Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 63 - A Guide to Crisis Management

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Ep. 63 - A Guide to Crisis Management · Big Talk About Small Business

0:07
Speaker 1: ready to level up your show at podcastvideoscom, we offer industry leading recording and expert marketing to help your show reach more listeners, from creation to distribution.
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0:23
Speaker 2: What's up Big?
0:25
Speaker 3: E.
0:25
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought my bad.
0:26
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say big talk about small business.
0:31
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I'll do that.
0:32
Speaker 2: Sorry, I said big E for you.
0:34
Speaker 2: Thank you, man, but now let's do it.
0:37
Speaker 2: This is a new episode, new, all new, of big talk about small business oh, we're here.
0:49
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful day outside it is.
0:52
Speaker 2: It is gorgeous.
0:53
Speaker 2: We're here in the dark studio with no windows, but a great place to record it is cool yeah, this is an awesome place that you've created here for us, eric.
1:02
Speaker 3: Thanks, man.
1:03
Speaker 3: You know, we were just while we were waiting, like while you and I attended to some emails, yes and checked some messages yes, we had the team in here cleaning the room, getting us set up and ready.
1:16
Speaker 2: So all we get to do is just sit here and talk Podcast videos makes it easy.
1:20
Speaker 2: Okay, they do everything for us.
1:23
Speaker 2: Makes it easy.
1:24
Speaker 2: They lay out the show Right here.
1:28
Speaker 3: We were in a coffee shop earlier, yeah, bitching about business, and we come sit down and here's our show format and notes ready.
1:35
Speaker 2: Everything is ready.
1:36
Speaker 2: We've got clocks to tell us what time it is.
1:38
Speaker 2: We've got cameras pointed at us showing our best.
1:41
Speaker 2: We've got our logo up.
1:43
Speaker 2: They bring in our swag hat with every questions already ready.
1:49
Speaker 2: This is the kind of service you'd get if you were a customer.
1:51
Speaker 2: A podcast video absolutely.
1:53
Speaker 2: This is not just like a couple clowns sitting back there, oh no right it's like the, the uh, you know what's the best hotel.
2:06
Speaker 2: You can think of Four Seasons.
2:07
Speaker 2: Four Seasons baby.
2:08
Speaker 2: This is like the Four Seasons of podcast and video assistance Come on For anybody who wants one.
2:17
Speaker 2: But unlike the Four Seasons, we've made it affordable.
2:20
Speaker 3: Everything's about efficiency.
2:22
Speaker 3: I know Factory-like process so that it brings down the price, so that we can have more people creating video content.
2:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's simple, it's a simple idea, but nobody's done it.
2:33
Speaker 2: No, because it takes capital, takes capital, takes investment.
2:37
Speaker 2: You know it takes vision.
2:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes hard work, it does.
2:42
Speaker 2: It's like anything in business.
2:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, Right.
2:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to do it, well, you got to spend time and you got to spend money to make it happen.
2:51
Speaker 2: Come on, I mean, it's just that simple and you know it doesn't always look great, right, when you start out.
2:57
Speaker 2: You got to have faith.
2:59
Speaker 3: Two Blind faith, blind faith, baby, just keep working and you know.
3:04
Speaker 3: The thing about it is it's like you don't know the problems that really the industry faces until you start getting in it and then you start seeing all these problems Exactly.
3:12
Speaker 3: Then you create a product to solve the problem, product to solve the problem.
3:14
Speaker 3: You just keep building, you turn it around.
3:16
Speaker 2: No, it's the best way to do a business, a land.
3:18
Speaker 2: It's working.
3:26
Speaker 2: Start working, start providing products or services to.
3:27
Speaker 3: Whatever your customer is, yep, and refine it, that's it.
3:29
Speaker 3: And listen to their problems.
3:30
Speaker 3: Right, like anytime.
3:31
Speaker 3: I think the biggest secret of any business is go, listen, talk to your customers, your clients, and shut up and listen to what they're saying.
3:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that's the magic of a meeting man.
3:43
Speaker 3: Sure, just shut your face and you actually retain Cause.
3:47
Speaker 3: Anytime I'm talking to somebody, all I'm doing is sitting there, going there's a problem, there's a problem, there's a problem.
3:52
Speaker 3: And I walk out of the meeting and I respond back hey, here's all the things we can do to solve the problem.
3:56
Speaker 3: Like, you got a problem, you'll pay for the problem to be fixed.
3:59
Speaker 3: Sure, that's all people want.
4:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, makes total sense.
4:02
Speaker 3: Hey, so today we're talking about surviving a crisis.
4:06
Speaker 3: Okay, for business.
4:07
Speaker 3: I'm going to start out by saying business is nothing but a big crisis.
4:13
Speaker 2: It's true, I mean it's just crisis on crisis.
4:16
Speaker 2: It really is.
4:18
Speaker 2: I mean most businesses, I mean I will say, if you look at something like Zweig Group, that's a 36 year old company, it's not going to say that things don't ever go wrong, but it's not exactly crisis to crisis for them at this point.
4:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know what I'm saying.
4:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got so much inertia, you got so much history, you got so many clients and customers so much credibility, so much trust.
4:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sure you're going to have a crisis like somebody quits that you didn't want to quit or something like that, but it's you know, over time it does get easier.
4:52
Speaker 2: Let's be honest.
4:53
Speaker 3: No no.
4:54
Speaker 2: I'll admit that, and over time, as we get older, we are better able to respond to the crises.
5:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can just tell you, when I was young, I mean I remember when Bank of New England went out of business, it was taken over by the feds.
5:09
Speaker 2: That was my lender in 1990 or 89.
5:13
Speaker 2: I can't remember I had a really small credit line.
5:15
Speaker 2: It had no money though.
5:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a $20,000 credit line and I maxed it.
5:22
Speaker 2: On a Friday afternoon I drew it up to the max and paid out.
5:26
Speaker 2: Um, you know, sent out a bunch of checks because they were had a starting to have problems.
5:32
Speaker 2: They had a run on the bank on Saturday.
5:34
Speaker 2: On Friday, and then Saturday the feds came in.
5:37
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
5:38
Speaker 2: So I just said give me all my credit I can get right now, because I didn't know if I'd get any.
5:42
Speaker 2: And then Monday morning my banker's like all our credit relationships will be honored.
5:48
Speaker 2: And then in the afternoon he's like can you send me a borrowing base certificate?
5:52
Speaker 2: And yada, yada, yada, we may have a problem.
5:55
Speaker 2: I'm like don't tell me that at four o'clock and I'm sitting there with you.
5:59
Speaker 2: Know, I had no money.
6:00
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
6:02
Speaker 2: It's like if these guys didn't honor these checks, I would just be in, oh yeah, serious trouble because I had nowhere else to go for it.
6:09
Speaker 3: That was a form of surviving the crisis it was a crisis, yeah, but we did get through it, yeah, yeah, and you did a good job by borrowing all that you could.
6:18
Speaker 2: The friday for that's called surviving across, and then I got a new bank as soon as I hell.
6:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another set to survive.
6:25
Speaker 2: I got a new bank and a bigger credit line the next time in a bank that I was one where I was familiar with the owners, instead of bank of new england where I was just dealing with a lending officer and it was the only point of contact I had.
6:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can't.
6:42
Speaker 3: That's that's a, that's a way to put yourself in a very vulnerable position.
6:45
Speaker 3: But I mean, I remember things.
6:45
Speaker 3: That's that's a, that's a way to put yourself in a very vulnerable position.
6:46
Speaker 2: But I mean I remember things like that.
6:48
Speaker 2: I mean there was a time I remember I had to go to Leonard Morris hospital in Natick because I was having a panic attack.
6:54
Speaker 2: I don't remember what it was over, yeah yeah.
6:57
Speaker 2: But I mean I I knew there was having a panic.
6:59
Speaker 2: I mean I felt like I was having a heart attack.
7:01
Speaker 2: Okay, was like 30 years old.
7:03
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, my god, you know what is wrong with me.
7:06
Speaker 3: yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, I feel that's a good episode, like how do you?
7:11
Speaker 3: I mean because I've experienced that you know, because, like you, you you feel the world of weight on your shoulders, oh yeah.
7:18
Speaker 3: But as you get older, you start recognizing those signs.
7:21
Speaker 3: You're like, okay, that's that's my fear coming in, or that's yeah, and you're like, that's, that's fake.
7:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this is all fake stuff and and I've survived it before and you know, and I think one of the great things I've learned from it is is that we all have adrenaline, adrenal glands, and I was like, but we're just out of the element of the use of them and so they come in mysterious forms.
7:41
Speaker 3: Adrenaline at this, out of adrenaline at this point, oh no.
7:43
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you've used all yours.
7:45
Speaker 3: You've used all yours.
7:48
Speaker 2: Whatever they give you, I'm out of it.
7:51
Speaker 3: But I mean back in the day when we, you know we would come across a saber-toothed tiger, you know, and we're surviving out in the wild you needed adrenaline so you could freaking run faster and fight a little harder.
8:01
Speaker 3: But now that we live in this soft world, the adrenaline's still there.
8:05
Speaker 3: Just the obvious physical fear factor is not really present, but they do come in forms of intangibles, and so your brain can't process what you're really afraid of, and so it just becomes this big thing and your heart starts racing.
8:19
Speaker 3: You're like, holy shit, what's wrong with me?
8:20
Speaker 3: I'm about to die.
8:21
Speaker 3: Right, you're not, but you're not, you're not gonna die, you're actually rocking yeah, that's the thing with you.
8:30
Speaker 2: You've got to constantly ask yourself what's the absolute worst thing that could happen to me here.
8:37
Speaker 2: If I'm not even sure that's the well, I mean, I guess that's the worst thing.
8:43
Speaker 2: Right Depends on your view of death, right as to whether my dad's belief was.
8:49
Speaker 2: You have to constantly rehearse your death and be used to it, and so then you're not afraid of anything.
8:54
Speaker 2: It's true, and I think there's some truth to that.
8:57
Speaker 2: There is.
8:57
Speaker 2: But you got to ask yourself what's the really, what's the worst thing that's going to happen here?
9:04
Speaker 2: And the odds are it's not so bad that you're not going to be able to survive it.
9:07
Speaker 3: That's the truth you really just need to be able to get clean water, know how to build a fire, yeah, and have some shelter, no kid, and a gun helps you go kill something to eat it.
9:20
Speaker 2: Right, you got to be able to have some ability.
9:22
Speaker 3: Yeah to yeah, yeah, yeah, but you can.
9:25
Speaker 3: You know, I remember back in the day I learned, like the rules of three you can survive three minutes without clean air.
9:34
Speaker 3: You can survive three days into that water.
9:37
Speaker 3: Wait a minute.
9:38
Speaker 3: Three minutes without clean air?
9:39
Speaker 3: Three days without shelter right, so shelter is the most important.
9:44
Speaker 3: Wait a minute?
9:47
Speaker 3: No, that's not right.
9:48
Speaker 3: Three days without water?
9:50
Speaker 3: Three minutes without air?
9:51
Speaker 3: Three hours without shelter Okay.
9:54
Speaker 3: Three days without water.
9:55
Speaker 3: Three weeks without food Okay.
9:57
Speaker 3: And so a lot of people in a survival situation will think food and water first, but you better have your shelter.
10:04
Speaker 3: That's interesting, isn't that cool.
10:06
Speaker 3: I learned that from an old VHS tape that I got from the library and watched this guy about survival tools and he gave it a rule of three.
10:14
Speaker 3: But ever since then I've been like oh man, that's really all we really need.
10:18
Speaker 2: I always said you know I don't quite go that far.
10:22
Speaker 2: I think to myself well, you know, I lived in a mobile home when I was in college and grad school that I bought for $2,230.
10:30
Speaker 2: That's beautiful, Paid $50, lot rent, Okay.
10:33
Speaker 2: And then I had a roommate.
10:34
Speaker 2: I charged $75.
10:36
Speaker 2: Hell yeah.
10:36
Speaker 2: So he got like a little 8x8 bedroom in my 10x55 mobile unit you know 10 by 55, uh, mobile unit.
10:49
Speaker 2: You know Um, but, um but.
10:50
Speaker 2: But I think to myself.
10:51
Speaker 2: The worst thing that could happen is I can be living in a nice trailer in a pretty good trailer park.
10:54
Speaker 2: I probably still have AC, I'd still have a cable, yeah, okay, Um, I could buy myself a car for two or three grand.
11:04
Speaker 2: That's reliable, reliable.
11:05
Speaker 2: That'd be about the worst possible thing that would.
11:09
Speaker 2: I'd still have my family who loved me.
11:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, yeah, that's the worst thing that's gonna happen and guess what, if you think wouldn't back, when you're that it's not.
11:19
Speaker 3: And when you're in that trailer were you happy?
11:21
Speaker 3: I was hell yeah I was.
11:23
Speaker 2: I I just said this to my wife the other night.
11:26
Speaker 2: Last night back, I picked up one of my kids from a basketball game at her private school she goes to and I was driving back through my neighborhood and I passed um this guy's house.
11:37
Speaker 2: I know he's one of the founders of a very successful construction company, new developers, here in Northwest Arkansas.
11:45
Speaker 2: He's got this beautiful frigging house that he built.
11:49
Speaker 2: Okay, his wife has a fantastic new 911 Porsche very, you know, $250,000, $300,000 model, all great and she's got this beautiful V8, super fast Audi wagon.
12:06
Speaker 2: She drives the wagon during the week and then the other one you know on the weekend and you know, their house was all lit up but nobody looked like they were home.
12:13
Speaker 2: I thought, yeah, they're probably in Aspen or something right now.
12:17
Speaker 2: And then I thought I said to my wife, I said you know what, if I was doing that today which I've lived that lifestyle, okay, I wouldn't feel any better than I do right now.
12:27
Speaker 2: I'm happier right now not having to go to Aspen over the Christmas holiday.
12:32
Speaker 2: Dude, I'm telling you, bro, okay, I'm happier just being home.
12:36
Speaker 3: The more stuff you accumulate, the more problems that you have and the more shit you've got to deal with and the more people don't help.
12:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:43
Speaker 3: It's the most insane thing in the world I've ever seen.
12:46
Speaker 2: And I'll drive my older 911.
12:48
Speaker 2: And if it gets a door ding, it's not going to be the end of the world.
12:50
Speaker 2: But if I had a $280,000 one.
12:53
Speaker 3: Oh, you're always wigging out about that.
12:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, just focused on what's going to happen to my stuff, right?
12:59
Speaker 2: So it's just the point of all, that is A the crisis probably isn't as bad as you think.
13:06
Speaker 2: B you got to think about the worst thing that's going to happen to you.
13:11
Speaker 2: Okay, when are you going to be?
13:14
Speaker 2: Okay, you're probably still going to be living better than 98% of the people in the world.
13:20
Speaker 2: That's right.
13:20
Speaker 2: If everything goes to shit yeah, all right.
13:24
Speaker 2: So stay calm.
13:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, carry on, that's right.
13:25
Speaker 2: If everything goes to shit yeah, all right.
13:26
Speaker 2: So stay calm.
13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, carry on, that's right.
13:28
Speaker 2: Start taking action, yeah, to get out of your crisis and to look for the new opportunity, baby, that the crisis presented.
13:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, it might make you change your life for the better.
13:39
Speaker 2: It might make you change direction.
13:40
Speaker 2: It might make you go into a new business Absolutely Okay.
13:45
Speaker 2: Something that you have more passion for Yep, or that's more needed.
13:49
Speaker 3: Hey, let's take a step into history.
13:51
Speaker 3: Okay, let's deal with the crisis thing.
13:53
Speaker 3: So I'm doing this history lesson again from American Entrepreneur the fascinating stories of the people whoine Business in the United States, written by Larry Schweikart and Lynn Pearson Doty, published by Harvard Columns.
14:12
Speaker 3: I know you love this book.
14:14
Speaker 3: I do buy it.
14:15
Speaker 3: I did so on page 399, it talks about crisis really in business in general.
14:23
Speaker 3: So, first of all, it states that two-thirds of all new businesses america fail within five years.
14:29
Speaker 3: Two-thirds yep, all right.
14:31
Speaker 3: So as an entrepreneur, you go ahead and understand like you're stepping into dangerous, crisis-ridden territory.
14:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you're not ready for that, then I probably wouldn't start a business.
14:40
Speaker 3: You may not be an entrepreneur if you're scared about that.
14:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that never.
14:43
Speaker 3: I had never thought about that, right.
14:45
Speaker 3: But you right, exactly because you're an entrepreneur, right?
14:48
Speaker 3: You?
14:49
Speaker 3: Know, I mean that yeah like you read that statistic.
14:51
Speaker 3: And when I read something like that, I'm like oh sweet, then I'm like I'm gonna be one of the, the one out of three sounds like a great challenge.
15:00
Speaker 3: I'm there, yeah, let's go.
15:01
Speaker 3: Um.
15:02
Speaker 3: But it says many entrepreneurs who failed once, or even twice, never quit.
15:06
Speaker 3: That's the point of going through a crisis is you just don't quit, right?
15:11
Speaker 3: So it gives an example like Thomas Edison tried more than 2000 experience before he got his light bulb to work, sure, the writer and author Lewis L'Amour.
15:19
Speaker 2: Lewis L'Amour.
15:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Western.
15:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:23
Speaker 3: Western wrote more than than 100 Western novels with 200 million copies in print.
15:28
Speaker 3: He received 350 rejections before his first publication.
15:32
Speaker 3: Yeah All right.
15:33
Speaker 3: Radio personality entrepreneur Rush Limbaugh declared bankruptcy and was fired several times before becoming the highest paid radio host and most popular radio talk show in the history.
15:43
Speaker 3: And to your point, indeed.
15:49
Speaker 3: Indeed, failure and destitution often provide the crucial uh probability to motivate an individual to success.
15:53
Speaker 3: Actor sylvester stallone, with screenplay rocky in his hands, lived in an apartment without electricity until he could sell his story with him with himself as a lead.
16:02
Speaker 3: Forrest mars, after one bankruptcy, felled in two other ventures, failed in two other ventures.
16:09
Speaker 3: He then entered a canning market, making a fortune in the process.
16:12
Speaker 3: The stubborn refusal to quit marked the careers of some of the most famous success stories in america, businesses or otherwise.
16:19
Speaker 3: Elvis presley was fired from the grand ole opry after one performance and lucille ball was told by the instructor of her drama school try another profession, any other yeah.
16:32
Speaker 2: No, it's true, those are crises to those people, man.
16:36
Speaker 2: Of course that's a crisis.
16:37
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of crises.
16:40
Speaker 3: Can you imagine being rejected 350 times and you're sitting there writing those novels and like you don't quit it?
16:48
Speaker 3: That's the thing with crisis you just don't.
16:50
Speaker 3: That's how you don't fail.
16:51
Speaker 3: You know, one big crisis that I think everybody can relate to that's kind of a macro right is the whole COVID thing we went through.
16:58
Speaker 3: I don't want to stick on that because there's been plenty of discussions on there, but it's a great example I think that anybody is listening that we can relate to.
17:05
Speaker 3: That's happened recently, right, and that crisis, right, and how I saw a lot of business owners that just quit.
17:15
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, just quit, I mean in droves.
17:18
Speaker 3: That's what happens.
17:18
Speaker 3: That compounds the crisis.
17:20
Speaker 3: And so were you an entrepreneur to begin with, right.
17:23
Speaker 3: Whenever you shut your doors, you know I just quit.
17:27
Speaker 2: There's such a great example of that was like big restaurants versus small local restaurants.
17:32
Speaker 2: You know, the small local ones like, they got freaking tables set up in their parking lots.
17:37
Speaker 2: They're pushing the pickup and go they, they open up, you know, delivery.
17:42
Speaker 2: And then you got the big boys that had the big chains that did absolutely freaking nothing.
17:48
Speaker 2: And then you wonder why they tanked.
17:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of them, that's so true.
17:53
Speaker 2: Nothing in the parking lot, no drive-up window, no, nothing.
17:58
Speaker 2: No new app to order from, to keep the doors open until things are better.
18:04
Speaker 2: That's right.
18:05
Speaker 2: But but yeah, you're so right about that, um I see another crisis coming let's say yeah, artificial intelligence yeah I'm not worried about
18:13
Speaker 2: that I'm not either, but I mean, I think a lot of it's huh, I like real intelligence.
18:18
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think that the like there is a crisis to business entrepreneurs and owners that if they don't evolve and change with that at a rapid scale, that there will be more crisis involved in them.
18:34
Speaker 3: They don't have the energy to to get on with the times and start to really embrace it and go along with it, because the crisis will be that your competitors will be to 10, 20 times faster than what you can deliver, right, and so I think that I'm I'm already starting to see a little bit of a crisis coming ahead of us, but if you start diving into it, if you really started embracing and starting to evolve with that, you know you could actually take advantage of that opportunity, because that crisis will present opportunities for you, right, you know, and so I think that that's that's one that I can see in the near future.
19:14
Speaker 3: That will be kind of a crisis, you know, circumstance for a lot, of, a lot of businesses, including big businesses, most especially big businesses.
19:22
Speaker 3: They actually have a lot more to lose and it's harder for them to get everybody to take on the challenge.
19:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one thing about small business can adapt a lot easier, a lot faster, a lot less bureaucracy, a lot less worry about sunk cost.
19:38
Speaker 2: If their leader is a true entrepreneur.
19:42
Speaker 2: Legacy systems and investments yeah, but yeah I mean.
19:46
Speaker 2: So we're going to have crises.
19:49
Speaker 2: They all present opportunities if you can view them the right way.
19:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:55
Speaker 2: You got to stay calm.
19:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to survive it.
20:00
Speaker 2: Don't give up, mm-hmm, anything else you want to add.
20:04
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think that, like there's, you know, we have this thought process how do you prepare for it?
20:10
Speaker 3: Right, how do you?
20:11
Speaker 3: You know, how do you pre-plan for a crisis?
20:14
Speaker 3: And I mean, I think that you can, as an entrepreneur, you could spend so much time trying to be prepared for everything, but I mean, the reality is is that you can't prepare for everything.
20:30
Speaker 3: You can't plan for all crisis right, for any crisis specifically to happen.
20:31
Speaker 3: I think one thing you got to be ready to do is how do you work through it?
20:34
Speaker 3: Right?
20:35
Speaker 3: So, for example, like if a natural disaster comes in, a tornado comes in, hammers down your building, you know, you know hopefully everybody's safe and sound, you know the people.
20:45
Speaker 3: But if your business is level to the ground, how do you handle that?
20:49
Speaker 2: Like you kind of got to go show up and start picking shit up Forest wood was the best of um he had uh oh with uh uh, ranger boat, ranger bass boats.
20:59
Speaker 2: His plant burned down.
21:00
Speaker 2: The next day he started setting up to build boats in the parking lot.
21:05
Speaker 2: Come on, dude, I love it.
21:06
Speaker 2: All right, no building at all, we're going to just build them outside.
21:10
Speaker 2: Boy, he's a legend man.
21:12
Speaker 3: I mean that's true survival right there, he told me that story firsthand.
21:19
Speaker 3: I had that magazine Get Out.
21:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a cool.
21:20
Speaker 3: I had a, uh, that magazine get out magazine.
21:23
Speaker 3: You know we did a big feature about forest bill wood back in the day.
21:26
Speaker 3: It's 20 years ago, yeah, you know, and I got to ride around with him on his ranch out there flipping arkansas and he took me all around.
21:33
Speaker 3: Then he told us that story.
21:34
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, terrible burnt down.
21:37
Speaker 3: He was like man, we just we got the very next day, we got at it and started and started working right, hook some power up to a phone power pole and just started going at it.
21:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, another one's like john tyson.
21:49
Speaker 3: Like I've only heard the story about his.
21:51
Speaker 3: Both his parents were like killed in a car.
21:53
Speaker 3: Like don tyson, don tyson, excuse me yes, yeah, yeah and then.
21:57
Speaker 3: But he showed up to work the next day.
21:59
Speaker 2: Yeah and just kept working, don t?
22:02
Speaker 2: Don Tyson was a machine man, he was a super entrepreneur.
22:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, he bought companies bigger than him too Iowa Beef Processors.
22:09
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's renegade man.
22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know it's.
22:14
Speaker 2: I think this is.
22:14
Speaker 2: There are things you can actually do as a small business to be better prepared for a crisis.
22:21
Speaker 2: Okay, you need to, first off, get all the credit you can while you're in good shape.
22:26
Speaker 2: You don't go get credit when you need it.
22:29
Speaker 2: You get credit when you don't need it.
22:31
Speaker 2: So that's number one.
22:33
Speaker 2: Okay, you could have more than one bank that you do business with, so you're not stuck if something goes wrong with one of them or a relationship with one of them.
22:42
Speaker 2: That's helpful.
22:44
Speaker 2: I mean, those are some basic things right there.
22:47
Speaker 2: You could have business interruption insurance and good insurance if your place burns down or gets hit by a tornado.
22:54
Speaker 2: Insurance is very important.
22:56
Speaker 2: You could do things like um, you know, make your IT system hard for somebody to.
23:06
Speaker 2: You know, get into, yeah, cybersecurity, cybersecurity.
23:10
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff you can do there that, if you wanted to, I mean, there are certain things you could do to protect yourself.
23:17
Speaker 2: You could have a goodwill yeah, transmission planning right Defines what's going to happen.
23:23
Speaker 2: You could have goodwill.
23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, transmission planning right Defines what's going to happen.
23:24
Speaker 2: You could have, yes, owners.
23:25
Speaker 2: You could have a buy-sell agreement shareholder agreement that's written properly, that deals with this.
23:32
Speaker 2: You could have good second-tier management in all your positions somebody to take over for somebody who know can't do their job, and yeah, or for one reason or another, yeah, all the way up to you, I mean.
23:48
Speaker 2: So there are things that you can do to better prepare yourself for a crisis, not be dependent on one client or customer.
23:57
Speaker 2: Oh bro, all right, huge.
23:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I just had somebody in my class talking about that.
24:03
Speaker 2: Just, you know the fact that they have so much business coming from one customer yeah Well, it's been a great customer and for them over their entire history.
24:15
Speaker 2: It also devalues their company and it makes them more vulnerable.
24:20
Speaker 3: I mean heck Walmart, you know like, requires that.
24:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, walmart doesn't want to be more than I think about 40% of anybody's business.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, cause they they were in the past and businesses really suffered and and make because of it.
24:33
Speaker 2: So, yeah, there are things that you can do.
24:36
Speaker 2: Okay, you can have other signature authority on your checking accounts or whatever.
24:43
Speaker 3: You know, I think one thing that's really practical that you can do as an entrepreneur is like spend time thinking about what's kind of going on, like really listening to.
24:53
Speaker 3: If you're watching your books, you're starting to have a churn with it.
24:56
Speaker 3: You know you need to be able to measure the churn or the fallout of your clientele, yes, and not ignore that and keep doing the same thing over and over again.
25:07
Speaker 3: When you have people fall out, there's reasons behind that and you have to be very real with yourself in watching that number one and then being able to be really considerate about what is it about this?
25:19
Speaker 3: How do you go reach back out to them Not trying to get their business back, but to understand why and then start taking steps to overcome that, because that bottom funnel is just going to keep getting wider on you man?
25:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many small business owners call up every customer they lose and ask them what happened?
25:35
Speaker 2: Very few do better.
25:37
Speaker 2: Think about how powerful that you would get some of your business back.
25:41
Speaker 2: You'd be doing that.
25:42
Speaker 2: But I realize that's not the whole point of it.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, the point of it is to learn what's going on.
25:47
Speaker 2: That's right.
25:48
Speaker 2: What's going wrong?
25:48
Speaker 3: here.
25:49
Speaker 3: That's right, and you've got to face that, because ignoring that you're setting yourself up for a crisis is really what you're doing.
25:58
Speaker 2: Well, I always like to monitor the customer service inbox, or yeah and, and just see what's coming through there.
26:04
Speaker 2: Man, that's helpful.
26:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can.
26:07
Speaker 3: You can now.
26:08
Speaker 3: Are you watching the social media?
26:10
Speaker 3: Are you watching the Google business reviews?
26:12
Speaker 3: Are you watching?
26:13
Speaker 2: all the social media.
26:14
Speaker 2: Well, like a hawk, and if anything's going wrong there, I want to deal with it quickly.
26:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of each sending text to people in the company and go you better deal with this.
26:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a crisis, it's going to get out of control here have what was there been?
26:28
Speaker 3: the crisis that you've experienced?
26:30
Speaker 3: That I mean other than that one you're talking about with the bank, but I mean what other?
26:33
Speaker 3: You have another example?
26:34
Speaker 3: Oh yeah when um.
26:36
Speaker 2: Another example was during the anthrax crisis.
26:39
Speaker 2: I guess that was the year 2000 or 2001, before 9-11.
26:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, our business was entirely dependent on direct mail we got all our payments via checks coming in through the mail wasn't electronic at all, and if the mail's not working, we were like holy cow.
26:58
Speaker 2: How are we going to survive this?
26:59
Speaker 3: yeah, but we did.
27:00
Speaker 3: What did you do?
27:02
Speaker 2: I mean during that time period again I mean it's, get ready to have all the credit that you can have so you can weather the storm if you're not collecting your money.
27:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, not selling anything, right right, just hunker down.
27:15
Speaker 2: I mean I don't know what else you know, I can't even remember what else we did.
27:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, um to to um deal with, but we survived it.
27:24
Speaker 2: But it was very scary for a while there.
27:26
Speaker 2: I think 9-11 was another one.
27:28
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all travel stopped.
27:30
Speaker 2: We're in a consulting business.
27:31
Speaker 2: We travel constantly.
27:33
Speaker 2: I was traveling the day of 9-11 with one of my partners, ian Rusk, and we were sitting there watching the planes crash into the towers from our office at 9 am.
27:45
Speaker 2: We had a 12 o'clock flight to San Francisco that day from Boston, which is where one of the planes departed from.
27:54
Speaker 2: That was another crisis.
27:56
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we've all had the.
27:58
Speaker 2: I mean, of course, the best way to survive these kinds of crises is not have a lot of debt.
28:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, be able to take a pay cut if you had to Get all the credit you can get in advance and then scramble for anything you can get.
28:15
Speaker 3: Remember, you know.
28:16
Speaker 3: One example that comes to my mind is there was a crisis of just people.
28:20
Speaker 3: You know that can happen to you internal oh yeah, you know, it doesn't have to be macro right you know we're out, external, from your company.
28:27
Speaker 3: It can be very much internal, yeah, and I think the lesson I learned from there is taking quick action, yes, like when you're, when you're in a position of like ownership or whatever, and you start getting a little bit of a sense, your gut's telling you something like you.
28:44
Speaker 3: You really need to pay attention to that, amen, because people will convince and reason with you outside of to make certain decisions, and I have yet to experience where my gut wasn't absolutely correct.
28:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, your gut is like a really good computer.
28:59
Speaker 2: It really is.
29:00
Speaker 2: The problem is that taking?
29:02
Speaker 3: all this information in?
29:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that a way that I found myself in crisis situation was when I was ignoring that I was taking too much advice from other folks.
29:15
Speaker 3: You know, I was trying to let things pan out a little bit and see how things go.
29:21
Speaker 3: And then you get busy with other things and you're not paying attention to this thing, but then you go to sleep worried about it, thinking about it, you wake up and it's bothering you, but then you ignore it because you want to get to work Like you got, to be able to listen to that intuition and then take fast action, hit it head on, have difficult conversations, which, honestly, is not the easiest thing for me to do personally, like I don't necessarily like to get involved in those conversations.
29:46
Speaker 3: I don't know that anybody does.
29:47
Speaker 3: Some people do, actually.
29:48
Speaker 3: I don't know other people who do.
29:50
Speaker 3: People love that shit, you know but just like they love to get an argument in front, yeah, but I think that that's a good trait is if you feel in that there is most likely a crisis situation that is coming up.
30:03
Speaker 3: It could be 30 days, 60 days, but to take care of that is really important right out the gate.
30:08
Speaker 3: And I mean there's, you know, I've watched some, really some folks that could really do that well and it always just kept the business, just keep going forward you're right.
30:17
Speaker 2: I mean, the personnel issues are just such a big one, yeah, where you can smell it and you don't act.
30:22
Speaker 2: You know that person's going to be a problem, you know they're going to let you down, you know they're polluting other people's attitudes, but you rationalize why you need them.
30:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I'm done with that, and that's always.
30:35
Speaker 3: Is that I always end up in a crisis though it if you don't take care of it.
30:40
Speaker 3: Yeah and you're.
30:41
Speaker 3: You said you're done with that.
30:43
Speaker 2: It's because you've seen it happen and I'm not gonna waste my time anymore yeah, that's why I'm done with it, not because I'm gonna continue to let it go on.
30:51
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do the opposite.
30:53
Speaker 2: I'm gonna listen to my intuition that says time to make a change here.
30:57
Speaker 2: It's true.
30:58
Speaker 2: Okay, that's true.
31:00
Speaker 2: A lot of people won't do it.
31:01
Speaker 3: Yeah but I will.
31:03
Speaker 3: How do you approach, like whenever you let's say that you had that situation going on, yeah, and in your gut, like what's your first step?
31:11
Speaker 3: Like if it's a personnel?
31:13
Speaker 2: situation.
31:14
Speaker 2: I mean, because nobody reports to me now in any business that I'm involved with.
31:19
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm going to be dealing with the managers when I see this.
31:22
Speaker 2: Okay, I got to convince them it's a problem.
31:24
Speaker 2: I got to get them to see the reality of the situation.
31:28
Speaker 2: I got to get them to be willing to act.
31:30
Speaker 2: I got to give them the path out of the problem.
31:33
Speaker 2: Gotcha, I mean, what else can you do?
31:37
Speaker 3: Are there other?
31:37
Speaker 3: Is it where, like I mean, do you call them up or you have a quick meeting about that specific situation and you demand action from them.
31:47
Speaker 3: To take that action, give them a timeline.
31:49
Speaker 3: How does that work?
31:50
Speaker 3: Well, it depends.
31:59
Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm the primary owner of, I'm a director in a company where I'm not actively involved in the day-to-day management, but I still have to poke my nose into it because I can see what's going on.
32:10
Speaker 2: So I got to get the management to act.
32:13
Speaker 2: I've really got to convince them that they need to deal with the problem and that it'll be okay.
32:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll be better off when it happens.
32:21
Speaker 2: Gotcha, that's, that's my job.
32:23
Speaker 2: You know, in in the role that I'm in now, that's not.
32:26
Speaker 2: You know, if I'm the primary business owner, well then I can, I can.
32:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to still try to get the managers to deal with their problems as a first course of action.
32:36
Speaker 2: They won't do it, then I guess I've got to step in, but that that's dangerous, because then they can say oh well, you know, I'm going to leave it up to them.
32:45
Speaker 2: Every time I got an ugly situation.
32:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:48
Speaker 2: You don't want to develop that kind of a pattern.
32:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:51
Speaker 3: You know, Because you got to participate in ugly situations yourself, right, right.
32:56
Speaker 2: So just and just ordering people to deal with it is probably not going to be good Although it might be, because if they do it then and then they see that you were right, then maybe you'll build some credibility.
33:09
Speaker 2: But managers don't like to be just overridden.
33:12
Speaker 3: So let's pretend you are the owner, though Like and this person reports to you.
33:16
Speaker 3: You know typical audience that's listening.
33:19
Speaker 3: You know they're an entrepreneur.
33:19
Speaker 3: They put a lot on the line.
33:21
Speaker 3: They they're going after this vision.
33:22
Speaker 3: They're hiring these people.
33:23
Speaker 3: They're really counting on them.
33:24
Speaker 3: They've spent all this investment, yeah, and they get this feeling of like I don't want to ruin my own investment that I've made for the last six months years, right, or whatever yeah, that's a big big deal, it is and then, and then they're, but they're afraid to approach the situation.
33:40
Speaker 3: how would you say, like, okay, you got that sense and it's time to take action?
33:45
Speaker 3: What do you do?
33:46
Speaker 3: Do you just pull this person in and you have a?
33:49
Speaker 3: Are you pre-planned from that meeting or do you have a decisive action?
33:54
Speaker 3: There's no conversation.
33:55
Speaker 3: You're ready to make a decision.
33:56
Speaker 3: No, how are you going?
33:57
Speaker 2: to have the conversation with the person.
34:03
Speaker 3: You're not, I am, you are.
34:04
Speaker 3: I've got to confront them on what I'm thinking.
34:05
Speaker 3: So, so you pull them into this room, right?
34:06
Speaker 3: You say, hey, hey, listen, eric, right, I just don't feel good about this yes, like how do you roll with that conversation?
34:13
Speaker 3: How do you guide our event?
34:14
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you that's?
34:14
Speaker 3: I gotta see where it goes.
34:16
Speaker 3: I've just got a level with so what?
34:17
Speaker 3: How do you?
34:18
Speaker 3: But what do you use?
34:18
Speaker 3: What's the first thing you say to them I, I'm not like this is we've got a problem here.
34:23
Speaker 2: I'm very concerned about this.
34:25
Speaker 2: Okay, this is, this is creating problems.
34:28
Speaker 2: This is not.
34:29
Speaker 2: My fear is this isn't going to work out.
34:31
Speaker 2: Okay, these are the concerns that I have.
34:34
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I'm going to do.
34:36
Speaker 2: I'm going to level with people, okay, instead of not saying anything and then getting mad at them and calling them in and firing them.
34:43
Speaker 2: Okay, I've got to get them prepped to participate in the decision.
34:50
Speaker 2: So why did they either need to be reformed?
34:53
Speaker 3: or they need to go.
34:54
Speaker 3: So why did you approach it that way?
34:56
Speaker 3: I mean, what has been your lessons in your career that, instead of just boil it Because there are, I'd say, the majority of the circumstances I've seen people do let it boil up and then they have that termination meeting.
35:08
Speaker 3: Right.
35:09
Speaker 3: Right, you know, and there's a lot of emotion behind it, but you've, somewhere along the way, found that this is a type of confrontation, you know meeting where you let, where there's leveling meeting.
35:20
Speaker 2: It's just going to be a lot less stressful and easier for everybody if you just level.
35:24
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I think.
35:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to surprise anybody.
35:29
Speaker 2: I mean some people they still act like they're surprised, even though you've been leveling with them for a long time.
35:34
Speaker 2: Okay, that's an indication of their problems and one reason why you're getting rid of them.
35:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they're so unperceptive for lack of a better term or imperceptive, that they can't even get it through their head that you're not happy with what, how they're behaving or what they're doing so some of my thought process that's that gets me a little bit stuck at times is this whole hr yeah, scenario.
36:00
Speaker 3: Right, like, I mean let's face it, as an owner entrepreneur, you know HR issues can arise, right, like, if you don't handle situations in a specific, certain way, you know you got this.
36:13
Speaker 3: There's always this concern that like the liability, yeah, the liability, did you handle the process correctly, you know?
36:20
Speaker 3: And obviously, honestly, like if somebody is really a terrible performer and then they go file unemployment, I mean you know, like, you pay for that.
36:27
Speaker 3: Sure, raises your unemployment insurance, absolutely, yeah, you don't want that.
36:30
Speaker 3: And so you have all these concerns, that.
36:32
Speaker 3: And then it makes you have this analysis, paralysis, right, and then you're calculating this meeting and all this stuff.
36:38
Speaker 3: But what you're saying is is that if you have this sense and it's like hey, so-and-so is not doing, I'm going to go level with them.
36:46
Speaker 3: I'm going to have a meeting with.
36:47
Speaker 3: That's why I'm trying to get some clarity here.
36:49
Speaker 3: Like, so you literally just would call a meeting and say, hey, listen, eric, I, I have a problem with what's going on.
36:55
Speaker 3: I am sensing this and and and you have that conversation.
36:59
Speaker 3: Do you document that conversation?
37:01
Speaker 3: Do you document that?
37:01
Speaker 3: Do you have to go through all?
37:02
Speaker 2: this, this process.
37:03
Speaker 2: I guess that's the proper thing to do.
37:05
Speaker 2: I, I to create a note to the file.
37:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, yeah, minimize your confu, your liability in showing that you have taken some steps other than just calling the person in and summarily firing them.
37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and, and you don't want to, you know, in a quote, wrongful termination suit.
37:23
Speaker 2: I thought I was doing great and I got fired because I'm X, yeah, you know, certain sex, a certain age, certain race or whatever.
37:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so a good documentation is like just do a follow-up email, yeah, exactly, oh, yeah, just say hey, man, this is what we talked about.
37:40
Speaker 3: Right, this is how I'm feeling.
37:42
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, here's, here's some things that we came up with.
37:45
Speaker 3: This has to change.
37:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, this has to change, and he has some actions that we agreed on that could change, yeah.
37:51
Speaker 3: And then let's say you have that meeting, do you?
37:53
Speaker 3: How?
37:53
Speaker 3: How long are you waiting to see that change?
37:56
Speaker 2: I can't say I've got a set period.
37:58
Speaker 2: Honestly, I think it depends on how egregious their behavior is and what you learn in their conversation about why they're in the state that they're in.
38:09
Speaker 2: It's so like, maybe legitimate.
38:11
Speaker 2: I mean, there may be some things that you can help them with.
38:14
Speaker 3: it's so like after that first meeting you send and so you send that.
38:17
Speaker 3: No, then you're just kind of.
38:19
Speaker 3: You go on, hopefully it's been rectified right and and everything gets back on track.
38:23
Speaker 3: Probably isn't, probably isn't.
38:24
Speaker 3: You get the sense again.
38:25
Speaker 3: Say it's a week later, two weeks a month, it doesn't matter really the time span.
38:29
Speaker 3: But then do you have another leveling meeting?
38:32
Speaker 2: I might.
38:33
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't have a set formula.
38:36
Speaker 2: Well, we'll understand.
38:37
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to give a little practicality.
38:39
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on how you left it after the first meeting as to how you're going to respond if the behavior continues or lack of performance continues.
38:52
Speaker 3: Most of the time, it's not so much the performance as much as it is the attitude that you got a problem with, truthfully Do you think that a lot of folks I don't know I'm digging down into this a little bit, but the attitude so like a lot of times you know there's not much you can really do, but I'm somewhat of an eternal optimist.
39:17
Speaker 3: I just believe in people Right, I believe that people can change.
39:21
Speaker 3: I've changed a thousand times in my life.
39:21
Speaker 3: No, just believe in people, right, I believe that people can change.
39:22
Speaker 3: I've changed a thousand times a month.
39:23
Speaker 3: No, I hear you and so, but I've also been burned on that so many times and there's really not, there's not a clear thing that happens with it.
39:33
Speaker 3: It feels like that I've been burned more than I've been.
39:35
Speaker 3: You probably have, I think that's.
39:37
Speaker 2: That's been my experience as well.
39:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it still doesn't mean you don't want to give people a chance.
39:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want them to know you don't, because, again, it reduces your stress.
39:48
Speaker 2: Sure, if you have to make the inevitable decision.
39:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:52
Speaker 2: And it seems like the fair thing to do.
39:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:56
Speaker 2: You know, regardless, you want to be fair.
39:59
Speaker 2: Now, if somebody's like committing crimes, sure, they're ethical, not going to be an issue.
40:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're just going to go Not tolerated.
40:06
Speaker 3: But I mean, I think I feel like what I love seeing are people overcome and grow, and I always just have this optimistic like I believe that you can make this change.
40:16
Speaker 3: I believe that there's a light switch in your being that you literally have the power to flip that.
40:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you could just see it, I know and just do it yes, but how long?
40:28
Speaker 3: But my thing is is like where I get burned is like how long did it?
40:32
Speaker 2: go.
40:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:33
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer.
40:34
Speaker 2: It really depends on the person and how critical their function is and whether or not they're causing a lot of problems for other people.
40:41
Speaker 2: It's one thing not to get your job done or do it well.
40:45
Speaker 2: It's another thing when you're toxic and you're spreading a cancer throughout the company.
40:50
Speaker 2: And that right there is where the crisis lies.
40:53
Speaker 3: It's not the individual's performance.
40:55
Speaker 3: It's when that sparts, becoming this cancer that you literally can't see.
41:00
Speaker 3: And you just turn around two months later and there's this morale Right.
41:06
Speaker 3: That is when we talk about crisis.
41:09
Speaker 3: I think that's probably the biggest and most common crisis that a business owner has to face is that we're rewinding back to this root cause, which is usually a person with an attitude that is innate within themselves and it has everything to do with except for the business.
41:38
Speaker 3: It could be the way that they were raised, the way that they believe it's the shit that they watch on TV, the social media, that they consume, the opinions, all this stuff.
41:47
Speaker 3: Bring it to the word, they bring it and they just talk and they spread this, and it is so hard to prevent or control that.
41:57
Speaker 3: But I love what you're saying, though.
41:58
Speaker 3: I mean I think this is actually really could be very meaningful to somebody that's actually listening and could take this approach.
42:05
Speaker 3: Is that when you, as the leader, feels or senses this about somebody, that you go and address that with that person.
42:14
Speaker 3: You level it out and say this isn't going to happen because you could.
42:17
Speaker 3: Actually you'll never understand the impact or the avoidance of a crisis that you made, but the practice of that.
42:24
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to put a feel better from you yeah, because you have all this experience in your career.
42:29
Speaker 3: Right like you, you're a freaking champ and you're a stud.
42:31
Speaker 3: You're, you're the best person you know.
42:33
Speaker 3: Come on a lot of this mart freaking's why you've got a lot of this experience.
42:38
Speaker 3: So, but like but.
42:39
Speaker 3: But I love it because I'm learning in the sense of where it's so simple to avoid this nasty, most common crisis that's happening across any and all companies.
42:49
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how small or big they are.
42:51
Speaker 3: No, it's true, it really is.
42:53
Speaker 3: It applies to every leader, anybody that's watching a set number of folks that it's managing.
42:59
Speaker 3: This goes for everything.
43:01
Speaker 3: That is the biggest problem in business.
43:04
Speaker 3: That's the greatest crisis.
43:05
Speaker 3: Is this internal, cultural that's true Freaking cancer that is just leveling with people.
43:11
Speaker 2: I know it's so.
43:12
Speaker 2: It's just it shouldn't be that hard.
43:15
Speaker 2: But I think there's a lot of fear that people have of what's going to happen if I do that Exactly.
43:21
Speaker 2: What's going to happen if you don't do that and we don't think like that?
43:25
Speaker 3: Okay, that's, that's the real question what's going to happen if you don't do that and that's the genius that I wanted to pull out of Mark freaking Zweig today in this show man, because to you it's very obvious, it's natural now, but it wasn't in the beginning.
43:40
Speaker 3: Like, in the beginning you had to learn some things to say you know what I'm not going to like.
43:45
Speaker 3: You had to learn some things to say you know what I'm not going to.
43:47
Speaker 3: Like you said earlier, I don't have the time, I'm not going to tolerate it, I'm not going to spend my time, yeah, but you are, in essence, spending your time to go level with somebody and having a conversation and I'm just like I don't know.
43:58
Speaker 3: There's a comfort to that that, if I can start, if I can remember to practice that the whole point of the show right, give some advice that's going to help them with their business, to avoid problems that they haven't experienced yet and you don't have to experience.
44:13
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I think, yeah, I think.
44:15
Speaker 2: Another real problem that we haven't talked about that can present a crisis is when two people, who both are good people working for you maybe they're both producers don't get along.
44:27
Speaker 2: I mean, that could be a separate show in itself.
44:31
Speaker 2: That's so true, because that is one of the greatest, most frustrating scenarios that you'll ever encounter.
44:39
Speaker 2: I got two good people, but they absolutely don't get along, so let's save that.
44:46
Speaker 2: That's a good combo for for another episode.
44:50
Speaker 2: For another episode, because I do think there are some things you can do, um, to resolve that situation can't wait to hear about them all.
44:57
Speaker 3: Right, you got.
44:57
Speaker 3: You got a couple things you got to do before we close up.
44:59
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, one of them is we got to pull something out of the hat, right.
45:02
Speaker 2: This is why I got this white hat.
45:04
Speaker 2: Okay, here it is.
45:05
Speaker 2: Let's see, this is a wool rich hat.
45:09
Speaker 2: Nice brand got a lot of those at home, I think.
45:17
Speaker 2: Okay, solopreneur, what do you think about that?
45:22
Speaker 2: I had somebody use that statement the other day in one of my classes.
45:26
Speaker 3: I think that if you're a solopreneur, you need to understand that you're not an entrepreneur.
45:32
Speaker 3: You've actually have changed the name and your identity from an entrepreneur to a solopreneur, so there's a whole different ballgame you're playing right, because what that's saying to me is you don't want to grow Exactly, I'm with you and you don't want to take on more risk.
45:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're not probably going to try to capitalize anything.
45:53
Speaker 2: Well, you just want to make as much money as you can out of your business.
45:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're earning a salary.
45:57
Speaker 2: It's not going to have a value at the end because it's based on you.
46:01
Speaker 3: But you need to understand that you're not an entrepreneur, you're a solopreneur and which, look, man, I kind of get the whole appeal to that.
46:11
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like I mean there's less you have to deal with.
46:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's nothing wrong with it.
46:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're not an entrepreneur.
46:17
Speaker 3: No, you're not trying to build and create something that's greater for everyone else.
46:22
Speaker 2: And that's going to go on beyond you, right?
46:26
Speaker 2: Yes, because I've had both businesses.
46:29
Speaker 2: I've had entrepreneurial ventures and I've had small businesses what I call that where I'm the sole proprietor.
46:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it serves a purpose.
46:38
Speaker 2: Maybe it saves on taxes, maybe it makes extra income.
46:42
Speaker 2: Serves your purpose, right.
46:43
Speaker 2: Maybe it builds assets that you can cash in on.
46:47
Speaker 2: But it's not a business.
46:48
Speaker 2: It's got going concern that you're going to exit from and get a big payday.
46:54
Speaker 3: that's entrepreneurship which entrepreneurship is also seeing a market need that you're solving.
47:00
Speaker 3: That's bigger than you.
47:02
Speaker 3: That's going to require a team of people, right, and if you're leaning and you want to see, I want to see, as an entrepreneur, different than my solopreneur side, which I could be.
47:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, as an entrepreneur, I want to see a team of people grow and become wealthy.
47:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to say no, I get a lot of people become wealthy and I just want to be part of that.
47:21
Speaker 3: I want to be the orchestra, orchestrate some of yeah, right, yeah, yeah, you know, and I'm driven by this big, big, big circumstance.
47:30
Speaker 3: But my solopreneur side, like there's some appeal to, where I can just consult, well, sure, with companies and make you know a few hundred dollars an hour.
47:40
Speaker 2: Right, or you just have your real estate that nobody else owns, but you, yeah, yeah, I get it.
47:45
Speaker 3: But you know, I think that the biggest thing though, because here's where the tension happens.
47:51
Speaker 3: As an entrepreneur, I'm over here building this and then I have a solopreneur wanting to contract with me.
47:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, I wig out.
47:59
Speaker 3: Bro, I'm not going to lie to you Like I can't stand that.
48:03
Speaker 3: That is not a good marriage.
48:05
Speaker 3: That is not a good marriage, that is not a good working relationship.
48:10
Speaker 3: To be an entrepreneur and have solopreneurs trying to provide services to people.
48:12
Speaker 3: They've got a different idea, bro.
48:13
Speaker 3: I go nuts.
48:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, because a solopreneur usually wants to take more vacation and have more relaxing time.
48:20
Speaker 3: Nothing against that, but it's going to be hard for us to play ball.
48:25
Speaker 2: It's going to be really hard.
48:26
Speaker 2: I had somebody come in my class I don't like the term at all, but I had somebody come in my class as a speaker and he gave me a really good quote so he said there's two types of people who start businesses and go in business for themselves.
48:39
Speaker 2: He goes.
48:39
Speaker 2: One of them is the person who wants to work harder than they are right now.
48:44
Speaker 2: The other one's the person who wants to work less, because if they want to work less, he goes.
48:53
Speaker 2: Those are the ones that have the highest probability of failure.
48:55
Speaker 3: That's the solopreneur.
48:55
Speaker 3: I know I hear you that's a solopreneur again.
48:57
Speaker 3: If you can figure out that formula, all power to you.
49:01
Speaker 3: But it's just, it's not my formula.
49:03
Speaker 3: No, it's not the entrepreneur's formula, it's not mine either.
49:06
Speaker 3: All right, do you's not the entrepreneur's formula.
49:07
Speaker 3: It's not mine either.
49:07
Speaker 3: All right, do you have a LinkedIn hall of shame prepared for today?
49:09
Speaker 3: I really don't.
49:11
Speaker 2: I mean I just man.
49:12
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I.
49:13
Speaker 3: I, I got a history lesson.
49:16
Speaker 3: I mean I spent so much time on my history.
49:20
Speaker 2: Well, I could give you a.
49:22
Speaker 2: Okay, you don't have to, you don't have to, you don't know.
49:25
Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna give you one.
49:26
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you one now.
49:27
Speaker 2: Okay, on the spot.
49:34
Speaker 2: Man, yeah, just hold your horses, I've got one in here.
49:37
Speaker 2: This is the one I like here.
49:39
Speaker 2: Um, you're at a networking event with a competitor.
49:44
Speaker 2: How can you make the most of the situation?
49:47
Speaker 2: The response is this Again, greg Long, say hello If the vibe is cool, have a chat, if not next.
49:58
Speaker 2: It's pretty simple.
50:02
Speaker 3: I don't know.
50:02
Speaker 3: There's nothing else to say.
50:06
Speaker 2: I'd say I think we should just almost change this to the Greg Long response section to idiotic questions.
50:14
Speaker 2: We should reach out to Greg Long to have him on our show we should.
50:17
Speaker 2: We should have Greg Long on our show.
50:19
Speaker 3: We should, because it would just be a LinkedIn hall of shame, oh my.
50:22
Speaker 2: God, he's just.
50:23
Speaker 2: The guy is so brutal.
50:26
Speaker 3: But it's true, but I mean like the purpose that linkedin on shame.
50:29
Speaker 3: Somebody else asked that question what should you do if you're at a networking event, like it's some big, challenging thing, I know, and it's like, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're, if you're freaking, getting at it, like these things don't really bother you, like that's a dumb question.
50:42
Speaker 3: Exactly what should you?
50:44
Speaker 3: Some like sorry, like there's some big strategy, I know.
50:48
Speaker 2: So like theory.
50:49
Speaker 2: Well, you're going to get along with and talk with and be friends with and other people you're not.
50:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't have any interest in it.
50:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, that didn't bother me, just better, just around it infuses me, yeah, exhilarates me All right.
51:02
Speaker 2: Hey, this is it.
51:05
Speaker 2: If people want to get into any other topics that we have not covered today, a, we'd always love to hear from you.
51:15
Speaker 2: Wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom Also, we've got a tremendous archive of previous episodes.
51:24
Speaker 2: It's fun now, man.
51:25
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean, we've done what like 60 episodes or more, now More than 60, like mid-60s.
51:31
Speaker 3: It's awesome.
51:32
Speaker 3: I'll tell you real quick on that.
51:35
Speaker 3: Our analytics are showing more people are watching our historical episodes because they're finding us right and they're starting to dig back into the old content, which is really cool.
51:44
Speaker 3: So I just want to say thank you to our audience for jumping in and discovering stuff, because there's actually a lot of value here, especially from our guests, that we have on the show, these experiences that they have when they share these topics with us.
51:59
Speaker 3: It's not just especially with our guests, I mean, I think especially Mark Like this episode right now what value is there really?
52:08
Speaker 2: No, we have.
52:09
Speaker 2: We do have some great guests, but we've got a lot of uh of experience that we can pass on to people if they want to listen to Sure man.
52:17
Speaker 2: And and it's all.
52:18
Speaker 2: It's all good stuff.
52:19
Speaker 2: We're here really because we just want to help people.
52:22
Speaker 2: I mean it's, if people can learn from our experience and that of our guests, maybe they can save themselves some trouble, be more successful, be a better contributor to the you know society that we live in, right?
52:38
Speaker 3: Man, I tell you like and I'm not, I mean I'm being serious, like I don't keep beating it down, but like what we talked about today about having that leveling conversation, to me is inspiring, like it reminds me of the right way to do things, and I mean I do have some gut senses right now going on in my circumstance that I need to go have a leveling conversation.
52:58
Speaker 3: It's not, it doesn't need to be a bigger deal than that, right, just go talk Reduce your stress.
53:05
Speaker 2: Yeah right, just go talk, reduce your stress.
53:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think a big part about business ownership and survival is being able to recognize the things that cause you stress and deal with them.
53:15
Speaker 3: no, you're right okay, you're so right.
53:17
Speaker 3: It is every single time when you deal with that like it's, it's still better.
53:24
Speaker 3: You feel so much better and things work out.
53:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you live in a mobile home, right it's okay, I'll probably have a nice one if I do.
53:33
Speaker 2: Oh well, if it's not nice, you're gonna make it exactly, it'll be the best maintained one, the everything's gonna work it'll be decorated oil on the window like it's not gonna be crinkly boilable too nice I can, I can paint it.
53:47
Speaker 2: I can you know?
53:48
Speaker 2: I can clean my appliances.
53:50
Speaker 2: I could replace the vinyl floor in the bathroom if it was bad.
53:54
Speaker 3: Hey, and shout out to our spouses that I know, if we live me and tara live in a mobile home like it would be really nice and so, yes, I knew we'd do a beautiful, she won't live in a mobile home.
54:04
Speaker 2: No, I mean, but Do we need to have a 6,000 plus square foot house with a four car garage and over an acre of property?
54:15
Speaker 2: No, no, you don't, she doesn't need that either.
54:17
Speaker 2: No, okay, she's a good.
54:19
Speaker 3: But if it was a mobile home, it would be a nice, clean one.
54:22
Speaker 3: I guess she would be able, would be right there.
54:25
Speaker 3: That's a good spouse.
54:26
Speaker 3: Yes, yes indeed.
54:26
Speaker 3: Let's survive the world together, baby all right.
54:29
Speaker 2: Well, hey, let's hope that none of you have to move into mobile homes, right?
54:33
Speaker 2: But if you do, it's not that bad.
54:35
Speaker 2: I'm definitely not that bad it's really not all right um until next time.
54:41
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of big.
54:44
Speaker 3: Talk about Small.
54:46
Speaker 4: Business 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.
55:11
Speaker 4: 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.