Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 92 - The Entrepreneur's Sacrifice

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Ep. 92 - The Entrepreneur's Sacrifice · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And if you're an investor or that's what you're actually you have a dream to make a lot of money and you're investor thinking then you need to be an investor and know how to play that game and not think that you're an entrepreneur, you're not an entrepreneur.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're an investor, right.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And if you're an entrepreneur, you're not an investor.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: You're an entrepreneur, you know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, like you need to know, yeah.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: You make a really good point, you know.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I mean like you needed no kind of no, you make a really good point.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I never really thought about that.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah baby, yeah baby.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: We are back in the studio with another episode of Big Talk on Small Business.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I'm here with my co-host, hey, mark Pleasure to be here as your co-host.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Hi, mark, pleasure to be here as your co-host today, sir Eric Howerton and we're in Eric's studio for his small business one of them that he has, which is called PodcastVideoscom, which is doing, I think, very well, they continue to grow.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I think very well, they continue to grow.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: They continue to get more traction with their complete range of services that they provide to anybody who wants to do a podcast, as well as other stuff.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Anything, we call it conversational video, conversational video.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it applies to a lot of different things, you know.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, this business is something else.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: How many employees have you got over here now?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I think we have nine.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Nine employees in this location, yep, and five or six different recording venues in the location.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm In this one and we got things that are popping outside of the studio.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yep, we're setting up smaller studios, we do custom studio bed out.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So we're setting up smaller studios, we do custom studio bed out.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: So one thing we've been talking about is kind of like the home theater thing.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: We can come set up a video podcast at your house your business.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It'd probably be a great place just to do your Skype or your Zoom calls.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Right, you've got a good studio.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It goes across so many different spectrums.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's why it's kind of like conversational video is kind of a big umbrella.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Right, I should have you do that at my house.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You should, because it's not much and we can also like, if you do any recordings, you can send all your files and we do all your post-processing distribution.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we can help with pre-planning all that type of stuff.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Well, thank God, you guys Thank God, you guys are our number one sponsor of the show.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: You sure are.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's no question about that.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: So we're thankful to podcastvideoscom for what you do for Big Talk about small business Absolutely man, happy to do it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So today we're going to talk about the roses and thistles of business ownership.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: What do you think about?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that I don't think there's many roses.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: There's a lot more thistles than roses.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Well, there's some roses.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Sometimes roses don't smell so good.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: No, they don't Right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're looking for the roses at all times.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: That's very true, so yeah, thank God Sam, who's again part of podcast videos.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, provides these show notes for us and gives us some bullet point topics with some stats, which is really cool.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: She's getting into this man.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, she did some research on this one.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I like this.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Let's just dive into it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Let's do it the financial realities of business ownership.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: The average annual salary we'll say earnings for small business owners is approximately $69,119, with 86% earning under $100,000.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And the source of that is Entrepreneurs HQ.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You know, 30% of small business owners don't take anything out of the company, reinvesting instead in their business.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, so want to comment on that?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I mean I think that number one.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I definitely agree with this.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: To comment on that?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that number one, I definitely agree with this.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Like so, there was a long period of time in my first businesses where I didn't take anything.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't take earnings, salary, any of that.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It was always reinvesting the business.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: That's actually the case for today too, like for podcast videos.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Sure is that I own.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I don't take anything out of the company.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: It's all reinvested.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm either investing in it or I'm investing in another team member to come into the business to continue to help grow that business.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And I know, at White Spider back in the early days, I mean, there was a period of years if you added them all up together it was probably three and a half years worth of where I did not take any money.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I've just lived off credit cards or other types of debt.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: You know and just you were always going for the big payoff at the end.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: To me, that's the classic entrepreneurial mindset it's not what I get out of it now, it's what the payoff is at the end when I exit.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Now a lot of small business owners don't think like that.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: They think it's what I can get out of it right now.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that hurts the business, I think.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that, if you know, and now there were periods where I was making, you know, a salary that was less than $100,000 a year, for sure, is probably around the lines of that $69,000, where I could eke a living by, and then I would just stack debt on top of that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You know, credit cards, I mean, I was really good at like a Walmart credit card I had, you know, I had gas cards.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I had.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, capital one shields cards, what, bass pro, didn't matter.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Every bit of credit you can get.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Anything I can get, man, yeah, I get it, and I would just kind of, you know, ping pong back and forth from them and and just try to make, make it happen, man, you know well I, you know you, I can't say I.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I was exactly like that in my businesses.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Now you also got a bigger payoff at the end.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Um, by doing what you did with your business, particularly white spider not Not to say I did fine, I mean I sold my business twice.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Which is not bad.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: That's awesome man.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: But that wasn't always the case for me.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I was making a pretty good chunk of money when I started my business Well right before, because I was unemployed.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: And I certainly took a low salary but I made it back the first year.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know you don't necessarily have to take a vow of poverty.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: No, because I've had good salaries out of my companies and plenty of benefits and things.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I think it kind of depends on the business.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: But you know, I was always told I could take more out.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: We were in the reinvestment mode.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: We didn't want to have a lot of debt, right Okay, and wanted to keep the place growing so there would be some value at the end of the game.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Believe it to you and I think a lot of it, though.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: A lot of small businesses how much money they make.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: You know in large part it's their own fault if they're not making any money out of the business.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: That's fair, I mean, don't you think no, a hundred percent, and I think that you can.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: You know, the cool thing that I think you can do is is you can actually you don't.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I would say, don't look at it as like this consistent salary that you're getting every month over month.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: You know, no matter what you know, you're basically You've got to take care of the business first, that's right, and you also Not your personal needs, yeah, and you have to be dynamic in the sense of where is it better that you're getting paid or that you bring another resource on and pay that person?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, no question about it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You know, because sometimes, like you can like, the whole intent is to grow that business.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: You know, are you, you know, a $120,000 person's salary away from really going over the next hurdle?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: That person has the credibility, qualifications, the network, you know, the salesmanship to take that business to the next level, because that has multiple, multiple compounding interest.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is no, that's exactly what it is.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just investing in others and in the market and in the materials and equipment, whatever.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It is Yep To get over those hurdles.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Yep, and you being and I guess the point of it is is that your salary is part of that compounding interest equation.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: It is, yeah, the less you take out, the more you got to fuel your growth and value and value, yeah, creation.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: There's no question about that.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It does put it's hard for, I think, spouses to understand that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know like a spouse that is not in a small business, they're not an entrepreneur themselves.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: You know like a spouse that is not in a small business, they're not an entrepreneur themselves.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Right, because it's definitely not the norm of the masses of how people look at a career Yep, and pay, yeah, compensation.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: And they look at that spouse and think, oh, you're so talented, you could have a good job.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you could.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: You could.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could be working for XYZ and make it $250,000 a year.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Why are you doing this?
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's because at XYZ Company I can't make millions, exactly.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: You know, there's the payoff.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I'm on multi-millions, right?
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Millions of dollars, right yeah.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Because then you can take that and keep you doing more right, continue to invest, but no, that's I mean, that's that's it, there's no question about it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, where I say I think a lot of small business owners could do better.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of them really don't think about things like how critical the growth is to their profitability.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: In other words, pursuing growth makes making profits easier, yeah, and if your goal, though, is the profitability, then you don't necessarily get the growth right.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing, that they where they really screw up, and the other thing, I think, is just pricing, yeah, just not charging enough for what they do.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I see that all the time.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Like there was a guy that had a sandwich shop.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: It was attached to the sitco station in dover, massachusetts, where I lived, and what was in sherburne?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Dover sherburne are two sister communities, that kind of work together.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: They got a common school system in the boston metro west area, very, very affluent, okay, like my next door neighbor was pierre dupont the fifth, okay, oh yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: So that's the kind of neighborhoods you have, and they've got one place in town that has carryout food, and that's this Italian restaurant attached to the Citgo station, which is like the Citgo station.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I mean it's like everything happens there, okay, everything.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: They had movie rental, they had a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru window, they had everything there.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: But my point is the food was great Unbelievable sandwiches and pasta dishes and things.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It was all too cheap, yeah, and there'd be a line out the frigging door and you've got these customers that make a lot of money.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: I would say to the guy that owns the place I'm like, dude, raise all your prices.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I don't want to do that.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I don't want to scare people.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like we're not here because it's cheap, we're here because it's convenient, yeah, okay.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And it's good, yeah, okay, okay.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: So we pay for those things.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Raise your price.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I mean the guy you know.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I think at the time this goes back to, let's say, the late 90s he was making $108,000 or whatever.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: I bet you could have made $208,000.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Probably $300,000 out of that business.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with the volume that he was doing just by changing his pricing, yep you know 100% you was doing just by changing his pricing.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yep, you know they're afraid to ask 100, but anyway.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: So the financial realities.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to make sacrifices if you want that thing to grow.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: That's all there is to it.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: That's the the golden goose.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: You can eat the eggs or you can let them sit there right and keep making more and making more eggs.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: That's it time commitment and work-life balance.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Many small business owners work 50 plus hours per week to sustain operations.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's according to the new york post.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a minimum in my.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I mean like 50 hours.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: That's all, that's it.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: That's not much.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's much.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: No, and I mean it's, and it's constant, week over week, year over year.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, and I don't even like that work-life balance statement.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I mean that's like we could scratch that off, right.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I mean we're not trying to get work-life balance because we view them as the same thing.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean we're here to work.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, work-life integration.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Man Do work you like.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, work as hard as you can.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Take a nap yeah, it's that simple, right it is.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: 50 hours, like you could start at six and be done at four or five days a week and be off all weekend.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: What?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of boring right?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it's.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: It doesn't sound like much, no, no is it?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: no, it doesn't.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, and you know when I think that that kind of goes back up to that the reality is the finance because, like, not only are you maybe not taking pay, but you're also working more, and so this equation not?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I see a lot of people struggling with that, with you know, like if they're in a currently employed and they're, they have an idea and they want to go out and start a business, like they really battle themselves, they spreadsheet this out, they're like, know, I mean, I'm making this much now and I need to be making you know this.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Like no, you need to go to the bare minimum, yes, and then just completely wipe off the calculation of the number of hours that you're spending.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Like it does, it's, it's insignificant, doesn't even matter, you don't even need to look at it.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: What?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: you've talked before about the people who leave corporate america and either start a new business or buy a business or buy a franchise.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I think you captured the essence of why a lot of them struggle well, I mean, there's a lot of reasons they struggle, right, they're used to having all the support of a big company and suddenly they're doing everything on their own.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: But the other reason is they've got this expectation that I'm going to work less than I work now at Megacorp and I'm going to make the money I make at Megacorp.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Ain't going to happen, no.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So if you suck all that money out of your new business to maintain the lifestyle that you had working at Megacorp, you probably right away got a problem.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So it kind of goes back to our previous conversations we had, like, if you have this itch to start a business, the itch means you're trying to solve a market problem.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: No one else is solving it.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: You feel like you should go solve it and there's a big reward for it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Right, and those rewards come from all kinds of things.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: That's the reason that you jump ship, solve it and there's a big reward for it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Right, and those rewards come from all kinds of things.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: That's the reason that you jump ship.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: You don't need to try to calculate Psychic rewards.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, like you don't, you shouldn't.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: If you're trying to formulate your experience as an entrepreneur based upon what your experience is as an employee, your experience as an entrepreneur based upon what your experience is as an employee, like you're not going to find that perfect formula to jump over.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And if you think that you have that's where I've seen a lot of destruction Like I see a lot of people that had that itch but they've analyzed their idea out of not doing it because it doesn't make sense financially.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that never will.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Like you're not initially, yeah, not initially.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right For sure.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Like you basically have, you know, done a mathematical equation that stops you from doing what your dream was.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: So like that's a bad idea.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Don't even do that.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't you know?
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You're right on with that.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And the second thing is is if they have found some way to mathematically allow themselves to go into business, that's where the destruction starts.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So bringing that freaking math equation from an employee in a typical scenario to a business is the most dangerous equation you can sit down and try to figure out.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Listen up people.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, we're not here to tell you what you want to hear about business ownership.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: We're here to tell you the realities of business ownership.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you are equipped, yep, but you know as well as I do most people.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: They have too much personal overhead and they load up on all kinds of debt that they shouldn't have.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's one thing to owe on your house or whatever that's an appreciating asset but pretty much everything else is not worth owing on.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you really come down to it, it's really not.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a gain to that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Actually, I miss to be honest with you, I miss a lot of the debt overhead I had.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It was so motivating.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the debt you talked about having and some of the debt I had too, was related to not wanting to take money out of the business.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Right, so I, in a sense, I was like fueling the working capital of the business, yeah, by like.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Here you got this tax obligation.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: You can't take distributions to cover it, right, so I got to go borrow on my credit cards to pay it, yeah, right.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Get those beautiful revolving credit cards are great they're fantastic, right, there's no strings, right.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: But if you're just doing it for personal consumption, to maintain the lifestyle that you had when you were a vice president at megacorp or whatever, yeah, that's a problem or, or you know, I mean I remember a lot of times I would use the debt for things that the family wanted or needed, right, yeah, to kind of what makes up for you not making any money?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I mean it's like to normally honestly, to sustain the time so I can continue going after what I'm doing and everybody's happy, for right now it makes total sense.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But I do miss that pressure of like oh man, like in this check floating scenario, like of where, like I remember so, like every week, multiple times a week, a lot of times figuring out which credit card I needed to pay on this, really this date, and what that minimum was, and then how much I needed to pull, like here's the thing I'd pull from the business and pay myself, based on what my minimum payments were with my credit cards to sustain another month, yeah, and then another month, and there's just a cycle over and over and over again.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: But I was always just pulling basic, minimal stuff, if you miss that you know I've got some businesses piece of money we can load you up with debt, all that you want.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it, baby, let's go that'll get you real motivated.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: but I need to talk to the wife first about that, that's how much of a sketch?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: That's gosh.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's going to take time.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: You're not going to make as much money, probably initially.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: If you think long term, protect the goose, that lays the golden egg.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Get the big payoff.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: That's entrepreneurship.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 50 hours a week is nothing, nothing.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what people say, like how many hours a week you work.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I always say I don't know, I have no idea.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: You say the same thing, oh hell.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is so funny that that how you and I have had so much the same mentality and attitude towards this stuff, right, and we just totally different from everybody else but that's why I'm doing this podcast with you, because you make me feel normal it, but it's so true like we don't know how many hours we have no idea, because anytime I always say if I'm awake, I'm probably working.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for all practical purposes I'm at least engaged like.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I'm checking emails, I'm checking text.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you know I mean, or I'm planning, like my dream.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: My favorite thing is when the team has a vacation, like tomorrow there's a holiday, juneteenth is happening, team's off work Fantastic.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I will have some one-on-one time with myself zoning in to some projects.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Good for you.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that I will accomplish.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: But your projects will probably be like getting your heavy equipment out.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, I'm talking about work projects.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah, I'm going to figure out some things.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That's required me to spend four or five hours to sit there and think when you've got the focus, the time commitment yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but so that's an example.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not counting those as hours of a week.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I get it, I know you know exactly what you're saying.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just part of what's about.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Every sunday morning I get up when everybody else is sleeping and I go hit a coffee shop and I work three or four hours.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, every sunday before they even get up for years.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I got a new job here.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: It's speaking of that um.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: It was kind of cool, my um.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: One of my daughters bought me for father's day this thing.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, I get this.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like, geez, you got me another freaking job, whereas every week they ask me a question that I have to write up the response to and then it puts it all in a book about you, oh yeah like a legacy book, like, yeah, the stuff that Duncan Stone does, is it a Duncan Stone thing?
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, but it's kind of cool, it's that they manage.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Basically, they manage you.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: So every week you got to write Okay, that's another job.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: It's another job, I swear.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sitting there answering these things and spitting out a thousand words at a time.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Anyway, it is another job, but it's, it'll be cool because in the end they'll actually it's like first thing.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I was like you're, I'm surprised you want to know what it was like for me as a kid.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Nobody ever asked me that my kids don't care about that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: You actually do.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: No, wow, that's cool when your dad don't care.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: You know what was dad like?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: But it is like another job.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's interesting.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a great business idea.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to do this.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It is Okay, let's go back to the real.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So the common challenges faced by small business owners.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Top challenges include inflation at 58%, revenue concerns at 35%, employee benefit costs at 14 percent, access to financing at 14 percent, and then supply chain issues at 13.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Provided by back lingo, the stats were um.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So what are we supposed to say?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Right, you know?
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I think this is a business owner like the one thing there's.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Honestly, there's only one thing in here that I'm constantly concerned about, and that's revenue.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you Like 100% of the time.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: The rest of this stuff we can take care of if we got the revenue right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And also like, what can you really like?
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Revenue's the thing in your control?
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't control inflation.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: No, I can't control employee benefit costs.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, I guess, well, maybe there's a part of me that is always mindful of access to financing, like I don't think I'm constantly, I'm not worried about that or I'm not.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I am worried about that.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: With some of the businesses I'm associated with yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I've got one right now that's got an order from their bank to go find a new bank.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that's find a new bank.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah Okay, that's not a good feeling, you know I guess it's about challenges, right?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, your access to financing.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You know that is a challenge that you face, like when you are tight on money, and like how you're going to cover those bridges.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are a lot of challenges.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I mean these are all challenges.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm kind of surprised that these are the top challenges.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I would think the top challenges are like employee-related yeah, wouldn't you.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, 100%.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: I mean like those are the things that really keep you awake at night, as they say.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can't believe that that inflation thing is like the challenge, like I mean I can't either.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Now I guess that there's.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: You know it depends on your industry, right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I mean I can see you know, like brands, you know product manufacturers, they obviously that's a huge one, and that could be the majority of people that responded to this.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Or you know maybe that there's so many products that are out there that masses are thinking about that right, like if you're in some kind of commodity business or something which we're not.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Either of us never have been.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Um, the the supply chain issues, that those are real.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I mean that's that's really created some havoc in the manufacturing business and I'm part of.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: I mean it started with the tariffs, and then it then suppliers saying well, we just won't supply anything to you anymore because your tariffs are so high.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That's going to kill our market, so we won't even make that.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Ok, that's what I think people didn't even think about.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like you can just automatically buy stuff in the US, right, even if you had the, we're willing to pay the difference in price.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a trickle payment.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: That's creating some supply chain.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, truthfully, though, any responsible manufacturer should have multiple sources for what they buy.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: It's it?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: This is just like a classic business school case that you allow yourself to be dependent on one company that's not going to perform.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: You can't run your business you cannot, you cannot, and I think that that that is not going to perform.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You can't run your business like that, and I think that that's not just you know.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I think it's for any procurement, it's any service that you have.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You've got to be thinking you have to have plan B and C, amen, locked and loaded, and not only for when the bad happens, but also, I think, to keep your current one accountable.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It's like, bro, you think you're the only freaking accountant that exists.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Now, I know, are you serious?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: It's so true?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just to keep the Just remember, I got two people I can holler at.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I've talked to them.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I'll let them know.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I talked to them.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: No, you're right on with that, all right.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Take the next one mark business longevity and survival rates.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: 50 of small businesses survive five years.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Only 30 reach the 10-year mark.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Of course, it goes down when you, once you go up to 20, 30 years, whatever.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm proud to say one of my businesses is going to turn 37 years old this year.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: That that is.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: That is.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of time, man.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm not the owner.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: It's gone through multiple transitions at this point, yeah, but you found it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It's carrying on.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: I did co-founded it with, with Fred White, right?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Actually, I started it first.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Then I hired Fred Okay, for the first three years I was a hundred percent, oh wow years.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I was 100, oh, wow, yeah.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Then I incorporated I mean, fred was there early, yeah, within several months, maybe three or four months of starting it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: He was pivotal dude.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Congratulations, man.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: 37 years, yeah, 37 years.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: So why don't they last?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Why do businesses flame out, you?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: You think?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: man, I think that well.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: So I think on that first bracket there, five years you know the 50% that get knocked out in the first five years I think a lot of that is just just pure stamina.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean, like to your point earlier, like so many folks don't understand how hard it is, how much time it takes and how little money that you're going to have and how much you have to invest in that business.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Don't you love these things where these experts advise you to have like a year's worth of your operating expenses stuff decided.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I mean like who does, who does?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: No one can I mean who no work, yeah yeah, that's it over, you'll never start anything exactly, you know.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like we're gonna do, like that's a that's that's.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I love those things, though you must have six months of operating expenses in cash.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I've had students recite numbers like that to me.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I I don't know where they heard them, but they read them somewhere.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know it's coming from like academia, like too much thought and consideration.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You're overanalyzed when reality is the only answer is you need to be a freaking fighting, like a freaking dog.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, werewolf man, like just relentless Werewolf in London, that's it.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: It was a great movie.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Like just fight, Like Are you ready to fight?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and put everything on the line and you really need to.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I wonder how many.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You don't tell other people that, but I guess to me it's like when you see something that you want to do, do you worry about all these what-if scenarios or do you just see the thing that you're wanting to do, yeah, and then when you jump into, that like, Once you jump in, then you got to start thinking about all the what-ifs.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but you've jumped in now.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: You've jumped in like too late to go back.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: You're in the frying pan, dude.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Here's a funny thing, though, that I've been actually struggling with since the sale of White Spider and starting up businesses over again.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I know all the what ifs, or a lot more of the what ifs.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It's been a much interesting ride.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like I know I'm going to do this, but I'm like damn man.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It's not the same thing.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It's not the same.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: It's not, is it?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: It's so true, God?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing 100%.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Now I'm like damn it, it's almost, it's funny, it's like there's, I'm out of control of it.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you realize that the odds are that all your successor businesses won't be as successful as your first one.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: And they're costing and I'm like and you know more and you put more money into them.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, god, and I'm working hard and long.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm working hard and long.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and I don't.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: That's been my experience, and here's the thing you don't have to do this?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, but you do because you are who you are.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I'm out of control, like there's another personality in me, that's you know.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: But the thing is it's like all these what ifs, like I'm a little bit more, I guess, concerned and fearful.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: You got more to lose.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: That's why, yeah, and I know that it can be yeah.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: This is what keeps us awake at night.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: This is actually a really really good conversation that you understand I'm going.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I've got my personal guarantee on a line of credit for one of these businesses and I could survive it if I lost that, but God, it would be painful, really, really painful.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Did you have to do that?
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't have to do that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I know why are we doing it.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I don't really know Like it makes no logical sense, because that's what we do.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: You know, I think you know back on this, this five-year survival train now, um, and you know, and what you're saying, like you, you're, you're like a werewolf, I mean.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I remember when I started the company that's why group today I was unemployed.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I got fired from a job that I was doing a great job at.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, that wasn't I was doing a great job.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Why did you?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I had turned it around.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It was a family enterprise and that the guy's family members didn't like me, got a little jelly.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I put pressure on them to do things.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I found all kinds of stuff, okay, like what's this?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: yeah I can see you dig it into some.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You went to some rabbit holes that you weren't embodied into that's exactly right.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Right, but I was doing a great job, okay.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Now the thing is, I swore that would never happen to me again.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so my option, my choice, was not start my own business or get another job.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like bullshit on another job I was never going to, I'm never going to take that.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: I did that and I got screwed.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, ain't't gonna happen yeah so that's the fight comes from that.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of people, like you said, though they start these businesses, they don't ride it out.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: They don't have the stamina, because they're really not that committed to be in that business.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Maybe they did it because they thought it was good financially or was in the market, needed it, or whatever, but they aren't personally like committed to look what you're talking about.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: This is really good.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: There's actually like three tiers in my brain, because employee mindset yep.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Entrepreneurial mindset yep.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And then there's another one, an investor mindset, and I think it's so important for our listeners to understand which one are you and be real with that, because you're going to screw yourself royally if you don't choose the right path.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: If you're an employee wanting to be an entrepreneur, do you know what that means and you don't go into entrepreneurship with an employee mindset.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: If you're an employee wanting to be an entrepreneur, do you know what that means and you don't go into entrepreneurship with an employee mindset?
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: No, if you're an employee, but you're really thinking like an investor.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You are not an entrepreneur, you're an investor because you don't want to work that hard.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: You want to watch your money work Exactly.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: You want to be out of the business.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: You want to sit on a board.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: You want to be out of the business.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to sit on a board.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: You want to make some controlling decisions, just so you protect your money, but it has nothing to do with the grind and the freaking guts and the vision.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you don't.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: You don't and you need to stay.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Stay the hell out of the way.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as much as you are in, it's hard to imagine that it is, even when you put the money in.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Because your tendency is going to be I want involvement so okay for people like us, well, yeah, but I think that there's a hybrid there, though, but I think, no, there's like there's an entrepreneur, investor mindset.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But honestly, like what I figured out, yeah, is that, if I'm an investor, yeah in something I'm more so of an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, business-minded person.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm invested more in my own business.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you feel like you got control over it?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I can't.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to control it.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand what I'm saying like and I'm more confident to put money, that I know what I'm putting money into.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Amen, as an investor if I throw money over the tape, over the line, like I honestly don't have the time to be involved, but I also recognize that I'm an investor.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: In that point it's like the public stock market.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's a great example, yeah, right, yeah, you put money into that.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Somebody else always knows more than you.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: You're not involved in the management of Apple Corporation or whatever.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apple Corporation or whatever right, that's right.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: And if you're an investor or that's what you're actually you have a dream to make a lot of money and you're investor thinking then you need to be an investor and know how to play that game and not think that you're an entrepreneur.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: You're not an entrepreneur, You're an investor.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And if you're an entrepreneur, you're not an investor, You're an entrepreneur.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean, like you need to know kind of, yeah, you know you make a really good point.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I never really thought about that.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've shared this quote, one of my favorite quotes.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Investors are like horses.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: They have eyes on both sides of their head, yeah, watching to be what's they're going to tackle them, so they watch their money.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what you do.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Like what, what are y'all y going to lose on my money?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Right, that's all they think about, right?
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And entrepreneurs are like wolves with eyes on the front of their face, going out to hunt.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: They're not worried about what's going to kill them, they're just looking to kill.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, and so?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: But there's a tension there.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is Between them, and I think, if you, it's just like an employee starting a business wrong expectations.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I want to make a lot of money, I want to earn my salary, I got to pay for my lifestyle.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: You're already thinking wrong.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: You're not an entrepreneurial thinker, then.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: This is what I don't like about so many franchise businesses.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that they need to be viewed like that, yeah but I think the people who are attracted to them in many cases have this orientation of I'm going to get so much money out of this thing, I'm not going to be that involved with it.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's going to be easy because it's in a can.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: They're doing everything for me, and yet you, you'll do a lot better with the um franchise business If you think like an entrepreneur, oh yeah, and throw yourself into it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Don't suck the money out of it, yeah it's just like any other business, right those are the ones that end up with like 27 mcdonald's or their entrepreneurial thing, 30 slim chickens or whatever.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, they're getting it.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're getting it, yeah.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: But then you got those other people that they buy this, the slim chickens or whatever, and they suck.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: They go.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I made $250,000 a year at ABC Corp, so I'll take $225,000 a year out of this slim.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: No, you're an investor.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Like that's what private equity groups are for, that's what funds are for.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you need to be part of that.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Right, or four, like you need to be part of that, right?
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: You got somebody out there's watching, though.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, somebody is right, exactly yeah.
• 35:39
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• 35:39
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• 35:43
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• 35:44
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• 35:49
  Speaker 1: All right, so time for a couple more, my friend.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: So I do like this next one funding and financial management.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: 64% of small businesses start with less than $10,000.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: 33% with under $5,000.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: From Entrepreneurial HQ.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Love that stat Me too, because it is data about what we say all the time yeah, you don't need a ton of money, you don't start a billion freaking dollars.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and go on a pitch deck raise yep, you know, unless you're starting, you know certain things, like a pharmaceutical company.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I always use that as an example.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes five or ten years to get through the FDA.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Five and $5 billion.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a hard one to start.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: That's a hard one to start.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: We're not going to make that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: No, no, but like, if you're having an itch to solve a problem, it doesn't need to be a pharmacy, like that's pretty big thinking, I know.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: You know, like I'm a chemist and I have a problem to solve, you go down that round.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: That's a whole different ballgame.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: You know, 64% of these businesses that are out there are starting less with $10,000.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: That should be comforting.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see my students do that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's like I have to say look, that's too big of a problem.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm going to solve world hunger.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: No, you're not going to.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's just too big of a problem to tackle.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's come up with something that's a little more manageable, that maybe we could conceivably do without a lot of money.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I think this next one is really relevant Technological adaptation in cybersecurity.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Over 60% of small business owners find it challenging to keep up with technological changes, especially AI source on pay.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is a very big challenge, challenging to keep up with technological changes, especially AI source on pay.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like it is a very big challenge, and I look, eric, I'm, you know about AI.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know something about it.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: You got a company that's working in AI space.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I'm 67 years old.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about it.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: All I know is I was at a board meeting last week where the company founder and CEO searches AI to find out something about where a statistic comes from.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it quoted our company inaccurately.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our company inaccurately.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: And yeah, where there's one reference from 2018 of somebody who wrote something in one of our publications that's wrong.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and none of the hundreds of other references where we define how to do this.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're sorted, we're cited, and so that's why I, you know, I always think, god, I know, ai's great, it can do a, b and c, but those are the kinds of things that old farts like me you think, boy, there's got to be.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: It also can perpetuate a lot of misinformation, can it?
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, it could, and and bad stuff.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: There is a uh, there is an absolute level of professionalism.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: It's like anything else, like you know, sure, anybody can make a cup of coffee, but did you do it right?
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Did you roast?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: How are the beans roasted?
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: How are they ground?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: When did you grind them?
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: What temperature of water?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: What temperature of water?
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Right, all those things?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Like, we both have coffee, but this one's clearly better and more accurate and it's worse that this one isn't.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with AI, right, like how you use the tools and which tools you're using, which bot?
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I mean it's very complicated.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Well, this was just.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Somebody threw it into Google, and then it comes back with the AI summary.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know how Google does that?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The other, okay, gemini ai summary.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's wrong.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do you say?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: A lot of these things are maturing right and uh, there's certain ai tools used for certain things by certain companies, for certain people and applications.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so if you're looking for a true hard stat, like you use the wrong ai application.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I mean it is, it's complex, it's that like you used the wrong AI application.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I mean it's complex, it's intimidating the old folks.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I mean honestly, I totally understand what this thing says In all honesty, like I mean just to let you know, like it's intimidating for everyone.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Sure, and like you, you know, I think we're definitely in a paradigm shift here.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: This is like the Industrial Revolution.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: It's like you either jump aboard and you start learning and the further that you don't— or you fight it.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Or you fight it and the big difference—it's actually not too much difference.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: It's like the same thing of the automobile.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You can continue to make it yourself, one by one, or you can start building an assembly line.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: You might survive for a while, but it's going to get you.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: So I'm 67 years old, do I?
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, and I got businesses that I have money invested in.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: What do I need to do?
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I think you really.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: What do I?
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: How do I make myself smart enough on this stuff?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are, uh, there's.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I think you have to, just you have to start consuming information about it, Like basically YouTube videos and just learning and learning and learning.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: For like uses of AI.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Do I need to go through one of these seminars?
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I've seen these seminars.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: They could be helpful.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's about engulfing yourself in it, but I think the real thing is is like there's a difference between you using AI for your personal needs versus a company, understanding how it can be used.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, for you personally, like you love financials and stuff like that, you know, and all the things you love to do.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Right, it's best to go down the path of like oh, if I use this, it actually expedites and I can do 50 things versus one thing that I used to do in my time.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: You would love that and that's going to be really encouraging.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Then you'll start geeking and go down the rabbit hole.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: So try to find like your own use of the technology.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then right away, yep, and then you, you know, I mean, ask somebody like you could ask me like which specific tool that I think that you would have a lot of fun with playing around with and paying for, and you'll have a blast.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Well, it is a problem for a lot of us.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, just basic IT is a problem for a lot of us and the other word cybersecurity.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: That's another thing that's going to be, I know.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, so businesses are more than ever facing that problem and it's going to be.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I mean like I know, but yes, so, uh, businesses are more than ever facing that problem and it will continue to be, but you have to be relentlessly adapting to it.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Don't you think, though, that, like, most small businesses just need like a good outside it service provider relationship, or not?
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: yeah, it depends on your business, it really depends on your business.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Like I mean, we have one for podcast videos.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: They do a good job, right, you know it's Tim Stanley, but he needs to come on the show sometime with TDS.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: But you know the hardware, the basic IT stuff, you know the security.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: That's good and good enough for our business.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: But I mean, like, if you're dealing with, like what AdFury does, no, they're not going to push you into a new use of technology.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: No, no, yeah, no, I get that.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying for sort of the day-to-day stuff.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: it just makes sense, it does.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: It's just like an accountant, like you don't want to hire a full-time CFO or do you hire a fraction.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I mean you get one of these small IT providers.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: They got somebody that's good with networking.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: They got somebody that knows hardware, whatever.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: They got somebody that knows cybersecurity.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: That crap's all complicated too, man it is.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we could talk about this all day, we could.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: It's been a great one, man it has been.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: So this has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Businesses.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.