Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 50 - Building Resilient Businesses and Stronger Relationships with Matt Woolley

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Ep. 50 - Building Resilient Businesses and Stronger Relationships with Matt Woolley · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: welcome back everybody we're.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We're here in the studio today with my partner, eric howerton.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm mark zweig and this is going to be another episode of big talk about small business.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Can I do that with you guys?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: let's go Big talk about small business.
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: All right, do you like a little harmony in the end?
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Small business Wait.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We have a guest here with us today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: He's Wild and Wooly, Literally Woo-hoo.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Hey, Matt Wooly.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Yes you are correct, sir.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And I don't know where this show is going to go, based on the conversation we had outside before we came in the studio.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But, eric, why don't you introduce matt, since you guys have a long relationship?
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: yes, so uh our relationship is very deep very deep.
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: Yes, sorry, yeah, that was yeah, I mean you already.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: You introduced yourself already, so that's all we need to be saying.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: So I've known Matt for a few years now.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: Yes, so back in my Whitespotter days you worked upstairs and he has a company that he founded and he's still the owner and CEO of Design Steins, which, from my understanding, is basically kind of a shopper marketing type of agency that helps a lot of the major brands and corporations and also winning in retail, such as like Walmart.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Wonderful introduction, thank you, hit the nail on the head.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So did you start out designing beer styles?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Is that what they?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: All right, where they came from.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Here's okay, let's start right there.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: So yeah, all right.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: So the name.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I've got some guys that are trying to get me involved in a German beer company.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not interested, mark, but thank you, some help.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or Stines.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: So when we first started, it was that question like so you guys design beer steins?
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how we plan on making a living in northwest Arkansas.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: You know you want to be first to market.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: So beer steins was where it was at Now.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: We had that one, and then we've had people ask us are we a Jewish-run company because of the Steins?
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: And we've had people call us.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: As long as you're not into space lasers, everything will be okay.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Go on, I'm sorry.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: No, that's quite all right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Mark.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I look forward to this interview.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: We've also had people call us Dessensteins.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: How you miss that one.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I like that.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: No, I like it.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Dessensteins, dessensteins.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Hi, this is Matt Woolley.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I'm with Dessensteins.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Don't forget, as I like to say, half the population has an IQ below 100.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But anyway, and that's evidence of it, diss and steams yes diss and steams.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: my dear I'm with diss and steams.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So is that like related to Einstein?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Is that the idea?
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a play on words.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's like whenever we were first.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It's Einstein.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: When we first started it was me and another guy named Jesse Jacobs it's a play on words.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: It's like when we were first Seinsteins when we first started, it was me and another guy named Jesse Jacobs, who's no longer with the company.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: But we founded the company together and we were just kind of looking for names that were going to stick out because honestly, and it's no slander to anybody else but everybody was always trying to go for that Acronym yeah, or that Acronym yeah, or you know that whole corporate, you know staleness, and so it was like.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: You know, at first it took people a little bit to take it seriously because it's a little wacky, but it stuck and now it works in the area and there's a few people that know us and that's good.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: It's just one of those things.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: That is it between that or Red Rat that was what Justin wanted to name it.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I was like that's horrible, absolutely not.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I like Red.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Rat, these are unrelated names.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It's like Canoe or whatever.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, what the hell is that about?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, spell it weird.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: He wanted to name it Red Rat.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: R-E-D-D-R-A-T-T.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait a minute.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You did that with white spots.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't give him.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: That's why I like Red Rat.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I gave him hell about that.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: He did, I, did, I really did?
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Did that change the odds that it was?
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Let's make it hard to search on the internet, yeah.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, but who are we to criticize?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: No, it was.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Hey, it worked.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: But anyway.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: So so what does design stein do?
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Um, so, essentially we're kind of a one-stop shop, as, as eric said.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, for suppliers we do branding, we do you know what we call equity-pushing design, which is help brands with already existing setups.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: We develop packaging, both engineering and creative design.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: We do displays and we also do a lot of dot-com content like videos and photography.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: So what we tell everybody is, from start to finish or anywhere in between, we can help you with the life of a product.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So the packaging is a really big deal.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It takes some real expertise If you're going to be selling products on retailer shelves.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: They have certain requirements that you have made and I think a lot of people are unaware of that when they create a product.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Well, what's really funny is we see people that you know, depending on who they're outsourcing their primary packaging to.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: We have to clean up a lot of messes from overseas shall we say yeah, and you know.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: There's just no realization to how each retailer is different.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Yep, you know, everybody just thinks that it can always be a universal package and that's not the case.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: So it's really per retailer.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of similarities.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to sit here and say that you know, target is substantially different from Walmart or Costco or Sam's or whatever.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: But you have to be aware of the environment, that these things are going in Sure, and you have to.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: It's a big deal.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, it really is, because I mean, how you push stuff across the finish line is just, you know, you know having your product together as soon as you bring it to the buyer.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you bring it to the buyer and you've got a plan in place, you've got great pricing, that's cool.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: But they also want to know that you're retail ready and that you're ready to execute on whatever you're bringing to them.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of what we do.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, we, we can help people get stuff off the ground.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: We do a lot of that.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: But we also, uh, work as kind of like a secondary, uh double check system, you know, like a what do they call it?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: uh, with the doctor, yeah, yeah, yeah, a second opinion, yeah, kind of thing that we do a lot of that too so is it always the stuff you do for products that are going to be on a retailer's shelves or any of these clients, just purely online?
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: It's both.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: It's both.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: So we have a pretty interesting background.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: We cut our teeth working for Walmart, so that enables a lot, but a lot of people don't understand the reality of Walmart as compared to other retailers, and there is a demand for great execution, great quality and being able to move fast.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: And not everybody grasps that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: And having that and large grasps that Sure, and having that— In large quantity too Correct, yeah, and having that understanding allows us to help a lot of the—well, I call them the little guys.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: They're not little, but they're guys that are trying to, you know, just sell online.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: But if you have a successful product, then the next step is to move to a larger retailer.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Well, kind of like a touchdown as a manufacturer or a supplier to Walmart or a supplier to retail is to get on Walmart shelves right, because I mean you basically have hit the largest push through product, but entering that territory, like you said, a lot of folks don't understand what's the demand.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a behemoth.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So how did you learn all that?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Did you ever work at Walmart?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I know you had an HVAC contracting business, wow.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You linked in.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: You've come a long way from that you linked in me With that haircut and sport coat.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I know you're not crawling in cross-cats anymore, Sonic.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: That's another story, but entrepreneur to entrepreneur.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: So my quick background is this I cut my teeth in banking.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: That's where I got my.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Don't hold it against me.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: No, it's like a great education.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: A lot of people trust me when I say that it was the foundation of everything.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I believe it, I um I can't tell you how many students I've said.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: If you don't know what to do, start out in banking, because you'll see so many different kinds of businesses oh yeah, if you can be a lender.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: So I'll tell you.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: My takeaway from that was I spent eight years in it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I don't have a college degree.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I started, uh, two weeks out of high school as a part-time teller and basically had a lot of great mentors that helped me rise the ranks fairly quickly.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: I just had an act for it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: But you know, I will tell you and you've got to remember too, whenever.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Well, you don't have to remember, you don't have to do anything you don't want to Mark, it's true, it's true.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Other than hang my ex-wife.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I can't enjoy it from that.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: No, you have to.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: That's legal.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: That's a lot.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a bit of an impression.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It's so true I don't feel any pressure but go on, that's all right.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: These are very great conversations, sorry.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: So where was I Starting?
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: In banking?
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I saw and it was around the time, you know, of the recession, of, you know, like the 06, 08, you know the splendid times.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: And I will tell you, first and foremost, I saw a lot of guys, you know, come into the bank and I was more on the ops side but I did help with consumer lending and a little bit of commercial stuff and you know, you could see the guys that were actually doing right, the guys that were making the right plans and had the right strategy, as opposed to the guys that just kind of hit a little bit of luck.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: That does happen, yeah, oh sure, and so that helped me.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: And also, the other thing, too, is understanding, and I will say this here's a little wisdom nugget that nobody asked for, but to you young entrepreneurs that are out there, establish a great relationship with a banker and be very respectful of that with a banker and be very respectful of that because, uh, understanding, you know their side of the business too, helps both of you to work better together.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of people, don't you know a lot of people, they want money as your partner they are.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: A lot of people want money from the bank, but then they also want to have the view that you know they're the evil empire yeah and it.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: That doesn't go hand in hand, it does not work yeah, people don't understand.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Banks don't that much money and they're not equipped to take a lot of risk.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And they're heavily regulated.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: They've got a lot less discretion than every responsibility of shareholders and the lenders too.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: The lenders get it on an individual level To have a lender that will allow you a relationship and allow trust to take place.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: That person is sticking their neck out for you, it's true, and the more respectful you are of that relationship that's a good point the further you get down the line when trouble does come about, when you do need that extension.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: There's somebody that believes in you that you've got a good relationship with.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Or if you need a million dollars in two days and you can call up your bank 100 in your account because they know you're good for it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: 100 that's been something I've really benefited from, because people are friends, we're friends, they can trust you, yeah.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So that was a good, good place for you to start out.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: So you did that, and then what happened?
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: well, um, I have a very interesting background.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: We'll be the judge of that.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: We're here to judge you.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: My background is very boring, Mark, so I took kind of a hiatus.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I was actually a musician.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: I've always been a musician.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: And I just did kind of what I call everyday Joe jobs.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, I did anything from— so you were trying to start a boy band.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't have a comeback for that.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, the answer is yes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this explains it we had some good regional success.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: We called it back to work.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Back to work.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Anyhow, I did anything and everything from work for friends, build cabinets.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I just didn't want to do banking anymore.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I just didn't want to do banking anymore.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I just didn't want to do banking anymore.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I got burned out.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: I tell everybody that I had got a good position.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I was in a good position, especially for a young guy, but I tell everybody that the dream had become the nightmare.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I just didn't want to do it anymore and I did stuff like plumbing and, uh, you know, cabinetry work.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I mean you name it, I mean I, but I.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: It allowed me to think, and while that was going on too, I was actually giving my one last hurrah at the music business as well.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I was in a regional band that, did you know, somewhat successful.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: We actually recorded an album and was looked at by Atlantic Records, but unfortunately they declined.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: What was?
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: that band?
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I'm just curious.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: There was a band called Calling Tokyo, and it was around the days that we weren't meant for Northwest Arkansas at the time.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Well, hell, no, you were trying to call Tokyo.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: We were more of a.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: That's what everybody said.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: But again, it was trying to find a punchy name that people would remember.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: But it was in the days.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: You guys probably remember the days of Ben-Dill Shreve running George's Still great.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Him and Randall were both great musicians, but that was when they were popular.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: A Good Fight.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Y'all remember that band.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: No, at the time North Dakota Soccer Zone had a great original music scene Pumpkinhead.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember Pumpkinhead.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And what was that?
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Blue Footballs, something in the Blue Footballs or something like that.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: They were a good band and Ultra Suede which they're still doing it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: They're still doing it.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: They're our best friends.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Great people, ultra Suede.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great band, charlie and Chetty.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: My wife grew up with Chetty and she trained Charlie in the mortgage business.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oreo Blue, oreo Blue.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, sure, yeah, they're still doing it, great band.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Full.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: House, we're just name dropping bands anyways.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Uh, everybody outside of northwest arkansas won't know what the hell we're talking no, no, that's all right.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Hey, that's okay, we're hey, this is our conversation, gentlemen.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: This is our conversation, no okay, maybe not, we'll cut this.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do it for the people, that's right.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: You remember that with the joe piscopo act and saturday night live.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Do it for the people.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: I apologize for speaking out of turn.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Gentlemen go on.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Sorry, no, so you did the band thing and that was cool.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I did that and then I was always wanted to.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I was always an artist.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I love to paint and I love the arts and I was like you know at the time, you gotta remember to.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: You know I graduated, as you know at the time you got to remember too.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: You know I graduated, as you know, late 90s, early 2000s era and at the time, you know, the accessibility for, like, graphic design and stuff like that was still somewhat limited unless you wanted to go to school.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: There wasn't YouTube to teach you how to do everything you wanted to do.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: You know the creative suite was, you know, a $2, package of cds you had to buy and stuff like that.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: So, coming from a small rural country town in lower arkansas, you know that dream was, you just didn't have a grasp on it yeah, but by the time this had come about, um, I had started working at a company called they're still around, uh parachachuting Penguins, yeah, and that's where I met Jesse at.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: And well, I worked at Parachuting Penguins for like three months and you know we're not going to name names, but I just wasn't.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I wasn't we'll just say I wasn't confident in leadership, we'll put it that way and I was like I'm out of here but I like what we're doing.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: And at the same time, I was making some extra money by promoting bands too in the area.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Because, you know, working with Brian Crown and a few other people Great guy, yeah, wonderful, I love Brian, but working with him to promote music and Jesse helped me do some of it and I worked with him, Basically mine and Jesse's work, working alongside Brian Crown.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And rest in peace, Steve Butler, Uncle Steve, I saw an uptick in what we were doing and I made the comment to him.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I said you know what?
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: We should just work for ourselves and do this Kind of have joking.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Quite honestly, Do promotions, music Well or just anything?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Do this kind of have joking, quite honestly and do promotions music well, it just, or just anything any kind
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: of any type of promotion.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, he had broad design and so and he had transitioned.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: He'd gotten tired of leadership too and he had transitioned to another company and we were working together and we stayed in touch and, um, out of nowhere, one day I get a phone call and he said I pick up the phone.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: It was weird for him to call me at a it was kind of at an odd time and I was like what's going on, man?
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: He goes, let's do it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And I was like what are you talking about?
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: let's do this and so, desingsteen, this doesn't steam, desensteen's doesn'tstein, it's design science for everyone.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: That's listening if you're just now joining the conversation, but anyhow, and so that's what we did, I said, are you serious?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: He goes yeah, I think we could do it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I think so too.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: And within a few days, we were.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: You know, we had the paperwork ready and we're up and running, and after a month's worth work, a month's worth of hard work, uh, we were making a whopping 200 each a week, rock killing.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Hell, yeah, bro, and uh, but we literally started start, yeah, well, we started from the bottom.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, we, we started with literally the smallest of the smallest businesses, which gave us a lot of insight, and I already had some of that banking insight too, for the name, I love working with small business.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: I do too.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I do too because they're scrappy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: You gotta, you gotta.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: You got a limited budget.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: You gotta make it really works the mind, because you have to create heavy impact.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, for, uh, you know a very and that's kind of the foundation that design science was built off of you know getting into now because, uh, you, you got to think impactful but scrappy and and we loved it and, uh, we helped a lot of small businesses with.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: You know, I saw gaps both from a financial basis with them as well as an opportunity in the marketplace.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, we slowly worked ourselves up to being a.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: We were really.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: White labeled is what it was.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: We were a retainer based model that was essentially working for behind the scenes and being white labeled, and that's part of the biggest problem.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: A lot of people say you guys have been around for almost 15 years.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Wherever you've been, it's because we've been in the shadows.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: What does white labeled?
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: And that's part of the biggest problem.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: A lot of people say you guys have been around for almost 15 years.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Wherever, wherever you've been, it's because we've been in the shadows.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: What does white?
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: labeled mean.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Basically, it's kind of like blind shipping, right, nobody the?
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: You don't have as much retail front, you're just in the back end right cranking stuff out on behalf of the bigger right agencies or whatever.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that's.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah like a sub to them essentially essentially.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Uh well, we worked as a lot of in-house too, like you know, we have at one given time we were uh working as an ideation and hub for a toy manufacturer, and we were working in the firearms industry, and we were also working on seafood.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, no.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's crazy but like a lot of the stuff you know, I'd probably say maybe about 60% of it now, but a lot of the stuff you see with Walmart seafood that came for over a decade that came through our hands.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Interesting it's about.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: We still see.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: I still see some of the designs out there for some like the great value stuff and that kind of thing.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: But uh, eric, I'm sorry eric hold on, let me grab, I'm just kidding.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when you're at a conference, I'm in an interview and somebody and you're in a room with 300 people and the phone rings and the guy yeah, well, I'm telling you what the movie is too.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Are you shitting me?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: You just did that.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Sure, my God, how rude or they don't know how to turn off the goofy.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just let it ring.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Let it ring, that's how old people do that.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: And that was at the goofiest ringtones too.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: It's the goofiest ringtones.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: They're like all of a sudden take on me and the guy's trying to look Uh-huh.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I don't want no scrub or whatever.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: My theory is that your position in the business world is inversely related to the complexity of the ringtones you use on your phone.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So that's my theory.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty, I'm intrigued?
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I never turn mine on.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: It stays on silent at all times.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Based on that, I'm like well, we're a creative industry and I'm using a factory default.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: What does that say about?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: me.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Your words in the business world is elevated in my mind.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I agree, it's inversely.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: You don't have enough time to go surfing through a bunch of ringtones?
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know it's embarrassing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true, you know it's true.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, one time.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Here's what's funny, here's a funny story that you guys didn't ask for.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: So at one time I loved the whole custom ringtone thing and I'm a huge, huge, huge, huge James Bond fan.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Love James Bond yeah, me too.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Everything about James Bond is awesome, and so I had specific ringtones for people.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: The basic one was a da-da-da-da, you know the theory right, yeah, and so that was great.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: But also for specific people, I had the silenced.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: It was being shot, silenced PBK, the ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, you know like yeah, yeah yeah, well, I was around a client.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I had a client one time and all of a one of my friends, you know, texts me and is like and they were like, what was that?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that was a ringtone.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Well, what was the ringtone?
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's a silenced handgun and a shell casing falling on the ground, like that's kind of creepy.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: I was like, I know, moving forward, I was like.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I know moving forward.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, as a fanboy, you thought this is really cool, but you know you never really thought.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: What is somebody else going to say about that?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: So what were the keys to building this business over the time that you did?
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, how long have you been in business now?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Almost 15 years Okay that's a long time.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: So what would you say?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: were some of the keys to building it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: So you know personally.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I would say you know what personally helped me was.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: You know my faith in God.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: That's what helped me.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: And as far as like perseverance to do it, you know it's a lot of grinding man.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: You know it's the willingness to learn, never saying no, yep, yep.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: And now, as you progress, you have to learn, you have to start saying no.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: You have to throw some no's in there on occasion.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: It's so hard too.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is Once you develop the yes, yes, yes, even when I say it's a day I'm like no.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: But I'll still do it, if you want.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: You got money.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's like no.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, that's what it is.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Know, there was a time and we worked, we learned a lot of this stuff.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Um, it just, you know, here's what we would tell people.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: It was like, look, we don't claim to be experts in this.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: You know, this is in the earlier days.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: We don't claim to be experts, but you'll never find anybody that can outwork us.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: That's right and out, you know, working hard, um, and just keeping that grind going will outwork talent every time.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Now you, if you throw in both, you really got something.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: And that's where we were blessed.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, we still are blessed today.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: But in the early days, early days, that's what it was.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: It was grind and God-given talent.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: But I mean, you keep at it, you don't stop and you're always looking for opportunities.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: You're built.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: You have to have somebody that's built to see the gaps.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: You've got to have somebody that sees the cross-sell, and that's another thing too.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Speaking of sales, I get so tired of the negative sales guy associations.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Now, don't get me wrong, there are guys out there that can make you real cringy for all of us, sure.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: But wow, y'all did that in unison Beautiful.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Have y'all been practicing Well?
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: We're just partners and you both did a head nod at the same time.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna be honest, that's pretty impressive.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Let's see if we can do it again.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Um, sorry mark, sorry eric, yeah, but anyhow, people at home like this guy's nuts.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Um but you know no, diamond picky too bad, that bad, no, but yeah go on.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Well, that's it I mean, you just keep moving the no diamond pinky.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Too bad, that bad.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: No, go on.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Well, that's it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, you just keep moving.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: The native stigma you say, though, with sales.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Is that what you're talking about?
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm sorry, it's problem solving.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Well, it is.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what it is.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't, you know?
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: it's not just like you know, we want to.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: You know, here's what gets me excited, and it's still to this day is I love somebody coming to us with a problem and they just can't see it and we figure it out.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: But then, while we're figuring it out, we say, hey, but what about this also, yep.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: And you just see that light in their eyes.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: You're like, yes, that is it.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no greater drug for a guy like me to see that take place.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And because you're making impact and you're making a difference, I think that's where innovation lies.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: You know like one of my big problems I have in our current you know, broader macro ecosystem of business is this idea that you raise We've talked about all the time.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: But you have an initial idea, raise a lot of capital for it, then you start going after that idea without ever talking to the client base and working little by little, because it's in those conversations you find the real diamond.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: It's an iterative process?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: It is, yes.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: It evolves over time.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it comes from a mesh because you can't just hear one person say it.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: But if you hear one person, it's like you're talking about that cross sale or that also, then you hear it from another client.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Then you take it to another client.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: They say yes, and everybody's like guys are yes, I need this.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're basically uncovering a bigger problem and and when that happens there's a for lack of better terminology there's a magic that happens between you Because all of a sudden you're on the same page, all of a sudden you have a mission and everybody's on board to make it happen.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: There's no greater feeling in the world, at least for me.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: It's not going to happen without trust, though.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: They've got to trust you that you're not just a charlatan, you're not just trying to get their money Legitimate.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Legitimate?
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they can see concern.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: People can see through the BS, but they can also see when you're passionate.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Well, if your passion is legitimately like you, like if you're my client and I go meet with you and you bring up this problem that you're having, do I, as an entrepreneur, have the passion to help you fix that problem, whether or not?
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: I necessarily know exactly how to do it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: But to your point is, I know that if I say I'll take care of that, I'm going to bleed out and die trying, because it's really about me connecting with you and developing a trust.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: And so now, if I execute on that, then I can bring up the alsos.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Then I'm navigating, looking around for what else is there in this Sure and I mean but that trust is.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And then you become a valued partner, absolutely Because this guy has a passion for looking out for us without being asked to Right Exactly.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: And that's where the real value is.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I have to say it.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: So back on your business, though just give us some sense.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: How large are you now?
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Right now we are 13 people, hiring for two more.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Now we're not a huge agency, which part of it goes back to our business model.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: We've evolved over the years.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: We started out as a small business we're still a small business, but like focusing on small business Excuse me we progressed into a very retainer-based model, like I talked about.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: We're occurring on a sea stream.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, love that.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: As a small firm, and then we developed into that plus an a la carte and so, really, what is Design Steins now has been really you're looking at since 2020.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: We're like I sell everybody.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: We're a new business, because we've become a new business about every five years.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: That's a reality.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: We are constantly developing, but we're, as far as the vision is concerned, we're where I always wanted us to be, but it took.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: It took baby steps.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know I, and there's times where you know and this is a good topic uh, you know, for encouragement for guys that are out there, because I don't know about you guys.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: But along the way, I was always grateful for what I was getting, but I was always wrongly discouraging myself for not being where I wanted to be and, uh, don't do that.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: You just focus on being a better.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: You, yeah, and you know, keep trying and it'll, it'll come, it'll, but you don't give up.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: You keep pushing and you have to continue to evolve.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: And that's where we're at, and we've got a few more steps in the process that we're working on as well, and nothing I'm going to bring up today, but it's always about being how can we be better, how can we better serve the client, how can we make impact?
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: And that is the basis of what is Design.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Steins, when it comes to retail, makes sense to me, but it's a struggle, man, you know, when you're coming up those baby steps along the way, you know.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, surely you guys have been a little discouraged in your entrepreneurial journeys.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, I, you guys, have been a little discouraged in your entrepreneurial journeys?
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, I personally never have.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: You know, all you weaklings out there yeah, not me, just kidding.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: No, I mean it is.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Well, you know it's a lot.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: You know that's where I get.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: You know I won't get on my soapbox.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: I won't get on my soapbox.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: But since you asked Mark, I get real pissed off whenever I see guys out there basically tickling people's ears with entrepreneurial crap.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh, me too, brother.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Oh shit here we go, here goes the podcast.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It's true, they don't know.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: They're telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear, amen.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: And they're doing it for the sake of getting you know doing speaking engagements and selling books.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're parasitic basically.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: They really are, and these younger guys or these people, they don't know, man, they don't know You'd never make it 15 years if you gave up.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, all of us here ever gave up.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: We didn't have a bunch of cash right and that makes for a better business later because you claw your way up.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: It means you're going to be really concerned about cash flow.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to be really concerned about selling.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: You're going to be really concerned about keeping your clients and serving them well and you don't just have this big pot of money over there with your quote.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Burn rate unquote.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Whenever I hear that, I'm just like, oh shit, oh it's crazy, it's crazy, and I tell people all the time.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: It's like if we had been given, I can tell you, even throughout the phases of design, since if we'd been given a million dollars in any of them, I would have blown it, you know.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am grateful for the lessons along the way, and they're lessons that you can only be taught when you're in the trenches.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's right.
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: That's it and I tell you like I think that there is a real I think my experience has been that there is a genuine, serious and bigger than I imagine gap between what we're talking about and those baby steps and what it takes, versus what a lot of other folks are understanding because of the publicity around the other stuff yeah, and the pop culture has distorted.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: What entrepreneurship?
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: pop culture.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Pop culture grants social media.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: You know the non-profit type of thinking and all this type of stuff business plan competitions, pitch competitions funding the seating, the different rounds.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Dude it's, it's so true, if you my 12 steps, you will be a success.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: That's right, buy my book.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: And this gap like to me, like some folks that I've talked with, like I can't even connect now because it's so written, because, like I'm like we've got to drive revenue and like, okay, well, revenue can mean a lot of different things to people, but the new way of thinking is this long-term huge buyout, sell, firm millions of dollars of revenue and I'm like, bro, you've got to just make two grand.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: Don't get two grand Show that somebody will pay you for something you do and that means you have to call, you have to show up, you have to talk, you have to perform, you have to be out late, you have to get up early.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: You have to do the things that you don't want to naturally do.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: You need to go to coffee shops.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: You need to bump into people, you need to say hi and you need to just.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: You got to use every single connection that you have ever had in your life, including your parents, your kids.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: It doesn't make a crap.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's what you do as an entrepreneur.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: You have to have humility and you have to be willing to put yourself out there.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: You have to have the ability to be able to take it when somebody says no.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly not be rushed and just keep moving Sure, and then when you fail, because you are going to fail, you learn from it and you do your absolute best to never do that again.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you just don't give up.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and if something isn't working then you try something different, no kidding, and you just have to be relentless and you've got no money, so you can't wait too long, that's right?
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: No, you can't strategize.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: You execute.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: It's action, action.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: You know, you taught me that Side act Like whenever I would work for you.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: I'll never forget, like I can't remember exactly what happened, but we were chatting about something and I finally realized like the need of action, this tension between strategy and action.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: You have to have strategy, but you have to take action.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: It's not a perfect formula 50-50 or 80-20.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: At any time it evolves and it bounces back and forth.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: You have to do it in parallel sequence too.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: I try to put time down every week for strategy, but what happens most of the time is I'm taking action not all throughout the week, but sometimes when strategy has to take place on sundays at 7 am, when everybody else is sleeping and you have to get up and you have to do the things you need to do that is a great point and 120, but you just hit the nail on the head on some advice that has served me well, that I didn't take to younger.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: If you're going to think strategy or think innovation, you got to do it somewhere where you can't be disturbed, and you have to do it somewhere where you're not occupying yourself other than with your thoughts, because what I mean by that is this.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Like, for instance, like I smoke cigars, I love cigars, fan of the cigar.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Uh, sometimes, when I have to really contemplate something, the cop on your podcast, brian, yeah, started the cigar waters.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic guy yeah um, yeah, absolutely um.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: But you know, whatever it is, it may be fishing, but it's something.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: Or you know, I'll tell you some of my best ideas have come to me either in the shower or weed eating.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, weed eating I'm with you 100 on that absolutely it's a meditative process you're.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: You're like doing something repetitive, you know, and yet it frees your mind up somehow and you're accomplishing right, so you don't feel like you're just sitting there doing right exactly you have to pull yourself away from the, just the occupation of your mind because and these will do that these phones are the disease
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: and the family will do that to you.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Oh sure, you know.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, oh yeah, I want to talk about a real sensitive subject Because it's ingrained, like as an entrepreneur.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about, as an entrepreneur, the I guess I don't know what you would call it the guilt of sacrificing family, friends, health, all that stuff.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: But my experience has been is that that kind of stuff has there have, there is a sacrifice.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: As an entrepreneur, as a true entrepreneur, I mean, all of us would have to admit that we've sacrificed in those realms for the greater vision of the business and to try to make it succeed.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And for the greater good of your family.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, it's not just.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: The problem there is that whenever you're sacrificing that way as an entrepreneur for the greater good of the family, and everything else and for the community and the planet you know however big it gets.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: No one really understands that, other than yourself, Ro.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Because this day and time I would say I've seen it more so than ever.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Is that these and I'm not trying to get off onto it, maybe they've said the same thing about my generation too, but I'm saying some of these younger guys that are being their ears are being filled with all this crap.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: They think that everything is a perfect balance, and I got news for you.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: The scale is always tipped.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: You're always pissing somebody off, you're always feeling guilty about something.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Always in trouble, a little bit Always in trouble a little bit.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: That's just how it rolls.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: There's no perfect existence.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: And guess what?
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: You're not entitled to that perfect existence either.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: There's the reality.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: You're not.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Something has to be sacrificed.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Now your job and I got this from from a mentor of mine early on your job is to make sure the thing's always doing this, yeah, but the minute that it stops and stays stagnant, somebody's losing.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Yep, that's true, somebody's losing you got a pink on it, man?
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you got it.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: And Mark likes to say integrate yeah, I believe in work-life integration, not balance.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: It's like you have one of your stepdaughters works here, that's integration I get to see her Right exactly.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: And that relationship gets developed.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: I mean we've had our spouses on here before.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I mean seriously, though, the right mate makes a huge difference.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I mean like my wife's family owned businesses.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: She owned businesses.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: She's run businesses.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: She doesn't.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: There's never that like, well, do you have to do that now?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Thinking process, whereas my last wife was all about that, where her parents were teachers, they were off all summer.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: They never made any money.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: There's family big thing and you're not making it as a priority that's the threat and you can understand her perspective based on how she grew up.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So it does make a difference having the right supportive mate 120%, because this thing has to be a team effort, it does Well.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: You need to get fought every step of the way.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Whenever your scale is tipping the wrong direction and you're putting more focus on the business, let's face the facts.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Your better half takes on that burden, that scale tipping Absolutely.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: And to be honest, as an entrepreneur right in my mind when that happens, I'm not even registering it.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Most of the time, especially when I was younger, I didn't even understand that my scale was off, and that's how you get in trouble.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: But after you kind of go through those, you start recognizing I catch myself like man.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: I haven't done really anything in a couple of days, so I intentionally therefore switch all my energy back over and make sure that I'm going back and letting my partner know that I do love and care, and then I'm.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: All this stuff I've been doing over here is that she's she's one of the main drivers of this thing.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: It's the I'm sorry and I really appreciate you conversation.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: And entrepreneurs have to have that really critical.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: They do you have to have it.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's, it's so true, you got to be.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good point, but yeah, it's never going to be perfect.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: All the misconceptions out there, well, it's such a.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: It's like the whole work from home movement, I mean sure it's nice to get up at frigging 10 o'clock and have your jammies on and not take a shower.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Do we have time to?
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: go there, we do, and then you think you're going to get ahead like that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And then they resent the fact that other people get promoted or other people have opportunities they don't have when they have no visibility.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: They're not hearing the chit-chat, they're not engaged, they're not in the game period it's the have your cake and eat it too kind of mentality, and it doesn't work.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: You Period it's the have your cake and eat it too kind of mentality, and it doesn't work, you're not going to get it.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, I remember, you know, whenever you know we were doing the whole isolation thing, which I wasn't, and sorry, I wasn't either.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I'm an introvert truthfully.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I was glad to not see anybody.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I was thrilled.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: The thought of not seeing anyone makes me die inside, um, but the but I uh, uh.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: I just remember, you know, I was going to a meeting, um, and this was when everybody was waving that, waving that well, everybody needs to work from home, from here on out flag, yeah, and I told everybody be careful about that.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: I said be careful about that.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I said be careful about that.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: And so I remember going.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: It was an oddball time, I think.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: The meeting was like at 10, 15 or something like that.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: So I'm driving on the interstate and I was going from here to Fayetteville and I just remember seeing the interstate flooded with people.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: I was like what is everybody doing?
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Because you know it's not a time where it should be heavy.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: But then I started noticing you'd see people with canoes and everybody getting outdoors and stuff like that.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: And I told everybody be careful.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: I said the guy and I said this and I might get eaten alive, but hey, it'll make for great comments for this podcast.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: But I think that you can have a balance there to a certain degree, but it's not a forever thing, and definitely not if you're trying to grind into success.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: But I will say that you know, I I remember, like some of these bigger corporations, like there were guys that were waving that flag pretty hard and I said watch it, because here's what I found the guys that were waving the flag hard weren't always the guys that were, we'll just say, really producing for the corporation, but what I found was the people that were actually working from home.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: they were working themselves to death because they didn't have.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: The real producers were doing double time, and so what did the corporations do?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: They got rid of the guys that were waving the flag and took their responsibilities and put it on to the people that were grinding, and I saw that happen across the board.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, here's the thing there is a requirement for every living creature on this entire planet to socialize.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: To socialize, yeah, to team up to survive, yes, and everything on this planet is in a state of grinding, yeah, and nothing on this planet has earned or deserves the right to lay down because you will die.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean anything like.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: I love this quote.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: I just I just heard actually from uh yellowstone being kind of in that series with my wife again, but that one quote was stop moving, you're dead yeah, and I mean you know like that's how you have to continuously move and progress forward and what my problem is with this work from home situation and I'm not saying that like there, there are good times when you can't do that.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely focus 100 out there.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: But if you start living that mentality that is stopping to move, you're out of the community, you're out of connection, you're out of the team, you're out of the social environment right, everything else that is going on, yeah, and you will die you will die.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Die.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: There's also what you're missing on Game business.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're going to die.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: There are some people.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Forget about it.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: Just write yourself off.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Seriously.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: There are some people, though, that maybe they don't have the same aspirations that the three of us have.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean I've got one of my son-in-laws and one of my older daughters.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: They both work from home.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: They make a lot of money.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think either one ever aspires to be the CEO of the business that they work in, and you know they're both very successful and they've managed to keep their jobs through all this.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And, like I said, I mean I'm sure their income is in the top half a percent, probably, of the United States.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Now, what's it gonna be like for them when they're 55 years old or something that I don't know?
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe they'll eventually they'll be out of mind and they'll be too expensive and corporate America will say you know what?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: We can replace you with somebody that makes a third of what you make because you're not top of mind anymore.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: They've managed to do that really well, you make yourself vulnerable.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is the reality you make yourself vulnerable.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Well, there's certain jobs.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you, full transparency.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Leslie, my wife, she has one of them.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: She's human resources.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: She works for a company that's four states away.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: She's great at what she does and she makes a nice living doing it, and she's very happy with that.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: It's very data-driven, right, it's very data-driven.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: But I will tell you that what people miss out on in the workplace is that number one is that energy feed.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, there is a wavelength that we cannot see that we feed off of.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I think you're right on that.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: I think you're right on that.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: It's the same thing that exists is also the transfer of not just energy, but emotion and ideas, and the guys that really bring it have great energy.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, they transfer continually between each other.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: That's what you're missing out on.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: That is a very good point, and I think you miss out on learning.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: You do get disconnected and alienated from the whole.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't really say exactly what that is, but you hear bad or you see things, you see people.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: I chop it up to like.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Sorry to interrupt, but I chop it up to like, for instance have you ever sent an email and you know somebody?
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: Is somebody off, right?
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: Well, they read it.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: You didn't mean to sound this way, but they read it like this guy's an ass, right, oh yeah, and then.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: But then you're like no dude.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Well, same thing, same thing, exactly it's the same exact thing.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: They weren't there to feel the energy and understand where it was coming from.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: They don't see the passion, they don't see the look in your eyes, yes, and you get lost and that's kind of a negative instance.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: But on the energetic thing, you know, whenever there's nothing greater, I have no greater excitement than whenever we bring our team together and all of a sudden the ideas just start popping.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: You feel like you can do anything.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not getting that through a zoom meeting.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's true, I want to take this a different direction because I am 100 behind you.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: The problem with a lot of companies today that are started by entrepreneurial people is, when they sell, the first thing they do is bring in their freaking corporate managers who are better.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: They're better managers than you.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're, you're too freaky, you're too crazy.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, we need real managers in here.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And so then they bring the managers in, and then the next thing they do is they start pushing the founder out of the way.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: We were talking about Ogilvy and Mather this morning outside, and they've started pushing the founder and then, before you know it, the whole thing's run by professional managers and there's nobody there anymore.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: That's got that energy, you killed, the energy you're talking about okay, and the thing loses its way.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: But it's a lot of times.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Look, companies get so much momentum and inertia that they can keep going for years and years and years without that entrepreneur.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that they maximize and it doesn't mean they adapt as well well, I've seen these guys that come in and you know, gobble up companies for the sake of creating an empire, and good for them.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: Sure, great, that's great right.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: But you'll, you know, I often in my little vapor of an existence, in this career of mine, I've seen that happen time and time again and you're 100 percent correct.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: What happens is they gather all these people because they have the accounts.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: The reason why they had the accounts was because of that vision and passion, absolutely.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: And then they kill it.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: They have their huge thing and then the accounts go away.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: I've seen it happen time and time again and that's 100, spot on.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: If you lose any of that, if you lose that vision and you lose that passion, it's over.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: Well, I think, when somebody's like Mark, what's the key to success in your business?
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: Right, that question's hard because there's obviously a lot of tactical things, but I'm a firm believer that there's a lot behind the energy.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: That's probably the catalyst.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: This is great when I look back over my professional entrepreneurial career or my entrepreneurial career, I can't pick one thing or a couple of events.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: There's been some things that have, like, come up most than others, you know, like these decisions and these moves or this strategy.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: But I know the one thing for certain that drove me to where I was, at any level of success that I've had, is because I've been relentlessly passionate about solving the market problem.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: You are, and I don't give two flying shits how much money I make all the way.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: You do.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: I care about freaking, you are a quality for that right, and that's the energy that's driving, that's what makes me wake up.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: I don't fail, I won't quit, I will die trying.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: That is a great point, and to add to that, one of my mentors told me one time he said, Matt, take your eye off the money, focus on the problem, and then the money will come.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, absolutely.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Money just comes.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: It's an outgrowth.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: It's a byproduct.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: I get paid because I solve the problem Right.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: That's not the goal.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: I don't get paid because I solve the problem Right.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: That's not the goal in itself.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: I don't get paid because I want the money.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, your job is to super serve to the best of your ability.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: It's so true.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Super serve.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: So we got two new terms today the energy that you bring, I like that.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: And super serve, super serve, I like it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: It's like super size it it's like I like it's like supersize.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: It's why I try to get people you talk about super serve.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: It's like I still battle people in all the organizations I work with to be more responsive.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: No, I just cannot believe in some cases that people think it's okay, I'm going to be, I want to get paid more, I want to move up, I want to do better.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Friday afternoon you send them an email and you don't hear back from them until freaking Monday Afternoon.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, After they've been right, it's like what.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: You're so disengaged, so that's part of that?
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: No way To me.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: That's part of that.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: That's part of that.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Have your cake and eat it too.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Crap, yeah, because I was the guy.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: Well, when you're an entrepreneur and when you're, when you're hungry for the business and you need the business, you're watching you're you're watching, please email yo.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: All right, we got it, you know he's like I'm ghostbusters but that.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: But that's the real is their responsiveness.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: And I say that and I will tell you if you are an organization, let me get off, just give me the floor for this tangent, but let me, but you know, if you're, if you're organization, that is responsive.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: People learn that about you and they want more of it and that's the reality.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: So what is made?
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: What is made design stone successful?
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Part of our success has come from just clearly communicating with people and putting their mind at ease.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: So when Walmart says jump, you say how high, and then you go two feet higher and two days sooner.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: That's how you win.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: That's how you win.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: Whenever something's on fire with a buyer and the supplier is like, okay, we've got to figure this out, and they send you an email, you don't want to.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want somebody doing me this way, but you don't want to sit there.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: They're relying on you.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: Wait four or five hours, maybe even a day, in anxiety hoping the fire's going to be put out.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: No, we say, hey, check this out.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: We don't have a solve for this just yet, but we're on it.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: I'll get back to you shortly.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: If you need me, text me.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Amen, that's it, that's it.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: It's as simple as that.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: How much of?
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: success is just that.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: That is it.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: It is it just is 100%.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: I'm here for you.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: I used to tell the team folks we're not here to look for fires, we're here to look for sparks, because the sparks are what causes a fire.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: It's just like I mean it grows, it grows.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: The next thing you know it's a guy's making a freaking forest fire.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: That's good, absolutely, you don't want forest fires, you want sparks.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: The sparks are going happen.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: You know I want to rewind real quick and I know we gotta, we gotta close up.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: But when we were talking about the work from home stuff because this podcast is for entrepreneurs, right, I mean, we're really talking about entrepreneurs.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: Don't get sucked into that mindset, because that is the dangerous element.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: As entrepreneur, we don't want to see entrepreneurs listen to that and think that you can a go raise capital on an idea, you have a lot of equity and you're going to build this dream and you're going to be able to have a balanced life and everything's hunky-dory.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: Because that's where, like, I'm legitimately concerned about the emotional welfare of people that get sucked into that.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Why they're ruining you.
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: That type of mentality is ruining people and I've seen it happen.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Eric, sorry I interrupted you.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: That was really you know.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: No, well, I mean it's because I can, I get.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: I hate, I hate it, sorry, but I hate it.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: It frustrates me to no end because they don't understand, because you don't know what you don't know.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: You don't know what you don't know.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: You don't know what you don't know, and so you're relying on the experts to help you.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: And if you put the wrong stock into the wrong person, they're going to lead you down the wrong path.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: And the reality is if you read any book or you mean all these coaches out there.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: I got fired from corporate America but I took a course in coaching and now I'm going to tell you how to be a coach With my 12 sticks Okay.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean, if you read no, I read a lot now, I love entrepreneurial history, mm-hmm.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: But I've never read an entrepreneurial book about business or a statement or a quote that wasn't very humble and just very practical and real, mm-hmm.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: And then it just took this grind because it's not the truth.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Like you know, if you really read into that stuff, you're going to get the truth from a true entrepreneur, not from the professional One hundred percent, one hundred percent.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: And another thing too.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Let me throw this one out there Everybody's journey is different.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: Of course it is.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of similarities.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that don't get coming up just because so-and-so created this great product.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: Don't think that you're going to do the exact same thing.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: Your journey, your timeline, everything is different.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: Your job is just to keep moving, and as an entrepreneur, you will go through all kinds of hills 120%.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Keep moving forward though because, if you stay in one place, you might burn up okay, stop moving your head.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: It's really true.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been a really fun conversation.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: So, matt, if somebody wants to reach out to you, how do they reach you?
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: How do they find you?
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: google disensteins, disensteins, no, no, design steins, design steins.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: Www, design.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Www d-e-s-i-g-n-s-t-e-i-ignstinescom.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Wwwdesignstinescom.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: We own all the domains, so you're going to find us, I promise, and we're on all the socials too, so you'll see us there.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: And yeah, suppliers, if you're listening to this, we'd love to help you.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: And small businesses if you need some help, hit us up.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: And here's another thing.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Let's make one more great point.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: Because this If you need some help, hit us up.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: And here's another thing.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Let's make one more great point, because this is how we are at Design Steins but be available, even if money isn't always the factor.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: So what I say about that?
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: We tell everybody we're here to be a partner.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: So if you just need a little insight, of course, pick up the phone and just give us a call.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: We're not going to charge you for that phone call.
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: We'll try to help you, there is something real about business karma.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: That is it, no question about it.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: Very real.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: You keep helping people.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: You keep helping.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: That's the best selling tactic right there is help out when they need it.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: It comes back around man, Of course it always comes back around.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: People help me, I help people.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been a great conversation and we appreciate your being here with us today.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: It was a blast.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, you have a podcast.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes, that's right, that's right.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, I do have a podcast.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: It's got some very interesting guests on it Well, thank you.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, we're trying I was hoping you'd get a local musician to run it Now, mark, especially some musician to right now.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Now, mark, especially some of those older guys?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: yeah, he's trying.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: Um, the podcast is simply matt woolley podcast and you can find us on uh, you can find us on youtube, spotify and apple, and we we're also on all social medias as well.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: And I will say this the Matt Woolley podcast is about having conversations kind of like this, but what we do is we drill down into just the.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: Do I have time for a quick spiel?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Of course I do.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: Eric owns this place, so it goes.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: You want, you want good, you want some good content.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: That's it's like big talk.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: So matt woolley podcast has a lot of great, experienced people yeah that have a true history, that you can reference um their success and you can bank on their success.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: We talk about.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: You know, just like this, what makes people successful, and I try very hard to have people on there that just have a lot of proven track record, and that's what we need more of Amen to that Proven track record.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: I totally agree.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: He's had some good guests, like Patrick Sparrow.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: I've seen Brian Crown in here, one of your guests.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: I mean it's good folks.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of good folks Brian Waters.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: All right, mark closes out.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: Hey, thank you for having me guys.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's our pleasure.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Well until next week, folks.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: This has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: 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.