, service,
and our speciality as we put it, and then you'll be able to
prove to someone and yourself, butmainly to someone else because they're very results
driven. If you have an idea, it's a great idea. But if
you have sales like Shark Tank.Everybody love shark Tank, right, but
they go, how many sales doyou have? They say, what did
you do? They go, greatidea, but what are your net profits.
(08:16):
You hit on something that's very key. Is there a demand for your
product or service in the current market? Right, Like, that's I think
sometimes the biggest to your point.Yes, a lot of people come with
me that like, I've got thisgreat idea. It should just you know,
especially because we deal a lot withmore film and TV. It's like,
I've got this script, It's thebest script in the whole world.
It needs to be out. Buthow do you qualify that? Right?
(08:37):
So, in your experience, whenyou have somebody who's saying, okay,
is there a demand for this product, how do they really qualify that?
How do they make sure that whatthey have available something people want by a
sale. Back to what you justsaid, you have that little and I
don't know if you saw it,you'll probably see it like later, would
you watch it? That little andyou did that thing that people go,
yeah, but they want to benice about it. But it's a little
(08:58):
so thing that you go, no, they love it. They said it,
but did they mean it? Andwe talk about that in the book.
We say, don't trust the peoplearound you because they are they're the
worst ones to tell you the truth. And if they tell you the truth,
you might get discouraged. So goto somebody else who doesn't know you,
who's not going to steal your idea, and ask them what they think
of your product, service, orspecialty. That's how you qualified first for
(09:20):
you. Now, a lot ofpeople go, yeah, but everybody loves
my product. But will they buyit? That's the next thing. If
you say okay, it's now,and you say it's affordable, but you
say, this is how much itis. Do you want one? If
they say yes now, or theydo it for a multitude of things,
to be nice to you, tothrow you away, to say get out
of your kid, or to sayan essence you know, I like it
(09:41):
and I can use it whatever itis. But you got to get your
first sale. Now. You don'tspend that money. You put it in
the bank and you say okay,that is a sale made. Now you
make more sales on that, andyou know who your target is at some
point, but you gotta ask itlike at least a minimum I say always
of at least eight to twelve people, maybe e team, maybe twenty.
But get over your first hump.Get it to people that are not going
(10:03):
to steal your idea, that don'thave money. That's number one. Take
it to a waitress, take itto someone that you you know, maybe
you're at the store and you go, hey, you pull it out,
you go what do you think ofthis? And they honestly will be like
huh, because they're always seeking ofsomething. Right. Everybody has an idea
and then somebody goes, wait,I have the same idea. Awesome,
you know, but inspire and thenget your sale. You have to get
the sale. If you get thesale, you can proved to investors once
(10:26):
you get thirty sales, forty salesor more. But I say start with
at least thirty sales. Then yougo to the next level. Ma,
pa, can I get some money? Because look, I sold this.
If you just have an idea withoutany sale, there's no proof. And
that's how you know. Even bigguys say, yeah, that's what we
want to see. We just wantto see it was sold, that there's
a market for it and there arepeople that want to buy it. You
(10:46):
know, competitive advantage finding something thatmakes you stand out, right, Because
for example, I used to bea licensee with metro PCs. For those
of my audience who have forgotten,I was one of the original dealers.
The first ten dealers that were allowedto launch on the LA market with Metro
PCs. I was one of them. Do speak, by the way,
can I just say that? Soyou're a seller of Metro PCs. So
(11:09):
you had a store I could goin, Okay, so I could go
in and I could buy something.I have to go and make a payment
every single time, but you couldpay it on the contract. But it's
month to month. So I don'tknow where they're at now, but you
were, you know, you madeSee that's where I say, and I
always say, if you have onestore, have another store, have no
store, have an no store.But I haven't managed by good people.
(11:31):
Sure, and they to have theirown store with your brand, right right,
because you were under their little likeyou know, whatever they do,
you have to do well you know, no, yeah, well, and
I think that for every person.So it was interesting because everyone had a
certain flexibility in the way you marketedyour products with Metro. We you know,
ethically, you're not supposed to changethe prices. We never did because
(11:52):
we wanted to always be seen asnot somebody just focused on making a dollar
off of our client right there,Because actually we didn't have contracts. There
was no track, so what wemade and any transaction was simply off the
point of sale. Right, ButI would often take less on that point
of sale to show people this wasn'tabout money. This is about longevity,
and this is about you coming backwith your THEO, your grandma, your
(12:16):
cousin and being like, this isa store you need to buy a phone
from. Right that long term,and I remember being very creative in marketing
because I recognize, to your point, psychology matters when you can qualify something.
So there's the competitive advantage of myproduct or service can save you money
X amount of dollars. Right again, to the point I had that Metro
(12:37):
during the two thousand and eight andtwo two thousand and two financial crisis,
right, there's a reason why ourbusiness flourished because people wanted to save money
from Verizon trands were over. Sowhile people were making jokes about Metro piece
Shi T we were laughing all theway to the bank. And I'm not
trying to be funny, that's justreally what happened. So and they can
(12:58):
still happen, but now so manyprices Right now, back to something that
you're saying, and I say thisto say prices are outrageous. Everybody's using
the eye word. I say,stop using that word, because it's not
normal. We're going back to thedays. And you mentioned it, and
I'm glad you said it in thebook. I say this, but I
said it at a time when itwasn't popular. In two twenty, I
said, we're in a recession.You guys don't get it. But people
are like, no, no,no, and then you see one's great,
(13:20):
no, no, no, becausethey don't want to admit it.
But we were already in recession basedon twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty
twenty. Then coronavirus pushed it solike in a direction that everyone was like,
oh no, and we're still dealingwith that. We're still dealing with
hostiles, were still dealing with,you know, and we're still dealing with
bills of people that did recover.You know, people aren't talking about that.
We're dealing for closures. So banksare like, hey, we get
(13:41):
to recover that of meaning that they'regoing to for close on you. Because
now that's all over, people areraising rent, the raising funds and the
rais raising. Banks are now goingwhat are we going to do? Because
you have a huge fall out therewhen Wall Street crashed in nineteen thirties.
It really started in the nineteen twenties, but then they had a fall out
then the Great Depression. When theGreat Depression happ it, that's what we're
at today. And if you understandwhere at that today, you understand there
(14:05):
was a lot of business that isnow alive now which started in the recession
and in the depression with people thatsave their money and are made smart.
Kind of like just ideas, buthave it sold, have somebody by it,
but by But back to your ideaabout metro PCs, I love it
because there's a market for that atcheap price. Because I can tell you
right now, Verizon, you guysgot to come back down. We're paying
(14:26):
like three hundred dollars on a planof just like three devices, and I'm
like, how did that happen?Overnight? People are paying more and they're
not calling it out, and peoplegoing, well, government, you're gonna
do anything. But at the endof the day, you could control you
spend a little invest it, savethree thousand dollars, do your own business,
but make sure it sales. Makesure your product sales. Period in
the story and if you have aservice even better because of service, if
(14:50):
you understand, hey, people needthis. If people you know want your
service and they're gonna pay you,have them pay you at the front,
not like, oh, write mea check later because people renake on that,
but have them do it at thebeginning. That way, you could
prove to a investor when you wantto go big or you want to start
hiring people. And that's really whatalone entails, and entails what they call
it the big BP word, whichpeople hate business plan because people don't want
(15:11):
to get, you know, allthat down. There's plans like this,
but you got to make it simplefor the person that goes do I just
have an idea. I don't wantall the you know, because nobody likes
writing, nobody likes reading, nobodylikes you know, So you've got to
get the people that can help youand the tools. I mean, look,
chaty BT hate to throw that outthere again, but I think for
people who do struggle, not thatthey are not capable, I want to
make this clear, but who aren'tbandwidth right like me. I mean,
(15:35):
if you're a parent and you've gotkids and then you're you know, and
you sit down, you know,like and to your point, Oh my
god, I'm exhausted to think ofhow I'm going to write this business plan
out. You know what can Ihelp you? It's boring to the people
that know it, like you,you're a professional, you know it,
and the big money they know it, have that ready to go. But
to the person that's like a likethe little kid who's eleven or twelve,
(15:56):
I have to do a business planlike you know, her mother helped her
or somebody helped them. But toa teen who's like even to like the
mid twenties and thirties are like,forget it, I'm done. You know.
They give up so easy. AndI've seen this. So you gotta
be like all right with that andsay, okay, I can help you
because you have a good idea.I'm not going to steal it because I
(16:17):
get a little weird about that.And then you say, okay, this
is what you need, here,here, and here. Just answer these
three questions and you're good to go. And at the end of the book
it actually has a few of thosequestions and it's very simple. But that's
what every big bank actually asks.They just ask it the wrong way.
Sure. So when it comes toentrepreneurs building resilience and adaptability in the face
(16:38):
of economic challenges, what do yourecommend? Oh? Perfect, okay,
we talk about don't do Okay.There's this thing some people know and some
people don't. I want to discourageanyone, but they say, every business
a certain percentage will fail within acertain amount of years. Yeah, okay,
get that out of your head.That's number one. You don't want
to fail off yours. But Isay, prepare, not for like the
(16:59):
three years plan, prepared for thehundred year plan. If you're prepared for
the hundred year plan, you'll makesense. In other words, think of
several of the companies that you knowthat you buy. They've probably been in
business anywhere from thirty to forty tofifty to maybe over one hundred years.
There's very few that one hundred yearsthat brand that. But the easiest one
is always something you drink, thinkof that and then say, okay,
(17:22):
how did they start? And yougo, but they're so big, I
can't be that. You can beeventually, but you've got to lay the
groundwork. So back to what you'resaying, resilience. You create resilience by
making it affordable for the common.That's number one. Some people have high
products, right, we see thingsat CS, We see things all the
time that we go, that's agreat idea. How much is it?
They go, oh, it's andyou go, huh, you know,
(17:44):
three hundred bucks for something that yougo that's more like a thirty dollars item,
I'm not going to buy that,and you kind of walk away.
There's no resilience there. It's anitem that someone will buy at three hundred,
but the majority knows. So youbuild resilience by selling to the common.
Then you could have a probably that'sthree hundred bucks to the elite,
as you would say, or thepeople that have that money that have it
(18:06):
as expendable. Right now, alot of people don't have an expendable especially
for like a massager, right thatcould be a thirty dollars item. My
point is this, people right now, the way you create resilience is sell
a product. Minimum have several differentproducts that three hundred dollars items should have
a thirty dollars item as well.Maybe not all the you know that it
has the three hundred, but atthe thirty they can get the majority of
(18:29):
people. Now because people do nothave that three hundred to spend you know
earbuds, right, I love earbuds. I bought a seventy dollars item versus
a three hundred dollars item. Whybecause I can spend that somewhere else.
Right, even very rich money arevery cheap on that. Oh my godness,
you wait, you say something thatmakes me as a business person,
this is one of my mantras.I save money where I can, so
(18:52):
I can spend money where I wantto love it. And to your point,
like even LV Louis Baton, theyhave like that ultra ultra line that
you know, most people can't afford, and then like the regular stuff that
the regular Louistan will still say itis. But I mean they're putting out
a very euro yes, but they'reeven they do that to your point,
like even the big companies. Youthink, no, they're not doing that,
but that's they are. They areand the reason for is because of
(19:15):
course they're developing something that can withstandthe test of time and different economic time
period things. Well, you know, I want to stress this. Although
we use the R word and weuse the EYE word, and we use
you know, recession inflation at thesame time we use the depression where I'm
sure that's coming up soon. Um, we use the bubble word, you
know, we use all those words. There still is a way to recover.
(19:37):
And that's why I say invest whenit's low A people will negotiate.
Some people they don't whatever, youlet them go. But people need to
fill up spaces. How many placeshave we seen are empty? Right for
a place coronavirus. That's an opportunity. That's opportunity. You say, look,
if you're not writing it out andif they run out, fine,
but you say, look, i'llrun it at this price. This I
can do, you know, butthen you to see it through, meaning
(20:00):
you gotta be there. I sawone plays it was just a card place
and they saw like Pokemon to kidsand stuff, and I say, okay,
but be there all the time.Recently and I went by there and
I saw kind of the right onthe wall. You know, it's a
husband wife team. But I sawa behavior that was like I'm right,
you're wrong, and I'm like,man, you're gonna fail. And then
instead of hiring an employee, heclosed at the worst hour possible on a
(20:22):
Saturday, when he could have likepeople buy. You never want to be
closed as a business. How areyou going to pay the rent? How
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. It's
funny. Actually, when one ofmy stores used to be in this Santa
Ana main place, small shout outSanta Anna, and if I was a
minute late, I paid a fee. I paid a fine, like it
was like two hundred and fifty dollars. And I mean, I remember one
time one of my employees was,like, I left my keys at home,
(20:45):
I flew from Huntington Beach to SantaAnna and like ten minutes walk in,
Like I had to make sure thatthat store was open. But to
your point, I understand that itwas the reason why the mall did that.
You don't want to be closed onceyou're allegedly supposed to be open for
business. Secondary to that, somethingthat you brought up, and I think
is very important is people need tounderstand that they can't advocate for themselves.
(21:07):
They go to look at a spotthere, maybe they're offering it for something.
A lot of people don't realize commercialat least when I used to rent
commercial spaces, for every year thatI had a lease, I got a
month free of rent right. Socommercial space leasing is different from traditional residential
and I don't think people go inand say and I think that's what it's
(21:27):
going to take for people to say, no, I know that your space
is empty. Maybe they want acceptyour terms, but guess what, that's
okay because there could be another placeout there. I recently got an office
and I looked at one place inBeverly Hills. It was cool, wasn't
actually the budget that I wanted,but I was willing to spend a little
bit more proximity to home. YadAYadA, and then the guy like ghosted
(21:48):
me. Right because there was acouple of things I had had issues on,
I let it go boom. Withintwo weeks, I found another office
that was within my budget, everythingI wanted, still close to home.
But I didn't settle or put myselfin a predicament that I didn't want to
be because the terms were not agreeableto me. And if people don't understand
that, one of the characters,especially to build that resilience as an entrepreneur
(22:11):
is understanding you got to advocate foryourself and your business and be reasonable and
realistic about your initial expenses and whatit's going to take to get it going.
And that's why those first three monthswere always so or whatever. Like
if I signed a three year lease, then those three months meant everything for
me, because I mean I couldget everyone in there, start making money
going well. And there's this newthing we have. Somebody on the show
(22:33):
talk about pop up show. Nowit's a huge thing. Everybody does it,
But I say, why not do? And I love how you just
threw it out there. A threemonth, a six month, a nine
month, get them in there,get them pain. At least you pay
your rent because a lot of peoplethat have those stores have to pay on
it. They may have forgotten that, I think sometimes and I think that's
what's happening in you know, andit's completely different, but it's not what
(22:56):
you have to understands. People aregonna move in together, Okay, people
are going to con their money.It's going to happen. You know.
People make fun of the guy livingat home with his mother, but they're
going to be a lot of peoplemoving in with their parents because they can
conserve. For parents are going toneed help at some point. They may
be in a hospital, they havea bill. But it's all cyclical.
And here's what I mean by that. You have an employee, your employee
gets sick, do you pay forhim or do you hire someone else?
(23:21):
Or do you fire him? Whatdo you do? If you're going to
build resilience, you make it okayfor him, but you got to have
a backup plan because you stepped inwhen you you know, but other people
will. And this is why Isay some players are really lazy. So
there's a way to hire a goodperson from the beginning, but then mold
them to be eventually. Some arenot for it, but they could be
(23:42):
a manager. And then if they'reamagic, you can say, hey,
I can have you have a storeof your own at some point. You
know, you could have those people. And so they level up at some
point because they have to pay theirrent, they have to pay their family
stuff, they have to pay.So it's all cycle. That's how economy
can rebound if you understand. Andyou gotta make it affordable from the beginning.
(24:02):
But some people are saying, theproduct, the service speciality that I
get my stuff from is high.How do I get my profit? And
I say this, negotiate and ifthat doesn't work, go somewhere else.
But find someone just what you did. A lot of these things start in
a truck. How do you geta truck to a big conglomerate. Eventually
your franchise, right, franchise word. Some people don't like it. I
(24:25):
say like it because you can makeit happen. You just have to have
certain parameters. But you're not thereat the beginning. But if you want
to be a part of franchise andsay okay, back to regulation, they
will find you. They want youopen because you have their name, not
your own name, not your ownproduct. So I say, if you
did that once, you could dothat again, but probably do it with
a different service. So you wantto hear a real life story from me
when it comes franchises. So I'vebeen a franchise before. Well, this
(24:48):
is actually with my ex husband.We were when we got together. It
was the Domino's pizza and ironically enoughso our Domino's pizzas were up in the
Bay Area in Silicon Valley right inRedwood City, Oracle was ordering three hundred
pizzas a week for their parties.This was during the dot com bloom Right
school system was ordering all the pizzasand there was no energy crisis at this
(25:12):
time. This is two thousand andtwo, This is two thousand and one
and two thousand and so then allof a sudden energy crisis started dot com
bubble burst. Now you didn't haveOracles spending on all these parties. In
fact, you had Oracle execs inmultimillion houses bouncing checks for a seventeen dollars
(25:32):
pizza. Right, You're like,I'm like yeah. And then on top
of it, and then then theycame in with Healthy Eating took away our
school sales. And then competition.We had Papa John's and you know the
Peninsula, it's very so it's isolated. So again when you're assessing all these
different things as business, and especiallyif it's got a location. So we
(25:53):
lost hard, and then Dominos camein and said, I want to go
back to that. You lost hardbecause of what because of multiple factors?
Multiple factors. Well, it wasmainly people not paying their bill. Well,
definitely people not paying their bill,you know, and reneging on that,
yeah, and renegging or just thesales stopped. Now I didn't have
a demand for the product because theywent belly Ye remember that tech bubble,
(26:17):
Yes, it sure did. Butthen people rebounded several years later because all
those websites began next level right right, Well, you know, it was
just the IPEO thing, and wepivoted. That's when we ended up going
into Metro. So we went outof the franchise. You went into the
licensee you know, Ski model andyou know, and started with one store
and built them sequentially. And Ithink that one of the things that you
(26:40):
hit on a little bit, butI kind of want to expand on.
You know, it's a very importantnot only the what I said, advocating,
but definitely negotiating. When I sayadvocating, to me, that's negotiating
people because to me, I'm negotiatingfor myself, for my business and so
but people often forget to fail outor excuse me, people will forget to
seek out support from others, mentorsor advisors. They can actually help them
(27:06):
stay on track and maintain a positiveoutlook, which is something I think you
really got to have if you're goingto get into business for yourself. You
have to know how to have apositive even when everything is going wrong.
You have to be able to sayit could be worse, let's figure it
out, right, how do yousee the benefit of people seeking out mentors
(27:26):
and advisors during the process of startingtheir business in a down economy. Got
it, Okay, yes, yes, yes, yes, man. You
should wait for the probably like theother book coming because I say this,
some mentors will turn into your competitors, and some investors will turn your competites.
Specially right now, people are verydestored right now. I don't know
if people understand that they used tonot be. Right back in two thousand,
twenty ten and right before twenty twentyhappened, people were very sharing.
(27:52):
Okay, and I know this,but I've had so many of my ideas
taken by people I used to trust, and I'm like, okay, that's
interesting. So I tell the personthat's out there, I say, look
for someone that may sense that awill help you along the way, but
have something ready to go so thatif like, okay, a lot of
people do confidentiality stuff. Right.Film it's a huge thing because perfect example,
(28:15):
how many times have we seen afilm? Right? It's very simple,
but everybody knows this, and yousee a bunch of them all at
the same time from all different studios. What happened. Somebody made a pitch,
somebody said, eh, right,and now they're all getting sued because
they're like, you stole my idea. You just had it, re right,
I have that with the screen rightnow. Almost got shown with somebody
in Europe, and they could havedone in Europe and I wouldn't have known
about it. But you know,you know, somebody talks to somebody and
(28:37):
then you figure it out. Mypoint is this, you find people that
you could trust. Sometimes you don'tknow who you could trust, so then
you have something ready to go becausethey may become your competitor at some point.
They may want your idea. Theymay come in as a vestor,
but they have like eighty other businessesand then they funnel your idea to someone
else without you knowing, and yougo, wait, why is it big
in like EU? Owe? WhenI want to now branch out to Europe?
(28:57):
Because now eight years later, eightor twelve years later, when you're
ready to go, you're like,oh, it's already there. Louis Bhutan,
Gucci. There was a huge moviewith Love Lady Gaga and that saw
that, and there was this wholething happening, and people that thought they
were in it long term were notbecause it got sold out from under them,
I say, don't do business withthe mob because they'll steal stuff from
(29:17):
me or whatever. And they'll tellyou to do it that way. But
the point is, and that's wheremoney comes from, so be careful where
the money comes from. But Ido the opposite of what people say,
and they say, well, thenyou're not a teampire. I go,
yeah, but you guys steal theideas. If you could prove you never
steal the idea of anyone, thenI say, okay, yeah, if
you watch the movie I'm already totalking about it, but it's called I
can never remember the name of it. But Jennifer Lawrence in that movie they
(29:41):
written Egg. They give her themoney at the beginning, but they rid
nigg so she's like, what doI do? And then she went in
business for herself. She helped abunch of other business is based on a
real story, by the way,really good her. And what's his name?
She voiced those movies with him?Oh god, he's the voice of
Rack anyway, Bradley Cooper. BradleyCooper, he's in that if you you
know, they make a great duo. But he helps her along the way,
(30:03):
but he becomes competitor becomes a competitorof him. It's a perfect example
of how you may respect them atthe beginning and they say this word.
At the end they go, nospoiler, but you know, well that's
just business, right, So Isay this, be careful because when you're
doing business, just like films,just like other you gotta be careful of
who may take your idea at somepoint. And then you go, well,
I might trust anybody. I saybear to that and watch your back
(30:26):
because if you're creating a hundred yearthing, will they be in business one
hundred years with you? Would hopeso, but doesn't mean it's going to
happen. It's interesting because you know, look, some people might say,
well that's being very very like overdramatic, but you know you're right, it's
not. When I think about EdShah songwriters, now they have to ed
sharing one illegal case where they weresomebody said you took my song and he
(30:48):
had to prove that it was hissong. Now he says, every time
he writes a song, he actuallyrecords it so that he can show proof
this was an original idea, Thiswasn't something I took from someone else.
And unfortunately, you do have toI often recommend not so much. India's
Indias are very popular. People thinkIndias, but I've never met an attorney
who has pursued a legal case overan Ndia. A non circumvent is something
(31:12):
that I'm keen on having available tome so that if I'm sharing a business
idea of somebody, they cannot goand produce it, or it lessens the
chance you're creating a barrier there forthem to go and just take your idea
and run with it, or evencircumvent you in. You know, as
producers were introducing people, then theycut you out. So if you don't
want to be cut out, youknow, non circumvent, genuinely non circumvent.
(31:36):
And with business, when you're dealingwith high net investors and you're making
these introductions, I know differently thanyou hear of celebrities that will have you
sign certain documents just to hang outwith them, certain people with certain certain
people with you know, networks thatthey have to protect. Yeah, if
somebody comes to me and I'm aperson of integrity and thank you for saying
(31:56):
that, no, I don't,it's stuck a pre nup, right like
people don't have any if you don'thave. If you're smart, you know
a prenup is a smart thing.If you don't want to do it,
that's fine, But you shouldn't shameanyone for having a prenup. And for
me, it's a little bit ofthat planning for the divorce when you're in
the honeymoon phase. So if Imeet somebody and we jel, okay,
that's great. But like you said, things can change. Money changes people.
And I agree with you as youhave. I'm sure I feel get
(32:21):
a book you'll see, but thereality is that's proof. But don't get
screwed in the first place. Sure, sure you know, protect yourself.
And that's what I say, especiallynow, people are desperate. If they
were not desperate, okay, andpeople go they're not desperate, yes,
Tech recession inflation the reason. Andif you don't know the news about business
(32:44):
right now, business is really reallyin a weird situation, which I say,
go ahead and get your idea donenow because it makes sense because they're
going to look for that eventually becausea lot of big businesses are failing.
I'll give you an example. AMCdid the stupidest thing they said in essence,
okay, and at a time wherethey need people to go back to
the theaters. It's like they forgotright now they're charging more for a seat
(33:07):
that you sit at. One ofthe other comparators said, yeah, dumb,
and they said, come to ourplace, Hawkings. I think shout
out to Hawkings, which said,you know, and that's where you have
certain business ideas done really like justand you have CEOs ago. No,
that's a good idea. We canmake more money on that. You made
money on liquor sales. I getthat. And if you bought liquor at
a AMC, you made money.That's when they made sense. I meant
(33:27):
some at that produced by conference,and they made sense. Then they said
this is our profit because we chargethis and people will pay it because you're
you're stuck. You can't take inyour own you know. I'm sure some
people do now because honestly, peopletaking that in. But the point is
there's going to be a lot ofbusiness making what I say, ridiculous ideas.
That's probably the best way of sayingthat, or ideas that just you
(33:49):
go, what, but you gowhy you guys became greedy rather than just
make it affordable, make it fun, and those companies that do that will
be way ahead. Do you thinkemotional intelligence can help businesses not just survive
but thrive during economic downturns? Beintelligent and don't be emotional. Um,
(34:10):
I mean, to some extent,be intelligent, don't be emotion take the
emotion out of it, and conductbusiness that's actually quite spawn. I know
what you mean, because you wantto be emotional intelligent about certain things with
people. But even people hate thistechnology word. You say that. They
go, oh, I don't bemarketed. You forget I've had carmis easy.
Later I go, oh, mygod, I'm trying to help you
(34:30):
not you know. I think atthe end of the day, be emotional,
but in a way like when youhave money, be emotional to not
walk away from your business. Somany people become so emotional and they spend
it, and then when their businessneeds something, they don't spend it.
Okay, I come from something big. Shout out to radio. This doesn't
(34:53):
happen, but a lot of radioOkay, I've seen behind the scenes is
a certain thing. Like at somepoint meaning people go, oh, that's
old school mentality, go no,they just did it like forties, fifties,
sixties, seventies and eighties. Somepeople go, we don't listen to
anymore, Like what do I mean? You have an antenna? But they've
adapted. Some have adapted, somenot, and some got brought up like
(35:15):
iHeartRadio. They really can't a lotof people. But I say, well
that's technology, right. But ina way, are they emotion intelligent?
Yes, they know what people want, but they got to remember what the
kids want. So if you're goingto be emotion intelligent, don't be emotion
intelligent at your age and what yougrew up with. Be emotionally intelligent with
the little kids that watch things onYouTube, watch things on they don't have
(35:37):
Facebook, but if they would havemos like little thing they're scrolling right,
don't think they're not find out whatthey watch. Find out what the teens
watch. Because I'll give you example. My cousin younger than me was the
team at the time Snapchat before Snapchatbecame big, and I said, what's
that? She goes, oh,no one sees it. I go,
somebody's gonna see if they just haveanother camera, they just take a picture.
Right, But anyway, and thatbecame big overnight and I'm like,
(35:58):
whoa. And then they got alot of investors. You gotta go where
the kids are at find what theylike. Then that'll help you with your
emotional intelligence long term versus short term. Where can people get your book Barnes
Noble dot com okay, perfect?And where can people follow you for listening
and our video or visual audience?Where can they support you? Follow you
stay connected everywhere? Arion am Sanchez. I mean on Instagram, Facebook and
(36:19):
Twitter. I love it. Ilove it. Well, thank you so
much for being here today. It'sgoing to to see you and collaborate again.
Yeah, by the way, yeah, and we'll continue it next time.
All right, all right, thankyou so much. So business,
it's a big conversation. There's alot of information that just came at you.
But I hope that you see thevalue in it. I hope that
you felt the value it and honestly, you know a lot of what we
(36:40):
talked about, the self regulation,the emotional intelligence, and just the experiences
by focusing on those as an entrepreneur, being resilient and it will ultimately increase
your chances of success despite the challengesof a down economy. Thank you how
much for being with us today.I cannot wait for the next episode.
(37:04):
Once again, thank you so muchfor letting us be unsugarcoated.
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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
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.