Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 111 - Inside The Hard Truth Of Management Transitions

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Ep. 111 - Inside The Hard Truth Of Management Transitions · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to bring someone up from the bottom who understands culture, you know their personality, you know their work ethic, you know whether they care or not about the company.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: And or do you bring someone else in who technically has better qualifications and experience?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh hey, I'm back in the studio here with my buddy, Mr.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Eric Howard.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And co-host.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And co-host, that's right.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was just uh I I was telling Eric I ran into somebody the other day and we started talking about Eric and we both agreed that we always feel better after we spend time with Eric.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: You may not today, man.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm in the mood.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you look like you're sick, okay?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: Nope.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: Do I look sick or I just sound sick?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: You sound sick.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: You look kind of sick.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do I?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it looks like you're casting like it's like you haven't shaved to No, I did shave.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: I trimmed up the side.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, bro.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Okay.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're growing that uh I see it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Those beards that grow down the necks, I never understood that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's just uncleanly.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: It just ain't right.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's not right.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Just don't do that.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I saw some dude on a TV show that I was watching the other night.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: This guy had a beard, okay?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he had no mustache, and his beard grew up and covered his lower lip.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: So all you could see was his upper lip.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was the strangest thing.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the beard was like this long.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Can't do that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Looked like King Tut or something.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Don't look like King Tut.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was wondering where his Harley was parked, but I didn't see it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the it was a uh one of these home renovation shows, and he was the customer.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: But no, uh, so you're not sick, but you seem like you are.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um he tells me he's just got allergies.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Let's hope that's the case.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um sitting in a very small room with this guy.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I gotta drive seven hours tomorrow to go to Carbondale for the Oh, yeah.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: SIU College of Business uh board meeting.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, nice.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, that'll be fun.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to getting to back to Seadale.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um where Eric's family is actually from.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: So funny enough.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a small world.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so what are we gonna talk about today, buddy?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh looks like you're talking about making management transitions real.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: What do we have to say about that?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think the the premise here is, you know, if you're a startup in your own business, like you may not even recognize that you are management.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of a great deal.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've actually, it's that happens to me in about every business I have.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I if I think about the business, I just start thinking about the customer base, the market, you know, the product or service, whatever I'm gonna do, but I really don't think of myself as like, okay, I'm a manager as well of people, you know, I just start looking for people to help draw the company, but I never think about that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'd really need to manage those people and bring them in.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hopefully.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I my theory's always been I want to hire people I don't need to manage.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, a hundred percent.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's if I gotta I mean, not to say that i a certain amount of direction isn't necessary, but yeah, I don't I don't like holding people uh accountable.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like having a lot of meetings.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, you know, I don't enjoy that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and a lot of times, you know, in a startup like in our case, in my case specifically, you know, I didn't have like management training.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't, I mean, I started young as an entrepreneur.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: I just kind of learned, I was I've always just learned through surprises.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you learned as you grew.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so I've never like had any management training in that sense.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, you're not unusual.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: According to the statistics here, uh, let's see, 60% of new managers say they receive no formal training before taking on their leadership role.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: So what you're in the norm.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I mean, like you just learned through the hard knocks, uh, you know, the folks that, you know, and I think the interesting thing, especially in a startup, like it's I remember having this experience.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: I remember being like 22 years old, and I was so frustrated about, you know, things that were going on in my new business.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Couldn't understand why people didn't care.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they wanted to get off at five o'clock or whatever it might be.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: They weren't putting away time to get projects done.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if I sold an advertisement or something for my media, like to me, it's all hands on deck.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, no matter what, everything's sacrificed to make sure that we keep that client, make a good impression, and get more.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, I understood the the uh direct line of that revenue back towards meeting the payroll.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: But no one else ever gets that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: No one ever no one ever gets that that that the client relationship and the money that they pay goes straight to the payroll.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you can't say you can't say no either.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, no, I get it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: I find it hard, like where I seem like I'm gonna be the only person within the entity that was making that direct correlation and how important that signature was.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: And to make sure that we're delivering ad proofs on time, that we're publishing correctly, that you do the proofs and everything's coming out right, you know, the ultimate care and concern.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then the billing, of course, and all the other stuff that comes along with it, of how important that was.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, you know, you I I uh I had a guest speaker last night, Taylor Maherg.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's with um, he's the president of Farco Construction.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's over there in in eastern Arkansas.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he's in Batesville, and uh flew over on their uh corporate jet last night to uh give a talk to my students.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we were talking about some of this stuff, and um it was very interesting.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just a couple points I want to make, and I don't want to get sidetracked, but it goes in line with what you're saying.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we get the the new client, we gotta do whatever it takes to get, you know, make them happy and get paid.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, regardless, uh, because there's a direct link to our meeting our payroll, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: I asked, uh Taylor's has taken the company from five million to it'll do 125 or 130 million this year.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Good lord, man.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's from like the year 2000 to now.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Taylor, I go, how many uh for new people and like young people that you hire out of school, like say maybe the first three years, I I said, how much um how many hours do you really expect those people to put in?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, Well, you know, I I guess, you know, I could say 60, but really if they want to get ahead, 80.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I just love watching the expression on my students' faces.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: But in their environment, if you do that and you perform, you can do unbelievably well.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: You won't do twice as well as somebody else that comes out of school with the same degree.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they put the hours in.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, um, Taylor started his his talk last night with a very interesting video that sort of explained the evolution of companies, okay?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Which I think is directly relevant to our topic today, leadership transition, management transition.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it starts out with the entrepreneur, okay?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then as you grow, then you need like hunters.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're gonna bring the work in and everything.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Then you get sort of the next level of professional um managers, you know, the discipline.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: You you start separating the jobs out.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody's in charge of this area and somebody's in charge of that area.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, as it evolves, it degenerates.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: The next group that comes in is basically bureaucrats.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: After the man the professional managers, yeah, we get bureaucrats.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's death.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: All right, yeah.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the and the bureaucrats actually don't like the uh entrepreneur.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: And they've turned people against the entrepreneur because they're very negative people who will tell you all the reasons why something won't work.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you're crazy because you're the entrepreneur, so you're bad.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And basically, this is the sort of the life cycle of a typical company.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Entrepreneurial company.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: It it destructs after the bureaucrats take over.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think that is with a bureaucracy?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've I've found that it's people that come in and they're trying to make some sort of significant difference for themselves.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so then everything else is a war to them.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a doesn't go with their with their ideology or their ambition.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's an interesting way to look at it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: I hadn't really thought of it, but it makes a lot of sense.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because they become toxic about everybody else's opinion.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if somebody's it it's like they're navigating, and I've seen this a lot because I've navigated some pretty significant companies, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen a lot of bureaucracy in it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: And for whatever reason, I've been pretty, I've been pretty successful at doing that, even though I'm really much very much anti-bureaucracy.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, yeah, you know how to deal with the bureaucracy.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can interact with it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: I know, I know what they're what they're really wanting.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Although I I wouldn't say I've been successful at spotting in my internal organization, which is a different matter, but but I've noticed like it it becomes how it's always about how their appearance is in every meeting, in every project, in every decision.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so what they're they're always trying to, they they become perfectionists at navigating how they get their perspective across the line so that they look good in order for them to make their next promotion and climb up the ladder.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: And and the the outcome of that is everybody else is negatively affected.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: They're even though they're being completely negative and it's a negative perspective on their end, their goal is to be posit have this positive light shine on them.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: And nothing is their fault.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's like avoiding being blamed and at all costs trying to rise up.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that, yeah, that manifests other types of behavior, like um never doing anything that could go wrong.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that the fear of failure.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the optics of failure.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: The fear of criticism, the optics of being criticized, like they can't handle it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: So they're just it's all squishy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: They're very psychologically, it's a psychological game.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's people that are really good at that.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: There are, and then they just move from one organization to another as they destruct and implode around them.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: They have a great timing to make sure that they're out of the way before everything destructs that they've been responsible for.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: I've just seen it a hundred times or something.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it the the saddest thing is like I mean, it's just so sad what they're doing to their peers around them, you know, and and to themselves, 100%.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it it it I think this is so relevant when we when we talk about management transition.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's always been one of my frustrations, and I've experienced it personally, where the uh successor organization or successors who come in, let's say you sell your company, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And these new people come in.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they're the managers that are supposed to take over, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody's taken over for you, and somebody's taken over for some of the other people.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: They have a they tend to have little respect um for the the founder.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: In my you know, in my experience, they know better than you.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: That they're they're coming in and and and it's always rationalized.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, yeah, Eric's a good guy, or you know, Mark's a good guy, whatever, uh, or Mark's an asshole, or Eric's a whatever.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, they started this thing, they got it going, but now we've got to get professional management in here.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: We can't operate like they operate, yeah.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's that's the beginning, that's the genesis of the scenario that results in bureaucracy and terminal illness at the end.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: That that's that's where it starts, in my opinion.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: It starts destroying the culture.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Which the culture is, you know, it's it's really the the bonds between people within an organization.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: There's it's it's a mist, it's an intangible.
• 13:23
  unknown: Yeah, it is.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, but you can sense it when you are in it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: And you can sense it negatively and you can sense it positively.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: But once it's sensed negatively, it's like the most it's it's like trying to cure.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Very, very much.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: That blackness, that that darkness we talked about in the never-ending story, right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: It just it just permeates, it just takes over everything.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Until Falcor comes back.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Which is the representation of the entrepreneur is Falcor.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: The dog with bubbles comes back.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, even that discussion, like I like the fact you brought up a buyout, which is like kind of this ultimate management transition.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the episode, but even if you're in a startup business and you are growing, you have to have more managers.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: You can't do it all.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta, yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: But the scariest thing to me is how do you hire for that, right?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because and it's and so if you I need somebody, okay, I need somebody to take over the finance part.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, great.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: The trick is where you get tricked out, is you put a post a job posting or whatever, and then you start getting folks that are applying.
• 14:28
  unknown: Right.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And you get this one candidate that's got like, you know, 15 years of experience, and they've worked at all these different companies and just looking so great, and they've held these different growing titles at different companies.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that is an initial glance, it's like, oh man, it's perfect.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: This is exactly the type of person I need.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: But if you don't read between the lines a little bit of this and you don't interview well, you know, and you don't really spend time with that conversation, you don't check references or check folks around them, because that could be the ultimate bureaucrat.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: That could be their entire ammo because they want that res that's the thing about a bureaucrat.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: They want their resume to be the best resume that's ever existed.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think, you know, what I find with a lot of those guys coming, you know, when you have your smaller company, whether it's a startup company or it's a growth company, and let's say you gotta hire the new finance guy, as you said.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: The tendency, I think, of a lot of us would be I need to go get somebody out of a larger company where they know how to do this stuff better than we do.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've bought into that before.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it sounds logical.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: And it's actually something that people say often.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, hire people that are smarter than you.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Get them out of the organizations that figured this all out.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times that's a terrible person to hire because your organization's not the same as what they came from.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: And they have this perspective that everything's got to be done the way it was done at the last place I worked.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And they try to force that uh onto a smaller slash higher growth rate company.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I had uh my friend uh Paul Stagg in recently.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, excuse me, it wasn't Paul Steg.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned Paul to you last week.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: I had Bert Hanna in.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And he uh Hannah's candle company, and and uh people were asking, my students were asking Bert about, you know, like his management approach, and he's got all these people that have worked for him for 30 and 35 years.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: How do you keep all these people?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, right.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things he said he does is he promotes from within.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they don't always have the best credentials, but he'll go out on the floor to find somebody that's got the right personality attributes to do the job.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's all again, it's very relevant in the context of transition.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're talking about.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to bring someone up from the bottom who understands culture, who you know their personality, you know their work ethic, you know whether they care or not about the company, and or do you bring someone else in who technically has better qualifications and experience?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um And I think that like in our conversation about leadership last week, too.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the same rule applies here, right?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: You need certain types of managers for certain things at different times within the business.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's true.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: If you're a startup and you have four people on your team and you're growing like crazy, you don't need to go get you a high profile, well-stacked, super pro experienced finance person.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, they won't work in that environment.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're used to having staff worked for them.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's too narrow of a job.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't want to actually hire someone that's way smarter than you in that scenario.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because, like, you won't know how to build off that.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: You won't know how to like if you if you hire somebody that's got all this experience, they come in and they start this process, you won't even know what process they're starting.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because you as an entrepreneur, you're probably off to something else and you're gonna want to forget about that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's so true.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then they go off and start building something, and you turn around three months later, and you know what.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Why are we doing this?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: And even if it's working well, you still don't have your hold on it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so if that person up into that's when the bureaucrat knows that they have you.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: They actually want that to happen.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: They want to own, they want you to say, I got it, I got it, I got it, don't need to worry about it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: You go off and do your thing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Then over here now you're 100% dependent.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: And now I have the bureaucrats got I got leverage on you.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Everything to the bureaucrats negotiation.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's negotiation leveraging.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: And having that power, they will they will force that on you in basically scare tactic you it's never being on fire on.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: I know I'm being negative.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: No, but you're you're really right.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it does it does resonate with me.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I I think um that uh again, um, you know, we're talking about entrepreneurial growth companies here.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to challenge conventional wisdom.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think if there's a message for our listeners, yes, it's challenge conventional wisdom and beware of taking, quote, professional management too far, yeah, such that you um these things happen and you morph and you end up with bureaucrats that you're dependent on.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing is don't bail back out of everything so damn much.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I'm so tired of work on your business, not in your business.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Work in your business, stay in your business, work in every area of your business.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Know how the thing operates from A to Z.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: You will be a lot better off.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: And again, it depends on what stage your business growth is in.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we're talking about, I mean, everything we're I'm discussing, and we're discussing right now, is like early on.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking small company.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: Small company, three people, two people, five, maybe even ten.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, really small, because you can read quotes.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: I had a really uh great friend mentor of mine that sent me a quote uh regarding Jeff Bezos that he had mentioned something in an article and said one of the smartest things he ever did was hire smarter people than him.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, etc.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I agree with that.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: However, uh it depends on the stage of the business.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because I don't want to hire people that are a lot smarter from me, and they can sit in a room and teach me all these things, and I'm paying, because I have experienced that in a really small business to where then that's all these other things we're talking about blindside you.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because they can people that are really smart and have navigated big corporate structures are really good at this navigation game and this manipulation.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm sorry, I hate to say it, but they are.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they know what you're suffering.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: They're trying to, you know, they could potentially do a takeover.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've actually had that happening with me before.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: People that were really, really smart in a company that I brought in.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I mean, within four or five months, man, I'm telling you, like it was I experienced it myself.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: Bad, bad deal.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I know.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Bad deal.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you and you and you feel like, oh, I finally got folks around me that are able to do really good work.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I feel I'm empowering them or whatever, paying all these things, and then only to find out that there's there's a uh hostile takeover in your midst.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: From within.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: From within.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh mutiny.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Mutiny on the bounty.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: All right, who's got the strawberries?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Remember it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh Humphrey Bogart.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: But that can be warned, small business.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: That can happen.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: They don't tell you that in the quote.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't think I I no, they don't tell you that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't think it's it's necessarily, I'm not I I don't disagree with what you're the fundamentals of what you're saying.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's necessarily smarter than you.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we want people who are more intelligent than we are, obviously.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: But what we don't want is people who come out of larger organizations and or rely on their education to tell to take over.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay or their educational credential.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we need smart people, but we need people who could have done work.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right, who can relate to the culture we're in, too.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I it's I don't we're not down on big company people.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Big company people work in big companies, navigate it, climb the ladder, God bless you.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a lot of skill.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: It takes uh attributes that you and I don't have.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if we become a big company, we we need we need you.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we we need we need some of you.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: You still need us, though.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: You still need us.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's where the problem comes in.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can see that.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Where yeah, you don't need us anymore.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: What we provide is not necessarily what you like.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's not consistency.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: It it it's it's not stability always.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: It may be the opposite of that, but it's an energy, it's a it's a force that the entrepreneur and the founder brings that you cannot ignore the importance of.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I do think so.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: Back on the topic of transition, I've also experienced good transitions that worked.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think um i if I were to characterize some of those, you know, you can look at Zweik today, where I sold my ownership internally in 2018 on a long-term deal, which they have honored, um, and and continue to do so.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: My successor is somebody I brought in five years before I turned the reins over to him.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh known to him that that was the plan.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: He worked in all important areas of the business and proved he could be a revenue generator, first and foremost, and a seller.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Worked in these other areas of the business to gain experience and knowledge of how they all operate and credibility over time, and he had five years to work with somebody, okay?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then you turn things over to them.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do they do everything the way you do?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, they don't, all right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: But if they can carry on and have a successful organization post you that continues to grow and be profitable, you can't fault them.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, you you cannot fault them.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, but you take a process like that, uh, there's a lot of time involved in it.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not just bringing somebody in because they came out of ABC and they're bigger and more successful at us and throwing the keys at them three months later and go, hey, everybody, now instead of me, you work for Sue.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's she's the one.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's a big that's actually a huge problem that a lot of small businesses can make because they're so eager to take something off their plate that they will I've been guilty of that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, dude.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, so-and-so sue's your new manager, talk to her about everything.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then the worst thing is is them not touching base with Sue.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because once you bring in a leader on something or a manager, you have to manage the managers now.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you've got to s and you do have to respect their story.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can't let everybody go around them to you and you make decisions.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it's just you can't do it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, you're you're right.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you've got a different challenge now.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of managing the activity itself, you're managing the manager of the activity.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's a different game.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: It is a different game.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it's, you know You gotta be ready for that game.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: That game, to me, when I think about the successful experiences I've had with it, almost always involves spending a lot of time with the person doing the work of the organization.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Not just spending time with them.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: That helps.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're spending time together working on what the company does, i.e., like providing the service to a client.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Where you that's more, that's what it's all about.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because then they really see how you do things.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: You learn what their strengths and weaknesses are so you can coach them effectively.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost kind of like a like a short apprenticeship.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Which or a long apprenticeship.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: They say 10,000 hours.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, five years is 10,000 hours.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, think about that.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I think that too, like it, you know, that's the struggle of being an entrepreneur or a small business owner.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: This is there's too much to do and not enough bandwidth for you to do it.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Not enough hours in the day.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so as you start stacking your team up, that if the the quick flight response is devastating.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Which is the opposite of what you're talking about.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if you're gonna bring people on, you have to you have to move to another level instead of do you doing it all yourself, right?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: And you're bringing people on so you don't have to do it all yourself anymore.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: But what you're actually doing is you're transitioning into managing people that are doing it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's to me, it's just as much work and time.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it is.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's just you're not gonna save time by this.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's delegation versus abdication.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I will admit I've advocated abdication sometimes.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you just throw that area at them, it's not my problem anymore.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: You go do it.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you sink or swim, figure out how to do it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is if they sink and it's something that's critical function for the company, the whole company suffers.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Which in most cases of small business can be one of a hundred different things.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I think more likely though, see, the difference in you and I, maybe than some of our listeners, it goes back to entrepreneurs who want to build something that they can throw the keys at somebody someday and exit from with a pot of gold.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Versus the small business owner who has no intention of that really.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's making a living.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Making a living or making a good living, okay.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: They tend to be micromanagers.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: They never part with anything.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's what limits their growth.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: They're control freaks.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: They don't develop any talent, they don't abdicate, they don't delegate.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so they have no transition.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: They're looking at people who do the work directly.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: And you're still their manager, they'll always be the manager.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and so I don't even I don't ever think that way.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm anxious to get out of anything I don't have to do.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Really anxious.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Anxious too, because I've got plenty of other things to do that I think are going to be more productive.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly have the confidence I'll find what that is.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: I never had a problem finding it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I think so there really is kind of a difference in what your philosophy is, what you're trying to do with your business, what your exit strategy is.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to grow and you want to exit, you want to have an external sale or an internal sale and get some value out of your enterprise for all your years and of toil and sacrifice, then you better be able to effectively transition management responsibilities that were all yours to other people.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: And to summarize what works in this case, and we can't overly generalize, you gotta be careful about hiring people out of much bigger companies.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: They're used to having a lot more resources.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Their tendency is probably gonna be to become bureaucrats.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or to only do it the way they did it at ABC, which may be overkill for what you need.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one issue.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um the other thing is you gotta be careful about abdicating too early and not giving this apprenticeship time to actually work.
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• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, with these people in the work, like the apprenticeship part, but then also as just a person.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you have to invest that time.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're you're not saving yourself time, you're transitioning your time into something else.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's the big point in my brain.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we're impatient.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: We don't that's killed me a hundred times.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: We're we don't want to waste, yeah.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're gonna try to shortcut it if we can.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I think one of the the the fundamental human emotions to this is like that we gotta learn as a person.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: To me, has been no one's gonna come like just because you're hiring somebody that's really qualified or a great fit for whatever you're doing, they're not here to save you.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: No one's gonna come save you as the entrepreneur.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, I get it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I think we know that.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: We've gone ahead to go through that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but the in if I rewind back to y'all an entrepreneur, starting my first business, I'm excited.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: There's other people that are excited for me.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: They seemed all geeked out.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: They ever it feels like everybody wants you to succeed, which they probably do, you know, especially in your first startup.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: But just because they want all that, no one's gonna be sitting around going, oh, you know, I'm I'm gonna take this job so I can make you successful and save you from this problem.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: And for some reason in my brain back in the day, I've kind of felt like that I was just missing somebody that would come or a group of people that would help save the situation and make this company successful.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was never been the case of that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was unrealistic.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: Terribly unrealistic.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you're saying.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Terribly unrealistic perspective.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, uh, once you're in on this journey, 100% extreme ownership of your decision is is absolutely required.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: Other than anything other than that, you're deceiving yourself.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: And so it comes to me to the point like if I'm hiring somebody to take over a role, in which I still deceive myself, there's a portion or percentage of me that I immediately I'm going, oh, if I could only find somebody to come do sales, that would take the load off me so that I can not have to do sales plus all these other things.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: I can focus on other things.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: Always a fallacy.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm telling you.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: But the real thought process, I need somebody to come do sales that I can train, mentor, mentor, and and they help offload, and I can transition my time into that person, you know, and letting them do that, and then always staying attached to it, though.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, always staying attached to that.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's the art right there.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that really is the the art of it.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh because as the entrepreneur, to your point, there is extreme value that you bring, especially on the sales part of the business.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh God, yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: You can't get out of that ever, really.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, if you're smart.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to stay.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's the closest, that's so fundamental to the company's success.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Detaching from that.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's the only area where there's good problems.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's that that's the oxygen, man.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta keep sucking on that.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot let loose in the sense.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: It it it's also the motivation, it's the fuel for us.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: When we succeed, it encourages us to keep going.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: You take us out of that process.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Not so good.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's usually what makes a true entrepreneur a really good entrepreneur.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: They're relentless on the sales part, on the biz dub.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: Very rarely do you find somebody that's just really great at finances that's an entrepreneur.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: That has a really successful growing business that can exit.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: They're just really great at financing.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, no, you gotta sell and you gotta do.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it it just always comes back to this.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I hate that mantra, work on your business and not in it.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: Work on your business, work in your business, work in it, go sell something.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Go go sell work your ass off.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's no, I that's you know, back back on like startups, I had a discussion yesterday with one of my students, and I don't know if it's her boyfriend or just her friend who wants to start a business, and they had a lot of questions about the legal form of organization and the product mix and other things.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: I said, you know what you need to do?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Make some of your product, go out and sell it.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: All this may be uh pointless if nobody wants what you're doing.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you can't sell it, let's not worry about what the right legal form of organization is and how we're gonna file our sales tax reports in the state of Arkansas.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: Sell, baby, sell.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: See, see what the response is of the market.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's all that matters at the end of the day.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's so critical.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so unmanagement transition, it's necessary, it takes time.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's not always best to bring people in from the outside who come out of much larger organizations that know how to, quote, do things better.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: At least it at a certain stage it's not.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Beware of the bureaucrat who's more interested in feathering their own nest and not looking bad than they are advancing the organization.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times the bureaucrats are looking for a you know, they want it to be part of a startup culture.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so they can say that on their resume, or uh, I've seen some more.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: I see a lot of people claim they're parts of startups where they're really not.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: They may be a relatively early employee, but it's not the same.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you're getting hired in at the salary you're making at the last place or more in the quote, startup, you're not in the startup.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it's fair.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, really.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of fair.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're taking no risk whatsoever.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's very fair.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: So risk to performance-based risk.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's where it's at.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's where you're gonna see.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: It keeps your energy up.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: So building trust with a new team or as a new leader, 55% of employees say they don't trust their new manager until they demonstrate consistent behavior over time.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's fair.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think until they demonstrate that they are real people and that they can communicate with them and care about them.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: As an individual.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's where it's at.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it takes time to to dust all the uh you know, the opinions or the past trauma that you may have experienced, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: As you know, who knows what somebody's coming from.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's been a lot of people I've hate to see it that have been managed by really bad managers, bureaucrats that don't care about their well-being, treated them like crap, made them fail, made them paranoid.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen people, grown people like that have come out of organizations that literally are paranoid at that point because they have been just absolutely terribly managed by somebody that was just just so negative, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could say the word I'd like to describe those people with, but it would be too vile.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's absolutely yeah.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: I experienced a guy like that.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was the CFO in one of the companies I worked in.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: He was so toxic and he would twist things up in such a way that no one could work with him and ever feel good.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: He really was a sick guy who liked to make people feel bad.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, he really did.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's very manipulative.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Very, but he was very good at kissing the ass of the boss.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like bureaucrats.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: The only reason why he was there as long as he was.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's what bureaucrats do, man.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's terrible.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's politics.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: It really is, and it's destructive.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, I I I feel like that they'll have to pay for that because they really do do some real damage on people, man.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and it's not cool.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because a lot, because when people work for somebody, you know, they're putting a lot of entrust in that, they're committing themselves to their self, yeah, their self-confidence is being put into it.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's so much to it, right?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like the ones that are a lot of responsibility as a manager, you have.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: 100% it is.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, and you gotta realize these are I mean, like, you know, these these folks need, you know, if they're investing so much emotional energy into this company and with this man, this manager's pouring back negativity, paranoia, yeah, I mean, it's just destructive, man.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's like psycho, I think it's really psychological abuse.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I agree.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've seen that happen to grow people that have that have that for six months, and they're extremely talented individuals.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just got to shut off of them.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so, to the point of that is it really depends.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like when somebody comes in, you have to be able to key in and and have empathy and think about what maybe they went through.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: You hear those stories.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you not with this other company?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because once they get the job, they're usually starting letting their guard down a little bit more.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, it used to be like this, and uh went through this.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe my last manager do this, and you know, that helps build trust when you listen to that person.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, you know, and you're and and then you can navigate how not to push buttons and do things like that.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you've got to know that stuff.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's no doubt of what the individual's been through and all.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's what builds that trust.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, you're you're absolutely right about that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think um, yeah, it makes you've gotta spend time again, you've got to spend time, you gotta talk with people, you gotta be willing to share personally with them.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and have them share personally with you.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but I think when you look at managers that have a high turnover rate, I you know, it's not the only thing.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, there are cer other circumstances, some job categories or industries just historically have higher turnover, but it is a tip-off.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when I see people who I know who own businesses that have had people work for them for 20, 30, 40 years, or through multiple companies, tells me something about that person.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: They can maintain relationships, they're trustworthy.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I do, you know, I personally sometimes bristle at consistency.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be some things I'm very consistent about, there are gonna be some things I'm deliberately not consistent about.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think consistency and predictability is all there is to it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's winnings, okay?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's what matters.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you're the manager, we win it.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you can navigate whatever it takes to make that company successful, then you've got credibility with me.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: Heck yeah, man.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: Man, we gotta uh jump off this episode because we gotta do another one right after this.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: We got a double header today, man.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right, well, let's do it.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's been great here being with you, and um uh if you sell anything to businesses, you need to sponsor us for God's sakes.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're here.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Office furniture, payroll services, accounting, computing services, IT, recruiting, swag, yeah, corporate corporate swag.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: We need you need to be a sponsor here.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can provide us with your swag and we'll talk about it a lot.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully we'll help you sell some more.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyway, check out our our backlog of episodes at www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: And until next week, this has been another episode of Big Big Talks About Small Business.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business.
• 44:55
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