Latest / Social Proof Podcast / Usher Got Burned: 5 Lessons That Could Save Your Business | Social Proof Podcast #550

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Usher Got Burned: 5 Lessons That Could Save Your Business | Social Proof Podcast #550 · Social Proof Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you know us or some people?
0:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The headlines says us are suing longtime friend Brian Michael Cox for $4.9 million after an investment went bad of mismanaged funds.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, there's so many lessons to be learned in this case.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Money is the number one reason that partnerships fail.
0:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I probably never go into business with someone who doesn't already have some money.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Two people think they're building the same business, but they're not.
0:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to understand that there will be seasons where one of you are carrying more weight than the other.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not go into business with somebody who does not operate in integrity.
0:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So many people are on business with strangers that are excited about the thing.
0:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And we'd really get clear on the roles and responsibilities.
0:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So who's gonna create the content?
0:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's gonna be the marketer?
0:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's gonna handle the money?
0:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's like, let's just write down what's needed.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to have the heart conversations early like what's our exit plan?
0:56
[SPEAKER_04]: If you have a business partner right now, what I want you to do is have a session of what happens if the worst happens.
1:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's just for a moment imagine what happens if we stop liking each other.
1:07
[SPEAKER_04]: How do we unwind this company?
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another episode of social proof podcast where we talk to entrepreneurs about entrepreneur in my name is Donnie Wiggins.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a business coach, podcast host, entrepreneur, all the things you guys and I'm sitting here with.
1:28
[SPEAKER_04]: David Shans, entrepreneur, tech founder, feather, ruffler, professional, feather, ruffler.
1:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, you understand me?
1:38
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what we do out here.
1:40
[SPEAKER_04]: We ruffle feathers, we say stuff that makes you uncomfortable.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've said some things in the last, what, 24 hours?
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That have made people uncomfortable.
1:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about it today.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: First, did you know,
1:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Usher is soon the pants off of people.
2:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh not only is usher soon people usher is suing friends a really really close friend actually that was the first post that I saw yesterday when I got on social media and it literally broke my heart usher soon Brian Michael Cox yeah
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: who has been, they've been friends for over 27 years.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian has written and or produced many of his number one hits.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They are photographed like typically, if there's an outing in Atlanta, you don't see usher without Brian, without Jamaing do pre, like they're clicked up, right?
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I saw that,
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Usher is suing the headlines that usher suing longtime friend Brian Michael Cox for $4.9 million after an investment went bad of mismanaged funds.
2:48
[SPEAKER_05]: I said, then you have to keep doing the reading.
2:52
[SPEAKER_05]: You got you got to find out what's really happening.
2:55
[SPEAKER_05]: What are they really trying to say?
2:57
[SPEAKER_05]: So apparently, so and this is, it's so funny.
3:01
[SPEAKER_05]: That is not funny.
3:02
[SPEAKER_04]: But so I think Brian Michael Cox,
3:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And some friends, they get together have this idea.
3:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yo, let's buy Ocean Prime.
3:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's buy it real estate, turn the restaurant up, low vibe, be loungy, restaurant vibe.
3:20
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what we do at Atlanta, right?
3:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think him and a bunch of other people say, we're going to do this.
3:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And then it comes down to, okay, we're going to need some money.
3:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's the bread?
3:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I think.
3:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Brian, according to what he said, he's a minority owner in this thing, right?
3:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's almost like somebody comes to you.
3:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I got this big idea, me, J, K, our money, saw, we're going to come together.
3:47
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to build this huge thing, right?
3:50
[SPEAKER_04]: We need $5 million.
3:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And we come to
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: If you could just guide us, you can give us, you know, your input, you haven't got to do a whole lot, but maybe introduce us some people, you get a percentage.
4:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So, Doddy says, you know what, I know some wealthy friends, I'm not sure that's my home.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'll tell him what we're doing and let's see what happens.
4:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So, then he calls us sure us just says, I'll give you 1.7 million.
4:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And then now the money goes into the pot, our pot.
4:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Now Brian, Donnie, in this case, is in the pot, but maybe she's not managing the money, right?
4:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So essentially, Brian is a minority investor and has maybe just plug resources he's who he is has a name on a kind of stock.
4:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But they don't buy the building with the 1.7 million that usher sins over.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think they did with the money?
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Usure Senate 1.7 million.
4:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Usure Senate wired over 1.7 million.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're outstanding $700,000.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what it is?
4:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so this will happen.
5:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So he sends first off, first off, according to the reports, they hit them with the yellow.
5:07
[SPEAKER_04]: We need it today, because we got to really get the money in, so we can secure the building today.
5:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You know those texts, y'all got to get it to that.
5:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
5:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So usure Senate's giving me a wire information, wires over 1.7 million.
5:21
[SPEAKER_04]: The building isn't bought.
5:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, oh, no, no, no, no, okay, leave back up.
5:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So they tell us she was like, no, I don't wanna be a partner in this business, but I will loan you the money for the building, which is smart.
5:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll loan you the money for the building.
5:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Not in the business, it's so.
5:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
5:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So I wire over 1.7 million.
5:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, they don't buy the building.
5:48
[SPEAKER_04]: which is what he sent the one place out of a million four right they don't buy the building so what happens is they're like oh well we got to get the money back they wind up sending usher a million dollars back but how much did he get ladies and gentlemen 1.7 million so there's a remaining balance of 700,000 that they owe him and the attorney and I quote says it's not that easy getting you that
6:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I give you one point seven for a building.
6:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You can be a million back.
6:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't buy the building.
6:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I need my other seven hundred.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It should be in a secure place.
6:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's the money?
6:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Where's the money?
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, not only should the money that I gave you be in a secure place, but I gave wealthy people the money.
6:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't want me.
6:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I
6:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So, which side note, it wasn't the best investment for usher to loan 1.7 million on the building because they would still have to get a loan from the bank, which puts usher in second position, meaning if they default on that first loan and they don't have the money, the bank takes
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The remaining amount, I think the bill is five point something million dollars.
7:19
[SPEAKER_04]: The bank takes what they can salvage and then usher will get the rest if there's any money left.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So he'd be in second position alone, bank is their money first and then usher gets his.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't the best investment.
7:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I don't even know that he, yes, so he's making an investment, but he's also making an investment with one of his best friends, right?
7:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that he was so concerned about first position or second position on the loan repayment terms.
7:48
[SPEAKER_00]: More so, then, you guys need this 1.7.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna invest in my friend because you're my friend.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: If I got it, I'm investing in you.
7:54
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as you do right by the money, I'm good, right?
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Pay me back kind of when you can.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But the moment I see,
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh y'all didn't do that.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody's talking about repayment terms.
8:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've asked now for money.
8:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got lawyers involved now for money.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're we're adding in past.
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a problem.
8:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say you loan a friend a thousand dollars.
8:21
[SPEAKER_00]: To catch up on their card note.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And two weeks later, that friend says, let's go out, we'll come pick me up.
8:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have the car anymore.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, what happened to the car?
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave you $1,000 to keep this vehicle.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: To pay your car.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: To pay your car now.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have a car.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can have a car.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they say, yeah, but then I just kind of really thought about it.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And bra, I don't leave the house too much.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really need this car.
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I took that money instead.
8:55
[SPEAKER_03]: You gotta fight me.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what?
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we gotta throw hands.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but seriously, so now he did something else with the money.
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: that he feels is valuable, but that's not the intent that you gave him the money for.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So now you feel played.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you ever intend to pay this car note, right?
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you ask him now for the money back immediately?
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what you gonna have to do, bro, but you gotta slide that ring off her finger and her sleeve.
9:25
[SPEAKER_04]: But it wasn't even transparency where they're saying, they're saying that they did something else with the money, but they had to, if the 1.7 was for a purpose and you only have a million of it to give me back, you probably took that other 700 and invested it in the business.
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Which I'm not in the middle of agreed to.
9:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm investing in the building.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm interested to see how clear their terms were, right?
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Was this, yeah, I'll give you guys 1.7 and you drew up general 1.7 paperwork, like long paperwork, or is it saying specifically and not inclusive of the business?
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically for the building and not inclusive of the business, like you have to be that specific,
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: in terms.
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, according to the report, usher was very clear.
10:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to be a partner in this business.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Clear in.
10:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Clear in the money on the building.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Clear in writing or clear in transaction.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's going to be the different reality.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: At any rate, it was really hard break into seat.
10:27
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, shout out to Brian Michael Cox and usher Raymond.
10:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We're fans of both of you guys.
10:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We really hope that you can work this out.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian Michael Cox came out and said,
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I just want to make a statement here.
10:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a very limited partner in this idea.
10:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Like basically, I just gave some money to, I have nothing to do with the actual business being built out.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I just helped, you know, get some money.
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I am involved, blah, blah, blah, blah.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know what these people did with the money.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's essentially what he said.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I have no idea what they did with the money.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And to be clear usher and I are still very much friends after 27 years of friendship so there's so many lessons to be learned in this case like
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: you always have to know what's happening with the money, right?
11:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Money is the number one reason that partnerships fail, not even just in business, but romantic partnerships, marriage, all the things.
11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Money is the number one reason that your partnership will fail, and everybody has to know what's going on with the money.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked so many times.
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: about doing a class or a webinar or something about business partnership.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never had an argument when we've partnered on ventures and done things, we've never had an argument about what's happening with money.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We have access to the same.
11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got an account now with the hefty amount of money sitting in it.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've had an account with the hefty amount of money sitting in it for a few years at this point, right?
12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: There's never been a, would you do with the money?
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing with the money?
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're never going to touch the money without the other person knowing.
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Every transaction has to be accounted for.
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Every transaction has to be approved.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no random cash withdrawals that's happening that we can't explain.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you have the bookkeeper in the account.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything that happens, we're both very clear on what's happening with the money.
12:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but some people there, this is something I've, I've thought about that I'll probably never do again.
12:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll probably never go into business with someone where we have to, I'll probably never go into business with someone who doesn't already have some money.
12:54
[SPEAKER_04]: because the idea is, I need this to work.
13:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And when people are under pressure, and they're back against the wall, and they need money, they start doing weird stuff.
13:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't want to mix my money up with someone who doesn't already have something going on necessarily, or unless I'm investing, and I'm investing in the business, because I believe in a person and they're gonna go build it,
13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But nothing that we both have to do where we're actively in the business, where I put money in, you put money in.
13:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you don't got nothing else going on, this becomes the main source.
13:29
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no patience, there's no waiting, there's like, we don't want to invest it, nothing like that.
13:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I tell them myself, I would never do that because people get funny with money when they don't have.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: a stream of income.
13:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only do people get funny with the money.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They get funny with the power.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They get funny with the with the visibility.
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They get funny with the spot the ability.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They get funny with every little detail.
13:52
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm sitting here and I just looked up the top five reasons business partnerships fail.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is an interesting direction.
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share this with you so you can have it too.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But the top five reasons, and we can go through on one by one, but the top five reasons business partnerships fail.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The very first one is misaligned vision and expectations.
14:16
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a big one, this, ooh, this is a really big one.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Missaligned vision, misaligned expectations.
14:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Misaligned vision and expectations.
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Two people think they're building the same business, but they're not.
14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We think we're working on the same thing.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Dave, I thought we were doing this.
14:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're actually not doing that thing, right?
14:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Man, I was in a coaching session.
14:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to say it was last year.
14:45
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it was the hot seat and their partners.
14:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And the one thing I realized really, really quickly is that you're building one business, but you want something else for the business than this other person.
15:04
[SPEAKER_04]: which means when decisions are made, I'm making a decision because I want this.
15:10
[SPEAKER_04]: You're fighting for this decision because we want this.
15:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So it becomes somewhat of like an ego play or it becomes somewhat of a, there's an agenda here.
15:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And if we're not moving in the same direction, it has to crash.
15:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It has to.
15:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we're talking about misaligned vision and expectations to your point,
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I'm trying to send you this right now.
15:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you want to build a business that's generating revenue right now.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to generate revenue today.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And not only does it have to generate revenue today, you're expecting that you'll have the ability to access that revenue today, right?
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: where is maybe your business partner is saying, now we're going to make some money today, but we're in this for the long run.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not touching that money until there's a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank.
15:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only taking this money right now that we're making and reinvesting it into the business.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no salary, there's no payout, there's nothing that's happening other than reinvesting in the business, right?
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you want to make sure,
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: that when you decide to be partners with someone that you have the same vision, okay?
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So we start making money.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we in this to make money?
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we in this to make impact?
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we in this to do both?
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we handle the money?
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But money is own, it's own topic.
16:29
[SPEAKER_00]: When typically you're misaligned in vision, some of the things that you want to look out for is, how big do we want to build this?
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we want to build this big?
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we want to build this small, right?
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we want to say small?
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we looking for passive income?
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: active income are we willing to evolve right because I've seen business partnerships go bad because it's like Oh, we're business partners and then you decide to take a component of what we've built and you go partner with somebody else on it that can literally ruin
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: a business partnership is your vision to grind or is your vision to kind of like coast.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we starting this business and we're like on the phone at 2 o'clock in the morning discuss an ideas, hey meet me at the building at this time or you know are we on the same
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: page, one person wants to reinvest everything, one person wants to take profit every single month.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not on the same page in your vision and expectations, your business partnership is either going to fail or completely stress you out or completely stress you out until it fails.
17:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Well said, I have a business partner that I'm a company I'm invested now, and there is a certain amount of money that I make every single month, but we agreed on that and that didn't kick in for like a year and a half later, but he would always ask me say, yo, I just want to make sure you put in money.
17:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm trying to like understand what your expectation is.
18:00
[SPEAKER_04]: When we like, you know, how do you, how do you want this value, right?
18:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So we went back and forth.
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Eventually we came up with, you know, a monthly number, right?
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: But what was cool is the company is looking to expand and they're looking to expand by bringing in investors.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Another conversation he said, y'all, we're about to bring in some money.
18:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I need to know your expectation when we bring in an investor because he might, he doesn't want to assume that I'm like, all right, well, y'all about to bring in another $200,000.
18:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I need a portion of that.
18:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I don't, and I didn't, but I like the fact that he called, he said, yo, let's just set this expectation.
18:39
[SPEAKER_04]: We bring in this money, what happens to the split?
18:42
[SPEAKER_04]: What happens to your monthly number?
18:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you expecting when this, when gets big, we raise the number for, do you want something off the, like, he's like, yo, I want to understand because you are a business partner.
18:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, yo, I am in business with the right people.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times, just like in this process, you're literally learning as you go, right?
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You're learning as you go, but the very basic thing that you want to do before picking a business partner.
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: is understanding if you guys both operate an integrity, do not go into business with somebody who does not operate in integrity.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They've done people wrong in the past.
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They're doing people wrong today.
19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: They are dishonest.
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this isn't somebody no matter how skilled they are in business.
19:26
[SPEAKER_00]: They may be skilled as a solopreneur, but as a business partner, not so great.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's a great idea to have a conversation about core values, like make sure you value the same thing.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure your core values are in alignment.
19:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And if your core values integrity being one of them are not aligned, the partnership just does not need to go any further.
19:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this isn't even a discussion.
19:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, hey, you're a liar.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm honest, I'm a truth teller.
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: In the story and of some you still money.
19:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't still end of story.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't care about the customer at the end of the day.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I carry very deeply about the customer at the end of the day.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: end of story, like just like kind of business partnerships, kind of model marriages and significant relationships so much because you will overlook so many things because a person is great in one area.
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And that greatness in one area isn't enough to carry a relationship forward long term, right?
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And because so many of us yourself and I included our figuring out partnerships for the very first time, like I want to make sure that you understand some of the things and these are some of the things that
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: We've done these are some of the things that we, I remember with our workshops, it's like, okay, how much are we gonna charge?
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you wanna do with the money?
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What are we gonna, how do we split with the split?
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we have those conversations, not even realizing at that time that we were building our partnership criteria, right?
20:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So those small workshops where we were charging like $20 to be in the room, $25 to be in the room,
21:02
[SPEAKER_00]: set us up.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Those little conversations set us up to be able to handle multi-million dollar projects and assets and a bank account with the with the hefty amount of money in it.
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give you some things to prevent.
21:15
[SPEAKER_00]: misalignment in partnership right number one have a conversation with whoever you're thinking about what does success actually look like to you here one what does success look like for you year one before we even do this is this a long-term partnership or short-term partnership we can partner on webinars right it's a component of my business it's a component of your business we can say for the next six months
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to partner in webinars and split it 50, 50 or 60, 40, whatever that looks like.
21:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's just what we're going to do.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a part of my marketing model over the next 12 months.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not necessarily what's going to be happening in my business in five years.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So is this a long-term partnership or a short-term partnership?
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that timeframe, let's break it up.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What does success look like for you in month one?
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's a short-term partnership, month six, month 12, long-term partnership, what does success look like for you?
22:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Year one.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Year three.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Year five.
22:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it.
22:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it.
22:10
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
22:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, number two.
22:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
22:13
[SPEAKER_04]: No clear roles or responsibilities.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's a big one.
22:18
[SPEAKER_04]: No clear roles or responsibilities.
22:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
22:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I think what works for us is I guess we don't have to do what I'm going to tell other people to do, meaning like we could, but writing down all of your all the roles that need to be filled right out your strengths, weaknesses, things that I nature, because we have a relationship.
22:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I know you, you know me.
22:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I know it's your great at.
22:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I'm great at.
22:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I know what you're not great at.
22:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not great at it.
22:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So that we we understand like when something comes about like if we're having a conversation with someone about this business and they say okay well um uh we are going to meet this this isn't like so for for runway uh shots out of runway he built out the the system for my son figure that's what my first million my first million conference and he creates his list of things we're going to need
23:16
[SPEAKER_04]: We can both look at the list and say, yeah, that was Donnie's, that was mine.
23:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that was Donnie's, yeah, I'll take that one because we know who we're in business with, but so many people are in business with strangers that are excited about the thing.
23:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And we didn't really get clear on the roles and responsibilities.
23:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is one of the first things you all need to do is sit down.
23:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want you to first write out all the things that are needed.
23:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Before we even get to title CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and CEO and
24:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's going to be the marketer who's going to handle the money who's like let's just write down the things that are me that before we start looking at it from our own skill set Let's just write down what's needed and then we can go to the list and here's what I'd say me you or new
24:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Number one, me, I'll take that one.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Two, you take that one.
24:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Three, neither one of us are good at this.
24:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We need a new solution for this.
24:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, okay, if we're going to find a solution, maybe we don't have somebody to hire, but we need to come up with something where we can pull our strengths together to get this done in a system format or something.
24:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we gotta take some money and pay some eye to fill that one, me, you or no.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that, which is going to bring me the number three because after you've defined your roles and responsibilities, one of the reasons business partnerships fail is because one person or both feels like they're there's unequal amounts of effort being deployed into the business.
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is such a huge one you guys, let me tell you something, just like, you know, marriages are not 50, 50 or 100, 100, whatever you like to frame it, you're not, it's not going to be an equal effort of 100, 100, 100 all the time.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes somebody's going to be given 70 when the other person is given 30, right?
25:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you are building a business,
25:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, let's just say in the beginning, in the very, very, very beginning of the business, whoever is most qualified in the operations of the business, right, your systems, your structure, your framework, your legal setup, that person is probably going to be carrying the most weight.
25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we have to set up all of the foundations and the systems that
25:49
[SPEAKER_00]: the creative person isn't qualified to do.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But when we sat down in number two and highlighted all of our roles and responsibilities and we picked what we were good at, operator in the beginning, this is your time to shine, right?
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where, but you're looking at before we can even get off the ground.
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: you're looking at your partner saying, man, I'm the only one who's up at this hour doing all the work.
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: This is because we're not at a place yet, we're ready to receive customers for the creator to come in and kick in.
26:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to understand that there will be seasons where one of you are carrying more weight than the other.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: that doesn't mean that you need to get paid any more than the other person gets paid, you're still a 50, 50 partner or whatever that looks like.
26:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You will go through seasons where you feel like the other person just doesn't contribute whatsoever.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to go through a season where you feel under-appreciated, right?
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially, let's say you have a partnership that's maybe 70, 30.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're in your season of doing more right now.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to be looking at that 70, 30 split
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you just keep going and you start building the business and you make it through putting the foundation together and now we're receiving customers and now it's time for the for the creator or that person to actually fulfill and start doing that thing you're going to realize operator.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: that the systems become less and less and less and less and less time consuming it becomes more about managing.
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to start to balance out the scorecard just a little bit more, right?
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you are going into these new partnerships, the key to preventing a failed partnership is to have as much clarity up front.
27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: as possible before you ever even get started, because it's really hard to understand, to not understand how we're going to split this money, what we're going to do with the money, how we're going to take profit is really hard to have that conversation after the fact.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: See, sometimes you're going into business,
27:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think, oh, we're going to have our first $5,000 month.
27:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what if you actually do really, really well, and you have a $50,000 month?
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the expectation about whether we take profit and how much profit and how much of a split becomes harder to have because you're looking at bigger numbers.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need to,
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: understand how you contribute.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to understand who's going to be showing up more in this season.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I show up more in a season when you're seeming to be carrying the majority of the way who's taking care of, you know, and you have to balance your own emotional and mental load.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: What I will tell you is I'll never go into business again with someone who is not emotionally balanced.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been in business before with someone who ended up being jealous of my contribution to the business or my role in the business, right?
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I heard Oprah Winfrey say it on an interview the other day, you can't be friends with, you can't be married to, you can't be in business with, anybody who really wants to be who you are.
28:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but I think the challenge though is, you don't know that that's happening until I happen.
28:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, no, there we're signs.
28:58
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, yeah, we're all good.
28:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, first off, I saw that there was a dispute between Ferrell and the other guy.
29:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know the guy's name, it's partner.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the name.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: What's that group?
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Neptune.
29:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Neptune.
29:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So Tang is Ferrell and I don't know what happened.
29:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can only imagine, for the sake of this conversation, Ferrell is Ferrell.
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And Ferrell.
29:22
[SPEAKER_04]: But he
29:23
[SPEAKER_04]: make half the beats or whatever they did and he's at the Louis Vuitton Fasten Show and Ferrell has progressed so incredibly and his partner is equally responsible for that success but eventually when the music isn't musicing and I see that Ferrell is going crazy it's like yeah hold on I could I should be that or for the longest time I didn't even desire that
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: But then I'm getting older, or I'm meat.
29:54
[SPEAKER_04]: a spouse, or a meet a partner, and the partners in my ear and I all don't want, you may have them beats.
30:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You were responsible for it.
30:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Why don't you bring you to the Louis Vuitton fashion show?
30:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Why don't?
30:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And you might not even want that.
30:10
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you get in an environment long enough, people change.
30:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that's just hard to prevent, man.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it can be.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But whenever you look at things retrospectively, you always say, oh, there was a little bit of a sign.
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, in my situation, I was able to kind of track back and say, uh, there was another sign and it's not always in how those people treat you is if you pay attention to how they treat their other relationships, how they talk about other people, how they show up in other relationships, it's kind of like, and there's always when it happens to you, not if it happens to you.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that particular situation with that field partnership, and that situation with that field partnership,
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: that person mismanaged other relationships.
30:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That person mismanaged the relationship that should have been the closest relationship to them.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for me, for me now, if you'll mismanage a relationship that's that close to you, it's just a matter of time before you mismanage mine.
31:08
[SPEAKER_04]: But hindsight is impossible to see.
31:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It's easy to say it after, right?
31:14
[SPEAKER_04]: For instance, let's say, for instance, let's say, for instance, we stop talking and we're meant there's a million things that you can point out about.
31:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, yep, I should have saw that for a million things.
31:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, yep, don't, she always been like, you feel me like, there's, it's just,
31:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You, it's, it's impossible to see, but this is why we go back to, and what's this very clear.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that situation, we didn't have clear roles like in that situation, it's like, Oh, my God, we do everything the same.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be so great.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We're both really into this and into that and all the things, this is why you have to have these conversations up front.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you get really serious about talking about what happens with the responsibility, who's responsible for doing this, what's up with the money?
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Those conversations will become intense enough for you to say, it's probably not a good idea.
32:03
[SPEAKER_04]: A little later, at that point, let's say.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you have to have that conversation up front, like Dave, before we started, my first million lives last year.
32:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what are you doing?
32:13
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I doing?
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And who else is coming in here to do?
32:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We were very, very clear.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So if there are questions going unanswered in the chat about tech stuff and operational stuff, I don't expect you to respond to that.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's me, right?
32:27
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's questions about getting the camera crew together to film content and all that stuff, I'm probably not responding to that.
32:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave got that.
32:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We're both capable of doing both things, but we understand where the other person shines.
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: where we are in a family.
32:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You film it like it.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, are we?
32:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I think so.
32:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we both have enough emotional maturity to even sense something we're in.
32:54
[SPEAKER_04]: you are really really good at starting a conversation.
33:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, what if neither one of us are good at starting a conversation, we don't have many things that we need to talk about or discuss that are issues, but if neither one of us are good at talking about it, we are
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to be mad at you.
33:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to be mad at me.
33:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And now we're both both looking for a way out.
33:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's important in this particular conversation.
33:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The fourth point for the audience.
33:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, before we get there.
33:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
33:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I want us if you have a business partner right now and it's fresh or nearly it's been seasoned.
33:35
[SPEAKER_04]: What I want you all to do is have a session.
33:40
[SPEAKER_04]: of what happens if the worst happens.
33:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Listen, you are my best friend.
33:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I love you.
33:45
[SPEAKER_04]: We was in the sandbox together.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: You are my brother.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: You are my sister.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: You're my mom.
33:49
[SPEAKER_04]: You're my son.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: We we love each other.
33:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But let's just for a moment.
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Imagine what happens if we stop like in each other.
33:59
[SPEAKER_04]: What happens then?
34:00
[SPEAKER_04]: How do we how do we unwind this company?
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the only reason why in the company.
34:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It's better to have the conversation when we don't want to unwind the company.
34:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It's better to have a conversation when we're good, when we're happy, when we're all that.
34:16
[SPEAKER_04]: What happens if you
34:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We have to break this thing out.
34:20
[SPEAKER_04]: What are the, let's just talk about it right now because we never had that conversation when there is.
34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is so important.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we're giving you the strategies.
34:27
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, we're on a conversation.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't even supposed to be happy today.
34:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, we were supposed to be talking about some else.
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll save it for next week.
34:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's why we're having this conversation with you right now because these are things that you do in advance.
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to go into a business partnership blind.
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is another, this goes into another one of the points, but you have to have the heart conversations early like what's our exit plan in the event that I cannot stand you see in some situations.
34:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so, let's just make a number four.
35:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here now, make it number four.
35:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which are poor communication.
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, and we'll circle back to that one.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, go ahead.
35:10
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I'm saying, we're here, so we've really started about it.
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about it.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about it.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Poor communication, not like avoiding real conversations, avoiding real conversations, like, yes, this conversation is going to be difficult to have.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's hard to hear that you're not holding up your end of the bargain.
35:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's hard to hear that you can't touch that money.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Like these things are hard to hear, but when you don't have the conversation, these conversations turn into an immense amount of frustration.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where the tension builds up.
35:37
[SPEAKER_00]: and these are when situations that could have been solved through a conversation become irreparable.
35:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me be extremely hypocritical right now because I'm about to tell somebody to do some stuff that I think is a really good idea that I haven't done yet, but I probably need to.
35:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I think as business partners or in a relationship,
36:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it would be cool to have like a weekly or monthly get it off your chest session.
36:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh for sure.
36:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Like these are the things that like it rub me wrong.
36:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And we I let a lot of stuff just roll off my shoulder because eventually it's not that deep right now.
36:17
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think it would be important for and maybe that's the point of therapy like when couples get therapy It's like we're gonna meet our therapists for the month and this is the chance that we get a chance to talk about all the things that maybe Maybe it wasn't that important in the moment.
36:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but it could grow into importance it could
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in a previous relationship, we used to do weekly relationship check-ins, every single week we had a document, right, where we managed certain criteria, and we didn't have that meeting to just talk about the things that we didn't like about each other.
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We had that meeting to kind of score, how do we perform in this relationship over the last seven days, right?
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like, oh, on a scale of one to ten last week, I feel like it was a ten or last week, I feel like it was a four.
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: and it opened the door for conversations to give each other an opportunity to talk about what you did very well and it was very important to always talk about the wins first.
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: What how did we win in this partnership or in this relationship over the last seven days?
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do extremely well?
37:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I liked it when you did this, right?
37:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you always start out endearing and then say, okay now not what I don't like, not what the problem is, but where are our areas of opportunity?
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well last week
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we had better opportunity to communicate a little bit more.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great, give me an example.
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, when you said you'd be home for dinner, but you ended up running into a business partner.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys wanted to hit the bar.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You sent me a text, but we didn't get a chance to really talk about that.
37:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was an opportunity for us to communicate just a little bit better there.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I see your perspective and then we grade at the meeting based on how we felt like we present it during the meeting that we get over emotional that we become angry that we storm out because we're not perfect sometimes those things are going to happen you think what about what I don't enter to you and but you know like these things are going to happen hard conversations don't feel good but those meetings worked so well to manage the relationship while we were in it.
38:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They also worked so well to uncover that we weren't meant to be in a relationship at all.
38:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
38:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I'm pretty sure.
38:23
[SPEAKER_04]: What about in communication where we're both right?
38:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
38:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We're both right.
38:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
38:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I believe we're right.
38:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You believe you're right.
38:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
38:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there a way to mitigate that or to solve it?
38:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I deeply believe I'm right about this situation deeply believe.
38:42
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've learned in therapy about situations where you feel so connected to your right is are you more committed to the idea of being right or are you more committed to solving the problem, right?
38:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And you have to solve my solution is the solve to the problem and your solution.
39:03
[SPEAKER_04]: No, pressure.
39:04
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, instead of me saying, I'm right, this is the solution.
39:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't necessarily have to be committed to that idea.
39:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I now have to say, okay, Dave.
39:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I at least see your perspective?
39:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I at least understand your perspective?
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I might not agree with your perspective being the solution, but can I at least agree with it?
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I see where you're coming from.
39:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let me confirm that you see where I'm coming from.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you now understand my perspective and where I'm coming from?
39:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And usually when we start having those conversations, we're able to create a compromise, like a meat in the middle.
39:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
39:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not wrong here.
39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not wrong here.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we take both of our ideas, put them together, and solve the problem, because it's important for you to know that I'm not trying to be right.
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to move forward together.
39:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to go left.
39:48
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to go right.
39:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We can't go to the middle.
39:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't go to the middle.
39:51
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no, there's no right.
39:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You're being stubborn.
39:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're being stubborn.
39:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You're being stubborn too.
39:56
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm trying to compromise.
39:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to create a solution.
39:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And then sometimes we
40:00
[SPEAKER_04]: can not go, there's no road to the middle.
40:02
[SPEAKER_04]: We have to make a left or right here.
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so interesting because I recently put together a partnership agreement, right?
40:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have these struggles where it's like, no, we shouldn't be doing this.
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we should be doing this.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what we should be doing.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I built this a million times over.
40:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what we should be doing.
40:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I literally built in an accountability metric through a third party, right?
40:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So, sometimes you have to have somebody else to talk to.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you are both absolutely right.
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But can we have a business consultant or a business partner coach?
40:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Those exist, I found out, right?
40:37
[SPEAKER_00]: A business partner coach that we can have on standby that says, hey, we're at an impasse here.
40:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We need a session with you immediately.
40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you review this and help us come up with?
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: a result of a process in which we move forward, and sometimes that's going to be the case, but you have to agree to tap out.
40:53
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to sit here and argue perspective.
40:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to argue going left while you're arguing going right.
40:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to, at some point, and in my
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: In my personal relationship when we did this there was a timer like we get two minutes to communicate this point You get two minutes to communicate that point if we then we spend five minutes trying to resolve it if not in that time frame We need to schedule a session That's good.
41:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to become so I rate off of two ideas that are not bad ideas like why would we spend our time blowing up over not bad ideas?
41:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Just not my preferred idea.
41:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just tap out here.
41:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Say the safe word schedule the appointment
41:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think what helps be the glue for all it is is personal development on both ends.
41:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
41:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Because some, I can see a next situation.
41:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, we get a mediator and they side with you.
41:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't like neither one of y'all now.
41:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, y'all always, y'all always come together and it seems like I am on it.
41:52
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't like neither one of y'all, but that is going to be a personal development issue because there's no strategy that we can even teach.
42:01
[SPEAKER_04]: That is going to help us.
42:03
[SPEAKER_04]: a selfish, nasty person who's creating these ideas in her head about how the whole world is against them.
42:12
[SPEAKER_04]: We can't help you with the one to three steps.
42:14
[SPEAKER_04]: There's nothing we could do, but we have to be committed to personal development.
42:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not even interested in being friends with people who are not committed to personal development.
42:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I have gone through such a pruning season just in this year alone simply because I can't stand the way you think.
42:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're unwillingness to do anything about it.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe you would do that.
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe this is a decision that you would absolutely, that you are absolutely okay with making.
42:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when we, when we discuss it, you're standing on it, but it was deplorable behavior.
42:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I am in a season of scooting you right on out of here.
42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are someone who's not interested in a personal development, personal development is nothing but a commitment to saying, I am in pursuit of my best and highest self.
43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you want people around you in relationship, in friendship, in acquaintance, in companionship, in business partnership who are not in pursuit of becoming their best self?
43:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a person with very average goals, very average mindset, very negative mindset sometimes, even.
43:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that one, you have to align with people that you actually like.
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I think me and my wife has been, this has been a really good journey for me as a husband, because I've just learned so much through the process.
43:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You're with someone every single day of your life.
43:34
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no better person to develop.
43:36
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're looking for it, if you're looking to be on that journey, but I've adopted the philosophy of I will let you be wrong.
43:49
[SPEAKER_04]: from my own perspective, right?
43:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So I am deadlocked on the fact that I'm right and your ideas contradict through the mind which makes you wrong.
43:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I realize that I don't I don't I don't want to I don't want to fight for that.
44:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not even that serious.
44:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's important.
44:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll let you but my my point of what I've learned is I'm I'm willing to let your way be inferior to my way
44:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Right?
44:15
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
44:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is personal.
44:17
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I'm in my mind.
44:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't trick myself into thinking, oh, we should do it your way.
44:22
[SPEAKER_04]: When in my mind, I don't think we should do it that way.
44:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me, I say, okay, I'm willing to let this go because it's not that serious, which leads to,
44:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm very sparing with what I put my foot down.
44:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's fair.
44:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't use that every day.
44:45
[SPEAKER_04]: She is sparing with, okay, this is a non-negotiable.
44:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't happen off.
44:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and then I think that goes back to understanding your roles, right?
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: To understanding your roles, like if let's just say in the home, my role is to make sure we eat today.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the final say here.
45:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If your role is to make sure that we add here to the budget, we agree to this.
45:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the final say here, right?
45:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we share roles in where we take our annual family vacation,
45:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go back and forth on this one, all right?
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to go cold, whether I want to go tropical.
45:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about this until we get it right and compromise here.
45:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really important that you understand roles.
45:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's really important that you stick to assigning roles because there are going to be so many moments where you don't necessarily agree.
45:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great.
45:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's the team leader in this area?
45:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Team leader has to take charge.
45:43
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that we don't consider each other.
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Baby after three hours is talking about this.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand you're perspective, but I gotta put my foot in that.
45:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta hold firm on this one.
45:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be okay with the decision though, so if we need to get the mediator on the phone, let's do that, right?
45:58
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a book by Mel Robbins called Let Them.
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be the Let Them Theory.
46:02
[SPEAKER_00]: That book is such a great read for everybody to read this book.
46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you will learn that many things are just not that important.
46:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when it comes to solutions and solving conflict and business partnerships and relationships, first think about how important, how much do I even care about this?
46:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We're arguing over chicken nuggets or chicken filets, like do I even really care?
46:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like I'm vegan and we're arguing over these things, right?
46:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me the chicken nuggets, it's fine.
46:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I'll just go get something on my own.
46:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you just have to let people do what they're going to do.
46:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to wrap up though with point number five.
46:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And business partnerships fail.
46:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about this a little in the beginning because of financial confusion.
46:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
46:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Financial confusion.
46:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where
46:47
[SPEAKER_00]: things get ugly, like not even just disagreements, but I'll flip the whole table over.
46:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We're the money.
46:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are the monies, right?
46:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Money goes missing, it's mismanaged, it's loosely tracked.
47:02
[SPEAKER_00]: One person wants more money than the other.
47:04
[SPEAKER_00]: One person wants to decide what you're going to do with the money, nobody knows what's coming in, everybody doesn't know what's going out, and how to prevent those things.
47:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to make sure that you have shared visibility into accounts.
47:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's, you know, let's talk about it in our, in our executive weekly meetings, in our weekly meetings and things of that nature.
47:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make sure we understand, hey, show me the money, show me the account ledger.
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me, let me see that, right?
47:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you could have access to it.
47:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's both look at the account ledger and see what's going on with our money if money could potentially be in question for us.
47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Question cash transactions.
47:37
[SPEAKER_00]: because at the end of the day, the accountant can't justify your cash transaction, everything has to be documented with a receipt or a traceable transaction, written reimbursement rules.
47:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you get reimbursed for?
47:50
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you get reimbursed for it?
47:52
[SPEAKER_00]: When do you get reimbursed for it, right?
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a reimbursable expense?
47:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you spending money on setting up vendors out of pocket?
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay Dave, well you didn't tell me that you were doing that.
48:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to have these conversations up front, and they're cannot be any secrecy.
48:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time you lie about money, the first time you request a reimbursement that is dishonest about what you needed that money for, the first time you co-mingle personal funds with business funds in a partnership,
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: it will break and destroy not just the business, not just the partnership, but the whole nature of the relationship that you guys may have had outside of that partnership done over with.
48:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be really, really clear about the money.
48:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Just so I know, I think the company owes me $1,000 for our tax preparation, I just did.
48:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Our company?
48:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think we took it out yet, so.
48:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you pay it?
48:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see, let me see, let me see, let me see.
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see, let me see, let me see, show me the receipts.
48:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, let's see, let's see.
48:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, send me the receipt, show us that show me that he paid for our tax preparation.
49:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to scan the summary of our account.
49:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure there are no conflicting charges.
49:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll reimburse that pal things work.
49:12
[SPEAKER_03]: That, yeah, literally, it real time.
49:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I just thought about saying, hold on, I don't think I forgot $1,000 back.
49:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Show me the receipt.
49:19
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, it's good to go.
49:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and that's that.
49:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a necessary business expense.
49:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You pay for it out of pocket.
49:27
[SPEAKER_00]: which shouldn't ever have happened.
49:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I don't have a debit card for the account, so I use my money.
49:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But you do?
49:33
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I don't.
49:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know where you put the debit card from my own business account.
49:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you're just putting things in places where you don't access it.
49:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't use the debit card.
49:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But we both ordered them at the same time.
49:44
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't be taking that out of it, like this.
49:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, yeah, we don't put nothing on it.
49:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't put anything on the little situation.
49:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't even think of a use for the debit card.
49:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We know we do ATH or a wires, but that's exactly why.
49:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the bookkeeper should report to both.
50:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We both get X like I can access the bookkeeper.
50:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I just let you handle it.
50:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that you're on top of it.
50:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We've built.
50:09
[SPEAKER_00]: 11 to 12, 13 years of trust at this point, like there's no need for me to track behind David.
50:15
[SPEAKER_00]: If David has gone into our business account sometimes, and he'll say, hey, I noticed that you transferred some money from this account to your personal account.
50:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh my God, I did.
50:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I'm in such a rush because our business account is very similar to my personal account.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to go in and re-nick name the accounts so that I don't make that mistake anymore, but two or three times that happened.
50:38
[SPEAKER_00]: They've brought it to my attention.
50:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The money went right back immediately.
50:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there are no, you cannot have any secrets in business.
50:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to solve problems in business immediately.
50:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to correct issues in business.
50:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Do we refund people?
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we handle chargebacks?
50:52
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we handle all these things?
50:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You money is a tough conversation in business.
50:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could go on, but I got to get out of here.
50:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Money is a tough conversation.
51:00
[SPEAKER_00]: All these things are tough conversations.
51:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want a successful partnership,
51:04
[SPEAKER_00]: be willing to have the tough conversations.
51:07
[SPEAKER_00]: One of y'all got to be comfortable bringing up the tough conversation.
51:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Finally, important y'all.
51:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's put in the chat.
51:13
[SPEAKER_04]: The comments we want to hear about what your takeaways are.
51:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you are about to go have a conversation with your business partner, let's have let's do that.
51:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to see how that turns out.
51:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So, DMS, let's know what happened.
51:26
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, we are out of here.
51:28
[SPEAKER_04]: What are you doing?
51:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm posing for a picture.
51:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's supposed to be a natural picture.
51:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but every hit, my natural pictures aren't cute, ever.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm always stuck in the middle of the office.
51:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the first day.
51:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So he'll take the pitch.
51:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Jay is committed to only taking pictures of me looking like I'm learning.
51:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, all your pictures do look like that.
51:49
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the only ones you take.
51:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I'd be talking, there's like talking, but I guess he's just
51:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he waits until I'm listening.
51:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I can feel when he's around with the camera.
52:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll go from like, to...